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The two Democratic hopefuls are still locked in a competitive primary race, yet with just one day left before key contests in five states both candidates reserved their fiercest attacks for the New York billionaire whom one of them may face at the ballot box in November.
After violent clashes erupted on Friday night in Chicago, where Trump postponed a rally, the billionaire blamed his Democratic rivals for inciting the protesters. Asked about this at a CNN town hall at Ohio State University on Sunday, Sanders said: “I hesitate to say this because I don’t like to disparage public officials, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar.”
Sanders lambasted Trump for offering to pay the legal fees of a supporter who sucker-punched a protester at a recent rally in North Carolina.
“He’s going to pay the legal fees of somebody who committed a terrible act of violence. What that means is that Donald Trump is literally inciting violence with his supporters,” Sanders said. “He is saying that if you go out and beat somebody up, that is OK …
“That is an outrage, and I would hope that Mr Trump tones it down big time, and tells his supporters that violence is not acceptable in the American political process.”
“What Trump has done is a case of political arson,” the former secretary of state said when she took the stage. “He has set the fire and then he throws up his hands up and claims that he shouldn’t be held responsible.”
She added: “Donald Trump is responsible for what happens at his events. He’s been not just inciting violence, but applauding it.”
The two Democratic hopefuls were also asked a number of questions about race and criminal justice. Sanders took a hard line on police killings – “Any police officer who breaks the law ... must be held accountable. Period” – and said that as president he would investigate every killing of an American held in police custody or while being apprehended.
Clinton said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that so many African American men were going to jail and promised to replace the “school to prison pipeline” with a “cradle to college pipeline”.
Sanders attacked Clinton’s previous support for trade deals and said he would introduce “an entirely different” process for the issue.
But he drew laughter when he explained his support for trade generally by saying: “Nobody is talking about building a wall around the United States.”
He quickly added: “Oh, I beg your pardon. There is one guy who is talking about it … Let me rephrase it. No rational person is talking about building a wall.”
Confronted by a question about her support for the death penalty from Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, many on death row, Clinton seemed somewhat conflicted as she defended her policy to retain it in “very limited” circumstances, such as for the terrorists behind 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.
Sanders set out his healthcare plans, attacked the war on drugs, and explained his support for public schools. Clinton showed the depth of her knowledge of Obamacare, promised to protect the US steel industry and called China “the major rule-breaker in the international economy”.
She said that in foreign affairs “force should always be a last resort, not a first choice”. And she was somewhat ambiguous on the subject of fracking, a big industry in Ohio.
The two candidates have criss-crossed the country in recent days to campaign in the states holding the party’s next major contests on Tuesday – Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. Sanders, buoyed by his surprise victory in Michigan, has made a strong play for Ohio, where Clinton has spent time and resources.
Prior to the CNN town hall, Clinton and Sanders took turns addressing Democrats at a party dinner in Columbus. There Sanders offered a truncated version of his stump speech, promising to take on Wall Street and overturn campaign finance laws. Clinton spoke at length about the danger of Trump’s rhetoric – he is “running a cynical campaign of hate and fear for one reason: to get votes,” she said – and called on Ohio Democrats to send a message by voting in the state’s primary on Tuesday.
“We can criticize and protest Mr Trump all we want,” she said. “But none of that matters if we don’t also show up at the polls. If you want to shut him down, then let’s vote him down.”
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