Debate setback provokes Donald Trump to air gripes

Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday in the aftermath of a disappointing first debate with Hillary Clinton, scolding the moderator, criticizing a beauty pageant winner for her physique and raising the prospect of an all-out attack on Bill Clinton's marital infidelities in the final stretch of the campaign.

Having worked assiduously in recent weeks to cultivate a more disciplined demeanor on the campaign trail, Trump decisively cast aside that approach on Tuesday morning. As Hillary Clinton embarked on an ebullient campaign swing through North Carolina, aiming to press her newfound advantage, Trump vented his grievances in full public view.

Sounding weary and impatient as he called into a Fox News program, Trump criticized Lester Holt, the NBC News anchor, for asking "unfair questions" during the debate Monday evening, and speculated that someone might have tampered with his microphone. Trump repeated his charge that Clinton lacked the "stamina" to be president, a claim critics have described as sexist, and suggested that in the future he might raise Bill Clinton's past indiscretions.

Defying conventions of civility and political common sense, Trump leveled cutting personal criticism at a beauty pageant winner, Alicia Machado, whom Hillary Clinton held up in Monday night's debate as an example of Trump's disrespect for women.

Trump said on Fox that he was right to disparage the former Miss Universe because of her weight.

"She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem," said Trump, who was the pageant's executive producer at the time.

[Fact-checking the first presidential debate]

Clinton has already been airing an ad highlighting crude remarks from Trump about women; she answered his taunts about her marriage with a rhetorical shrug, telling reporters Trump was free to run whatever kind of campaign he preferred. On board her campaign plane, she plainly relished her moment of apparent triumph, and poked fun at Trump's morning lamentations.

"Anybody who complains about the microphone," she said, "is not having a good night.

Trump's setback in the debate represents a critical test in the final six weeks of the presidential race. Having drawn closer to Clinton in the polls, Trump now faces an intensified clash over his personal temperament and his attitudes toward women and minorities — areas of grave concern for many voters that were at the center of the candidates' confrontation on Monday.

Against Trump's brooding, Clinton cut a strikingly different profile on the campaign trail on Tuesday, emerging emboldened from her encounter with the Republican nominee. At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Clinton, brandishing her opponent's debate stumbles, assailed Trump's comments suggesting he avoided paying taxes and welcomed the 2008 financial crisis as a buying opportunity.

"What kind of person would want to root for 9 million families losing their homes?" Clinton asked the lively crowd. "One who should never be president, is the answer to that question."

Having shaken at least temporarily the malaise of the past month, Clinton must now seek to gain a durable upper hand over Trump, who has drawn close to her in the polls with a more sharply focused message on trade, immigration and national security.

Trump's comportment on Tuesday threatened to forfeit his gains of the past month, and recalled his practice during the Republican primaries and much of the general election, of belittling political bystanders in language that alienated voters, like attacking the Muslim parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq and a Hispanic federal judge.

It remains to be seen if Trump will approach the remainder of the race with the unfiltered abandon of his comments Tuesday morning.

By the day's end, Trump had returned to a caustic but somewhat more conventional script, attacking Clinton in bitter language at a rally in Melbourne, Florida.

Blasting Clinton as a "vessel for her friends, the donors," Trump exhorted the crowd, "We're going to get rid of that crooked woman."

And Trump again complained at the event about how he had been treated by Holt, whom he referred to as "the emcee."

The fear among Republicans is that Trump will confront adversity by continuing to swing impulsively at politically inopportune targets, dragging the party again into needless and damaging feuds, as he did for most of the summer.

The notion of raising Bill Clinton's infidelity is particularly controversial among Trump's advisers, who have sent conflicting signals about that line of attack.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, said in a CNN interview that he deserved credit for holding back from that particular subject, saying Trump had been "polite and a gentleman."

But Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and a close confidant of Trump's, called for a far harsher approach. Trump, he told a reporter for the website Elite Daily, had been "too reserved" in his confrontation with Hillary Clinton.

Giuliani recommended attacking Hillary Clinton for having questioned Monica Lewinsky's credibility in claiming an affair with Bill Clinton. He also called Hillary Clinton "too stupid to be president." Giuliani has his own complex marital history: He is on his third marriage; as mayor, he surprised his second wife by announcing his plans to separate from her at a news conference.

Should Trump follow the path prescribed by Giuliani, it could transform the final six weeks of his candidacy into an onslaught of unrestricted personal vituperation — a risky course that would probably please Trump's political base at the cost of his broader appeal.

Democrats signaled Tuesday that they would welcome an extended battle with Trump over matters of temperament and personal character. Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Clinton, released a television ad highlighting a debate exchange in which Trump said his temperament was his "strongest asset," along with clips of Trump using obscene and violent language.

And Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, said in television interviews that Trump had appeared "flustered" and "ran out of gas." During a campaign stop in Orlando, Florida, Kaine suggested Trump was too unsteady for the White House.

"If you're that rattled in a debate," he said, "try being president."

Still, among Trump's core voters, there is clearly an appetite for blunter and more personal attacks on Clinton, and at his rally in Florida, several said they hoped Trump would be harsher in the next debate.

"I'm glad he was a gentleman," said Fran Hadjilogiou, 75, of Indian Harbor Beach. "He should just go get her next time."

Jim Clapper, 66, of Palm Bay, said he hoped Trump would bring up Bill Clinton's infidelity "every chance he gets."

"He ought to bring it up every day so that the young people in this country know what went on with that family," Clapper said.

Thomas Kaplan and Matt Flegenheimer contributed reporting.