Second Debate Highlights US Presidential Debates

Welcome to this BBC News special with me, Laura Trevelyan,

in Washington, where we'll be taking a look at the highlights

and analysing the fallout of the second TV presidential debate

between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.

It was at times an extremely fiery second presidential debate

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival

Donald Trump spoke about the fight against the so-called

Islamic State, Islamophobia and, of course, that lewd audio recording

of Mr Trump that he dismissed as "locker-room talk".

Well, that's where we will pick up the debate, as moderated

by Martha Raddatz from ABC News and CNN's Anderson Cooper.

We received a lot of questions online, Mr Trump, about the tape

You called what you said "locker room banter."

You described kissing women without consent,

You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women.

I don't think you understood what was said.

I apologised to my family, I apologised to the American people.

Certainly I'm not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.

You know, when we have a world where you have Isis chopping off

And frankly drowning people in steel cages.

Where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over.

Where you have so many bad things happening.

Can you imagine the people that are frankly doing so well

against us, with Isis, and they look at our country

Isis happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left

because of bad judgment, and I will tell you -

And you should get onto much more important things

Just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said

on that bus 11 years ago, that you did not actually kiss

women without consent, or grope women without consent?

Nobody has more respect for women that I do.

So for the record, you're saying you never did that?

Frankly, you hear these things I said.

I was embarrassed by it but I have tremendous respect for women.

And I will tell you that I'm going to make our country safe,

we're going to have borders in our country which we don't have now.

People are pouring into our country and they're coming

in from the Middle East and other places.

We're going to make America safe again.

We're going to make America great again.

But we are going to make America safe again.

And we're going to make America wealthy again, because,

if you don't do that, it sounds harsh to say,

but we have to build up the wealth of our nation.

Now other nations are taking our jobs and they're taking our wealth.

Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?

Well, like everyone else, I've spent a lot of time thinking

over the last 48 hours about what we heard and saw.

You know, with prior Republican nominees for President,

I disagreed with them on politics, policies, principles.

But I never questioned their fitness to serve.

I said starting back in June that he was not fit to be president

And many Republicans and independents have

What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women,

what he thinks about women, what he does to women.

And he has said that the video doesn't represent who he is.

But I think it's clear to anyone who heard it that it

represents exactly who he is, because we've seen this

We have seen him rate women on their appearance,

We have seen him embarrass women on TV and on Twitter.

We saw him after the first debate spent nearly a week denigrating

a former Miss Universe in the harshest most personal terms.

So, yes, this is who Donald Trump is.

But it's not only women and it's not only this video that raises

questions about his fitness to be our president.

Because he has also targeted immigrants, African-Americans,

Latinos, people with disabilities, POWs, Muslims and so many others.

And the question for us, the question our country must answer

That's why, to go back to your question, I want to send

a message, we all should, to every boy and girl,

and indeed to the entire world - that America already

is great, but we are great because we are good.

And we will respect one another, and we will work with one another,

These are very important values to me, because this is the America

that I know and love, and I can pledge to you tonight

that this is the America that I will serve if I am so fortunate

And we want to get to some questions from online.

It's just words, folks, it's just words.

Those words, I've been hearing them for many years.

I heard them when they were running for the Senate in New York,

where Hillary was going to bring back jobs

I've heard them where Hillary is constantly talking

about the inner cities of our country, which are

a disaster, education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise.

I'm going to help the African Americans, I'm going to help

I am going to help with the inner cities.

She has done a terrible job for the African-Americans.

She wants their vote and she does nothing and then she comes

We saw that first-hand, when she was United States senator.

I want to get to audience questions and online questions.

So she is allowed to do that but I am not allowed to respond?

You're going to get to respond right now.

This tape is generating intense interest.

In just 48 hours it has become the single most talked

about story of the entire 2016 election on Facebook.

With millions and millions of people discussing it on the social network.

As we said a moment ago, we do want to bring

in questions from voters around the country via social media.

Jeff, from Ohio, asks on Facebook- Trump says the campaign

When you walked off that bus at age 59, were you a different man,

or did that behaviour continue until just recently?

I am a person who has great respect for people, for my family,

for the people of this country, and certainly I'm not

proud of it, but that was something that happened.

If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse.

His was, what he has done to women, there has never been anybody

in the history of politics in this nation that's been

So you can say any way you want to say it but Bill Clinton

Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously,

One of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years old,

Her client, she represented, got him off, and she is seen

laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped.

Kathy Shelton, that young woman, is here with us tonight.

Absolutely I apologise for those words.

But what President Clinton did, he was impeached,

he lost his licence to practise law, he had to pay an $850,000 fine

to one of the women, Paula Jones, who is

And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point

like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago,

I think it's disgraceful and I think she should

be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.

Secretary Clinton, you have two minutes.

Well, first let me start by saying that so much of what he's

But he gets to run his campaign any way he chooses.

He gets to decide what he wants to talk about instead

of answering people's questions, talking about our agenda,

laying out the plans that we have, that we think can make a better life

When I hear something like that, I am reminded of what my friend

And, look, if this were just about one video, maybe

what he's saying tonight would be understandable.

But everyone can draw their own conclusions at this point

about whether or not the man in the video or the man

But he never apologises for anything to anyone.

He never apologised to Mr and Mrs Khan, the Gold Star family

whose son Captain Khan died in the line of duty in Iraq.

And Donald insulted and attacked them for weeks over their religion.

He never apologised to the distinguished federal judge

who was born in Indiana, but Donald said he couldn't be

trusted to be a judge because his parents

He never apologised to the reporter that he mimicked and mocked

on national television and our children were watching.

And he never apologised for the racist lie that

President Obama was not born in the United States of America.

He owes the president an apology, he owes our country an apology

and he needs to take responsibility for his actions and his words.

Well you owe the president an apology because, as you know very

well, your campaign, Sidney Blumenthal, he's another real

winner that you have, and he's the one that

got this started, along with your campaign manager,

and they were on television just two weeks ago, she was,

You're the one who sent the pictures around your campaign,

sent the pictures around with President Obama in a certain garb.

That was long before I was ever involved, so you actually

I've gotten to see the commercials that they did on you.

And I've gotten to see some of the most vicious

commercials I've ever seen, of Michelle Obama talking about you,

So you talk about friend, go back and take a look

A race where you lost fair and square, unlike

the Bernie Sanders race, where you won, but not fair

And all you have to do is take a look at Wikileaks

and just see what they said about Bernie Sanders and see

what Deborah Wasserman Schultz had in mind because Bernie Sanders

between superdelegates and Deborah Wasserman Schultz,

And I was so surprised to see him sign on with the devil.

But when you talk about apology, I think the one that you should

really be apologising for and the thing you should be

apologising for are the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted

And then the two boxes of e-mails and other things last week that

were taken from an office and are now missing.

And I'll tell you what, I didn't think I'd say this but I am

going to say it, and I hate to say it, but if I win, I am going

to instruct my Attorney General to get a special prosecutor to look

into your situation because there has never been so many lies,

so much deception, there has never been anything like it.

And we are going to have a special prosecutor.

The people of this country are furious.

In my opinion, the people that have been long-term workers

There has never been anything like this where e-mails,

and you get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena,

you delete 33,000 e-mails and then you acid wash them,

or bleach them, as you would say, a very expensive process.

So we are going to get a special prosecutor.

And we are going to look into it because, you know what, people,

their lives have been destroyed for doing one fifth

of what you have done and it's a disgrace.

And, honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Everything he just said is absolutely false,

The audience needs to calm down here.

I told people that it would be impossible to be fact checking

I'd never get to talk about anything I want to do and how

we are going to really make lives better for people.

So, once again, go to Hillary Clinton.com.

Last time, the first debate, we had millions of

So I expect we'll have millions more fact checking, because, you know,

it is just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump

is not in charge of the law in our country.

We want to remind the audience to please not talk out loud,

And Secretary Clinton, I do want to follow up

You said you're handling of the e-mails was a mistake.

You disagreed with the FBI director calling your handling

of classified information quote, extremely careless.

The FBI said there were 110 classified e-mails that

were exchanged, eight of which were top-secret.

And that it was possible hostile actors did gain

You don't call that extremely careless?

Martha, first let me say, and I've said it before,

but I'll repeat it because I want everyone to hear it.

That was a mistake and I take responsibility for using

Obviously, if I were to do it over again I would not.

I think it's also important to point out where there are some misleading

hacked the server I was using, and there is no evidence that anyone

can point to at all, anyone who says otherwise has no basis,

that any classified material ended up in the wrong hands.

I take classified materials very seriously and always have.

When I was on the Senate armed services committee,

I was privy to a lot of classified material.

Obviously as Secretary of State I had some of the most

important secrets that we possess, such as going after Bin Laden.

So I am very committed to taking classified information seriously.

And as I said, there is no evidence that any classified information

And yet she didn't know the word the letter

She didn't even know what that letter meant.

It's amazing, I'm watching Hillary go over facts.

And she's going after fact after fact and she's lying again

because she said what she did with e-mails was fine.

Do you think it was fine to delete 33,000 e-mails?

She said the 33,000 e-mails had to do with her daughter's wedding,

Well maybe we will give three, or four, or five, or something.

33,000 e-mails deleted and now she is saying

And more importantly that was after getting a subpoena,

She got it from the United States Congress.

I'll be honest, I'm so disappointed in congressmen, including

Republicans, for allowing this to happen, our Justice Department

where her husband goes on to the back of an aeroplane

for 39 minutes, talks to the Attorney General,

days before a ruling is going to be made on her case.

But for you to say that there was nothing wrong with you deleting

39,000 e-mails again, you should be ashamed of yourself.

What you did, and this is after getting a subpoena

This next question comes from the public through

the bipartisan Open Debate Coalition's online forum,

where Americans submitted questions that generated millions of votes.

This question involves Wikileaks' release of purported excerpts

of Secretary Clinton's paid speeches, which she has refused

to release and one line in particular in which you Secretary

Clinton purportedly say you need both a public and private

So, To, from Virginia, asks, is it OK for politicians

Is it acceptable for a politician to have a private stance on issues?

As I recall that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln

after having seen the wonderful Stephen Spielberg movie called

It was a masterclass, watching President Lincoln get the Congress

It was principled and it was strategic.

And I was making the point that it is hard sometimes

to get the Congress to do what you want to do and you have

And yes, President Lincoln was trying to convince some people.

He used some arguments convincing other people, he used

That was a great, I thought, great display of presidential leadership.

But, let's talk about what's really going on here, Martha,

because our intelligence community just came out and said in the last

few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government,

are directing the attacks, the hacking, on American accounts

And Wikileaks are part of that as our other sites where

We don't even know if it is accurate information.

We have never in the history of our country been in a situation

where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence

And believe me, they are not doing it to get me elected.

They are doing it to try to influence the election

Now maybe because he has praised Putin, maybe because he has said

he agrees with a lot of what Putin wants to do, maybe because he wants

to do business in Moscow, I don't know the reason.

But we deserve answers and we should demand that Donald release

all of his tax returns so that people can see what

are the entanglements and the financial relationships.

And we aren't going to get to that later.

Secretary Clinton, you are out of time.

Her papers went out to all her friends at the banks,

And she said things, Wikileaks, that just came out.

Now she is blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham

That's the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you.

That is a big, big difference we're talking about.

But, as far as other elements of what she was saying,

I think it would be great if we get along with Russia because we could

But I notice any time any thing wrong happens, they like to say...

She doesn't know if it is the Russians doing the hacking.

And the reason they blame Russia is they think they are trying

I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner

I have no businesses there, I have no loans from Russia.

I have a great balance sheet, so great that when I did

the old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue,

the United States government, because of my balance sheet,

which they actually know very well, chose me to do the old post office

between the White House and Congress, chose me to do

One of the primary things, perhaps the primary thing

You could go to the United States government and they would probably

tell you that because they know my sheet very well.

I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

Many of our friends took bigger deductions.

Soros, a friend of hers, took a massive deduction.

Many of the people that are giving her all this money

that she can do many more commercials than me

I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes,

but as soon as my routine audit's finished I'll release my returns.

We are going to turn to the topic of taxes.

We have a question from Spencer Moss.

Good evening, my question is - what specific tax provisions

will you change to ensure the wealthiest Americans

One thing I'd do is get rid of carried interest.

One of the greatest provisions, for people like me,

to be honest with you, I give up a lot when I run

And she could have done this years ago.

She complains that Donald Trump took advantage of the tax code.

Why didn't you change it when you were a senator?

The reason you didn't is that all your friends take the same

You have provisions in the tax code that frankly we could change,

but you wouldn't change it because all of these people give

you the money so you can take negative ads on Donald Trump.

And I say that about a lot of things.

I've heard Hillary complaining about so many different things

over the years but she's been there 30 years,

She'll never change and she never will change.

We're getting rid of carried interest provisions.

I'm lowering taxes, actually, because I think it's

so important for corporations because we have corporations,

massive corporations and little ones, little ones can't form.

We're getting rid of regulations that go hand in hand

with the lowering of the taxes but we're bringing the tax rate down

We're cutting taxes for the middle-class and I will tell

you we are cutting them big league for the middle-class.

Hillary Clinton is raising your taxes, folks.

She's raising your taxes really high.

And what that is going to do is a disaster for the country,

but she is raising your taxes and I am lowering your taxes.

If China has a GDP of 7%, it's like a national catastrophe.

And we're going lower, in my opinion.

And a lot of it has to do with the fact that our taxes are so high.

And I'm bringing them down to one of the lower in the world.

One of the most important things we can do.

But she is raising everybody's taxes massively.

Senator Clinton you have two minutes.

The question was, what specific tax provisions will you change to ensure

the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes?

Well everything you've heard just now from Donald is not true.

I'm sorry I have to keep saying this but he lives

And it is sort of amusing to hear somebody who hasn't paid federal

income taxes in maybe 20 years talking about what he's

going to do, but I'll tell you what he is going to do.

His plan will give the wealthy and corporations the biggest tax

More than the Bush tax cuts by at least a factor of two.

Donald always takes care of Donald and people like Donald and this

Indeed, the way he talks about his tax cuts would

end up raising taxes in middle-class families,

I have said nobody who makes less than $250,000 a year,

and that is the vast majority of Americans, as you know,

Because I think we've got to go where the money is and the money

is with people who take advantage of every single break

When I was a Senator, I did vote to close

I voted to close I think one of the loopholes he took advantage

of when he claimed a $1 billion loss that enabled him to

I want to have a tax on people who are making $1 million.

Yes, Warren Buffett who has gone out and said somebody like him should

not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.

I want to have a surcharge on incomes above 5 million.

We have to make up for lost times because I want to invest

in you, I want to invest in hard-working families.

And I think it's been unfortunate, but it's happened, that

since the great recession, the gains have all gone to the top.

People like Donald who paid zero in taxes, zero for our vets,

zero for our military, zero for health and education,

And we're going to make sure that nobody, no

corporation and no individual, can get away without

Mr Trump, I want to give you the chance to respond.

I just want to tell viewers what she is referring to.

In the last month, taxes were the number one issue

on Facebook for the first time in the campaign.

The New York Times published three pages of your 1995 tax returns.

They show you claimed a $916 million loss, which means you could have

avoided paying personal federal income taxes for years.

You've said you paid state taxes, employee taxes, real estate taxes,

property taxes, you have not answered, though, a simple question.

Did you use that $960 million loss to avoid paying personal

And so do all of her donors, or most of her donors.

Her donors took massive tax write-offs.

A lot of my write-off was depreciation and other things

The people who give her all this money, they want it.

See, I understand the tax code better than anyone that's ever

Hillary Clinton, and it's extremely complex, Hillary Clinton has friends

that want all of these provisions, including they want the carried

interest provision, which is very important to Wall Street people,

but they really want carried interest provision,

And very interesting why she is leaving carried interest,

but I will tell you that number one I pay tremendous numbers of taxes.

I absolutely used it and so did Warren Buffett and so did

George Soros and so did many of the other people that

Now, I won't mention their names because they are rich,

but they are not famous, so we won't make them famous.

Can you say how many years you have avoided paying personal

No, but I pay tax and I pay federal tax.

A lot of it is depreciation, which is a wonderful charge,

Hey, if she had a problem, for 30 years she has been doing this.

Why didn't she do something about it?

Why doesn't she do something about it?

She doesn't do anything about anything other than talk.

With her, it's all talk and no action.

And again, Bernie Sanders, it's really bad judgment.

She has made bad judgment, not only on taxes.

She's made bad judgements on Libya, on Syria, on Iraq.

I mean, her and Obama, whether you like it or not,

the way they got out of Iraq, the vacuum they've left, that's why

They started from that little area and now they're in 32

I want you to be able to respond, Secretary Clinton.

I've been in favour of getting rid of carried interest for years.

Starting when I was a senator from New York.

Because I was a senator with a Republican president.

I will be the President who will get it done.

If you were an effective senator, you could have done it.

But you were not an effective senator.

You know, under our Constitution, presidents have something

Look, he has now said repeatedly, "30 years this and 30 years that".

So, let me talk about my 30 years in public service.

8 million kids, every year, have health insurance

because when I was First Lady I worked with Democrats

and Republicans to create the Children's Health

Hundreds of thousands of kids now have a chance to be

adopted because I worked to change our adoption

After 9/11, I went to work with Republican Mayor, Governor,

and President to rebuild New York and to get health care for our first

responders who were suffering because they had run toward danger

Hundreds of thousands of National Guard and Reserve

members have health care because of work that I did.

And children have safer medicines because I was able to pass a law

that required the dosing to be more carefully done.

When I was Secretary of State, I went around the world,

advocating for our country, but also advocating for women's rights,

to make sure that women had a decent chance to have a better life.

And negotiated a treaty with Russia to lower nuclear weapons.

400 pieces of legislation have my name on it, as a sponsor,

or co-sponsor, when I was a senator for eight years.

I worked very hard and was very proud to be re-elected in New York

by an even bigger margin than I had been elected the first time.

And as president, I will take that work, that bipartisan work,

that finding common ground, because you have to be able to get

along with people to get things done in Washington.

And for 30 years, I've produced results for people.

She has said a lot of things that are false.

I mean, I think we should be allowed to maybe dispute.

She has been a disaster as a Senator.

The heartbreaking video of a five-year-old Syrian boy,

named Omran, sitting in an ambulance after being pulled from the rubble

after an air strike in Aleppo focused the world's attention

on the horrors on the war in Syria with 136 million views

But there are much worse images coming out of Aleppo every day now

where in the past four weeks alone, 400 people have been killed,

Just days ago the State Department called for a war crimes

investigation of the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad and its ally,

Russia, for the bombardment of Aleppo.

This next question comes from social media through Facebook.

Diane from Pennsylvania asks - if you were president,

what would you do about Syria and the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo?

Isn't it a lot like the Holocaust when the US waited too

Secretary Clinton, we will begin with your two minutes.

The situation in Syria is catastrophic.

And every day that goes by, we see the results of the regime,

by Assad, in partnership with the Iranians on the ground,

the Russians in the air, bombarding places, in particular

Aleppo, where there are hundreds of thousands of people,

probably about 250,000 still left and there is a determined effort

by the Russian air force to destroy Aleppo in order to eliminate

the last of the Syrian rebels who are really holding out

Russia hasn't paid any attention to Isis.

They're interested in keeping Assad in power.

So I, when I was Secretary of State, advocated, and I advocate today,

We need some leverage with the Russians because they are not

going to come to the negotiating table for a diplomatic resolution

unless there is some leverage over them.

We have to work more closely with our partners

But I want to emphasise that what is at stake

here is the ambitous and aggressiveness of Russia.

Russia has decided that it's all in in Syria.

They have also decided who they want to see

become President of the United States too.

I think wherever we can cooperate with Russia, that's fine,

That's how we got a treaty reducing nuclear weapons,

it's how we got the sanctions on Iran that put a lid

on the Iranian nuclear programme without firing a single shot.

So I would go to the negotiating table with more leverage

But I do support the effort to investigate for crimes,

war crimes, committed by the Syrians and the Russians and try

First of all, she is there as Secretary of State

with the so-called line in the sand, which...

No I wasn't, I was gone, I hate to interrupt you.

At some point we need to do some fact-checking here.

You were in total contact with the White House and perhaps

sadly Obama probably still listened to you.

I don't think he'll be listening very much any more.

It was laughed at all over the world what happened.

With that being said, she talks tough against Russia.

But our nuclear programme has fallen way behind and they have gone wild

Our government shouldn't have allowed that to happen.

Russia is new in terms of nuclear, we are old, we are tired,

we are exhausted in terms of nuclear.

She talks really tough against Putin and against Assad.

Every time we take rebels, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere

else, we are arming people, and you know what happens?

They end up being worse than the people.

Look at what she did in Libya with Gadaffi.

By the way Isis has a good chunk of their oil.

I'm sure you probably have heard that.

The fact is almost everything she has done in foreign policy has

been a mistake and it's been a disaster.

Just take a look at Russia and look at what they did this week

where I agree she wasn't there but possibly she was consulted.

What Russia did with Assad and, by the way with Iran,

who you made very powerful with the dumbest deal, perhaps,

I have ever seen in the history of deal making, the Iran

deal with $150 billion, with the 1.7 billion in cash

which is enough cash to fill up this room.

Iran now, and Russia, are now against us.

I don't like Assad at all but Assad is killing Isis.

Those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.

Mr Trump, let me repeat the question.

If you were President, what would you do about Syria and

I want to remind you what your running mate said.

He said provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength,

and that if Russia continues to be involved in air strikes,

along with the Syrian forces of Assad the United States

of America should be prepared to use military force to strike

the military targets of the Assad regime.

He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree.

We have people who want to fight both at the same time.

Syria is Russia and it's Iran who she made strong and carry

and Obama made into a very powerful nation and a very rich nation,

We have to worry about Isis before we can get too much more involved.

She had a chance to do something with Syria.

What do you think will happen if Aleppo falls?

I think Aleppo is a disaster humanitarian-wise.

What do you think will happen if it falls?

I think that it basically has fallen, OK.

You look take a look at Mosul, the biggest problem

I have with the stupidity of our foreign policy.

They think a lot of the Isis leaders are in Mosul.

We have announcements coming out of Washington and coming out of Iraq

- we will be attacking Mosul in three weeks or four weeks.

All of these bad leaders from Isis are leaving Mosul.

Why can't they do the attack, make it a sneak attack,

and after the attack is made, inform the American public

that we have knocked out the leaders, we have had

Why do they have to say we are going to be attacking Mosul

within the next four to six weeks, which is what they're saying?

There are sometimes reasons the military does that.

It might be to help get civilians out.

Look, I have 200 generals and admirals who endorse me,

I have 21 congressional medal of honour recipients who endorse me.

Why can't they do something secretly where they go in and they knock

How - why would these people stay there?

..For weeks about Mosul that it's the harbour,

between Raqqa and Mosul, this is where they think

Because everybody is talking about how Iraq, which is us,

with our leadership, goes into to fight Mosul.

With these 200 admirals and generals they can't believe it.

All I say is General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur

are spinning in their grave at the stupidity of what we are doing

I'm going to go to Secretary Clinton.

Secretary Clinton, you want Assad to go, you advocated arming rebels.

But it looks like that may be too late for Aleppo.

Would you introduce the threat of US military force beyond a no-fly

against the Assad regime to back up diplomacy?

I would not use American ground forces in Syria.

I think that would be a very serious mistake.

I don't think American troops should be holding territory

which is what they would have to do as an occupying force.

I don't think that is a smart strategy.

I do think the use of Special Forces which we are using, the use

of enablers and trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects.

You said that half of Donald Trump's supporters are deplorable,

racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,

you later said you regretted saying half, you didn't express regret

for using the term deplorables, to Mr Carter's question,

how can you unite a country if you have written off tens

Within hours I said I was sorry about the way I talked about that.

Because my argument is not with his supporters,

it's with him and with the hateful and divisive campaign that he has

run, and the inciting of violence at his rallies and the very brutal

kinds of comments about, not just women, but all Americans,

What he has said about African Americans and Latinos,

about Muslims, about POWs, about immigrants, about people

with disabilities, he has never apologised for.

So, I do think a lot of the tone and tenor he has set,

I am proud of the campaign that Bernie Sanders and I ran.

We ran a campaign based on issues, not insults.

Because we talked about what we wanted to do.

We might have had some differences and we had a lot of debates.

But we believed that we could make the country better

You look at Baltimore, you look at the violence

that is taking place in the inner cities, Chicago.

We have a increase in murder within our cities.

We have a divided nation because people like her and believe me,

she has tremendous hate in her heart, and when she said

And when she said irredeemable you didn't mention that.

But when she said they are irredeemable, to me that may have

She said some of them are irredeemable.

She has tremendous hatred and this country cannot take another four

years of Barack Obama, and that's what you

My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric,

would either of you name one positive thing that you respect

APPLAUSE Mr Trump, would you like to go first?

I certainly will because I think that's a very fair

His children are incredibly able and devoted and I think that says

I don't agree with nearly anything else he says or does

I think that is something that as a mother and a grandmother

So, I believe that this election has become in part so -

so conflict oriented, so intense because there is a lot at stake.

We are going to be choosing a president who will set policy

for not just four or eight years but because of some of the important

decisions we have to make at home and around the world,

from the Supreme Court to energy and so much else,

It is one of the most consequential elections that we've had.

That's why I have tried to put forward specific policies and plans,

trying to get it off the personal and put it

on to what it is I want to do as President.

That's why I hope people will check on that for themselves.

So that they can see that, yes, I've spent 30 years actually maybe

a little more, working to help kids and families

and I want to take all that experience to the White

House and do that every single day.

Well, I consider her statement about my children to be

I don't know if it was meant to be a compliment - but it is.

They have done a wonderful job and they have been

I disagree with much of what she is fighting for.

I do disagree with her judgement in many cases.

But she does fight hard and she doesn't quit

I consider that to be a very good trait.

I want to thank the university here, this concludes the town

hall meeting our thanks to the candidates, the Commission,

Washington University and to everybody who watched.

Please tune in on October 19th for the final presidential debate

which will take place at the University

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in that tense and sometimes extremely

feisty second televised presidential debate.

For reaction to that debate, I'm joined here

in Washington by Peter Fenn - a Democratic strategist who worked

on presidential campaigns for Al Gore and John Kerry.

And the Republican strategist and former special sssistant

Donald Trump's campaign was in freefall going into that debate, he

needed to stabilise it and stop the bleeding. Already we have a verdict

because the speaker of the house Paul Ryan has said he will not

defend or campaign for Donald Trump. Did Mr Trump fail? I don't think he

failed. For all the political debates I've seen, for all the

political candidates I've watched, I did think we'd ever seen anything

like this. Heading into the debate last night, Donald Trump had to

prove he was prepared. He had to prove he could be president, that he

had the intellect. I think he largely scored a lot of important

debate points in his fracas with the former Secretary of State. Mr Ryan's

announcement was significant. A lot of Republicans in the House of

Representatives are very concerned that Donald Trump will hurt the down

ticket. I think Paul Ryan gave a lot of cover today for a lots of

Republicans to distance themselves from Mr Trump in order to save their

own re-election prospects. This Hillary Clinton we saw in this

debate, she wasn't calm, collected and confident as she was in the

first debate. Donald Trump was much more collected. Why was it not such

a great night for her? I think she did fine. I think being confronted

with Bill Clinton's past and the front row of some of the women

accusers, it's going to unnerve anybody. Even someone who has been

in politics as long as she has. She so comfortable on policy, she is so

comfortable on her plans and what she's trying to do for the country.

Should love to talk about that. She's less confident in this back

and forth. Trump is a little more comfortable to be honest. At the end

of the day if you look at some of these polls, in the first debate 62%

thought she had won the debate. 57% thought she'd won this debate. It

depends which Paul you look at. Frank Luntz's polls were saying the

attacks on Donald Trump on her e-mails and the idea of a special

prosecutor, that was going down well with undecided voters. One of the

things you will see and we'll find out in the next several days is what

is happening in those undecided voters. My guess is that the

aftermath with people being afraid to support Trump will have a greater

effect than the debate. Ron, did Donald Trump do enough last night?

Did he do anything to reach out to those moderate women who live in the

suburbs of Philadelphia and that key swing state of Pennsylvania who are

concerned about that tape? Or was he just really there to make sure that

the base turns out? I think he did both. For a good bit of the debate

he was more tempered than we have seen. He seemed more in control of

his facts and what he wanted to say and what he wanted to convey. At the

same time, I think what Peter said is right. He did use those attacks

and he did talk about the e-mail to get those folks who really are going

to go out and vote for him to go out and get their friends to vote for

him as well. I think the third debate is going to be so critical of

what we are going to see from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,

and what is going to happen in the next two weeks as they go on the

campaign trail. Is there really anybody in the electorate who has

truly not decided? That is the question. What does Hillary Clinton

have to do in the next debate in Nevada? What she really needs to do

is make it very clear again that he is not fit to be president of the

United States. But he goes low and she is going to go high. I think

that's where she should take it. The other thing I think is very

important is, and I think we advise our clients to do the same thing,

turn off the sound on these and just watch the movement on this. If I

were coaching Donald Trump and say, for crying out loud, don't show all

these facial expressions. Don't move around the stage like a panther.

Hillary Clinton was looking pained. She covers her pain with that smile.

I think that she is... I think this is a tough situation for him. There

really is body language and women and men are reading it and they

don't like it. Donald Trump has been accused of looking somewhat

predatory on the stage, of getting a bit too much in the eye line behind

Hillary Clinton. The question I have is, is his strategy doubling down

and hoping for historic turnout among non-college-educated white

voters? Is that the path for him to the White House? It seems like it to

me. There's no question he is not going to do nearly as well amongst

African Americans, amongst Latinos voters. The question is since

politics is addition, how can he add enough votes to his coalition that

will allow him to get those 270 electoral college votes. It's going

to be an educated white men at the top of the ticket for him and the

question is what other coalitions can he moved to his side of the

ledger? There is a poll out today showing that Hillary Clinton is up

but this election has been so volatile. She went from a 9-point

lead in August to a virtual tie, you must be worried. I've been worried

for a year and a half! This has been so unpredictable. Anything could

happen in the next couple of weeks, anything did happen in the last 72

hours. You just don't know. We are going to see WikiLeaks and all kinds

of stuff. We do not know, exactly. Thank you so much. Thank you for

joining us for this special report here on BBC news about that second

US presidential debate. Easterly winds continue

to dominate our weather this week. The pressure pattern hasn't changed

much from last week.