Clinton: Trump stalked me around the debate stage

Donald Trump dominated the debate stage Sunday — literally, according to Hillary Clinton, who thought “this is really weird” as the Republican presidential nominee towered over her.

In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres set to air later Friday, Clinton said she had “several reactions” to her opponent’s debate performance when the two sparred at Washington University in St. Louis.


“First, it was clear that my opponent, Donald Trump, was going to try to, you know, dominate the space, almost to the exclusion of the people who were sitting there,” Clinton said, referring to undecided voters who were on stage to ask the candidates questions. “I mean, they were sitting there so that we could talk to them, and that they could ask questions we would then answer.”

Clinton suggested Trump was “all wrought up” and filled with fury Sunday because he had to debate Clinton just days after a 2005 video leaked in which the real estate mogul was heard boasting about forcibly kissing and groping women with impunity because he’s “a star.”

“And because of the revelations of the public video and everything that came out on ‘Access Hollywood,’ you know, he was — he was really all wrought up and you could just sense how much anger he had and so he was really trying to dominate and then literally stalk me around the stage,” Clinton continued. “And I would just feel this presence behind me, and I, you know, I thought, ‘Whoa, this is really weird.’”

Even so, Clinton said her goal was to remain focused and composed and interact with the moderators and undecided voters on stage, as well as challenge the bombastic Republican on “the string of accusations that he was putting forth.”

Clinton said it was “frustrating” to debate an opponent who doesn’t seem to care about accuracy. “Everybody makes mistakes, don’t get me wrong. I obviously have made more than my share, but to run against somebody and debate somebody who is consistently just spewing forth falsehoods and when you catch him, when you say: ‘No, wait a minute, you said this. You actually were on the record on this,’” Clinton began, before launching into a quick Trump imitation: “‘No I wasn’t. No I wasn’t.’”

Trump, she added, “just hopes, I guess, that people will forget it so you could spend all of your time, and I had to think hard about this before the first debate — I literally could have spent all my time saying, ‘No, you told interviewer X and you said on Y,’ but I thought no, I’m gonna tell people to go to my website, hillaryclinton.com, look at the evidence we have and I’m gonna keep trying to talk about what this election should be about, which is people’s lives and our country and what we’re gonna do to help each other.”

“It’s debating, like, a teenager.” DeGeneres noted, to which Clinton responded, “It’s hard. It is hard.”