GOP nominee had gone on Twitter rampage, making false accusations that ex-Miss Universe had a sex tape and that Clinton helped her become a US citizen

Donald Trump tried to distract voters from a weeklong controversy over his insults toward a former Miss Universe on Friday night by asking Barack Obama to pledge not to “pardon Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators for their many crimes against our country and against society itself”.



Clinton calls Trump 'temperamentally unfit' to lead after Alicia Machado spat Read more

Only hours earlier, the Republican nominee had gone on a predawn Twitter rampage about Alicia Machado, tweeting false accusations that she had a sex tape and that Clinton had somehow helped Machado become an American citizen. He later tried to justify the tweets, writing: “For those few people knocking me for tweeting at 3 o’clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!”

The Clinton campaign quickly responded. “His latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him,” the Democratic nominee told a rally in Florida. She also responded on Trump’s medium of choice, Twitter: “What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?”

The former secretary of state spoke in Coral Springs, where she unveiled a plan to expand national service opportunities for young Americans. But Clinton also scorned Trump at length there, asking: “Who gets up at three o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe?”

Late Friday, BuzzFeed found that Trump had had a cameo in an explicit Playboy video made in 2000, prompting a response from Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. “There’s been a lot of talk about sex tapes today, and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today and its star is Donald Trump,” Merrill told reporters.

On Friday evening, Trump attempted to change the subject by amplifying his attacks on Clinton, citing the Clinton Foundation’s international donors and her handling of emails as secretary of state. Republicans often criticize Clinton along these lines, but Trump has recently escalated the rhetoric. He called Clinton a “globalist” and a “vessel for special interests … who want to strip [the US] of its status as a sovereign nation” and accused her of “many crimes against our country and against society itself”.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions about what crimes the nominee meant.

The Republican nominee also stirred concerns about voter fraud, returning to the unsubstantiated claims of a “rigged election” and “cheating” that he made for several weeks this summer. On Friday, Trump claimed voter fraud “is a big, big problem in this country” and that “nobody has the guts to talk about it”.

He then urged attendees at this rally to “go and watch the polling places and make sure it is on the up and up”, even though an exhaustive investigation in 2014 found only 31 potential incidents of in-person voter fraud in all US elections over 14 years.

The complaints about a “rigged” system follow days of negative revelations about the nominee. A report in Newsweek showed evidence that Trump’s company had violated the embargo on doing business in Cuba, and a report in the Washington Post showed Trump’s charitable foundation lacks a license to solicit money, though it has appeared to do so for years.

Several conservative or apolitical newspapers also refused to endorse Trump this week. On Friday, the San Diego Union-Tribune, which has endorsed every Republican presidential candidate since 1868, announced that it would back Hillary Clinton. In doing so, its editorial board wrote: “Trump could be our Chávez, our Kirchner. We cannot take that risk.”

It was joined by USA Today, which issued its first-ever presidential endorsement to write that Trump was “unfit for the presidency”. The national paper did not endorse Clinton but merely urged readers to vote for anyone but Trump. Other papers, including the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer, have broken their conservative record to back Clinton. A number of other traditionally conservative papers, such as the Chicago Tribune and the Detroit News, have endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson instead of Trump.

One newspaper has broken its apolitical history to endorse Trump. In March, he became the first candidate endorsed by the National Enquirer in the tabloid’s history.