Presidential candidates carry campaign barbs into NY dinner

FACE TO FACE: Donald Trump speaks to Hillary Clinton at the charity gala in New York. (AP)

NEW YORK: Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton took their acrimonious presidential contest to a charity dinner, where Trump drew boos from the well-heeled audience when his jokes veered well into the jagged terrain of his campaign speeches.

The candidates shared the stage Thursday night at an annual white-tie dinner in New York City that raises money for needy children and typically offers White House hopefuls a respite from election tensions.
Trump, lagging Clinton in national opinion polls, had slugged it out with his rival on Wednesday night at their third and final presidential debate before the Nov. 8 election. He drew sharp rebukes from Democrats and many in his own party for saying during the debate that he thinks the election is being rigged and so will not commit yet to accepting the outcome.
Alfred Smith V, whose family hosts the dinner named after the state’s former governor, Alfred E. Smith, called Thursday’s dinner “one for the record books” and said it echoed the Las Vegas debate.
“Donald had some very solid minutes early on and eventually he crossed the line and took it a little too far,” he told CNN on Friday. “Hillary, on the other hand, was able to laugh at herself and at the same time not underplay any of the serious things that Donald Trump has said or done.”
Both presidential candidates call New York home but the crowd of financiers and political and media figures was largely in Clinton’s court.
Trump spoke first and set the room on edge with bitter jabs, drawing boos with his label of Clinton, a former secretary of state, as “corrupt.”
“With all of the heated back and forth between my opponent and me at the debate last night, we have proven that we can actually be civil to each other,” Trump said. “In fact just before taking the dais, Hillary accidentally bumped into me and she very civilly said, ‘Pardon me.’“
“And I very politely replied, ‘Let me talk to you about that after I get into office,’” said Trump, whose supporters chant “lock her up” at rallies.
Clinton, whose remarks elicited some heckling but mostly polite applause, riffed off Trump’s past derogatory remarks about women’s looks and “ranking” them on appearance.
Meanwhile, reports said hacked e-mails reveal internal disagreement among top aides to Clinton about her determination to hold a Clinton Foundation summit in Morocco that later drew attention over its reliance on large financial pledges from foreign governments.
Clinton aide Huma Abedin bluntly wrote in the January 2015 e-mail that “if HRC was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter” and then warned: “She created this mess and she knows it.”
It was an uncharacteristic remark from a confidante known for her abiding loyalty to Clinton over the years.
The hacked e-mail was among more than 4,000 messages posted Thursday on the website of the WikiLeaks organization. The e-mails were stolen from the accounts of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman.
Clinton Foundation records do not show any direct pledge of funding from the king or government of Morocco to the charity. Commitments to the charity’s CGI program are agreements only to aid the program’s international projects, not to directly fund the Clinton Foundation itself.