Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump’s pacing, hovering demeanour onstage during an October 2016 presidential debate made her so uncomfortable her “skin crawled”.
In her upcoming book, Clinton writes Trump shadowed her so closely she had to resist shouting out, “back up you creep, get away from me”.
The Democratic presidential nominee recounts her struggle to keep composed during the pivotal face-off less than a month before the election.
Two days earlier, their bitter campaign was rocked by the release of footage in which Trump bragged aggressively about groping women.
During the town-hall style debate, the 6ft 3 (185cm) Trump repeatedly hovered over Clinton, who’s closer to 5ft 5 (165cm), as she responded to questions.
“This is not OK, I thought,” Clinton said in her audio narration of What Happened, set for release on September 12.
“It was the second presidential debate, and Donald Trump was looming behind me,” she describes.
“Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable he was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”
"It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, 'Well, what would you do?' Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly, 'Back up you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can't intimidate me, so back up."'
Clinton says she "kept her cool", aided by a lifetime of "dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off".
"Maybe I have over learned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while determined to present a composed face to the world," Clinton says.
Excerpts of Clinton reading from the book aired Wednesday on MSNBC.
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Top Comments
Lol, Bill tries to hound dog everything in sight and she calls Trump a creep?
3 books and 9 months on and she still doesn't get why she lost.
Bill is urbane and educated, and exudes charm and charisma; Trump is arrogant and bombastic, caters to the lowest common denominator with an orange combover, bad spray tan and doesn't believe in exercise.
HRC would understand why she didn't win, but like her, I simply don't want to believe people are that stupid.
HRC supporters are more intelligent than everyone else, they are just better people.
Yes, Bill Clinton is exactly the kind of guy you'd want around your daughter.
As opposed to a man who freely admits on camera that he thinks he can "grab women by the pu**y"? This isn't even a contest. Even Trump's wife can't bear for him to touch her.....ugh, imagine waking up to that orange tub o'lard every day, all the gold-plated apartments in the world wouldn't be enough
So talking about sex stuff is bad, but multiple actual sexual assaults is fine? That's some pretty fucked up logic right there.
"Even Trump's wife can't bear for him to touch her.." close personal friend of the Trumps eh? You obviously know them well to know all these intimate details of their personal life...
He made my skin crawl too watching that.
Did you see Bill the creeps look at that debate when Trump introduced all the women from his past?
Irrelevant. This post is about the presidential debate, not the sad, desperate, clutching-at-straws, Trump-style *tactic* of implicating the Clintons in everything Trump himself is guilty of - which has been done to death by the way.
Try to stick to the point. Was it okay for you, or was it creepy?
Trump has an illegal server? Trump deleted 30,000 emails after a warrant was issued that they are to be turned over to authorities? No, I don't think so.
Anyway, it's not about the Presidential debate, it's about her feels, just happened to be at the debate incidentally. I would have thought anyone married to Bill would have a tolerance for creepy behaviour.
Was it ok? I guess it was a debate tactic to put her off. It wasn't a illegal tactic, I mean if someone had slipped him the debate questions beforehand, like the DNC did for Clinton against Bernie as per wikileaks emails, then that wouldn't have been ok.
So it was okay because it wasn't illegal. Question answered. Shoddy sportsmanship there Les - you should know better.