politics

When a man called her husband a rapist, Hillary Clinton unleashed a smackdown unlike any other.

Hillary Clinton is no stranger to hecklers at her rallies, but the mounting pressure of a pre-election slump in the polls fuelled by fresh allegations over her emails appears to have lowered her tolerance for her opponent Donald Trump and his supporters.

Speaking at a campaign rally at Fort Lauderdale, Florida – her third in the state for the day – the Democratic candidate appeared well and truly at the end of her tether.

When a man in the crowd, brandishing a bright green dual-sided poster labelling her a “criminal” and her husband a “rapist”, verbally attacked her during speech, she couldn’t help but respond.

“I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behaviour of people who support Donald Trump,” Clinton yelled, pointing her finger directly at the heckler.

“It is time for us to say, ‘No, we are not going backwards. We are going forward into a brighter future’. How do we do that? For the next seven days focus on what is important. Don’t get distracted. Don’t get diverted,” she urged those assembled.

“I have stayed focused on you, on your lives, your families, the problems that keep you up at night.”

Florida is a swing state that looks like it’s going to be a tight race, which is why Clinton – now with six days remaining before election day – appears to be throwing everything she has at it.

Without securing Florida’s 29 electoral votes, it’s unlikely Trump can assemble the 270 he needs to become president.

Early in her Fort Lauderdale speech Clinton warned, “Any issue you care about, anything, is at stake,” and while the FBI’s renewed interest in the Clinton’s use of a private email server will be the thorn in her side in the final few days of campaigning, it seems the Republican candidate’s appalling treatment of women will be his.

In fact, the anonymous woman who sued Donald Trump for raping her in the early 1990s when she was just 13 years old, will front the media for the first time today with her new attorney Lisa Bloom by her side.

Bloom also represents Jill Harth who accused Trump or sexually assaulting her around the same time.