Republican Donald Trump said that African-Americans and Hispanics in U.S. cities are "living in hell," because the cities are so violent. He said he would restore "law and order," in part by using the aggressive stop-and-frisk enforcement tactics once employed by the New York city police.
"Secretary [Hillary] Clinton doesn't want to use a couple of words, and that's law and order. We need law and order. If we don't have it, we're not going to have a country," Trump said. "We need law and order in our country."
Moderator Lester Holt told Trump that stop-and-frisk tactics had been ruled unconstitutional, because it disproportionately targeted blacks and Hispanics.
"No, you're wrong," Trump said, blaming a judge who was biased against police, and blaming a New York City administration for giving up on the case. "The argument is that we have to take the guns away from these people . . . These are people that are bad people."
Earlier, Trump declined again to release his income-tax returns during Monday night's presidential debate, offering two explanations - first, that his returns were under audit and second, that the returns would not be that revelatory anyway.
"You don't learn that much from tax returns, that I can tell you," the GOP nominee said, after Holt had questioned the first rationale, saying that the IRS would not prohibit the release of tax returns under audit.
That exchange came during a period in which Democratic nominee Clinton sharply criticized Trump over his taxes, suggesting that perhaps Trump had not paid any income taxes in recent years.
"That means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools and health," Clinton said.
Trump did not seem to push back against that suggestion. At one point, when Clinton suggested that Trump should have paid more taxes to improve the country's infrastructure.
"It would be squandered too, believe me," Trump said.
Trump responded by saying that his business acumen was exactly what the country needs now: "We have a country that's doing so badly, that's being ripped off by every single county in the world. That's the kind of thinking that our country needs."
The first presidential debate of the general election campaign turned unusually contentious in its first half-hour, with Trump repeatedly interrupting Clinton, and Clinton telling Trump, "Donald, I know you live in your own reality."
At one particularly unusual moment, about 25 minutes in, Trump attacked Clinton for posting her plan to fight the Islamic State on her website. That, he said, was not something that Gen. Douglas MacArthur - a leader of American forces in World War II and the Korean War - would have done.
"Well, at least I have a plan to fight ISIS," Clinton said.
"You're telling the enemy everything you want to do," Trump said. He followed with a charge that was not true: "You have been fighting ISIS your entire adult life." The Islamic State has not existed for the bulk of Clinton's adult life
Trum frequently talked over Clinton's responses. Later, Clinton said she felt that Trump had blamed her for things beyond her control.
"Why not?" Trump said.
Clinton, who was said to have prepared to deal with an unpredictable opponent, still seemed caught off guard: "Just join the debate by saying more crazy things," she said, seeming to assemble a zinger one word at a time.
The debate began with Donald Trump bemoaning the state of the country, and Hillary Clinton bemoaning Donald Trump.
Trump, the GOP nominee, answered the first economics-focused questions of Monday night's debate by saying that the U.S. was being hoodwinked and taken advantage of by Mexico, China and other countries. He talked about manufacturing jobs leaving the U.S., and promised - as he had in the primary - to impose penalties on companies that take jobs offshore.
"Our country's in very deep trouble. We don't know what we're doing," Trump said. Of countries like China, he said, "What they're doing to us is a very, very sad thing."
Clinton began her first answers with an appeal to common purpose, talking about her two-year-old granddaughter. But she quickly turned to attacks on Trump, saying that he had rooted for the housing-market collapse a little less than a decade ago ("That's called business, by the way," Trump interjected), and saying that Trump would raise the debt by offering huge tax cuts to high earners.
"I call it Trumped-up trickle down, because that's what it would be," Clinton said, referring back to the trickle-down economics model of the 1980s.
In its early going, the presidential debate featured some interjections from Trump, who tried to interrupt Clinton when she said (correctly) that Trump had called climate change a hoax.
The debate, which began shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern time, was scheduled to last 90 minutes.
Clinton and Trump came into Monday virtually tied in national polls. Both candidates have been relying on negative messaging, in which the best selling point for each has been that the other candidate is worse.
For both, this debate will offer a chance to build a positive image of their own.
Underscoring the unique nature of the combatants, Clinton's debate preparations included a focus on Trump's personality as well as the substance of what will be discussed onstage at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, according to several Democrats with knowledge of her campaign's approach.
Clinton's team convened a meeting last month at which longtime aide Philippe Reines, the stand-in for Trump in her mock sessions, deeply studied Trump's personality to be able to parry with her as Trump might.
The meeting was one of several during which Clinton aides conferred for hours with outsiders who had been asked to offer advice about Trump's temperament, according to people familiar with the gathering. The objective was to understand how a man who has spent most of his life in the business world and prides himself on being a dealmaker might behave in a debate setting.
After days of preparing for the debate at a hotel near her home in Westchester County, Hillary Clinton departed for Long Island early Monday afternoon to continue her preparations, according to a campaign aide. She was joined by former president Bill Clinton on the ride over. The campaign plans for the former president to be in the debate hall Monday night.
At Trump Tower in Manhattan, a steady stream of GOP bigwigs and prominent supporters entered the building, where Trump was gathered with his inner circle, according to a person familiar with his activities.
The stakes Monday could hardly be higher for both candidates. A new Washington Post-poll released Sunday shows likely voters split nationally 46 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Trump, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 5 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 1 percent.
With barely six weeks remaining until Election Day, Clinton's camp - after a prolonged focus on trashing Trump - sees the debate as a chance for her to present what she actually hopes to accomplish as president and to ease voters' deep concerns about her likability and trustworthiness.
For Trump, his first one-on-one presidential debate offers an opportunity to demonstrate a command of the issues and to persuade voters clamoring for change that he is a credible alternative, his advisers say.