US election debate: 12 key moments from the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clash.

By Nicole Mills

Twitter went wild when Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of fighting the Islamic State (IS) group her “entire adult life”.

Most would assume that’s a good thing, if it had been physically possible.

It was part of an attack he launched on her for posting her plan to fight IS on her website.

“You’re telling the enemy everything you want to do,” he said, while keeping his own plan secret.

The panel of experts assembled on ABC News 24 after the debate unanimously declared Mrs Clinton the winner but David Smith from the US Studies Centre pointed out that “there will be plenty of people that buy Trump’s idea that all politicians, including Clinton, have failed so badly that they need a completely new approach”.

Mr Smith said in the end, the supporters of both parties will probably come away from the debate believing their candidate won.

Here are 12 key moments from the debate:

1. Clinton played the ‘rich-kid’ card early

When Mr Trump promised to cut corporate tax rates from 35 per cent to 15 per cent in order to stop companies, and jobs, leaving the United States, Mrs Clinton went on the attack.

“The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle down economics all over again … I call it Trumped up trickle down,” she said.

“We come at it from somewhat different perspectives. I understand that. Donald was very fortunate in his life and that is all to his benefit. He started his business with $14 million borrowed from his father.

“He believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we will be and everything will work out from there. I don’t buy that.

“What I believe is the more we can do for the middle class, the more we can invest in you, your education, your skills, your future, the better we will be off and the better we will grow.”

2. Clinton said Trump had been rooting for the global financial crisis

Mrs Clinton said tax cuts for the wealthy were responsible “in large part” for the GFC.

“Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said back in 2006 ‘Gee, I hope it does collapse because I can go in and buy some and make money’.”

Was Mr Trump offended by that claim? Nope!

“That’s called business, by the way,” he interjected.

3. Trump rides on the anti-establishment sentiment

Mr Trump slammed Mrs Clinton for being a “typical politician” who has achieved nothing during 30 years in public life.

“Typical politician, all talk, no action, sounds good, doesn’t work. Never going to happen,” he said.

“Our country is suffering because people like Secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs and in terms of what is going on.”

4. The crowd, which had promised to be silent, remained quiet … until this moment

What caused their outburst? Emails.

When moderator Lester Holt asked Mr Trump why he hadn’t released his tax returns, Mr Trump responded by saying he was “under a routine audit and it will be released and as soon as that is finished”.

Mr Trump then moved to push the spotlight onto his opponent.

“I will release my tax returns against my lawyer’s wishes, when she [Mrs Clinton] releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release my tax returns.”

Some in the crowd broke protocol to cheer for him.

5. Clinton speculated on why Trump wouldn’t release his tax returns

“Maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he has paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody has ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino licence and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax,” Mrs Clinton said.

Did Mr Trump deny that accusation? No.

“That makes me smart,” he replied.

It’s a comment that could come back to hurt him.

6. Racism was on the agenda

Here’s Mrs Clinton’s take: “It is just a fact that if you’re a young African American man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted and incarcerated.”

“We have got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.”

Mr Trump said New York’s stop and frisk policy had successfully tackled gun crime and promised to “bring back law and order”.

Moderator Lester Holt pointed out that the policy had been ruled unconstitutional because it largely singled out black and Hispanic young men.

“Stop and frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City. Tremendous beyond belief,” Mr Trump said.

7. The candidates found some common ground on gun control

The agreement surrounded the Democrats’ push to stop people on the no-fly list buying guns.

“We need comprehensive background checks and we need to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm and we finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone who is on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in our country,” Mrs Clinton said.

“If you are too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.”

Mr Trump agreed, in part.

“A lot of people within my own party want to give certain rights to people on watch lists and no fly lists. I agree with you,” he said.

“When a person is on a watch list or a no fly list, and I have the endorsement of the NRA, which I am proud of. They are good people protecting the second amendment. But we have to look strongly at no fly lists and watch lists and when people are on there, we will help them get off legally.”

8. Trump copped some heat for questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship

For years he denied that Mr Obama had been born in the United States, until this week, when he finally admitted it.

Why the change of heart?

“Nobody was pressing it. Nobody was caring much about it. I figured you’d ask the question tonight, of course. But nobody was caring much about it. But I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate and I think I did a good job,” Mr Trump said.

Mrs Clinton wouldn’t let him get away that easily.

“He [Mr Trump] has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen,” Mrs Clinton said.

“There was absolutely no evidence for it but he persisted, he persisted year after year.”

9. Then Trump blamed the Democrats for creating Islamic State

Mr Trump said: “President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of Iraq because they got out – they shouldn’t have been in – but once they got in the way they got out was a disaster and ISIS was formed.”

“They wouldn’t have even been formed if they left some troops behind, like 10,000 or maybe something more than that.

“Had we taken the oil, and we should have taken the oil, ISIS would not have been able to form either because the oil was their primary source of income and now they have the oil all over the place.”

Mrs Clinton responded by referencing her website, which had been turned into a Donald Trump fact-checking platform for the night.

“I hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq,” she said.

“George W Bush made the agreement about when American troops would leave Iraq, not Barack Obama. And the only way that American troops could have stayed in Iraq is to get an agreement from the then Iraqi Government that would have protected our troops and the Iraqi Government would not give that.”

10. Clinton criticised Trump’s ability to be diplomatic

“When I became Secretary of State, Iran was weeks away from having enough nuclear material to form a bomb,” Mrs Clinton said.

“I spent one-and-a-half years putting together a coalition that included Russia and China, to impose the toughest sanctions on Iran and we did drive them to the negotiating table.

“My successor, John Kerry and President Obama, got a deal that put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program. Without firing a single shot. That’s diplomacy. That’s coalition building, that’s working with other nations.

“The other day I saw Donald saying that there was some Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran and they were taunting American sailors who were on a nearby ship. He said, ‘you know, if they taunted our sailors I’d blow them out of the water and start another war’.”

“He has said repeatedly that he didn’t care if other nations got nuclear weapons.

“His cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply troubling – that is the number one threat we face in the world and it becomes particularly threatening if terrorists ever get their hands on any nuclear material. So a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.”

11. Trump then told China to ‘go into’ North Korea

He also demanded other countries should pay more for US military support.

“You look at North Korea, we’re doing nothing there,” he said.

“China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea.

“China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.”

12. The final blow

Nearing the end of the debate, Mr Trump alluded to Mrs Clinton’s recent illness, which saw her take a couple of days out of the campaign to recover from pneumonia.

“I don’t believe that Hillary has the stamina [to be president],” Mr Trump said.

Her response?

“Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates and peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina,” Mrs Clinton retorted, seemingly winning the exchange.

That is, until Trump pulled out his trump card.

“I agree, she’s got experience, but it’s bad experience. And this country can’t afford to have another four years of that kind of experience.”

The second debate begins at 11am AEST on Monday, October 9.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

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Feature image via Getty.