From Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's 'nasty woman' remarks to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton calling her opponent the 'puppet president for Russia', the two presidential candidates engaged in a fierce final face of on Wednesday at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas for 90 minutes.
The debate covered issues like debt and entitlements, immigration, abortion law, the economy, the Supreme Court, foreign hot spots and "fitness to be president."
The stakes were high for both candidates. After months of running on controversial positions on immigration, race relations, and foreign policy, Trump entered the third debate embroiled in multiple sexual assault allegations.
On the issue of the appointment of the Supreme Court judges, Clinton said, "I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy," adding she would stand by marriage equality.
While Trump said he will appoint judges who protect the Second Amendment.
While Clinton said that she supports Second Amendment but believes that there can be and must be reasonable regulation. Trump reiterated his strong support for the Second Amendment.
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They logged heads at the issue of abortion with Clinton saying she strongly supports Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a constitutional right to a woman to make the most intimate, most difficult, in many cases, decisions about her health care that one can imagine while Trump responded, "But it's not ok with me, because based on what she's saying, and based on where she's going, and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. And that's not acceptable".
During the debate, Clinton also accused Trump of being a "puppet" of Russian leader Vladimir Putin as the Democratic nominee refused to accept Moscow's interference in the US presidential elections.
Clinton said Putin endorses Trump as, "It's pretty clear, he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United State."
She noted that Russian hackers had been blamed for releasing internal Democratic emails, apparently in an effort to help Trump's cause.
"You're the puppet," Trump replied.
In a fierce backlash, Trump said that the real reason Clinton disliked Putin is because he had outmaneuvered Clinton - who was previously secretary of state - and President Obama in nuclear treaties and in Middle Eastern conflicts like the one in Syria.
"She doesn't like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way," he said.
When Trump was pressed about the hacks, which the U.S. intelligence agencies have blamed on Russia, he said he was not convinced.
He seemed to attack the smarts and credibility of those intelligence agencies, saying that the hacks could have been carried out by China or another party.
"Hillary has no idea. Our country has no idea," said Trump.
During the debate, Trump also seemed to backtrack on his idea of a mass deportation of illegal immigrants, which has been a bedrock part of his campaign.
But during the debate, Trump offered another plan: He would first round up "the bad ones" among illegal immigrants.
Trump at the end of the debate even hinted that he may refuse to accept the election results.
He accused the media of poisoning the minds of the voters as he said, "What I have seen is so bad, first of all the media is so dishonest and so corrupt and the pile on is so amazing that the New York Times actually wrote an article about it. They don't even care. They poison the minds of the voters but unfortunately for them I think the voters are seeing through it, and we will find out on November 18."
To this, Clinton said she was "appalled".
With the conclusion of the debate, Clinton won the final presidential debate, topping Donald Trump by a 13-point margin according to a CNN/ORC poll of debate watchers, giving her a clean sweep across all three of this year's presidential debates.
Overall, 52 percent who watched tonight's matchup thought Clinton did the best job, to the 39 percent that thought Trump did.
50 percent of the voters said Clinton agreed with them more on the important issues, while 47 percent thought Trump did, but by wide margins, they thought Clinton had the better understanding of the issues.