US Democrats hit Trump, clash over jihadist fight in debate

Hillary Clinton and other Democratic presidential hopefuls used Donald Trump as a political bogeyman on Dec. 18 to highlight their own calls to defeat jihadist extremists without the bigotry and bluster brandished by their top Republican rival.

Former secretary of state Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders and Maryland ex-governor Martin O'Malley each hit on the need to boost national security, raise the minimum wage and protect rights of women, minorities and the disadvantaged as they faced off in New Hampshire.

But they had heated exchanges on the economy, guns, tackling the terrorist threat, and the role of the United States abroad.

With just over six weeks before the first votes are cast in the nomination race, on Feb. 1 in Iowa, Sanders and O'Malley are running out of time to blunt the momentum of the former top U.S. diplomat, who is 25 points ahead of rival Sanders in national polling compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

O'Malley trails them both badly.

It was their party's third debate of the primary election season - the last of 2015 and their first since the attacks in San Bernardino, California, where a radicalized married couple killed 14 people.

But the candidates also took turns hitting the Trump punching bag, as they hurled outrage about the Republican's fear-mongering and recent controversial comments about immigrants - in particular, his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Americans, Clinton said, "need to make sure that the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don't fall on receptive ears."
    
"He is becoming ISIS's best recruiter," Clinton said of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), claiming that jihadists are "showing...