War of Words: Accusations of bigotry on the campaign trail

Accusations of bigotry are flying both ways now as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump railed against each other on the presidential campaign trail.

Hillary Clinton responded in Reno Thursday, to Donald Trump calling her a bigot, by accusing Trump of allowing the voices of white supremacist supporters and hate speech to creep into his campaign.

"Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He's taking hate groups mainstream," Clinton said, "This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name "white-genocide-TM."

Clinton also pointed to Trump's new campaign chief Stephen Bannon, who is on leave from the website Breitbart News.

"Here are a few headlines they've published and I'm not making this up "Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy."
"Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement's Human Shield," Clinton told the crowd.

Clinton's campaign website reinforced that message with a new online video which shows images of KKK members and a man in a robe saying, "The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in," the video shows.

Donald Trump says he cannot be held responsible for all of his supporters. He says he is not a racist.

"When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument. You're racist, you're racist," Trump said Thursday.

He also did not back down from calling Hillary Clinton a bigot, saying her policies are bad for blacks.

Political analyst Brian Sobel says Trump's goal is to grab headlines and extend his appeal beyond white male voters to minorities.

"It's all calculated because he realizes that if he doesn't expand his base, he doesn't win this thing," Sobel said.

Trump met with supporter and former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson and other Republicans Thursday to discuss outreach to young and minority voters.

"A very important part of the message for me is the African American community because they have really been let down by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats," Trump said at the meeting.

"This is just the beginning of the dirty things that they will do. and people have to simply understand that's what you're seeing, desperation," Carson said.

Desperate or not, the rhetoric may need to give way if voters put a higher priority on policies and proposals in the upcoming debates.

"I would invite people to really get beyond that and really look deeper at positions and those kinds of things because that's how we elect people," Sobel said.

So far, Trump and Clinton have agreed to face off in three debates. The first is September 26th at Hofstra University in New York. That's followed with debates on October 9th in St. Louis and October 19th in Las Vegas.