Trump and Hillary trade jabs in Twitter skirmish

Published Thu, Jun 1, 2017 · 08:13 AM

[WASHINGTON] President Donald Trump has taken a swing on Twitter at one of his favorite punching bags, Democrat Hillary Clinton - and his former presidential rival has hit back with her own zinger.

The trouble started Wednesday when Clinton raised questions over whether Mr Trump's campaign was linked to the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Speaking at a technology conference in California, Mrs Clinton said Russia's government "could not have known how best to weaponise that information unless they had been guided" by Americans with polling data.

Mrs Clinton was referring to the hacking of her campaign's emails, which she has argued was partly to blame for her losing to the real estate mogul.

"I'm leaning Trump," she said Wednesday of the connections.

"I think it's pretty hard not to."

Mr Trump was not buying it.

"Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC," he wrote on Twitter.

Mrs Clinton has also placed partial blame on fake news about her being widely spread on Facebook and now ex-FBI director James Comey re-opening his probe into her misuse of government email.

She took to Twitter to fire back at Mr Trump.

"People in covfefe houses shouldn't throw covfefe," she wrote in a brief message.

Mr Trump used the non-existant word in an incomplete sentence tweeted just after midnight Tuesday. The tweet remained online for some 5.5 hours, sparking worldwide ridicule.

The message was finally deleted early Wednesday, and Mrs Trump joke about it in a subsequent tweet.

Spokesman Sean Spicer was asked about the cryptic word.

"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," Mr Spicer told incredulous reporters at a news briefing. He offered no further explanation.

AFP

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