Clinton Cries Racism Tagging Trump with KKK; Trump Says 'She Lies'

With only about 70 days left until the election, presidential campaign politics have hit a new low. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has released a new attack ad claiming Republican rival Donald Trump is a candidate of racists.

The new ad released by Clinton attempts to depict Trump as a racist, a candidate supported by white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan.

In the campaign commercial, a KKK member is heard saying, "The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes we believe in."

Clinton said Trump and Republicans are reinforcing harmful stereotypes, calling it a disturbing preview of the kind of president Trump would be.

"He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party," she said.

Trump said the allegations are the oldest ploy in the Democratic playbook.

"When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one, tired argument: 'you're racist, you're racist, you're racist!' Trump insisted.

Trump said Clinton was not only attacking him, but millions of good Americans who support him.

"She lies, she smears, she paints decent Americans as racists," said Trump, who then defended the core ideas of his candidacy.

But Clinton isn't backing down. In a speech in the swing state of Nevada, she also tried to tie Trump to the so-called "AltRight" or "alternative right," a very vocal group whose nationalist beliefs push beyond mainstream conservatism.

"He's taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America's two major political parties," she said.

Trump's campaign said he's never used the term "alt-right" and disavows "any groups or individuals associated with a message of hate."

"Hillary Clinton's short speech is pandering to the worst instincts in our society. She should be ashamed of herself!" Trump tweeted.

In New Hampshire Thursday, the GOP candidate said he doesn't want white supremacists to vote for him -- his campaign is about love for America, not hate.

And although Clinton still leads in national polls, it may become more difficult for her in the days ahead to restore voter trust and deflect attention away from her email scandal.

The battle over race took the spotlight temporarily off of Clinton's ongoing problems over her e-mails and the controversy over her connections between the Clinton Foundation and the U.S. State Department when she was Secretary of State. But the issue will be coming back.

A federal judge has ordered the State Department to begin releasing additional emails starting Sept. 13. They're among the nearly 15,000 messages Clinton did not turn over, but were discovered on her personal server by the FBI.