Washington: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has slammed the "disgraceful" media for allegedly favoring Hillary Clinton, saying without its "dishonesty and deceit", his Democratic rival would be nothing.
At an election rally in the crucial swing state of Florida, 70-year-old Trump described the media as crooked and thieves.
"These thieves and crooks, the media - not all of it, but much of it. They're the most crooked - they're almost as crooked as Hillary. They may even be more crooked than Hillary because without the media, she would be nothing," Trump alleged.
"Without the media, Hillary Clinton would be nothing. They're disgraceful. Just remember that. Without the dishonesty and deceit of the media, Hillary Clinton would be nothing, nothing," he said.
Trump reiterated his allegation that the system was rigged.
He said the best evidence of the rigged system was the fact that Clinton, despite her many "crimes" was allowed to run for the presidency.
Trump alleged that Clinton bleached and deleted 33,000 e-mails, lied to Congress under oath, made 13 telephones disappear, some with a hammer and then told the FBI that she could not remember 39 different times.
"That the leadership of the FBI and the Department of Justice let Clinton off the hook for her crimes against our nation is one of the saddest moments in the history of our country," he said.
Noting that the system was rigged, Trump said WikiLeaks also showed how John Podesta rigged the polls by oversampling Democrats, a voter-suppression technique.
"That's happening to me all the time. When the polls are even, when they leave them alone and do them properly, I'm leading. But you see these polls where they're polling Democrats, how's Trump doing? Oh, he's down. They're polling Democrats. The system is corrupt and it's rigged and it's broken and we're going to change it," he said.
Trump also slammed US President Barack Obama, saying he is "incompetent" and does not know what he is doing.
"We have an incompetent president. We have a president that doesn't know what he's doing. Take a look at Mosul. They announced four months ago, three months ago, we're going into Mosul. We're gonna get the leaders of ISIS because they're living in Mosul. Guess what? Twelve minutes later, the leaders left," he claimed.
"They're not stupid, they left. Whatever happened, remember the great general who was called the element of surprise, the element of surprise," he said.
