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NEW YORK. — In a relentlessly antagonistic debate, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed over trade, the Iraq war, his refusal to release his tax returns and her use of a private email server, with Trump frequently showing impatience and political inexperience as Clinton pushed him to defend his past denigration of women and President Obama.Trump repeatedly interrupted Clinton and at times talked over her throughout the 90-minute debate, making slashing attacks that surely pleased his Republican base but may have been off-putting to women and undecided voters. He also left unchallenged her assertion that he paid no federal taxes for years.

For her part, Clinton repeatedly chided Trump for bungling his facts while accusing him of hiding information about his debts to Wall Street and foreign banks.

Trump’s strongest moments came early in the evening, when he put Clinton on the defensive over her support for free trade agreements that he argues have cost Americans jobs.

But on issues of race and gender, Trump was less sure-footed. When he was pressed about what he would say to people offended by his years of questions about whether Obama was born in the United States, Trump did not respond directly, instead claiming credit for Obama’s releasing his birth certificate.

“I say nothing because I was able to get him to produce it,” he said of the birth certificate.

Clinton also tried to drive a wedge between Trump and the president, whose approval ratings are on the rise. “Barack Obama is a man of great dignity, and I could tell how much it bothered him,” she said of the controversy, in a clear appeal to voters who deeply admire Obama but are less enthusiastic about her.

She also broadened the issue beyond so-called birtherism, which she called a “racist lie,” and accused Mr. Trump of having “a long record of engaging in racist behavior.” She singled out his family’s real estate company for being sued by the Justice Department in 1973 for racial discrimination.

Trump did little to rebut her charges of racism. He instead said that he had recently watched some of her debates with Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary and that she had been quite harsh on her then-rival. “You treated him with terrible disrespect,” he said. But Trump himself repeatedly demeaned Obama in the debate, at one point telling Mrs Clinton that he was “your president” and, at another, mocking Obama over his penchant for golf.

Later, Clinton recalled Trump’s stream of insults to women over the years, a determined effort by her to rally female voters to her side.

“This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men,” Clinton said. — New York Times