Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump is “inciting mob violence” that recalls lynch mobs Monday evening at an MSNBC townhall, where she also took tough questions on foreign policy and trade. 
 
 Clinton told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who moderated the event in Springfield, Illinois, that she holds Trump responsible for the violence seen in recent days at his rallies, and believes his rhetoric is not only wrong and offensive, but also “dangerous.” “He’s been building this incitement,” she said. 
 
 RELATED: Sanders: Trump enticing his supporters to be violent 
 
 “When you are inciting mob violence, which is what Trump is doing,” Clinton said, “there’s a lot of memories that people have. They’re in the DNA. People remember mob violence that lead to lynching, people remember mob violence that lead to people being shot, being grabbed, being mistreated. And it’s something that has a deep, almost psychological resonance to people who have ever been in any position of feeling somewhat fearful, somewhat worried.” 
 
 Clinton also took tough questions from Matthews on her history of supporting military intervention abroad, including the Iraq War. 
 
 Close video Clinton: Trump is 'inciting mob violence' At an MSNBC town hall on Monday, Hillary Clinton decried the “disturbing amount” of political divisiveness in the United States, and called the unrest at a canceled Donald Trump rally on Friday a “natural outgrowth” of Trump’s rhetoric. share tweet email save Embed 
 
 The former senator and secretary of state said she believed Iraq had nuclear weapons in the lead up to the war, noting that the Clinton administration believed that Iraq obfuscated its plans from international weapons inspectors during her husband’s final years in office. 
 
 But Clinton said Bush misled the Congress in saying the vote for military authorization in Iraq would not be used to actually go to war. “I believed George W. Bush when he said we’re going to let the inspectors finish the job. ‘This vote will give me the leverage,’ he claimed, ‘to make sure that happens,’ ” she said. 
 
 On regime change in general, Clinton insisted she is not a hawk. “No, I’m a smart power advocate,” she said. And while she agreed that toppling dictators or foreign government is not advisable in “the vast majority of cases,” there are exceptions, like in Rwanda and the hypothetical of assassinating Hitler before he took power in Germany. “You cannot paint with a broad brush,” she said. 
 
 Matthews also pressed her on why she changed her position on the Trans Pacific Partnership, the massive trade deal with a dozen Asian countries she came out against last year. Sanders had opposed it from the beginning. MSNBC conducted a separate town hall with Sanders, moderated by Chuck Todd, which aired immediately before Clinton’s. RELATED: Hillary Clinton sounds off on trade, the economy Free trade is an emotional issue in states that have lost manufacturing jobs like Ohio and Illinois, both of which hold primaries Tuesday, but Clinton said that while she and Sanders agree on TPP specifically, they have different views on trade in general. 
 
 “I know you have to trade with the rest of the world,” she said. “He just is reflexively against anything that has any international implications.” 
 
 She spoke again about her limitations as a politician, acknowledging she is not as natural an orator as her husband or President Obama. “I’m not bringing people to fever pitches of incredible admiration,” she said. “But whenever I have a job, I do it well.” ||||| CNN held a Democratic town hall on Sunday night to talk about issues ahead of the March 15 primaries. | AP Photo Trump gets torched at Democratic town hall Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders condemned the GOP front-runner for lying and applauding violence. 
 
 COLUMBUS, Ohio — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a surprisingly tight battle for Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri heading into Sunday, but they barely went after each other at all on Sunday. Instead — unsurprisingly — Donald Trump was in the crosshairs. 
 
 “Donald Trump is responsible for what happens at his events,” said Clinton at a CNN/TV One town hall here at Ohio State University, referring to violence at the Republican front-runner’s recent rallies She sent a similar message at the Ohio Democratic Party’s Legacy Dinner down the road at Columbus’ convention center earlier in the evening. 
 
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 Trump has been “not only inciting violence, but applauding violence,” Clinton added, revealing later in the evening that foreign leaders had contacted her asking whether they could endorse her in order to stop the billionaire real estate developer. 
 
 Sanders also spent the evening condemning Trump, again calling him a “pathological liar” to kick off the town hall, when presented with a clip of Trump suggesting protesters were Sanders supporters. “Donald Trump is literally inciting violence with his supporters. He’s saying if you go out and beat somebody up, I’ll pay the legal fees. That is an outrage." 
 
 Asked how he felt about Marco Rubio’s worry that someone could be killed at a Trump rally, the Vermont senator said, “Senator Rubio has a legitimate concern." 
 
 Yet the day also veered into a policy discussion as Clinton seeks to stave off another result like her shocking loss in Michigan last week. Sanders has carried his same Michigan-like focus on the former secretary of state’s previous support for multinational trade deals into Ohio, which he says has also been damaged by those deals. 
 
 One day after Clinton hardened her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, she again suggested to voters that Sanders’ criticisms of her stances were unwarranted. 
 
 “I have proposed, for the first time ever, a trade prosecutor to report to the president, and more trade investigators,” she said at the town hall, shortly after telling the packed party dinner, “I will stop dead in my tracks any trade deal that hurts America, and American workers." 
 
 Noting that she voted against the CAFTA deal, she also pointed to her opposition to the TPP: “When it comes to the TPP, I did wait and see what was actually in it, and then I opposed it because I concluded I couldn’t look American workers in the eye and say, ‘this deal will raise your wages.’" 
 
 But, in the wake of a trade-oriented message that helped propel him to victory in Michigan, Sanders re-doubled his pressure on Clinton on the topic. 
 
 “One of the very strong differences between Secretary Clinton and myself, she has supported almost all of those trade agreements, I have opposed them,” said the underdog, who is hoping for surprise showing on Tuesday to keep the momentum of his White House bid going. “Tonight, on CNN, there are going to be major ads from all the major corporations, saying, ‘Buy this product, buy that product.’ Well, if they want us to buy those products, the time is overdue for them to manufacture the products in America, not in China." 
 
 Nonetheless, the most poignant moment of the night came on a topic that has hardly been at the center of the national debate, when a man wrongfully accused of murder spent 39 years in prison -- some of those on death row -- asked her about her support for the death penalty. 
 
 Clinton responded carefully, telling the man she supports it only for very specific cases within the federal system, and primarily in cases of mass killings, such as terrorism. 
 
 The evening's most surprising moment came earlier, when Sanders was asked to name the Republican with whom he gets along best. He has often declined to answer this question, insisting he would be hurting that person’s political career. But, pressed by moderator Jake Tapper, he gave an unexpected name: Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe. 
 
 Yes, Sanders acknowledged, Inhofe — who once famously brought a snowball to the Senate floor to make a point about climate change — denies that science, and yes, he is “really, really conservative." But they get along personally. 
 
 Still, the night frequently veered back to Trump, whom Clinton accused during the dinner of “running a cynical campaign of hate and fear for one reason: to get votes." 
 
 Just two days after Trump’s Chicago rally was shut down due to large protests, the front-runner urged: “If you want to shut him down, let’s vote him down." 
 
 Sanders couldn’t escape the topic of the Republican front-runner, even when he tried. 
 
 Asked by Tapper whether his trade policies were too restrictive, Sanders shot back: “Nobody is taking about building a wall around the United States.” 
 
 As members of the audience giggled, the inadvertent Trump reference appeared to dawn on him. 
 
 “Oh, wait,” he said. “There is one guy. Let me rephrase: Nobody rational is talking about building a wall." ||||| Donald Trump Donald TrumpOvernight Energy: GOP vows to fight new methane rule Clinton, whiskey and George Washington: You won’t believe what they have in common Assad labels Trump ‘natural ally’ to fight terror MORE on Thursday delivered an extended defense of his opposition to the war in Iraq, charging that rival Hillary Clinton Hillary Rodham ClintonDNC charter requires chairman be full time Clinton, whiskey and George Washington: You won’t believe what they have in common Katie Pavlich: Post-defeat, Dems veer left MORE is lying about him initially backing the invasion. 
 
 The Republican nominee has hammered Clinton for voting in 2002 to authorize the war, citing it as evidence that she lacks the judgment to lead the nation’s armed forces. 
 
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 Clinton has acknowledged her Iraq vote was a mistake and says that as president she will only use military force as a last resort. 
 
 But at a veterans forum on Wednesday night, Clinton said Trump’s position on the war, at the time, was no different from hers. She said that Trump initially supported the invasion but has since flip-flopped. 
 
 Trump has been a fierce critic of the war for years, but Democrats are raising questions about when his opposition began. 
 
 Delivering a speech on education in Cleveland, the billionaire businessman on Thursday accused the media of misrepresenting his position. 
 
 “Iraq is one of the biggest differences in this race,” Trump said. “I opposed going in and I did oppose it, despite the media saying no, yes, no, I opposed going in and I opposed the reckless way Hillary Clinton took us out, along with President Obama, letting ISIS fill that big terrible void.” 
 
 Trump said he did an interview with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto three months before the war started, in which he said then-President George W. Bush should be focused on the economy instead of engaging in foreign wars. 
 
 The Republican said he gave another interview in March of 2003, just days after the conflict started, in which he was quoted as calling the war “a mess,” though he did not say which outlet printed that interview. 
 
 “If I had been in Congress at the time I would have cast a vote in opposition,” Trump said. “For years I’ve been a critic of these kinds of reckless, foreign invasions and interventions that have been a hallmark of trigger-happy Hillary and her failed career.” 
 
 Trump read a long passage from an Esquire article from 2004 in which he condemned the war at length. The magazine has since added a note to its article saying the interview took place after the war began and is not evidence that Trump opposed the conflict from the start. 
 
 Democrats are pointing to a 2002 interview Trump conducted with Howard Stern, in which the radio shock jock asked Trump if he supported the Iraq invasion. 
 
 “Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.” 
 
 Trump has backed away from those remarks, saying that at the time he was merely a private businessman and hadn’t given the matter much thought. 
 
 “I had no access to briefings or the intelligence surveys that she did,” Trump said on Thursday, referencing Clinton's background as senator. “I didn’t have access to anything that she did, and frankly nobody cared too much what I said, I don’t know why I was even asked the question.” 
 
 “But in Iraq my judgment was right and hers, with all of this great information and all of this intelligence information, was wrong,” Trump added. 
 
 Liberal opposition research groups on Thursday circulated several interviews Trump conducted in 2003 that they say cast doubt on claims he always opposed the war. 
 
 In the Cavuto interview that Trump cited, he also said: “It’s sort like either do it or don’t do it.” 
 
 And in a March 2003 interview with Cavuto, in which he was asked about the war’s impact on the economy, Trump responded: “It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint.” 
 
 Later that year Trump called the toppling of Saddam Hussein “a huge day for this country.” 
 
 But as the war dragged on, Trump’s criticism of the war escalated. 
 
 “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in,” he said in the Esquire interview. “I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country? C'mon.” 
 
 “What was the purpose of this whole thing?” he continued. “Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” 
 
 The Clinton campaign is seeking to raise questions about Trump’s position on Iraq because it is one of the lynchpins of his argument that she lacks judgment to be commander in chief. 
 
 “My opponent was for the war in Iraq,” the former secretary of State said on Wednesday night at the military-focused forum. “He said he wasn’t ― you can go back and look at the record.” 
 
 Trump is furious over the allegations and says the media is helping her muddy the waters. 
 
 “I see the lies last night that Donald Trump was always in favor of the war in Iraq, and that’s why I have to do this, because the media is so dishonest, so terribly dishonest,” Trump said. 
 
 “I just had to set the record straight because there’s so much lying going on.”
– The day before vital Democratic primary votes, Bernie Sanders found himself defending his status as a recently added card-carrying member of the Democratic Party. At an MSNBC town hall in Ohio, Sanders, who has served as an independent in Congress for decades, explained that he decided to run for president as a Democrat to gain more media coverage. He said financial reasons were also behind his decision not to launch a presidential bid as an independent, the Hill reports. "If you're a billionaire, you can do that. I'm not a billionaire. So the structure of American politics today is such that I thought the right ethic was to run within the Democratic Party," said Sanders, who stressed that he has caucused with Democrats for 25 years and always opposed right-wing Republicans. At a town hall in Illinois, meanwhile, Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump for "inciting mob violence" and dealt with tough questions on trade deals and her vote in favor of invading Iraq. She said George W. Bush claimed that the vote for military authorization wouldn't really lead to war. "I believed George W. Bush when he said we're going to let the inspectors finish the job. 'This vote will give me the leverage,' he claimed, 'to make sure that happens,'" she said. The Washington Post reports that during a commercial break, microphones picked up her chat with host Chris Matthews about the race. She called Donald Trump "candy" that news networks can't stay away from and wondered about Chris Christie's support for the tycoon, asking "Did he have a debt?"