Candidates wage proxy wars

The two candidates for US vice president launched bitter attacks on the reputations and policies of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Tuesday during a fiery debate five weeks from Election Day.

Polls show Clinton gaining in the wake of a punishing week for her Republican rival Trump, who has been hammered by controversies over his taxes and his treatment of women.

Democrat Tim Kaine, a senator from Virginia, took aim at Trump from the beginning, saying the idea of the brash Republican as commander-in-chief "scares us to death."

An imperturbable Republican Mike Pence, governor of Indiana and a Christian conservative, calmly shot back.

"We see entire portions of the world, particularly the wider Middle East, spinning out of control. The situation we're watching hour-by-hour in Syria today is the result of the weak foreign policy that Hillary Clinton helped lead in this administration and create."

The two men repeatedly talked over each over as they clashed about Trump's failure to release his tax records, social security, how to handle an aggressive Russia, and the prospect of mounting debt, forcing moderator Elaine Quijano to intervene.

Pence stressed that a Trump administration would want the United States to "use military force to strike the targets of the Assad regime" if Russia continues its involvement in "this barbaric attack on Aleppo."

But the Republican clearly distanced himself from Trump's praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, hailing the US system as "superior to the crony corrupt cabal system in Russia in every way."

A second round of presidential debates is set for Sunday.

The format will be a bit different, with candidates fielding questions put to them by people in the audience.