During the third and final Presidential debate in Las Vegas, Republican nominee Donald Trump refused to confirm whether he would accept the result of the election on 8th November.
Debating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he also said he expects a key ruling that made abortion legal in America to be overturned if he wins, and doubled down on his stance that the sexual harassment allegations against him are fabricated, while Mrs. Clinton accused her rival of being a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
Here's our US correspondent Lorna Shaddick.
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High stakes, put it all on the table, play your cards right… every gambling metaphor in the book was used to characterised this third and final contest in Las Vegas.
And it was clear that for Donald Trump, down in the polls in most swing states, it was indeed a big fight night - one he began in a more restrained manner than usual.
The contest started with a bigger focus on policy than personality - and a discussion on the Supreme Court. That brought up exchanges on gun control and abortion, during which Donald Trump said he would appoint justices who would make it possible to repeal Roe v Wade, the case that made abortion legal in the US:
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Next came immigration, a topic on which Donald Trump waxed lyrical
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And moderator Chris Wallace pinned Hillary Clinton down on a leaked Wikileaks email in which she talked about her dream of a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders
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But it was Clinton's pivot away from that issue, on to where those leaked Wikileaks emails might have COME from, which really got her opponent fired up. She highlighted his refusal to condemn President Putin and accused him of being manipulated by the Kremlin:
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With tempers now flaring, the subject switched to one of the six planned topics that was always likely to bring fireworks - fitness to be president. Asked about the 9 women who have come forward to accuse him of sexual harassment, Donald doubled down on denial:
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But Hillary Clinton - clearly hoping her words would be in the minds of women across America as they head to the ballot box - went in for another punch:
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That then led the perhaps the most important and remarkable moment of the night, when Mr. Trump - who has been claiming throughout his campaign but especially in the last few weeks that the election will be rigged - was asked if he would accept the result.
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There were gasps from the audience at that reply - and barely was the debate over before Republican senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of S Carolina had tweeted their condemnation. Onstage, Hillary Clinton voiced her concern:
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The debate did then move on to the current attack on Mosul, but that refusal to accept the election results had already written the newspaper headlines and the TV straplines for the rest of the night - and there the focus is likely to remain. Mr. Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has said she'll counsel him to accept the results, and they'll be easy to accept, because he'll win. But her candidate already had an uphill battle, and with just 20 days to go until voting day, this debate may have kept him in position with core supporters, but is unlikely to have won him any new ones.