When Clinton accused Trump of cashing in on the housing crisis, he said ‘that’s called business’

US presidential candidate Donald Trump has defended comments he made 10 years ago in which he said he was “sort of” hoping for a housing market crash, saying “that’s called business”.

Mr Trump and fellow presidential candidate Hillary Clinton went head-to-head today in the first presidential debate of the election campaign.

READ MORE: US Presidential Debate 2016 live updates

As the debate turned to the global financial crisis, during which millions of Americans lost their jobs, Ms Clinton said the last thing the US should do is “go back to policies that failed us” and used the opportunity to go after Mr Trump for comments he made ahead of the housing market crash of 2008.

“Let’s stop for a second and remember where we were eight years ago,” Ms Clinton said.

She went on to say the recession was in part caused by “tax policies that slashed taxes on Wall Street… in fact Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis.”

Mr Trump then interjected saying, “that’s called business, by the way”.

Two years before the US housing market collapsed Mr Trump said he was “sort of” hoping for a crash.

“I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy,” he said in a 2006 audiobook from Trump University, as cited by CNN.