DORAL, Fla. — Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he hoped Russia had hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, essentially encouraging an adversarial foreign power to cyberspy on a secretary of state’s correspondence.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said, staring directly into the cameras during a news conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Mr. Trump’s call was an extraordinary moment at a time when Russia is being accused of meddling in the United States’ presidential election. His comments came amid questions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, which American intelligence agencies have told the White House they have “high confidence” was the work of the Russian government.
Later in the news conference, when asked if he was really urging a foreign nation to hack into the private email server of Mrs. Clinton, or at least meddle in the nation’s elections, he dismissed the question. “That’s up to the president,” Mr. Trump said, before finally saying “be quiet” to the female questioner. “Let the president talk to them.”
The Clinton campaign immediately accused Mr. Trump of both encouraging Russian espionage against the United States and meddling in domestic politics.
“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
And a spokesman for Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a Republican, responded to Mr. Trump’s remarks by criticizing Russia’s behavior.
“Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug,” said Brendan Buck, the spokesman. “Putin should stay out of this election.”Mr. Trump has largely dismissed assertions that Russia was behind the Democratic committee breach as conspiracy theories — a view he reiterated again when he said the hack was “probably not Russia.”
But at one of his Florida golf courses, as the third day of the Democratic National Convention was set to begin in Philadelphia, the Republican presidential nominee refused to unequivocally call on Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, to not meddle in the election.
“I’m not going to tell Putin what to do,” Mr. Trump said. “Why should I tell Putin what to do?” He added that if Russia, or any foreign government, was, in fact, behind the hack, it simply showed just how little respect other nations have for the current administration. “President Trump would be so much better for U.S.-Russian relations” than a President Clinton, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t think he respects Clinton.”
In a series of Twitter messages, Jason Miller, a campaign spokesman, tried to clarify Mr. Trump’s comments. “To be clear, Mr. Trump did not call on, or invite, Russia or anyone else to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails today,” Mr. Miller wrote, adding that Mr. Trump was simply saying that if Russia or any other nations do have Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, they should share them immediately with the F.B.I.
As an avalanche of criticism poured over Mr. Trump, some Republicans defended his comments as a worthy attack on Mrs. Clinton. Former Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump was right to keep hammering Mrs. Clinton on the subject of her private emails.
Mr. Hoekstra said he was untroubled by Mr. Trump’s goading on of a foreign power.
”Trump is bringing up a fairly valid point: Hillary Clinton, with her personal email at the State Department, has put the Russians in a very enviable position,” Mr. Hoekstra said. “Most likely the Russians already have all that info on Hillary.”Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, said any hacking by Russia should not be tolerated, but he also faulted the Democrats.
“The F.B.I. will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking,” he said. “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”
He added, “That said, the Democrats singularly focusing on who might be behind it and not addressing the basic fact that they’ve been exposed as a party who not only rigs the government, but rigs elections while literally accepting cash for federal appointments, is outrageous.”
Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, suggested that Mr. Trump was going into unchartered territory with his remarks. “This is a national security issue now and the idea that you’d have any American calling for a foreign power to commit espionage in the U.S. for the purpose of somehow changing an election, I think, that we’re now in a national security space,” he said.
During his news conference, Mr. Trump was asked about critical comments President Obama made about him in an interview with NBC’s “Today Show” on Wednesday morning. “I think President Obama has been the most ignorant president in our history,” Mr. Trump said. “His views of the world, as he says, don’t jive, and the world is a mess.”
Mr. Trump was referring to remarks the president made Friday during a news conference at the White House, in which he rejected Mr. Trump’s dark portrait of the nation as a crumbling dystopia. The president actually said, “This vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people.”
But social media quickly lit up with criticism for Mr. Trump’s use of “jive” — common slang associated with black American jazz musicians in the 1940s and ’50s — instead of “jibe,” the word Mr. Obama used. Many viewed Mr. Trump’s language as a coded racial “dog whistle” to some of his supporters. “He will go down as one of the worst presidents in the history of our country,” Mr. Trump added. “It is a mess.”