Driving a nail into coffin of dead leader from America? Wise guys and heartless bully! (8)
I believe the answer is:
damaging
'driving a nail' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are present participle verbs, I don't see how one could define the other.
'coffin of dead leader from america? wise guys and heartless bully' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'dead' could be 'd' and 'd' is found in the answer.
'from' could be 'in' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'in' is found in the answer.
'america?' could be 'am' and 'am' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'into' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for damaging that I've seen before include "Hurting" , "injurious" , "Causing harm or injury" .)