Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks with members of the media on board her campaign plane at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, Sept. 27, 2016. (AP photo)
Updated: Sep. 27, 2016
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) — A defensive Donald Trump gave Hillary Clinton plenty of fresh material for the next phase of her presidential campaign on Tuesday, choosing to publicly reopen and relitigate some her most damaging attacks.
The day after his first general election debate, Trump blamed the moderator, a bad microphone and anyone but himself for his performance. Next time, he threatened, he might get more personal and make a bigger political issue of former President Bill Clinton’s marital infidelities.
Things are already getting plenty personal. On Monday night, Trump brushed off Clinton’s debate claim that he’d once shamed a former Miss Universe winner for her weight. But then he dug deeper the next day — extending the controversy over what was one of his most negative debate night moments.
“She gained a massive amount of weight. It was a real problem. We had a real problem,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” about Alicia Machado, the 1996 winner of the pageant he once owned.
The comments were reminiscent of previous times when Trump has attacked private citizens in deeply personal terms. Earlier this month, he was interrupted by the pastor of a traditionally African-American church in Flint, Michigan, after breaking his agreement not to be political in his remarks. Though Trump abided by her wishes, he went after her the next morning on TV saying she was “a nervous mess” and that he thought “something was up.”
In July, Trump assailed the parents of Humayun Khan, a Muslim U.S. solider who was killed in Iraq in 2004, after the young man’s father spoke out against the Republican at the Democratic National Convention.
Trump’s latest comments about Machado were striking in that they came just as he was working to broaden his appeal among minority voters and women — key demographic groups he’s struggling to win.
Clinton aides on Tuesday that they’d laid a trap for Trump.
“He seemed unable to handle that big stage,” said Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. “By the end, with kind of snorting and the water gulping and leaning on the lectern that he just seemed really out of gas.”
Clinton interrupted a discussion of foreign policy in the final moments of the debate to remind viewers that Trump had called Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.” A video featuring Machado, a Clinton supporter, was released less than two hours after the debate finished.
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Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: Monday, September 26th, 2016
New York (TADIAS) — The first presidential debate of this election season between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is scheduled to take place at Hofstra University in New York on Monday night, with approximately 100 million viewers expected to be watching.
“For Clinton, a veteran debater, one of her biggest challenges will be both to provoke Trump and avoid being provoked by him, while delivering an earnest and candid performance. And for Trump, who had uneven and at times explosive debate performances during the Republican primary, his first one-on-one debate presents a serious test of his ability to stay on script and keep his cool” CNN notes.
The high-stakes face-off between the two candidates could set the tone for the rest of the election season, according to Matthew Dallek of George Washington University who points out that “the first of the three debates, traditionally the most watched, comes at a potentially game-changing moment.” Dallek told VOA news that “right now the election is closer than a lot of people anticipated, and so it matters a great deal for both of them.”
George Mason University Associate Professor of Government Jeremy Mayer notes: “In a normal year, the debates are one of the only ways to move the needles after the conventions. They are the moment where more people tune in and watch. What a debate can do is give a candidate a second chance to make a different impression or cement a negative impression.”
Per NBC: The Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump debate on Monday night won’t just be an argument over different policy visions. It will also be a contest about whether policy details are important at all. It will feature one super-wonky candidate who sounds like she could run the Federal Reserve and her opponent, who often speaks like a pundit analyzing the campaign instead of a man who could soon lead the world’s most influential nation.”
Watch: Clinton and Trump: Countdown to First One-On-One Showdown
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Related:
5 things to watch at Monday night’s Clinton-Trump debate
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