RALEIGH, N.C. – 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 and a bad microphone and said he was holding back to avoid embarrassing Clinton. 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.”