Candidates prepare for second debate
Bill Clinton’s impeachment saga could be a topic.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump, reeling from harsh criticisms of his performance at the first presidential debate, will unleash a personal assault related to her husband’s infidelities at their next faceoff in a week.
It is an attack her campaign aides have been aware could come since 2015, when Trump’s aides raised the impeachment battle that defined Bill Clinton’s second term as president to criticize Hillary Clinton’s character.
Now, with Trump’s advisers struggling to refocus the race away from his critiques of the appearance of Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe winner who was invoked by Clinton during the debate, the Republican nominee’s campaign has signaled a slashing effort going forward.
Hillary Clinton’s team, Democrats supporting her and many senior Republicans believe that rehashing Bill Clinton’s behavior will be self-defeating for Trump, who is facing a historic gender gap and whose first marriage ended after an affair. Clinton has also previously tended to benefit when she is seen as a victim of personal attacks.
Still, Democrats consider such tactics inevitable, particularly since Trump is now being advised by several people connected to efforts in the late 1990s to reveal Clinton’s affair with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky and to the subsequent impeachment fight.
Trump’s debate prep sessions included discussions about using the attack as a response if Hillary Clinton discussed the Republican nominee’s treatment of women over the years. Now, there is a debate about whether to raise it to Hillary Clinton’s face at the next debate, according to two people briefed on the discussions, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
To prepare for such an attack, the Clinton campaign and groups supporting her have pored over opposition research about Trump’s statements about women over the years, as well as his marital history.
“We are firmly convinced that he is only raising this because he is on defense over his own sexist comments about Alicia Machado and he is lashing out now in a position of total weakness,” said a Clinton spokesman, Brian Fallon.
Trump, a first-time candidate with a decades-long trail of negative comments on talk radio and in interviews about women’s appearances and abilities, has only haltingly broached both the subject of Bill Clinton and his infidelities — as well as disputed claims that Clinton worked to discredit women involved with her husband. But through talking points administered to surrogates Wednesday that referred to Bill Clinton’s affairs and how Hillary Clinton handled them, Trump has injected it into the campaign without saying it himself, a tactic he has used throughout his campaign.
He discussed it himself in passing at his one public event on Thursday, a rally in Bedford, N.H.
“The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal, corruption and scandal. And impeachment for lying. Impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach,” Trump said.
Democrats believe such critiques will become only harsher and more pointed.
Hillary Clinton declined to wade into the topic Thursday.
“I’m not going to comment on how he runs his campaign. You’ll be able to see — we have two more debates — what he says and what I say,” she told reporters.