As Clinton cheers, Donald Trump digs in following debate
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.
And at a campaign stop in Melbourne Tuesday evening, Trump said, “I was ... holding back — I didn't want to do anything to embarrass her.”
On Monday night, Trump had brushed off Clinton’s debate claim that he’d once shamed a former Miss Universe winner for her weight. But then he dug deeper on Tuesday — 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, Mich., 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 acknowledged 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.
Aiming to capitalize on Trump’s renewed focus on a woman’s weight, Clinton’s campaign also dispatched Machado to tell reporters how she spent years struggling with eating disorders after being humiliated publicly by Trump.
“I never imagined then, 20 years later I would be in this position, I would be in this moment, like, watching this guy again doing stupid things and stupid comments,” Machado said. “It’s really a bad dream for me.”
At the campaign stop in Melbourne Tuesday evening, Trump, the self-proclaimed master of massive rally crowds, even suggested that even he was a little intimidated by the audience of millions watching the debate Monday.
Trump told supporters that he knew he “was going into a situation where you were going to have one of the largest audiences in the history of television.”
He says he “took a deep breath” and “pretended I was talking to my family. It’s very interesting. You just block it out.”
Trump said he was holding back during his debate against Clinton because he didn’t want to embarrass her.
He previously said he held back to avoid embarrassing the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, who also was in the debate audience.
Trump’s team said he was planning to bring up Bill Clinton’s infidelities at the debate, but changed his mind.
The Republican presidential nominee addressed Monday night’s debate at length for the first time publicly during the Melbourne event. He was on his heels for much of the night of the debate, but he proclaimed victory on Tuesday as he faced rowdy supporters in a Brevard County airport hangar.
Trump said that Clinton was “stuck in the past” during the debate. He said she defended “the horrible status quo” for the 90-minute debate-stage clash.
Meanwhile, Democrats are sure to keep focusing on Trump’s false assertions about President Barack Obama’s birthplace, with the president scheduled to make an appearance today on Steve Harvey’s TV show.
Trump’s campaign aides had worked hard recently to keep him on message — and away from personal attacks — persuading him to use teleprompters and reach out to minority audiences.
Their moderate success in scripting Trump came to a halt on Tuesday. Though he insisted he’d done “very well,” Trump accused moderator Lester Holt of going harder on him than Clinton. He insisted he had “no sniffles” and no allergies despite the #snifflegate speculation that had exploded on social media. He suggested he’d been given a microphone with lower volume than Clinton’s.
Her cheerful reaction: “Anybody who complained about the microphone is not having a good night.”
The Trump campaign plans to spend $100 million on television advertising before Election Day, spokesman Jason Miller told The Associated Press. Of the $20 million in TV airtime his campaign had already scheduled, a whopping $13 million is aimed at Florida voters, according to Kantar Media's political ad tracker.
Trump did not address his criticism of Machado as he faced Hispanic voters in a small theater blocks from Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. In rather subdued tones, he only briefly addressed his debate performance the night before.
“It was an interesting evening certainly. Big league. Definitely big league,” Trump said. “I really enjoyed it.”
Clinton’s campaign announced Tuesday that she had gained the support of former Virginia Sen. John Warner, a Republican who also served as Navy secretary in the 1970s. Warner is scheduled to appear at an event today in Northern Virginia with Clinton running mate — and current Virginia senator — Tim Kaine.