Hillary hits Trump with new ad on race
WASHINGTON: Democrat Hillary Clinton called on Friday for voters to reject what she called the “bigotry” of Donald Trump’s White House campaign, releasing a television ad criticising his efforts to appeal to black voters and saying she was reaching out to people from all parties who are troubled by his candidacy.
The ad shows video of Trump’s controversial pitch to black voters, in which the Republican candidate urges them to support him by asking, “What do you have to lose?” It also shows headlines about a racial discrimination lawsuit the New York real estate mogul faced in the 1970s.
Clinton’s presidential campaign said the ad, released a day after she gave a speech accusing Trump of fuelling America’s “radical fringe,” would air in the hotly contested states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Clinton followed up her tough speech by saying on Friday that Trump’s temperament and divisiveness made him unfit for the White House.
“I am reaching out to everyone, Republicans, Democrats, independents, everyone who is as troubled as I am by the bigotry and divisiveness of Donald Trump’s campaign,” she told MSNBC, adding she was asking “fair-minded Americans to repudiate this kind of divisive demagoguery.”
Trump countered on Friday by releasing a video showing Clinton in the 1990s discussing a crime bill and referring to “superpredators,” or at-risk youth she said needed to be brought under control. Trump’s video also shows US Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s main opponent in the Democratic primary this year, calling that a “racist term.”
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told MSNBC on Friday Clinton was trying to deflect attention from controversy around her family’s charitable foundation and her use of private email address and server rather than a government one while she was secretary of state from 2009-2013.
In targeting what she terms Trump’s bigotry, Clinton hopes to remind voters of controversial statements he has made over the course of the campaign.