‘She gets rich making you poor’
Trump opens general election faceoff against Clinton with broadside
NEW YORK — Donald Trump launched a blistering attack Wednesday on Hillary Clinton’s record and character, slamming his presidential rival as a “world class liar” who raked in personal profits from her tenure at the State Department. The billionaire businessman claimed, “She gets rich making you poor.”
Trump’s broadside marked his opening salvo in a general election faceoff with Clinton that has already turned bruising and deeply personal. The presumptive Republican nominee called Clinton the “most corrupt” person to ever run for president and accused of her of spreading “death, destruction and terrorism” while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.
Clinton, campaigning in North Carolina, called Trump’s charges “outlandish lies.”
“He’s going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance,” Clinton said. “All he can try to do is try to distract us.”
Trump was pointed yet measured as he ticked through several of Republicans’ favorite critiques of Clinton, including her use of private email as secretary of state and her role in responding to the attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Several of his claims were inaccurate or exaggerated, including incorrectly saying she wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States.
“In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East,” Trump said, blaming her for an invasion of Libya that “handed the country over to ISIS,” for making Iran the dominant Islamic power in the region and for supporting regime change in Syria that led to a bloody civil war. He charged that her “disastrous strategy” of announcing a departure date from Iraq created another opening for ISIS there.
There was no U.S. invasion of Libya. Clinton initially opposed but then sought credit for the NATOled air campaign to help rebels overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. (Trump spoke in support of U.S. intervention at the time.)
While the violence destabilized Libya, Islamic State inroads there have been more recent and are largely limited to a small coastal area of the country.
Wednesday’s address came at a pivotal moment for Trump’s presidential campaign. The political novice has struggled with the transition to a general election race, getting bogged down by self-created controversies and failing to invest in the staff and infrastructure needed for the fall campaign.
Even as Trump blasted Clinton, he returned to some of the core themes that first powered his surprising presidential campaign. He railed against professional politicians and urged Americans to seize an opportunity to shake up a “rigged” system.
“This election will decide whether we’re ruled by the people or the politicians,” Trump said, standing before a friendly audience in a ballroom at his hotel in New York’s SoHo neighborhood.