Three days after emerging as the all-but-certain Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump launched a full-scale attack on Hillary Clinton over the way she handled her husband’s infidelity.
Trump, whose derogatory remarks about women have fueled his deep unpopularity among female voters, told supporters Friday night in Eugene, Ore., that nobody “maybe in the history of the country, politically, was worse than Bill Clinton with women.”
“He was a disaster,” Trump said. “I mean, there’s never been anybody like this, and she was a total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives.
“Have you ever read what Hillary Clinton did to the women that Bill Clinton had affairs with? And they’re going after me with women? Give me a break, folks.”
Trump’s comments underscored the volatility of his campaign against his presumed Democratic rival over the next six months, with the celebrity businessman unabashed about bursting through boundaries observed by traditional politicians. They also signaled he will try to force Clinton, and the nation, to relive the low points of her husband’s presidency and tumultuous campaigns.
Earlier in the primary season, Trump made similar remarks after Clinton criticized his attitude toward women. For weeks, he then took credit for muzzling the former first lady and her husband, suggesting his counterpunch was more than they could handle.
Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson did not respond to an email requesting comment.
At the Oregon rally, Trump said he expected Clinton forces to spend $90 million on ads attacking him for his comments about women. He alluded to crude remarks he’d made years ago on Howard Stern’s radio show. Trump said he would have “talked a little bit differently” if he’d known he was going to run for president some day.
In February, BuzzFeed News published highlights of Trump’s conversations with Stern. “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” he told Stern in one of them.
In Oregon, Trump offered an extended defense of his comment months ago that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her “wherever” when she asked him in a debate about calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”
When he turned to Clinton, Trump provided no specifics on his charge that she mistreated women who’d slept with her husband.
“She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler, and what she did to a lot of those women was disgraceful,” Trump said. “So put that in her bonnet, and let’s see what happens, OK?”