Donald Trump “escalated his attacks on former President Bill Clinton’s past in an interview on Wednesday with Sean Hannity on Fox News, bringing up an old allegation of rape,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “For example, I looked at The New York Times. Are they going to interview Juanita Broaddrick? Are they going to interview Paula Jones? Are they going to interview Kathleen Willey?”
He continued: “In one case, it’s about exposure. In another case, it’s about groping and fondling and touching against a woman’s will. And rape.”
“Recalling sunnier days of growth, low unemployment and budget surpluses under her husband, Hillary Clinton is telling Americans that Bill Clinton will be ‘in charge of revitalizing the economy’ if she wins the White House,” ABC News reports.
“What his work would be remains unclear: not a cabinet post, she indicated. But, as she has been saying for months, she expects him to play a leading role.”
“The situation is highly unusual: Not only would Clinton be the first president to have a “First Dude,” she’d also be the first to have a former president in the East Wing.”
“The Clinton Global Initiative, which arranges donations to help solve the world’s problems, arranged a financial commitment that benefited a for-profit company part-owned by people with ties to the Clintons, including a current and a former Democratic official and a close friend of former President Bill Clinton,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Mr. Clinton talked up the company in public and endorsed it with then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu when the company was in line for a federal grant, which it later won.”
Joe Klein: “He had larger problems than an email server: he had recently been found out as a Vietnam draft dodger and a womanizer. People called him Slick Willie. Within weeks, he would be in a deeper, darker hole than Hillary has experienced this year–he would be running third, behind George H.W. Bush and the independent Ross Perot. By June, only 13% of the public thought him trustworthy. He was toast.”
“This is old news, but it’s living history for the Clintons. It is what keeps Hillary buoyant, even as the most glamorous Democratic constituencies–celebrities, idealistic college kids–have flocked to Bernie Sanders. More than any other politicians I’ve covered, the Clintons have a perfect sense of chronology. They know that politics moves more slowly than the daily media frenzy, that new story lines–comebacks, especially–are catnip to cable networks. They know that polls can change, that Trump will have his day, that the general election will be Armageddon. But they are confident she’ll win.”
Billionaire GOP donor Charles Koch told ABC News that “it’s possible” Hillary Clinton could make a better president than the remaining candidates in the Republican presidential primary.
Koch also said that he believed Bill Clinton was a better president “in some ways” than George W. Bush.
Said Koch: “In other ways, I mean Clinton wasn’t an exemplar. But as far as the growth of government, the increase in spending. It was 2.5 times [more] under Bush than it was under Clinton.”
“The release Tuesday by the National Archives of a fresh trove of documents detailing the Clinton administration’s dealings with billionaire Donald Trump could become the latest fuel for flame-throwing in an already incendiary 2016 presidential race,” Fox News reports.
The documents include: a signed copy of Trump’s The Art of the Deal, delivered to a top aide to then-President Clinton; logs of Trump’s invitations to the Clinton White House; and an entry about a Trump Towers photo-op with the president.
Bill Clinton held more public events for his wife’s campaign in February and March than the candidate herself, National Journal reports.
“Sometimes when I am on a stage like this, I wish that we weren’t married, then I could say what I really think.”
— Bill Clinton, quoted by NBC News, quickly adding, “I don’t mean that in a negative way. I am happy.”
“Bill Clinton uncorked an extended attack on Sen. Bernie Sanders, harshly criticizing Mr. Sanders and his supporters for what he described as inaccurate and “sexist” attacks on Hillary Clinton,” the New York Times reports.
“He even likened an incident last year, in which Sanders staffers obtained access to Clinton campaign voter data, to stealing a car with the keys in the ignition.”
NBC News: “The former president appeared angry as he poured scorn on his wife’s opponent, portraying the Sanders campaign as dishonest and his healthcare proposals as unrealistic.”
Washington Post: “For weeks, former president Bill Clinton has been the doomsday device of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — a mighty weapon capable of doing great good or harm to her campaign — so held in reserve until absolutely needed.”
New York Times: “It is still early enough in the race for Mr. Clinton to warm up. (And he can take some time to warm up.) A more subdued Bill Clinton may not be such a bad thing either, say some Democrats, who cringe as they recall the distraction of his piping-hot words about Barack Obama in the 2008 race.”
“Yet the Clinton of lore, the once-in-a generation political natural who fought back to win his party’s nomination in 1992 and came through in clutch moments with great speeches over the years, has yet to appear.”
“The Clinton Presidential Library plans to release later this year a trove of records relating to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and his business,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The documents, which must be released in early April unless the White House or Mr. Clinton’s office request an extension or claim executive privilege, could prompt further criticism from Republicans that Mr. Trump’s relationship with the Clintons in the decades before his presidential campaign was inappropriately cozy.”
A new Fox News poll finds that more voters thinks Bill Clinton is respectful of women than Donald Trump, 50% to 37%.
“Well, I don’t want to say it’s a threat. But it is a threat. She’s married to an abuser. A woman claimed rape, and all sorts of things. I mean, horrible things.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview on Meet the Press, about bringing former President Bill Clinton’s past into the 2016 race.
New York Times: “Fifteen years almost to the day since former President Bill Clinton left office, a newly released batch of documents from his library offers a fresh look at his later years in the White House even as his wife, Hillary Clinton, seeks to win the post for herself. The documents transcribed phone calls and meetings between Mr. Clinton and Tony Blair, then the British prime minister and perhaps Mr. Clinton’s best friend among foreign leaders.”
“With bracing bluntness and a smattering of R-rated language, the private conversations reveal a president sometimes unseen by the general public, one who veered from wonky discussions of the Northern Ireland peace process to serrated assessments of his American political opposition. Like a time capsule, the transcripts capture the priorities and perceptions of the moment that, judged with the harsh certainty of hindsight, look prescient or wildly off base.”
“Donald Trump again assailed Bill and Hillary Clinton Thursday for the former president’s sexual indiscretions,” NBC News reports.
“An Instagram video posted by Trump’s campaign features images of intern Monica Lewinsky, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner – a onetime political ally of the Clintons who resigned from Congress amid a sexting scandal – and criminally charged comedian Bill Cosby.”
Politico: Bill’s back, and so’s his baggage.
Donald Trump wants someone to ask Bill Clinton how he’s different from Bill Cosby, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “The whole Cosby thing is a weird deal, and he’s got himself some big problems, and you’d almost have to ask Bill Clinton that. It would be very interesting question to someday ask him. There certainly a lot of very strong charges against him, some pretty bad stuff.”
Asked by ABC News whether his sexual history was “fair game” in the campaign, Bill Clinton said “the Republicans have to decide who they want to nominate. I’m trying to tell the Democrats and the country why I think Hillary would be the best president.”
He added: “I think there’s always attempts to take the election away from the people.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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