After
Hillary Clinton’s denunciations of Donald Trump as a race-baiting
demagogue, he dug up the oldest comeback in the book: I know you are but
what am I?
The
Republican presidential candidate says that Clinton talks a good game
about helping African-Americans and Hispanics but that she’s actually a
bigot whose policies are “selling them down the tubes.”
“She
is a bigot, because you look at what’s happening to the inner cities.
You look at what’s happening to African-Americans and Hispanics in this
country,” Trump said during a Thursday night interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “She’s not doing anything for those communities.”
Cooper pressed Trump, who had called Clinton a bigot at a rally Wednesday night,
on the definition of “bigotry” and whether the GOP nominee thinks
Clinton has antipathy or hatred toward a particular group, or if he just
thinks her policies are bigoted.
“She
is. Of course she is! Her policies — they’re her policies. She comes
out with policies, and others that believe like she does also,” Trump
continued. “But she came out with policies over the years — this is over
the years, long time — she’s totally bigoted. There’s no question about
that.”
In general, Trump said Clinton has been “extremely bad for African-Americans” and “extremely bad for Hispanics.”
“You
look at what’s happened with her policies and the policies of President
Obama and others. Look at the poverty. Look at the rise in poverty.
Look at the rise in violence,” he said.
Asked again if hatred is at the core of Clinton’s alleged shortcomings, Trump suggested that she might also just be lazy.
Earlier Thursday in Reno, Nev., Clinton gave a speech in which she denounced Trump as a bigot who has capitalized on discredited conspiracy theories and racial resentment to fuel his campaign.
Casting
her candidacy as a nonracist alternative, Clinton praised black poet
Maya Angelou as “a great American who I admire very much” and quoted an
“old Mexican proverb” in order to argue that Trump had revealed his true
colors with his provocative comments and his associations with fringe
figures.
On Friday morning, like clockwork, both candidates continued to accuse each other of racism — this time through video.
Trump’s
team posted a video to his Instagram page with the caption, “The
Clinton’s are the real predators…” It showed Clinton in 1994 defending
the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, signed into law.
“They
are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators,” she said
at the time. “No conscience. No empathy. We can talk about how they
ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.” Black Lives
Matter activists and others have challenged her past use of the term
“superpredators” this election cycle.
Trump’s
attack video also incorporated a moment from the Democratic primary
debates. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said “superpredators” was “a racist
term and everybody knew it was a racist term.”
Not
to be outdone, the Clinton campaign also released a new attack ad that
accused Trump of being out of touch with the African-American community.
The 30-second video strings together several controversial quotes from
Trump — such as “look at my African-American” and “I have a great relationship with the blacks”
— while dramatic music plays in the background. The video also quotes
Trump asking, “What the hell do you have to lose” by voting for him. The
Clinton camp’s answer: everything.
On
Thursday night, Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, scoffed at the
accusation that she is bigoted against black people. He told “Late Show”
host Stephen Colbert that she fought for racial justice in the juvenile
justice system in the South and against segregation in Alabama after
finishing law school.
“At
his early career,” Kaine added of Trump, “Donald Trump was a real
estate guy who got sued by the Justice Department for discriminating
against people in housing, writing the letter ‘C’ on applications if
they were minority.”
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