The pace of bizarre events in the presidential campaign continues at a dizzying clip. On Friday, David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post broke the story that in 2005, Donald Trump bragged about committing sexual assaultto, of all people, a first cousin of former president George W. Bush and former presidential candidate Jeb Bush.
In the debate Sunday night (10/09), Mr. Trump said it was just locker room banter, and that the assaults never happened. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks released emails hackedfrom Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s gmail account which indicated that, in some speeches to Wall Street banks, Sec. Hillary Clinton discussed the need to hold one position in private and another in public.
Last night, she said that political leaders who did so include Abraham Lincoln. This only confirmed for her detractors that she can’t be trusted. Over the weekend, about 50 Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain and Sen. Rob Portman disowned Trump.Trump disowned them right back, and even publicly parted ways with his running mate over policy in Syria. Clinton is widely credited with not making any mistakes last night, but the Trump camp most certainly considers it a win.
Let’s put winning and losing aside for the moment, and ask two political observers what we learned last night, and where we’ve come as the presidential campaign enters its final month.
Liz Copeland is the founder of theUrban Conservative Project, and a former Republican candidate for the Baltimore City Council. Charles Robinson reports on business and politics for Maryland Public Television. They joined Tom in studio.
