CNN’s Jake Tapper: should Trump really “be casting aspersions on the marriages of anyone else?”
Tapper asked if Trump’s latest attack on Clinton is “normal, stable behavior for a presidential nominee.”
CNN anchor Jake Tapper seemed genuinely shocked at what Donald Trump said over the weekend.
On Saturday night, Trump said, “I don’t even think [Hillary Clinton]’s loyal to Bill if you want to know the truth. And really, folks, really, why should she be, right?”
In an interview with Trump surrogate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Tapper called the comments “a wild and unsubstantiated attack.”
Tapper then grilled Giuliani as he tried to defend Trump. The transcript is really worth reading in full (via Media Matters):
TAPPER: Mr. Mayor, is that normal, stable behavior for a presidential nominee to launch an unsubstantiated attack?
GIULIANI: After she called him a racist, a misogynist, xenophobic — I don’t know — schizophrenic, and I don’t know what else she called him at the end of that debate, I think it’s fair game.
TAPPER: Just to make stuff up? Just wild accusations Hillary Clinton’s cheating on Bill? No proof of it whatsoever? Everything’s fair game?
GIULIANI: That was a sarcastic remark pointing out that Bill Clinton has, you know, quite a past and Hillary Clinton has done quite a job on attacking the people who were victims of Bill Clinton. And not only that, she poses as a feminist and she’s taken money from countries that stone women, kill women, have women —
TAPPER: Bill Clinton is not the nominee, sir. Bill Clinton is not the nominee. And this is my last question for you: Is the Trump campaign, is Donald Trump and the people around Donald Trump really the ones to be casting aspersions on the marriages of anyone else?
GIULIANI: It isn’t the marriage; it’s the way she goes on the attack and tries to hurt victims of sexual predations. She is the one that says victims should be taken seriously.
TAPPER: That wasn’t about her marriage? Him saying that she’s not loyal to Bill isn’t about her marriage?
GIULIANI: I am saying the problem with Hillary Clinton has nothing to do as far as I’m concerned with her marriage. It’s her protection of Bill Clinton for 20 or 25 years against allegations of rape, taking advantage of an intern, and going on the attack and trying to make those women appear to be insane in some cases. Also, it’s her posing as a feminist and taking millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, from countries that kill women, stone women, don’t allow women to drive, don’t allow women to have rights, and use women as property.
TAPPER: I mean, I just find it hard to believe that Mr. Trump would want to start leveling accusations about people’s marriages. But that’s all the time we have, Mr. Mayor.
GIULIANI: I think the accusations are about Hillary Clinton taking money from countries —
TAPPER: The accusation was that Hillary Clinton was cheating on Bill. That’s what the accusation was. It was an unhinged and wild accusation. I can understand why you can’t defend it because it’s indefensible.
As Tapper said, there’s no evidence that Clinton cheated on her husband. We know Bill cheated on Hillary, and Trump cheated on his first of three wives with his second wife. Yet Trump has apparently decided to try this new baseless attack anyway.
