After claiming he wouldn’t bring up former President Bill Clinton’s history of sexual indiscretions at the presidential debates, Donald Trump amped up his attacks against Hillary Clinton and her husband’s marriage, promising to raise the subject at the next debate.
In an interview with the New York Times Friday, Trump referred to Bill Clinton’s various affairs while he was in the Oval Office and raised Hillary Clinton’s treatment of the women who were involved with her husband, including Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky.
“Hillary Clinton was married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics,” Trump said. “Hillary was an enabler, and she attacked the women who Bill Clinton mistreated afterward. I think it’s a serious problem for them, and it’s something that I’m considering talking about more in the near future.”
Trump had previously touched on the issue, floating an invite to Flowers to the first presidential debate on Twitter before his campaign confirmed that she was not invited.
Trump defended his own marital history to the New York Times, claiming that infidelity was “never a problem” in his own three marriages. Trump’s relationship with his second wife, Marla Maples, began while he was still married to Ivana Trump. Trump married his current wife Melania in 2005.
“I don’t talk about it. I wasn’t president of the United States. I don’t talk about it,” Trump said when the New York Times asked about his affair with Maples. “When you think of the fact that [Bill Clinton] was impeached, the country was in turmoil, turmoil, absolute turmoil. He lied with Monica Lewinsky and paid a massive penalty.”
Trump has been on the offensive for the past week after it was widely agreed that he lost the first debate to Clinton and in the wake of Clinton’s mention that Trump called former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.” Trump went on a 5 a.m. tweet storm Friday attacking Machado’s past and claiming that she had a sex tape.
Trump told the New York Times that he was “absolutely disgusted” that Clinton allied herself with Machado and argued that Clinton was again using women to suit her own political ends. Trump said he was bringing up Bill Clinton’s infidelities to repulse female voters and turn them away from the Clintons.
“She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” Trump said.
