Donald Trump’s trip to Mexico City this week likely makes him look more presidential than Hillary Clinton, who has spent most of the week fundraising, NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie said Thursday in an interview with Tim Kaine.
Clinton appeared Wednesday afternoon at the American Legion National Conference in Cincinnati to speak with veterans on an array of issues, including foreign policy and national security. It was her first public speaking engagement in six days.
Meanwhile, Trump had an in-person meeting Wednesday afternoon with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“Back to the optics, though, for a second,” Guthrie said. “If you look at the side-by-side of this week, Donald Trump went to Mexico. He sat down. He had a dignified meeting with a foreign leader. Hillary Clinton has spent most of this week scooping up money in the Hamptons for fundraisers. Doesn’t Trump come out on top on that?”
Trump and Pena Nieto began their meet-up in Mexico City with a private discussion that was closed off to the traveling American press. Later, Trump and Pena Nieto participated in a joint press conference in which they laid out their respective positions on trade on immigration.
After delivering their prepared remarks, the Republican candidate and Mexican president took questions from the press. In response to one specific question, Trump said he and Pena Nieto did not discuss the GOP nominee’s oft-repeated promise to build a wall on America’s southern border and make Mexico pay for it.
Clinton’s campaign responded immediately to Trump’s visit by mocking the GOP nominee for failing to secure a deal on his No. 1 campaign promise.
On Thursday, Kaine followed suit.
“Donald Trump choked on the fundamental promise that he’s making in this campaign when he had the opportunity to talk to the foreign leader about it,” Kaine said in response to Guthrie’s question about optics.
“By [Trump’s] words, he didn’t bring it up. By the leader’s words, ‘Yeah, no, it did come up, and I told Trump we’re not paying for your wall.’ So that just shows that I think, kind of not ready for primetime. But then, back over on this side of the border, he just doubles down on this divisive deportation nation strategy,” he said.
Guthrie wasn’t finished with Kaine, and she pressed the Virginia lawmaker Thursday to explain Clinton’s poor approval numbers.
“[I]f you look into some … polls, what you see really, it’s more a matter of Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings actually going down. The question to you is: If Trump is as weak a candidate as you portray, why isn’t she putting it away?” the NBC host asked.
Kaine responded, “We feel good about our position in a number of true battleground states. We don’t feel any sense of complacency. We’re organizing and making our case to voters every day because we felt from the beginning this would be very, very difficult.”
