Hillary Clinton’s New Year’s resolution this year was to swear off talking about GOP front-runner Donald Trump, and some interviewers have complied by dancing around saying the name of the man who has led the Republican field for nearly seven months.
When MSNBC’s Chris Matthews scored the first Clinton interview of 2016, for example, he gave a wink to her no-Trump pledge, and referred to the casino tycoon at one point as a person who should not be named.
“I’m concerned about the Republican Party, because this ethnic way of going at this situation, the way they seem to be going at the Muslim people rather than the terrorists,” the MSNBC host said.
“This started, remember, when the man whose name we dare not speak anymore, Donald Trump, I mean, fact is, Trump started his sort of initiation in politics by saying the president of the United States was an illegal immigrant,” he added. “The Republican Party, every time he did that, said nothing.”
Most of Matthews’ interview with Clinton involved him heaping praise on her, and when he finally warmed up to mentioning Trump’s name, it was to accuse the GOP candidate of blatantly sexist attacks on the Democratic front-runner.
“Well, you know, I have a New Year’s resolution,” Clinton said, indicating not for the first time that she’d prefer not to mention him at all.
Matthews isn’t the only media personality to treat Trump like Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” books, an evil wizard whom people were afraid to name.
On Jan. 11, New York magazine contributor Rembert Browne also danced around saying Trump’s name as he co-moderated a Democratic presidential forum hosted by Fusion.
“Uh, that Republican that you said we don’t speak of, Donald something? What did you get him for his wedding?” he said during a brief Q&A session with Clinton.
Browne’s question was in reference to when the Clinton’s attended Trump’s 2005 wedding to his current wife, Melania.
“Nothing. Nothing,” Clinton laughed. “He used to — he was basically a Democrat before he was a Republican, and he was, you know, somebody that we all knew in New York.”
“And he was supportive of Democrats. He was supportive of a lot of the causes that I cared about and that people I knew cared about,” she added. “Now he seems to have taken another road.”
But not everyone in the press is playing along.
Univision’s Jorge Ramos, who co-moderated the forum with Browne, had no problem referring to Trump by name, as he pressed Clinton repeatedly to answer questions regarding the Republican candidate’s immigration platform.
Likewise, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota avoided complying with Clinton’s New Year’s resolution this week, and repeatedly asked the Democratic candidate to respond to Trump’s many recent remarks regarding former President Bill Clinton’s sordid history of alleged sexual misconduct.
“[Trump] is saying that you are an enabler of bad behavior and of sexual assault,” the CNN anchor said, and asked Clinton to reply.
Clinton declined.
“I have no response. I’m going let him say whatever he wants to say. He can run his campaign however he wishes. I’m going keep talking about what the next president will have to do starting January 20th, 2017,” she responded.
