Donald Trump marked a new era in his campaign on Tuesday, responding to a major economic policy speech by Hillary Clinton with detailed rapid response emails in addition to his hard-hitting tweets.
Trump has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks to turn his existing one-woman communications team into a serious operation by hiring additional staffers to handle media requests, disseminate messages to campaign surrogates and quickly respond to attacks leveled by Clinton. The latter appeared to be a work in progress on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign sent out eight separate emails during the course of Clinton’s half-hour long speech in Ohio, criticizing her embrace of the Obama administration’s “catastrophic” economic policies and claiming she “laundered money to Bill Clinton” during her tenure at the State Department.
Further emails highlighted Clinton’s support of trade policies that Trump claims have increased the shift of American manufacturing jobs overseas, and cited a former secret service agent’s recently-published tell-all to make the case that she does not have “the composure to handle the rigors of the Oval Office.”
“Clinton’s policies helped create the mortgage meltdown,” claimed the subject of one email.
“She will cut deals with our foreign adversaries as long as they are willing to line her pockets,” read another.
Meanwhile, Trump himself unleashed on Clinton’s domestic and foreign policy positions in a series of tweets and called attention to scandals that have plagued the former secretary of state’s presidential bid.
How can Hillary run the economy when she can’t even send emails without putting entire nation at risk?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2016
Hillary says this election is about judgment. She’s right. Her judgement has killed thousands, unleashed ISIS and wrecked the economy.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2016
The Trump campaign’s rapid-fire response to Clinton’s speech, during which she described his tax plan and economic policies as “disastrous,” came hours after the candidate expressed during an interview Monday night that he’s open to running a “different type of campaign” between now and November.
“We’re going to go a little bit of a different route from this point forward,” he told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Earlier Monday, Trump let go of Corey Lewandowski, who had managed his presidential campaign since he entered the 2016 race last June.
Sources close to the campaign described Lewandowski as someone who routinely criticized the changes other staffers felt Trump needed to make in order to be competitive against Clinton in the general election, including expanding his communications team.
