David Plouffe, who served as then-Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2008, pushed back against talk about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health and argued that Trump’s health and weight should be an issue moving forward.
Plouffe, who has endorsed Clinton, noted to NBC’s Chuck Todd that Trump would be the heaviest president since William Howard Taft. He made the remark in response to a tweet by former Obama adviser David Axelrod, who wondered Sunday what the cure was for “an unhealthy penchant for privacy” that has hurt the Clintons.
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“The campaign themselves said they could have handled it better, and I think if Sunday morning had gone a little differently, even taking away the issue of whether they should have said something Friday, I think we’d be in a different place,” Plouffe told the host, adding that there isn’t “a single voter in America that’s going to cast a different vote based on this.”
“Let’s talk about medical records, by the way,” Plouffe continued. “So here’s Trump, who, you know, Dr. Feel Good put out a one page letter. He’s 70. He’s the heaviest president we’ve had — candidate — since William Taft. There’s legitimate issues.”
The former Obama campaign architect went on to argue that Clinton and Trump both should put out more medical information before going on to criticize Kellyanne Conway’s call for a zone of privacy even though she continues to hit Clinton over the transparency issue. He also said that the Clinton campaign should continue to ask why Trump hasn’t released his taxes.
Plouffe admitted that there’s “a lesson” for the Clinton camp to learn from the weekend’s incident, but said that transparency is a bigger issue for Trump.
“At the end of the day, there’s a lesson learned probably from how they handled it Sunday morning, and hopefully they’ll carry that going forward,” Plouffe said. “At the end of the day, I think the focus on transparency belongs much more on the Trump side of the ledger, particularly given all the questions on his finances, his charitable giving, how he’s handled the foundation. Really big issues there, and I hope the Clinton campaign spends a lot of attention on that in the closing weeks, and in the media. ”
