A general fight between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would be extremely messy, former Trump adviser Roger Stone said Monday.
“This will be a slugfest,” the Trump supporter told NPR’s Steve Inskeep on “Morning Edition,” adding that Democratic rival Bernie Sanders has not “particularly utilized the issues on which Hillary is most vulnerable.”
Stone then listed “other vulnerabilities” that Trump could exploit in the general election about Clinton: “her abuse of women, her husband’s sexual history, her tenure as secretary of state, the conflict of interest in the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, there’s plenty of fodder there for a rough campaign.”
Stone, a veteran political strategist, also wrote the book The Clintons’ War on Women, which purports to expose the couple covering up numerous past instances of Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct. Trump has promoted the book on Twitter. It was released October 2015.
Stone, also a longtime friend of Trump, was asked if the billionaire businessman believes his rhetoric on immigration and torture to be legitimate.
“Actually I think that’s the fundamental cornerstone of his appeal. You can tell that he is not speaking from a script, not speaking from some polling that tells him what to say to be popular or some focus group or reading some speech written by a 25-year-old speechwriter,” Stone said, adding that Trump “obviously believes in tougher treatment for terrorists than we are currently employing.”
He also rejected any notion that Trump’s idea to deport the millions of immigrants in the country is not a concrete one.
“Well I think he’s made it clear he would start with those who have known criminal records based on the databases,” he explained. “Then he would go to those who have overstayed their visa. Now you’ve lowered that number very substantially. I think it becomes problematic after that. But as a goal, yes, I think that is his goal.”
