Seeking to refocus his USA presidential campaign, presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump today lambasted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as a failed secretary of state who is out of step with Americans on trade and immigration.
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Donald Trump’s campaign, such as it is, has spent the past couple of weeks signaling the Republican’s plan for a big anti-Hillary Clinton speech.
Clinton’s mid-week stop marks her second time in Raleigh since March and comes one day after her stop in Columbus, Ohio, where she delivered a lengthy speech blasting Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, calling him “reckless and careless”. I’m with you: “the American people”, he said to applause from supporters sitting in the front rows of his property in Soho, Manhattan, who sat ahead of a large group of reporters.
Trump also zeroed in on Clinton’s history with trade, foreign policy, and the spread of ISIS particularly in the years after 2009 when she was Secretary of State, pointing out that when she was sworn in as Secretary, Libya was cooperating, Iraq had seen a “reduction in violence”, and other countries in the Middle East were under control. However, survey respondents also indicated unease with former secretary of state Clinton.
Trump questions Hillary Clinton’s competence in foreign policy in a speech in New York City.
Speaking to more than 2,000 people at the North Carolina state fairgrounds, Clinton seemed at ease in brushing off Trump’s attacks, which, she noted, even extended to her own faith .
Mrs Clinton, who has repeatedly pounded Mr Trump as being “temperamentally unfit”, finished the month with US$42 million.
Her husband’s family foundation, Clinton argued, “helps poor people around the world get access to life-saving AIDS medicine”.
Trump last week demanded that the foundation return the $25 million it reportedly received from Saudi Arabia, asserting in a Facebook post that the Middle East nation “and numerous countries that gave vasts amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays”. She also quipped about Trump’s history of bankruptcy in his businesses.
Clinton responded by accusing Trump of “attacking a philanthropic foundation that saves and improves lives around the world”.
But while Clinton’s speech didn’t itself break new ground, it was more interesting – and significant – for what she did not do. A new fundraising report released hours after Lewandowski’s firing underscored how much ground Trump has to make up: he started June with just $1.3 million in the bank. It found that 36.8% of those polled support Donald Trump for president, while 29.7% support Hillary Clinton. But this was Trump reading on a teleprompter from a prepared text. That was theme of his 40-minute speech on Wednesday at Trump’s Soho hotel in New York City.
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The State Department has said it is not aware of any evidence of improper influence, although it has acknowledged that several donations from foreign governments should have been submitted to the department’s ethics advisors for prior review but were not, in breach of an ethics agreement Clinton signed before taking office.
