| | | | Trump's debate strategy: Apologize, then salt the earth? | | He's been forced to apologize. Republicans who stuck with him through every other controversy are pulling their support. Some even say he should drop out. Now, Donald Trump has 90 minutes on the stage here at Washington University in St. Louis tonight to save his campaign.
In his second debate against Hillary Clinton -- this one town hall-style, with CNN's Anderson Cooper and ABC's Martha Raddatz having live audience members ask questions -- Trump's camp has signaled he'll open the night by apologizing for the vulgar 2005 video in which he discribed sexually assaulting women. The hard part is what comes next. CNN's Stephen Collinson raises the curtain, and CNN's MJ Lee tells us what to watch.
If Trump has a bad night, there are some immediate potential consequences: House Republicans have an 11 a.m. call Monday -- with Trump's performance key to whether Speaker Paul Ryan and other prominent GOP leaders stick with him. Concerned about Senate control, the RNC could also shift "Victory" resources away from Trump, leaving him with virtually no ground game in battleground states and virtually guaranteeing he'd get crushed.
Not that Trump seems to mind battling his own party. This morning, he was retweeting criticism of the Republicans (including John McCain and 15 other Senate GOPers) who abandoned him Saturday, and offering these messages of his own: | | Giuliani: 'Men at times talk like that' | | Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani defended Donald Trump's remarks about sexually assaulting women Sunday, telling CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that "men at times talk like that." He also said Trump will apologize at the debate tonight. Here's the key exchange:
Giuliani: "First of all, I don't know that he did it to anyone. This is talk, and gosh almighty, he who hasn't sinned, throw the first stone here."
Tapper: "I have never said that; I have never done that. I am happy to throw a stone. I have been in locker rooms. I have been a member of a fraternity. I have never heard any man, ever, brag about being able to maul women because they get away with it -- never."
Giuliani: "We've taken it to an extra degree of what he said. But the fact is that men at times talk like that. Not all men, but men do. He was wrong for doing it. I am not justifying it. I believe it's wrong. I know he believes it's wrong. I believe this is not the man we're talking about today."
The sad irony of the potential first female president: From CNN's Maeve Reston: "Here's the great irony of the 2016 campaign: Rather than a historic debate about whether a female nominee can best her male rival, the race is suddenly a referendum on how much crass, coarse objectification of women America is willing to take." | | Did Trump actually sexually assault women? | | In the video, Donald Trump brags about doing just that. So it was a natural question for Rudy Giuliani on the Sunday shows ... and Giuliani wouldn't offer a yes-or-no answer.
Here's what he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week": "That's what he's talking about. You know, whether it happened or not, I don't know, and how much exaggeration was involved in that, I don't know."
And here's what he told Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I don't know how much he was exaggerating. I don't know how much is true. I certainly don't know the details of it."
This all begs the question ... Giuliani told interviewers he spent all day yesterday with Trump. A lawyer and former prosecutor, did Giuliani know not to ask Trump for details -- so that he wouldn't have to lie? There are a number of reports that Trump has crossed the line with women -- and there's also Trump's long history with shock jock Howard Stern in crude terms, including telling Stern it was OK to call his own daughter Ivanka Trump "a piece of ass," uncovered by CNN's KFile over the weekend. Trump also has a history of expressing sympathy for Hillary Clinton and defending Bill Clinton, as well as making light of his infidelity, KFile reports. | | "There's kind of a piece of the jigsaw puzzle missing in Donald Trump where he does not look at women and consider them equal to himself." | | | | "Saturday Night Live" had tons of must-see political content last night -- including Alec Baldwin-as-Donald Trump's take on the hot mic moment, Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon as undecided female voters from suburban Philadelphia and a great digital short imagining a vacation day in the life of Kellyanne Conway. | | Trump prepares to attack Clinton for husband's affairs | | Remember when Donald Trump credited himself after the first debate for not attacking Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton's indiscretions? Not gonna happen this time. "Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims," Trump said in his "apology" video in the wee Saturday morning hours. Today, he was tweeting the alt-right, pro-Trump website Breitbart's video interview with women who have accused the former president of sexual assault.
The big question: Will it backfire? Remember, Trump had been telegraphing these attacks for days -- long before the video became public Friday. Clinton, who BuzzFeed's Ruby Cramer points out revels in opposition research, has had plenty of time to decide just how to unload the ample evidence of Trump's own sordid history, and force him to pay a political price for blaming a wife for the indiscretions of her husband.
Where Trump's head is at: Don't miss this must-read from The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, on Trump holing up inside Trump Tower yesterday. She writes: "Mr. Trump retreated to Twitter, where he retweeted posts from an account that says it belongs to a woman who had long ago accused Bill Clinton of rape. Mr. Trump called a few reporters but lacked his usual gusto. And he kept returning to watching coverage on CNN, the cable outlet he derides as biased against him but still tunes in to most often, and becoming more upset as he saw Republican officials condemn him one by one." | | | Texas Sen. Ted Cruz -- who urged Republicans to "vote your conscience" at the convention before finally endorsing Donald Trump in late September -- was thinking about do-overs on Twitter this morning. | | Clinton faces new challenges tonight, too | | Hillary Clinton has held her fire on the Donald Trump tape for tonight -- and she'll get to tee off on Trump first, too, per CNN's Brian Stelter. She was at a debate prep session Friday when news of the Trump video broke, and then spent seven more hours preparing Saturday.
The town hall format is comfortable for Clinton -- she did 47 total town halls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But questions from a recent email hack won't be. In paid speeches, she showed a coziness with Wall Street -- and more problematically, said she imagined open borders and open trade in the hemisphere. Running mate Tim Kaine struggled to answer questions about the leaks with Jake Tapper this morning -- insisting he's not sure the leaked transcripts are real. "I have no way of knowing the accuracy of documents dumped by this hacking organization," Kaine told Tapper. "Anybody who hacks in to get documents is completely capable of manipulating them."
What will Clinton say about the email hack? Here's what communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters today, which could serve as a preview: "The underlying question there is, is she indebted to someone because she spoke in front of them? What her record on Wall Street shows even this campaign is that she's very tough, has a very tough proposal to increase regulation on Wall Street." | | | The Columbus Dispatch endorsed Hillary Clinton -- backing a Democrat for the first time since Woodrow Wilson. ... Clinton will campaign with Al Gore in Miami on Tuesday -- the last day to register to vote in Florida. ... Former George W. Bush United Nations ambassador John Bolton called the bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia -- the one President Barack Obama vetoed, only to see Congress overturn his veto -- a "hoax on the victims' families." | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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