Donald Trump said Monday that Hillary Clinton’s purported advance knowledge of two debate questions during the Democratic primary race made her a “bad example” for his 10-year-old son and other children, subverting one of Clinton’s own most frequent attack lines against him.
“Hillary Clinton gets the questions to a debate, and then what happens is, the media, they don’t ever say ‘Why didn’t you turn it in? Why did you use those questions?’” Trump said at a rally in Warren, Michigan.
He was referring to an email stolen from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and published by WikiLeaks that purports to show Donna Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee who previously served as a CNN contributor, feeding a debate question to Clinton ahead of a March Democratic primary debate in Flint, Michigan.
“I have a son named Barron, and let me tell you, she is a terrible example for my son, and for the children in this country,” Trump said.
Trump’s attack recalls a TV ad from the Clinton campaign showing children watching Trump make offensive remarks on television.
During a town-hall style presidential debate in early October, Clinton responded to one attendee who asked if the candidates were setting good examples for children with their behavior.
“I’ve heard from lots of teachers and parents about some of their concerns,” Clinton said. “About some of the things that are being said and done in this campaign. And I think it’s very important to make clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good.”
Brazile came under fire in early October after a similar batch of emails were published by WikiLeaks purported to show Brazile feed Clinton a question the day before a town hall event.
CNN announced Monday that it had accepted Brazile’s resignation as a commentator for the network on Oct. 14. Brazile, for her part, thanked the network and referred media to a statement she made after the first WikiLeaks email denying having either received questions in advance from CNN or having passed them on to the Clinton campaign.
