Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said former President Trump hopes the American people will be “desensitized” to his “outrageous” lies.
During an interview on MSNBC's “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Monday, Clinton urged the public to take her 2016 opponent “seriously” and “literally.”
“What Trump is hoping is that people will be desensitized — that they'll just shrug their shoulders and say, OK, fine, move on. Americans need to understand that they have to take what Trump says seriously and literally,” Clinton said.
“He's spoken about what he and his associates want to do with Project 2025, his desire to be a dictator, at least from day one, and all of that is on the record,” she continued. “And I believe that more Americans should be willing to put up with what is, frankly, uncomfortable and to some extent painful, and take him at his word and be outraged by what he represents.”
Clinton agreed with Maddow, who said the media didn't seem to have learned any lessons from its coverage of the 2016 election, when Trump faced off against Clinton. Clinton said she was “amazed” at how quickly the media moved from one “outrageous” story to the next, while Maddow said that was the case “even as the Trump campaign was moving into very aggressive territory.”
Maddow went on to list a few recent examples: “His association with Holocaust deniers, and of all people, his assault at Arlington National Cemetery, his insults to Medal of Honor recipients, and his recent incredibly racist and dangerous lies about certain immigrant groups, like Haitians and Venezuelans in Colorado.”
Clinton agreed with her assessment.
“Unfortunately, the media continues to fail to cover Trump the way they should,” Clinton said. “They're churning out one outrage after another. Things that were outrageous three days ago, and that are threatening the physical safety of a lot of people, are no longer on the front page.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chang issued an emailed statement blasting Clinton's comments.
“Cynical Hillary hasn't recovered from her sour grapes in 2016 and has now let Trump Derangement Syndrome take over her life to the point where she's appearing on a low-rated MSDNC show and begging Kamala for a job. It's sad,” he said.
