Donald
Trump labels Clinton 'the devil' and suggests election will be rigged
Republican
nominee makes claims on campaign trail while ignoring controversy
over his remarks about a Muslim soldier’s parents
Ben Jacobs in
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
@Bencjacobs
Tuesday 2 August
2016 07.15 BST
Donald Trump has
claimed that there is a possibility of the US presidential election
being “rigged” as he tried to divert attention away from a
disastrous week for his campaign by also labelling his rival Hillary
Clinton as “the devil” and praising the primary opponent of
Republican speaker Paul Ryan.
The Republican
nominee has in the past few days faced a barrage of criticism
following his controversial comments about the Gold Star parents of a
Muslim soldier killed in Iraq.
Trump says if Ivanka
was harassed at work she should 'find another career'
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In response to an
emotional attack on him by the parents of 27-year-old army captain
Humayun Khan, who died in a suicide bombing, Trump had claimed to
have made sacrifices equal to their son.
A range of figures
and organizations from across the political spectrum from John McCain
to Barack Obama to the Veterans of Foreign Wars have criticized him
for his comments.
But at rallies on
Monday Trump declined to address that controversy and, in moments
typical of his campaign so far, decided to ignite others.
At a campaign town
hall in Columbus, Ohio, Trump said he feared that the election would
be “rigged,” in an unprecedented statement for a major party
nominee in modern history.
“I’m afraid the
election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest,” he told the
crowd.
He did not elaborate
but later repeated the charge on Monday night with Sean Hannity on
Fox News, saying: “November 8th, we’d better be careful, because
that election is going to be rigged. And I hope the Republicans are
watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us.”
Roger Stone, a long
time confidante of Trump, amplified these concerns in an interview
with a far right wing radio show.
Stone said: “I
think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump
needs to do is begin talking about it constantly.”
Laying out a
strategy for Trump to adopt, Stone added: “He needs to say for
example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in
Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that
there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will
be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we
will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and
the government will no longer be the government.’”
He also promised a
“bloodbath” if the Democrats attempted to “steal” the
election.
On Monday night,
Trump also escalated his rhetoric about Democratic rival Clinton. In
a packed rally in a high school gym in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania,
he called the former secretary of state “the devil”.
The statement came
after Trump reiterated a frequent allegation of his on the campaign
trail in recent days, that in endorsing the former secretary of
state, Bernie Sanders made a deal with the devil. He went further
this time, explicitly saying Clinton was the devil.
In his hour-long
speech to a cheering crowd of thousands, Trump hit a number of
familiar notes. The Republican nominee made exaggerated claims about
his poll numbers while railing against free trade agreements and
criticizing Nato members for not “paying up”.
He also reiterated
his praise for waterboarding to cheers. Trump complained of Isis:
“They can chop off heads, they can drown people, they can bury you
in sand and we can’t waterboard.” In the opinion of the
Republican presidential nominee, “we’re not playing on a level
playing field”.
The two new
controversies ignited by Trump were the typical modus operandi of the
Republican nominee when he is under attack. Instead of apologizing or
backtracking, he has long thrown out a kaleidoscope of allegations in
order to shift the news cycle to stories less damaging to him.
In the same vein,
Trump surprisingly tweeted praise for Paul Nehlen, the long shot
primary opponent of speaker Paul Ryan, who was running a campaign
similar to Trump’s focused on trade and immigration.
The tweet marks a
clear rebuke to Ryan, who, while endorsing Trump, has long been
critical of the Republican nominee’s more extreme rhetoric as well
as his support for a ban on Muslims.
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Although Ryan put
out a statement praising the Khan family on Sunday, he did not
mention Trump. When asked for comment, Zack Roday, a spokesman for
Ryan’s re-election campaign, said: “Rather than engage in a
back-and-forth, the Speaker is going to remain focused entirely on
ensuring we deliver strong Republican majorities this fall.”
Adding to an already
febrile day in the Trump camp, it was announced he had also fired Ed
Brookover, a senior aide who had formerly worked for Ben Carson’s
presidential campaign.
A veteran operative,
Brookover had served as the campaign’s liaison to the Republican
National Committee after previously helping coordinate Trump’s
delegate operations. Brookover is one several top campaign staffers
to leave Trump’s campaign since he effectively clinched the
Republican nomination, a list that includes former campaign manager
Corey Lewandowski.
The Republican
nominee was also quoted in an interview with USA Today saying that if
his daughter Ivanka was sexually harassed, “I would like to think
she would find another career or find another company if that was the
case.”
Trump announced
Monday that he had raised $35m in July, which he claimed was “unheard
of for Republicans”.
Campaigns are not
due to file reports to the Federal Election Commission until 20
August. However, if accurate, that figure would represent a decrease
of $66m on the total raised by Mitt Romney in July 2012.
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