Even as Hillary Clinton has withdrawn from the campaign trail to prepare for the first presidential debate slated for Monday, her rival Donald Trump is still busy with his rallies with a new line of attack virtually blaming her for the unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina this week following the latest police shooting of a black man.
“Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society — a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent — share directly in the responsibility for the unrest that is afflicting our country and hurting those who have really the very least,” Trump said at a rally in Chester, Pennsylvania on Thursday.
Clinton had on Wednesday voiced her indignation over the latest shooting deaths of two black men in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Charlotte in police encounters, terming the action “unbearable”.
“There is still much we don’t know about what happened in both incidents, but we do know we have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers in these encounters,” Clinton had said, adding: “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable.”
Trump, who has sought to project himself as a strong “law and order” candidate with overriding support for the police, was quick to pounce on Clinton’s statement and sought to project it as an encouragement to violent anti-police protests.
“To make cities safer for citizens, we must work with our police, not against our police,” Trump argued, taking the stand that the main victims of the violent demonstrations are law-abiding African-Americans who want to raise their children in peace.
The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, is training its guns against Trump over his series of comments against women. As it began airing television ads in seven battleground States on Friday, the campaign said this new blitz will highlight the adverse effects of Trump’s anti-women rhetoric.
Using Trump’s own words against him, the compilation focuses on some of his most obnoxious comments, including the one on a woman he hated, calling her “a slob” and saying she “ate like a pig”. The Clinton ad ends with the poser: “Is this the kind of President we want for our daughtersIJ”
Women and African-Americans are two demographics where Clinton has overwhelming supremacy over Trump and her campaign is going all-out to thwart his recent efforts to reach out to both the segments.
Clinton also enjoys a high favourability among policy wonks. On Thursday, as many as 75 former US ambassadors and top diplomats endorsed her overwhelmingly, dismissing Trump as “entirely unqualified to serve as President and Commander-in-Chief”.
“Hillary Clinton’s handling of foreign affairs has consistently sought to advance fundamental US interests with a deep grounding in the work of the many tens of thousands of career officers on whom our national security depends,” said the former envoys, including Thomas Pickering and Nancy Powell who have served in India. Trump, in contrast, is “ignorant of the complex nature of the challenges facing our country, from Russia to China to ISIS to nuclear proliferation to refugees to drugs,” they said in a letter.