Donald Trump and the Clinton’s Marriage
Trump interjected, “Heh, heh,” pronouncing each syllable in a way that validated the realism of countless cartoon voiceovers, and removed any doubt that he was talking about sexual, rather than political or financial, loyalty. But it was also a remarkable reminder of the proximity of all of those qualities in the Trumpian mind.
.. If properly executed, that sort of thing might have some resonance, although the ready answer is that, rather than mendaciously engaging in some woman-destroying scheme, she had simply trusted her husband.
.. Trump also told the Times that there was “never a problem” with his own marriages, which makes one wonder what, exactly, his wife at the time, Ivana, and soon-to-be second wife, Marla, were so upset about when they confronted each other at a ski resort in Aspen. (“It was very unladylike,” Ivana later told Barbara Walters.) When the Times pressed him on the Marla question, he said, “I wasn’t President of the United States.”
.. There is a need to speak more thoughtfully about the corrosive effect of money in politics and the uneven costs and benefits of free trade, and, indeed, about political dynasties. But Trump’s not doing that. When his bigotry and his speculations about sex aren’t at the center of his speeches, his narcissism is.
.. After all, the explanation for her wanting to be President couldn’t simply be that she has policy goals of her own. (Trump, at another point in the speech, said of Clinton, “She’s never done anything meaningful.”) In this scenario, there must be something else going on, something involving money and men who were out of sight—foreigners, too.
.. At the rally, Trump called her, effectively, a traitor—disloyalty to country being of a piece with disloyalty to husband.
.. Lester Holt asked both candidates if they would accept the results of the election, and Trump, after some hedging and insinuations about immigrants voting, said yes. (Clinton did so quickly and clearly.) In an interview with the Times, though, he suggested that he was rethinking that position; he should be asked the question at every debate. In Manheim, he was preparing his civil-society-slashing excuses.