Amid the Trump camp’s ongoing feud with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, his campaign today distributed talking points to surrogates advising them about how to discuss the matter with the media.
Those talking points were obtained and shared on Twitter by NBC’s Katy Tur. Among them is direction to talk about how “Hillary Clinton bullied and smeared women like Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky” and an item alleging that “Hillary Clinton instructed attorney Bob Bennett to threaten Paula Jones with naked photos of her to intimidate her into not telling the truth about the Clintons.”
How is the Trump camp going to counter Alicia Machado? @AnthonyNBCNews obtained the surrogate talking points memo: pic.twitter.com/PanKpU21t0
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) September 29, 2016
A few hours after Tur shared the memo, Trump surrogate Steve Cortes, a member of Trump’s Hispanic outreach council, appeared on MSNBC. Host Kate Snow promptly asked him about the Machado talking points.
“On these talking points it says that you all should mention Hillary Clinton smearing women like Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, and Monica Lewinsky, so is the campaign just asking you all, the surrogates, to do the dirty work?” Snow said.
In response, Cortes said, “Well no, I don’t think so, and by the way, I don’t think you’ve ever heard me talk about Bill Clinton’s picadillos from the 1990s. I don’t think they’re relevant right now.”
Exactly 10 seconds later, things changed.
“What I do think is relevant — and this is key — is that wherever the Clinton ship has sailed, it leaves behind it a wake of scandal. Whether it’s Bill Clinton and some of his indiscretions in the 1990s,” Cortes said, at which point Snow cut him off to interject, “Oh, but you just brought it up just then!”
Trump has praised himself for not bringing up Bill Clinton’s “indiscretions” during the first debate. He told reporters he’s “very happy that I was able to hold back on the indiscretions with respect to Bill Clinton, because I have a lot of respect for Chelsea Clinton and I just didn’t want to say what I was going to say.” The talking points memo obtained by Tur today suggests Trump won’t hold back as much going forward.
But Trump will be walking on thin ice. Trump, like Bill Clinton, has been involved in a high-profile affair. Indeed, as ThinkProgress wrote earlier this week, “If Trump’s infidelity doesn’t disqualify him from office… it’s unclear why Clinton’s husband’s infidelity should disqualify her.”