Republican front-runner Donald Trump indicated on Tuesday that he will stay the course on attacking Hillary Clinton by bombarding her husband, former president Bill Clinton, with his history of sexual misconduct. The former real estate mogul told Boston radio show host Howie Carr that Bill Clinton should be asked about Bill Cosby, saying it would be "very interesting."
“You know the big headlines last week about Bill Cosby,” asked Carr, according to Mediaite, following up, “Is there a difference between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton?”
Trump replied that it would be a fair question to pose to Clinton. “Well, the Cosby thing is a weird deal and he’s got himself some big problems, and you almost have to ask Bill Clinton that question," Trump said, according to BuzzFeed. "It would be a very interesting question to someday ask him.”
“Certainly, he has a lot of strong charges against him and it’s pretty bad stuff,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly said that Bill Clinton's record - and his infidelity and sexual misconduct - are "fair game" in the 2016 election cycle. As Politico notes, comparing Clinton to Cosby, who was charged last week in a Pennsylvania court for drugging and sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee, is the furthest Trump has gone yet. For their part, the Clintons have sought to distance themselves from Trump's line of attack.
"I don't respond to him personally, because he thrives on that kind of exchange," Clinton said in an interview with the Des Moines Register. "I think he has to answer for what he says, and I assume that others will make the larger point about his language. It's not the first time he's demonstrated a penchant for sexism. Again, I'm not sure anybody's surprised that he keeps pushing the envelope."
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders provided some cover for Clinton, saying Trump falls short on substantive issues like the minimum wage and tax breaks. "Maybe Trump should worry about those issues rather than Bill Clinton's sex life," Sanders said over the weekend, as HNGN previously reported.
