For someone not running for president, Bill Clinton was a remarkably ubiquitous topic during Sunday’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Among questions about how Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would handle Supreme Court appointments, tax reform and the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the former secretary of state was also asked to respond to comments her husband made about the Affordable Care Act.
“Your husband called Obamacare, quote, ‘the craziest thing in the world,’” CNN’s Anderson Cooper, one of the debate moderators, asked. “Small business owners are getting killed, coverage is cut in half. Was he [exaggerating] or simply telling the truth?”
Clinton responded that her husband clarified his remarks, then explained how she as president would improve the current system.
Trump took an opportunity to bring up Bill Clinton as well when he was grilled about a 2005 recording released Friday in which he talked lewdly about women and boasted of being able to get away with sexual assault and other predatory behavior.
Trump brushed off his comments as “locker room talk” before bringing up his rival’s husband.
“If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse, mine are words, his was action,” Trump said, adding, “There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women.”
Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s use of that attack point on his rival, and she didn’t take the bait. She instead invoked the words of Michelle Obama: “When they go low, you go high.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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