ON POLITICS

For the Record's week in review: Insult edition

Eliza Collins
USA TODAY
Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign event in Reno, Nev. on August 25, 2016. Clinton attempted to paint Trump's campaign as prejudice in the speech.

This week, people called for the Clinton Foundation to shut down and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump called each other racist — repeatedly. We can’t think of a time in history when this has happened before, and certainly not less than three months before an election.

Let’s take a look:

The Clinto n Foundation: All the questions

Out of many weeks of scandals related to emails released from her private server, this one was one of the worst for Clinton. More emails came out that raised questions about whom she and her top aides were meeting with while she was secretary of State (ahem, lotsa Clinton Foundation donors). And then the Associated Press published a story that found that out of the calendars they had access to — key point, because they didn’t have access to all of them — more than half of Clinton’s scheduled meetings with people outside of the government were with foundation donors.

The Trump campaign jumped on the news. Also, they may have a new love of press releases because they sent one out from basically every surrogate calling for the Clinton Foundation to be shut down and for a special prosecutor.

On Friday, Clinton went on MSNBC and doubled down on her defense: “My work as secretary of State was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interests abroad."

Clinton vs. Trump insults go to a new level

Trump has started making a pitch to African Americans and Hispanics, two groups with which he is not doing very well. In recent days, he’s told African Americans and Hispanics that their lives are so bad under Democratic control they really have nothing to lose. Also, President Trump would make sure they didn’t get shot walking down the street. He also began calling Clinton a “bigot.”

Clinton later released an ad that had Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists raving about Trump, which his campaign called “repulsive.”

Trump then gave a speech that tried to flip the script and say Clinton was calling Americans racist. Clinton followed by making her case for why Trump's campaign had taken a "sinister" turn as he aligned himself with the "alt-right" movement, which she described as a "an emerging racist ideology."

This week may have been the most vicious yet in a campaign that's had plenty of brutal exchanges (you probably haven't forgotten Trump and Marco Rubio debating hand sizes).

Here's a review, in chronological order:

  1. Trump: Clinton is a “bigot”
  2. Clinton: Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists believe in Trump
  3. Trump: Clinton is shameful
  4. Clinton: Trump’s campaign is built “on prejudice and paranoia”
  5. Trump: Clinton is “pandering to the worst instincts in our society”
  6. Clinton: African Americans have “everything” to lose under Trump
  7. Trump: Clinton "called African-American youth 'SUPER PREDATORS' "

Polls were tightening in battleground states

Donald Trump’s campaign may not think the polls are correct and that their candidate will surge after “undercover” voters come out, but in the meantime, here’s what was happening in the polling world with the public voters.

Ohio: Clinton was ahead of Trump in the battleground state by 4 points, but she shouldn’t celebrate just yet — that number was within the margin of error. (One noteworthy part of the poll was that if Ohio Gov. John Kasich had been the nominee, he’d be leading Clinton 57%-33%. Ouch.)

Florida: This state was all over the place this week. One poll had Clinton up 14 points and another had Trump ahead 2 points; neither are normal. Another poll out Friday had Clinton up 2 points, and that’s more consistent with most recent Florida polling that has the race tight but generally gives Clinton a single-digit lead.

North Carolina: Two polls in the state had Clinton and Trump neck-and-neck (and within the margin of error), though both gave Clinton the advantage, 1 point in one and 2 points in the other.

Arizona: This state gave Trump some good news, though it wasn’t totally surprising since it tends to vote Republican. He was up 5 points.

Nationally: Clinton was a whopping 10 points ahead in a Quinnipiac poll of likely voters in the country.

News from the trail

  • Rigged election? Not so much, little evidence of voter fraud in key states (News21)
  • New Koch ad slams Hillary Clinton for first time (USA TODAY)
  • Katy Perry who? Trump says Clinton is supported by not “very hot” celebs (USA TODAY)
  • Trump supporters are cursing more often on Reddit than Clinton backers (USA TODAY)

Clinton may not be having any press conferences anytime soon (it’s been 266 days since the last one, according to the Republican National Committee’s count) but she is interacting with the press — to tell them to eat chocolate.

We bet there’s something else they think they deserve, too … it starts with a “press” and ends with a “conference.”