Trump Lashes Out at DNC Critics -- Except for One
Policy + Politics

Trump Lashes Out at DNC Critics -- Except for One

© Carlo Allegri / Reuters

When she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last night, one of the key points that Hillary Clinton made in her case against her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, is that the billionaire former reality television is too thin-skinned for the job.

“Donald Trump can't even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign,” she said. “He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he's gotten a tough question from a reporter. When he's challenged in a debate. When he sees a protestor at a rally. Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis.

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“A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

If there was a person inside the Trump campaign to point out to the candidate that an over-the top response to Clinton’s speech and the parade of speakers criticizing him last night might just prove Clinton’s point for her, he apparently wasn’t listening.

During the Clinton speech itself, the Trump campaign fired off angry emails at the rate of one every four minutes -- 15 of them in less than an hour -- criticizing Clinton on topics ranging from immigration policy to the Middle East to the Clinton Foundation.

Within half an hour of Clinton’s final words, Team Trump released what seemed to be a hastily written statement from Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller that called her remarks “an insulting collection of clichés and recycled rhetoric,” among other things.

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“Hillary Clinton talks about unity, about E Pluribus Unum, but her globalist agenda denies American citizens the protections to which they are all entitled – tearing us apart. Her radical amnesty plan will take jobs, resources and benefits from the most vulnerable citizens of the United States and give them to the citizens of other countries. Her refusal to even say the words ‘Radical Islam’, or to mention her disaster in Libya, or her corrupt email scheme, all show how little she cares about the safety of the American people.”

By Friday morning, Trump had moved on to Twitter, where he began by insulting Clinton and some of the people who spoke against him during the final nights of the Democratic National Convention.

Three-time New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who savaged Trump’s business record on Wednesday night, was granted the nickname that Trump used to reserve for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the primary campaign.

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“‘Little’ Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!” Notably, Trump didn’t bother trying to refute Bloomberg’s criticisms. Nor did he go after the former mayor’s business record, which may not be too much of a surprise, even if you take Trump’s word that he is actually worth the $10 billion he claims, and many experts do not, Bloomberg’s more than $40 billion fortune makes Trump look like a piker.

“If Michael Bloomberg ran again for Mayor of New York, he wouldn't get 10 percent of the vote - they would run him out of town!” Trump added for good measure.

Retired Marine Corps four-star General John Allen, who endorsed Clinton Thursday and slammed Trump for his promise to compel the US military to engage in war crimes, also came under Trump’s angry gaze.

“General John Allen, who I never met but spoke against me last night, failed badly in his fight against ISIS. His record = BAD,” Trump tweeted.

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Trump, of course, went after Clinton, blasting her for delivering a speech that went on too long (though it was nearly 20 minutes shorter than the one he had delivered just a week before). He added somewhat mysteriously, “Crooked Hillary Clinton made up facts about me and "forgot" to mention the many problems of our country in her very average scream!”

One person Trump did not dare attack, though, was Khizr Khan, a Muslim immigrant to the US from Pakistan, whose 27-year-old son, a US Army captain, was killed in Iraq protecting his troops from a suicide car bomber.

Khan, coolly furious, reminded Trump that his proposed ban on Muslim immigration would have prevented his son from being born in the United States. An attorney who has practiced law in Washington, DC, Khan questioned whether Trump had ever even read the US Constitution, and offered to lend him a copy.

Then, in the most powerful blow landed on Trump all evening, the father of the fallen soldier addressed Trump directly. “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing. And no one.”

Trump and his team did not address Khan’s criticism at all on Friday, but for a large portion of America, it turns out, they had little reason to. Fox News, the Republican-leaning cable news operation, declined to air the speech.

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