Donald Trump has trained his Twitter sights on Hillary Clinton again, blaming the Democratic front-runner for having caused “death and destruction” and warning her over her complaints about Trump’s rhetoric.
“Hillary, when you complain about ‘a penchant for sexism,’ who are you referring to. I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!” he said in one tweet Wednesday night.
A few hours later, he tweeted, “Hillary said ‘I really deplore the tone and inflammatory rhetoric of his campaign.’ I deplore the death and destruction she caused-stupidity,” an apparent reference to her time leading the State Department and ongoing crises in places such as Libya, Syria and Yemen.
The latest exchange between the two leading presidential candidates began on Monday night, when Trump used the phrase “schlonged” at a campaign rally to describe Clinton’s 2008 primary loss to then-Sen. Barack Obama. The Yiddish word is slang for penis and was widely seen as a sexist remark. Trump also teased Clinton over her use of a restroom during a Democratic debate over the weekend, saying the incident was “disgusting.”
At first, Clinton’s campaign declined to comment directly on Trump’s “schlonged” comment, although Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign’s communications director, said soon after that “everyone who understands the humiliation this degrading language inflicts on all women” should respond to the brash billionaire.
Then, on Tuesday, Clinton told the Des Moines Register that the remark was “not the first time he’s demonstrated a penchant for sexism.”
“I really deplore the tone of his campaign, the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people, and his going after groups of people with hateful, incendiary rhetoric,” Clinton said.
She also accused him of “bullying.”
“Nothing really surprises me anymore. I don’t know that he has any boundaries at all. His bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign. And he has to keep sort of upping the stakes and going even further,” Clinton added.