Donald Trump on Saturday ratcheted up his attacks on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, accusing her of “running against all of the American people.”
“Hillary Clinton is not running against me, she’s running against change. And she’s running against all of the American people and all of the American voters,” the Republican nominee said Saturday, 10 minutes into a speech billed by his senior aides as his “closing argument” in the presidential race.
Trump’s remark came as he argued that an outsider was needed to come into Washington and shake up the system, arguing that “we will never solve our problems by relying on the same politicians who created these problems in the first place.”
But his accusation that Clinton is running against all Americans is the latest in a long line of escalating attacks against Clinton, whom he has previously called “the devil” and said he would seek to jail should he be elected president.
A message left with the Clinton campaign seeking response to Trump’s comments was not immediately returned. But Christina Reynolds, a Clinton spokeswoman, called Trump’s speech — in which he also threatened to sue women who have accused him of sexual impropriety — “full of conspiracy theories.”
“Today, in what was billed as a major closing argument speech, Trump’s major new policy was to promise political and legal retribution against the women who have accused him of groping them,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Like Trump’s campaign, this speech gave us a troubling view as to what a Trump State of the Union would sound like — rambling, unfocused, full of conspiracy theories and attacks on the media and lacking in any real answers for American families.”
Trump’s served up the biting remark in a speech just 17 days from Election Day and following two weeks during which his campaign’s chances of victory have plunged dramatically on the heels of the release of a 2005 tape in which Trump bragged about being able to grope and kiss women without their consent. Nearly a dozen women have since accused Trump of doing just that.
Trump now faces a steep climb to victory, with most national and battleground state polling showing Clinton in the lead.
