The Donald J. Trump Foundation is the gift that keeps on giving — to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Donald Trump raised a few eyebrows Sunday, when asked during an interview on “Full Measure With Sharyl Attkisson” if he was confident that the foundation has followed all charitable rules and laws. His reply: “Well, I hope so, I mean, my lawyers do it.”
The Republican presidential nominee went on to say: “We give away money, I don’t make anything, I take no salaries, I take no–any costs, I have zero costs, and a lot of money goes through the Trump Foundation into charities. Goes to charities, it doesn’t go to me, it goes to charities.”
Attkisson interviewed Trump on the eve of the first of three presidential debates about — among other things — the scandals that have brewed during his campaign, namely, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
She was quick to point out that Schneiderman is a Hillary Clinton supporter and has found nothing worthy of inquiry with the Clinton Foundation.
“With the hundreds of millions of dollars of things, isn’t it interesting, and he said he’s not eve/”>even gonna look at it,” Trump quipped.
Donald J. Trump Foundation has come into scrutiny since April’s report from The Washington Post that found not one donation made over a half-decade came directly from the wallet of the GOP candidate.
While the Trump Foundation has been generous on paper, the man who controls it didn’t actually donate any of his own money between 2009 and 2014, the newspaper found.
Hillary Clinton's 5 Best Donald Trump Attack Lines (Photos)
Hillary Clinton has spent the last week criticizing Donald Trump, and we asked experts which of her attack lines might land with voters.
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5. "So let's take a look at what he has done. He's written a lot of books about business -- they all seem to end at Chapter 11," Clinton said in a speech Monday, drawing huge applause from her supporters.
Politico national politics reporter Eli Stokols told TheWrap that this is a crafty approach, but it could get old.
“It’s the kind of line that is good the first time because it has a ring to it, it’s kind of clever and she’s sort of saying something with a wink and a nod,” Stokols Said.
“She’s going to make to is to redefine him not as a private entrepreneurial success, but as more of a poster child for some of the bad business excesses. It’s a really interesting strategy,” University of Southern California clinical professor of communications Gordon Stables told TheWrap.
4. “Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy,” Clinton said referring to Trump’s foreign policy ideas and his economic proposals.
“It’s about his character… she obviously wanted to highlight that there is something about his disposition or his temperament that basically says, ‘he doesn’t have the patience or wisdom or character to occupy the kind of crisis in the White House,’” Stables said.
3. “I had my researchers and my speech writers send me information” on Trump “and then I’d say, ‘Really? He really said that?’ And they’d send me all the background and the video clip,” Clinton said.
“I actually thought that was the most effective thing that you heard from her in terms of articulating this, because it personalizes it, it conveys that she’s someone who is a real person,” Stokols said. "It’s something that some voters will be able to relate to personally and it seemed convincing.”
2. "I have this old-fashioned idea that if you're running for president, you should say what you want to do and how you'll get it done”
Stables feels that she could be looking to reach Bernie Sanders supporters that still feel frustrated.
“There are voters with a different economic critique… there is something they don’t like with the way Trump did business and she’s going directly at it,” he said.
1. "The Chamber of Commerce and labor unions, Mitt Romney and Elizabeth Warren, economists on the right and the left and the center, all agree: Trump would throw us back into recession," Clinton said.
ABC
“Clinton is defining the campaign on her terms… she’s positioning herself to make the argument she’s going to make in November. Trump is still fighting to define and differentiate what to say. He ran a very smart campaign to defeat the other Republican primary competitors,” Stables said.