As Democrats debate future, Trump mocks his 2016 opponent for getting pneumonia

As Democratic candidates debated Thursday night in Texas, President Donald Trump delivered a lengthy speech in Baltimore. Facing declining approval, Trump spent several minutes of his remarks focusing not on 2020 but on his 2016 campaign.

Not long after his surprise 2016 victory, Trump expressed sympathy for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, saying that she had “suffered greatly in many different ways” and that he did not “want to hurt” her. But nearly three years later, he is still obsessing about his formal rival.

In his remarks, he bragged about his energy and contrasted it with Clinton. “Hillary, she’d make two stops and say, ‘I’ve gotta rest for a couple of weeks. Let me rest for a couple of weeks.’ Nah, she didn’t like airplanes, she didn’t like stairs. She didn’t like a lot. She said I don’t have to go to Wisconsin to campaign.”

During the 2016 campaign, the Trump campaign mounted a whisper campaign that Clinton was ill and lacked stamina. It became apparent almost exactly three years before his Thursday remarks that this was due to the fact that she was suffering from a case of pneumonia.

His suggestion that Clinton disliked stairs was an interesting choice, given his own reported bathmophobia (like most unflattering media reports, the Trump White House has denied it).

Trump then spent several minutes recounting the states that he won in 2016, defying polling and expectations.

Trump did briefly touch on polls showing him trailing in Texas — by mocking the possibility that Mayor Pete Buttigieg could be leading, observing “nobody can pronounce this guys name.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.