Former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has tweeted twice in the last 24 hours about the man who beat her in her run for the Oval Office, former President Donald Trump.
Clinton’s two terse statements echo accusations Clinton has made before, as she has continually sounded the alarm that when someone like Trump tells you who they are, “believe him the first time.”
Commenting on Trump’s recent barrage of authoritarian claims about what he would do with a second presidential term, including his boast that he would be a dictator “only on day one,” Clinton replied to a post by U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI): “Take him at his word.”
Take him at his word. https://t.co/NVcyJzdXRK
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 18, 2023
Clinton’s response was even more terse less than a full day earlier commenting on a Washington Post article that recounted some of Trump’s recent campaign rhetoric, including praise for Viktor Orban of Hungary and Vladimir Putin of Russia.
The article quotes a Texas college professor saying the affinity between Trump and Putin lies in the fact that “Putin hates western values like democracy and the rule of law, [and] so does Trump.”
Clinton’s single word comment in sharing the article was “puppet.” She is presumably not talking about Putin.
Trump’s GOP presidential adversary Chris Christie has used the same language to describe the former President, telling radio journalist Hugh Hewitt in May: “I think he’s a coward and I think he’s a puppet of Putin.”
Then Christie added that the reason for Trump’s apparent fealty to and respect for Putin eludes him. “I don’t know why, to tell you the truth,” Christie said, “I can’t figure it out, but there’s no other conclusion to come to.”
