While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, she’s not the official nominee yet, but that’s not stopping Clinton from attacking the presumptive Republican nominee and attempting to use his seemingly crass prediction against him.
In a new campaign ad posted online Tuesday by Clinton’s campaign, Clinton claims that Donald Trump “rooted for the real estate crash,” and uses Trump’s own words against him to supposedly prove that point.
The ad, which can be seen below, begins with various clips of news programs from 2008 with captions like “this is an economy that can’t find the bottom of bad news,” “ten years of saving completely gone, vanished,” “the biggest crash of household wealth that we’ve ever had in the United States,” and “5 million families lost their homes.”
Next, a smiling picture of Donald Trump appears with the caption, “And the man who could be our next president was rooting for it to happen.”
Then, a recording of Trump from 2006, reportedly taken from materials from his failed Trump University, states that he “sort of hopes (a crash) happens because then people like me would go in and buy…if there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know, you could make a lot of money.”
That is followed by the caption, “If Donald wins, you lose.”
According to multiple reports, including USA Today and Reuters, the Clinton campaign paired the rollout of the ad with a call with selected reporters where several Clinton surrogates, including Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, took turns taking shots at Trump over his comments.
“They may look like nameless, faceless numbers from his perch, gold-plated perch, in Trump Tower, but these are real human beings in real communities that are just trying to get ahead,” Ryan said, via USA Today.
Clinton also took to Twitter on Tuesday to launch an offensive against Trump, using Trump’s quote as a jumping off point for a series of tweets attacking Trump for his 2006 views on the real estate market.
“When Trump got his wish for a housing crash, millions of Americans lost their homes. This guy can't be president,” one Clinton tweet read.
Another read, “How cruel do you have to be to actually root for a crisis that would devastate millions of families, all to pad your own pockets?”
When Trump got his wish for a housing crash, millions of Americans lost their homes.
This guy can't be president. https://t.co/tnngHNVqoL
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 24, 2016
Right before the housing market crashed, @realDonaldTrump said he hoped it would happen—because he could make money off of it.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 24, 2016
Millions of families—disproportionately black and Latino families—lost homes, jobs, and savings.
Trump tried to profit at their expense.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 24, 2016
How cruel do you have to be to actually root for a crisis that would devastate millions of families, all to pad your own pockets?
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 24, 2016
Clinton’s attempt to use the housing crisis as a weapon against Trump will probably seem incongruous to those who believe housing policies enacted by the first President Clinton contributed to or implicitly caused the housing crisis.
But that’s not stopping the potential second President Clinton from using the housing crisis to try to smear her prospective opponent in the general election.
Clinton's ad can be seen in full below.
