On NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday, Trump campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani continued to focus his attention on Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affairs for reasons that don’t seem to make a lot of sense. Host Chuck Todd asked, “Are you the right person to level this charge?” reminding the former mayor he has his own record of infidelities.”Well, everybody does,” Giuliani replied.Yes, the 2016 presidential race has actually reached this point. Five weeks ahead of Election Day, three serial adulterers — Trump, Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich — are slamming Bill Clinton, who isn’t even a candidate, for sex scandals. Reminded of the breathtaking hypocrisy surrounding the attack, one of Trump’s top surrogates told a national television audience it’s perfectly acceptable because “everybody” has cheated on their spouse.Not to be outdone, Trump isn’t just relying on allies to attack the Clintons’ marriage; Trump himself did so in an interview with the New York Times.
He said he was bringing up Mr. Clinton’s infidelities because he thought they would repulse female voters and turn them away from the Clintons, and because he was eager to unsettle Mrs. Clinton in their next two debates and on the campaign trail.”She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” Mr. Trump said.
Trump added that Clinton should be blamed as an “enabler” of her husband’s affairs.Not quite done, on Saturday night, Trump added, in reference to his opponent, “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, you want to know the truth.”Because if “you want to know the truth,” you’ll certainly want to listen to Donald Trump accuse his rival of committing adultery for no reason and without any evidence.Yesterday, Giuliani told CNN’s Jake Tapper that accusing Clinton of having an affair — a claim pulled out of thin air — is “fair game.” When the host asked, “Just to make stuff up, just to say wild accusations, Hillary Clinton is cheating on Bill, no proof of it whatsoever? Everything is fair game?”At that point, Giuliani changed the subject.If you thought the 2016 race couldn’t get any more ridiculous, your expectations were too high.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."