It’s gone largely overlooked, but several years ago, Donald Trump had a radio venture in which he’d record brief audio commentaries for stations that paid to air them. The Wall Street Journal obtained some of the recordings:
Donald Trump is attacking Hillary Clinton these days, but eight years ago, in the midst of the 2008 Democratic primary race, he said she would “make a good president” and a lot of people thought pairing her with Barack Obama would be a “dream ticket.”His kind words for Mrs. Clinton came in a previously unreported clip from “Trumped!,” a syndicated radio feature that aired from 2004 to 2008 and consisted of a daily commentary of about 60 seconds from the real-estate mogul.
The article didn’t specify exactly how many of the recordings the Journal tracked down — the piece referenced “a handful” — but the newspaper uncovered was pretty interesting. In addition to praising Clinton’s presidential qualifications, Trump reportedly praised Saudi Arabia’s divorce laws because they favor men, expressed surprise that woman disapprove of one-night stands, and reflected on women entertainers who, Trump argued, became less attractive after they got married.
It’s a stretch to think a report like this will have a significant impact on the presidential race, but I am curious about something: were Republican opposition-research teams completely incompetent in 2015?
Remember, Donald J. Trump may have sprinted to the front in GOP polls early on last year, but he at one time had 16 rivals for the Republican nomination. Did any of these campaigns even try to uncover embarrassing information about Trump? Not one of them found the clip of Trump telling a national radio audience in 2008 that Hillary Clinton would “make a good president”?
We learned in May that Trump specifically told his staff not to look into his past, and it’s easy to understand why. But why didn’t the other GOP campaigns make more of an effort?
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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."