From the May 25 edition of NBC's Today:
Chuck Todd: Trump “Has Contradicted Every Single Attack He's Made On The Clintons”
Todd: “He's A Walking Contradiction”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
PETER ALEXANDER: Trump's escalating attacks on the Clintons come in stark contrast to comments at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Expressing scorn for one Clinton accuser.
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DONALD TRUMP: Paula Jones is a loser.
[END VIDEO]
ALEXANDER: And nearly 20 years ago, dismissing his own political prospects by comparing his treatment to women to Bill Clinton's.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
TRUMP: Can you imagine how controversial I'd be? You think about him with the women, how about me with the women? Can you imagine?
[END VIDEO]
ALEXANDER: In 2008, Trump insisting the Lewinsky scandal was overblown.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
TRUMP: Look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into, with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense.
[END VIDEO]
[...]
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Are we starting to see the contours of a general election battle where Hillary Clinton focuses on what she considers the shady part of Donald Trump's business past, and he focuses on what he considers the shady part of the Clintons' past.
CHUCK TODD: Yes, I think so, but it's also two different ways of going about it, right? Donald Trump is -- I'm sort of comparing it, it's the New York Post cover versus The New York Times cover. You know what you never hold up? The New York Times cover. It may have more substantive hits. It may have a whole train that they're going to do, a whole series of events, that they're going to make this long case that Donald Trump is a phony, he's not who he says he is. But no one day is going to feel like a bang. Trump is all New York Post. And every day it's going to be the bang, the big headline. It may not have a point to it in three months, there may not be A, to B, to C, for Trump's strategy, but it will shake things up every single day, and he may actually win each news cycle.
MATT LAUER: But how does he defend against this idea that he says whatever he wants to say given the circumstance? How does he defend against two decades of praising the Clintons, saying that the allegations against Bill Clinton were nonsense, they were trumped up, pardon the expression, and that he supported him? And how does he say the guy is a bad guy?
TODD: Honestly, I don't know. I don't know why people give him a pass on this. I mean, I asked him, I said what Trump do we believe? What you said about HIllary Clinton five years ago, or what you say about her now?
[...]
He has contradicted every single attack he's made on the Clintons. You can find sound to contradict it. It doesn't touch him.
[...]
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Isn't it ironic though that the textbook way to go after a politician is on contradictions, and people like Donald Trump because he's not a politician. And yet, like you just said --
TODD: He's a walking contradiction.
GUTHRIE: There's all these contradictions, and honestly, it looks like a lot of people don't care.
Previously:
Media Repeatedly Pardon Trump Because He Is Not A “Conventional” Candidate
Veteran Campaign Reporters: “The Stakes Are Too High” To Let Trump Get Away With Constant Lying