Wednesday on CNN, immediately following presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s speech criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s foreign donations as secretary of state, network senior political analyst David Gergen declared it to be a “a slanderous speech.”
Gergen took aim at Trump for citing Breitbart editor at large Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash,” arguing that it was discredited.
Gergen said, “If you don’t look at what the substance of what he said—one of his best speeches and most effective speeches. It was disciplined and we got text, never before happened before in a Trump campaign. He had one effective line. Her hashtag is ‘I’m with her,’ and he said, ‘I’m with you, the American people.'”
He continued, “He’s going back to Elizabeth Warren, the system is rigged against you and trying to invite the Sanders people over. He’s doing things for his side of this argument. He has helped himself I think. But you can’t ignore the truth of what he says or the lack of truth of what he says. I do think in coming days we’ll hear about a string of lies and exaggerations. Let’s go to something fundamental. I was really surprised he leaned as heavily as he did upon the Schweizer book, ‘Clinton Cash,’ that has been basically discredited.”
“Other organizations have looked at it, he has no evidence that shows that money given to the—by donors to the Clinton foundation—action by the State Department that favored those donors. And what he says, I think there’s a pattern here and we ought to investigate,” he added. “I’m sorry, at this level, you can’t slander somebody—and this was a slanderous speech, without more proof.”
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