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Tag: christine quinn
#EndorseThis: Campaign Surrogates Explode Over Guests At Speeches

#EndorseThis: Campaign Surrogates Explode Over Guests At Speeches

This has not been a good week for the staffers charged with filling the arenas of the Trump and Clinton campaigns. On Monday, the father of the Pulse nightclub shooter, Seddique Mateen, appeared behind Hillary Clinton at her rally in Kissimmee, Florida. Two days later, Donald Trump held his own rally in Florida and chastised Clinton for allowing Mateen into her rally, saying, “When you get those seats, you sort of know the campaign. You sort of know the campaign.” (Clinton’s rally was open to the public.) But immediately behind Trump sat former congressman Mark Foley, who resigned in 2006 following allegations that he had sent sexually explicit emails and instant messages to teenage congressional pages.

A bad week all around.

But that did not stop CNN panelists on Anderson Cooper 360 from exploding over the rally guests. Last night, Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany smiled as she attacked the Clinton camp’s faux pas and used it to imply that the Democratic candidate was too soft on terrorism. In response, Christine Quinn — who has emerged as CNN’s most impassioned Clinton surrogate (check out her spats with Corey Lewandowski) — called McEnany’s suggestions “beyond offensive.”

The argument escalated. Quinn attacked Trump for appearing with Sen. Marco Rubio at an event for an anti-gay group in Florida. McEnany tripped Quinn up into appearing to say that Hillary Clinton supporters were mentally ill. Quinn told McEnany to “stop smirking.” And so forth.

In an interview on local news after the Clinton rally, Mateen defended his appearance, saying that he supported Clinton, that he loved the United States, and that he wished that his son, Pulse shooter Omar Mateen, had “joined the Army and fought ISIS.”

The Clinton campaign, for its part, released a statement explaining “[t]his individual wasn’t invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.”

 


Photo: CNN

#EndorseThis: Lewandowsi Seeks To Portray Trump As Brexit Expert — Hilariously

#EndorseThis: Lewandowsi Seeks To Portray Trump As Brexit Expert — Hilariously

Former Trump campaign manager, and current paid CNN contributor, Corey Lewandowski appeared on CNN’s New Day yesterday in order to defend the Republican candidate’s seemingly tactless Brexit comments at his Scottish golf course last week. But the program got heated as he clashed with former New York City Council speaker and Clinton surrogate Christine Quinn, who pushed back on his description of Trump as an astute analyst of British politics and economics.

Lewandowski’s defense ignored Trump’s actual mentions of his own golf course and focused on the economics of exchange rates — standard material for most introductory macroeconomics students.

“Look, let’s look at this from the U.S. perspective: if you want to go and travel overseas, just from a monetary perspective, now’s the right time to do that, because what you’re getting is more for your dollar going over there. And what we’re talking about potentially, long-term, is parity: dollar for pound, one to one. That could happen. If that’s the case, that’s good for the U.S., if you want to make investment overseas.”

Quinn’s reaction during Lewandowski’s statement predicted her rebuttal:

“Donald Trump is not running to be travel agent of the world. He’s running to be president of the United States. And what he actually said wasn’t a commentary on international markets. It was when the pound goes down, more people will come to my golf course. That’s specifically what he said. And I think what it speaks to is that Donald Trump’s main concern isn’t the international markets, isn’t the impact that Brexit will have on hard-working Americans’ 401Ks. It’s himself, how can he make more money, how can he put more money in his bank account.”

This angle — that Trump is a selfish, heartless businessman who only looks out for himself — may sound familiar, since it echoes Elizabeth Warren’s speech at the Massachusetts senator’s first campaign appearance with Hillary Clinton yesterday.

Lewandowski, who was fired from the campaign on June 20, is a recent addition to CNN’s lineup of analysts and surrogates. Early reports suggest that his hiring provoked a possible “near internal revolt” at the news network from staff members concerned with his previously fraught relations with the press, but the Washington Post‘s Paul Farhi followed up and found that many others in the newsrooms agreed that Lewandowski would help grow the networks election-year audience.

However, Lewandowski, along with most other Trump staffers, signed a legally-binding nondisclosure agreement that prevents him from discussing information or from making disparaging comments about the candidate, his family, and his businesses. It is unlikely he will be criticizing or giving insider information on the campaign on air anytime soon.

Image source: YouTube/Raw Story