NYT columnist Frank Bruni: ‘Hillary Clinton should watch her language very carefully’
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni said Wednesday that should Hillary Clinton win the presidency — which he predicted — she should focus on being a leader for the whole country so that the next segment of American politics doesn’t feel like another war being fought.
Bruni told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, “Hillary Clinton should watch her language very carefully, because it’s that sort of thing that tells people, ‘I’m not looking at someone that’s leading me, I’m looking at someone who is a victor in a battle, the next chapter of which we are about to begin.'”
“So many politicians, Democrats, Republicans, everything is a fight, us versus them. So much of the language is the language of contest. It’s almost like being in a courtroom where two sides are arguing with each other for the favor of the jury. We are all in this together, this project is all of us.”
Bruni expanded upon his Wednesday column, which focused on the trend among Republican officials framing their criticism of Donald Trump’s lewd 2005 conversation with Billy Bush around their daughters and wives.
“The behavior is objectionable in and of itself,” said Bruni. “ When you say I have a wife and I’m offended, I have daughter and I’m offended. It’s almost as if you’re saying, ‘If I didn’t have a daughter and I didn’t have a wife, I wouldn’t be offended.’”
“There’s also a seed when you say, ‘I have a wife, I have a daughter,’ that an issue only matters when it comes to my doorstep, and the definition of public service and political leadership is caring about things that go well beyond your doorstep.”
Bruni also discussed the struggle for Trump to hold on with evangelical voters. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released earlier this week had Trump with just a 1-point lead with the group, down from a dozen points over the summer.
