Donald Trump has wasted no time in "going there": accusing Hillary Clinton of being an enabler of Bill's sexual misconduct with women. So will the MSM ask Hillary about her role in hushing up the scandals, intimidating the women, etc? No, according to Mark Halperin, not unless the MSM is "forced" to do so.
Said Halperin on today's With All Due Respect, "I don't think a reporter will ask unless they're basically forced to." Halperin and Heilemann did hold out one intriguing possibility: that some "new information, some more recent information" about Bill's peccadilloes could force the MSM's hand. Added Halperin tantalizingly, with Heilemann's agreement: "Trump thinks he knows some new facts, by the way."
MARK HALPERIN: If team Clinton continues to turn the other cheek, what is it going to take for Trump to actually break through with these attacks on Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton regarding his personal life.
JOHN HEILEMANN: I believe it is virtually impossible for Trump to break through with these attacks unless the Clinton campaign starts to get rattled by them and starts to react to them in ways that create more openings. Because I do think that, again, most Americans, Bill Clinton's behavior with respect to women, deplorable as it was in some cases, is priced into the stock on the Clintons. People that hate the Clintons, think that about Bill Clinton. But a lot of other people, it's old news.
HALPERIN: Here's what I think it's going to take. It's going to take the Trump campaign doing a stunt, I say stunt, the Trump campaign doing something unorthodox and new, maybe his having one of the women appear at a press conference, whatever it is, that it is so out there that a reporter asks the Clintons about it. I think it's going to take a reporter to ask. I don't think a reporter will ask, unless they're basically forced to.
HEILEMANN: Right.
HALPERIN: The right-wing will egg reporters on. And eventually, I think one or both of the Clintons will be asked and that could be a game changer.
HEILEMANN: And, also, in the same vein, some new information, some more recent information. Some fact on the ground that we're not familiar with.
HALPERIN: But it's still --
HEILEMANN: Talking about Juanita Broaddrick, talking about Kathleen Willey, talking about Monica Lewinsky: not going to do it.
HALPERIN: I still think even a new fact, the Clintons would have to be asked directly about it for it to break through.
HEILEMANN: I agree, I agree: but that would a potent, potentially potent destabilizing combintation. And because the press would be induced to ask about it, a new fact, in a way they're not going to go back to relitigate Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick.
HALPERIN: And Trump thinks he knows some new facts, by the way.
HEILEMANN: He does.
