Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination has set in motion a slugfest for the White House with Donald Trump that puts a polarized U.S. on track to elect its most unpopular president in modern times.
And in the latest episode of the Washington Examiner‘s “Examining Politics” podcast, Democratic operative Rodell Mollineau dishes on the thinking on Trump in Democratic circles and what the party of President Obama expects to happen on the way to Election Day 2016. Mollineau, a former messaging guru for the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Nevada’s Harry Reid, didn’t pull any punches.
But Mollineau also acknowledges that Trump has tapped into deep discontent among a large swath of Americans, and he believes Democrats should take the presumptive Republican nominee seriously. “This is a battle for leader of the free world,” he said. “I don’t care if this is Mickey Mouse on the other side, you take this seriously.”
“He’s been adept on hitting on certain people’s fears and on crafting a message that gets at what some people — not most, not a majority — what some people in this country are feeling. I think that as Democrats, we need to look at what he did in the Republican primary and learn from it,” Mollineau said.
Also in this episode of “Examining Politics,” Washington Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York and Examiner contributor Lisa Boothe break down an eventful week of campaigning and look ahead to the Clinton-Trump brawl that began in earnest on Tuesday evening with the conclusion of the primary season.
