Bill Clinton Explains the Appeal of Donald Trump with the Perfect Backhanded Compliment


Former President Bill Clinton appeared on the Late Show on Tuesday night, where he was asked by host Stephen Colbert to explain the meteoric rises of both Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

While he was quick to tout Sanders’ appeal as resonating with voter frustration that the system is “rigged against them,” Clinton actually had far more to say about his former friend Trump than he did about his wife’s increasingly formidable challenger from Vermont.

“He’s a master brander and he’s the most interesting character out there,” Clinton said of Trump. “And because he said something that overrides the ideological differences.”

“There is a macho appeal to saying, ‘I’m just sick of nothing happening. I’m going to make things happen. Vote for me,'” he added.

This is the second time Clinton has called out Trump for running a political campaign based on branding. Just last week, he hit back at Trump’s insults describing his wife’s tenure as secretary of state as the very “worst in history.”

“Well the thing about branding is, you don’t have to be—you can be fact-free,” Clinton told CNN‘s Erin Burnett.

On Tuesday, Clinton also shut down a previous report citing his influence on Trump making a run for the White House. Watch above.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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