Did Trump impugn fifth-grader's question to Clinton?
KEOTA, Ia. — The morning after Hannah Tandy made national news with a poignant question to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, rival candidate Donald Trump appeared to imply that the scene was phony.
During a forum at the local school, the fifth-grader asked Clinton if she could do anything about bullying. “I have heard people talking behind my back about not wanting to be near me because I have asthma,” she said, drawing a hug and a lengthy discourse from the Democratic front-runner for president.
The scene from the Keota High School gym drew wide attention, partly because Clinton finished her response with a thinly veiled shot at Trump, who is known for pugnacious insults.
“I really do think we need more love and kindness in our country. I think we are not treating each other with the respect and the care that we should show toward each other,” she said to applause from 600 people gathered in the school’s small gym. “And that’s why it’s important to stand up to bullies wherever they are, and why we shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency, because that is not who we are as Americans.”
Wednesday morning, Trump fired back on Twitter. “The Hillary Clinton staged event yesterday was pathetic,” he wrote. “Be careful Hillary as you play the war on women or women being degraded card.”
Hannah’s mother, Lexie Tandy, read Trump’s tweet Wednesday afternoon in the kitchen of the family farmhouse. She wished Trump would clarify his meaning, which seemed to be that the interaction between her daughter and Clinton had been set up. It absolutely wasn’t, she said.
No one asked Hannah to ask the question, Tandy said. In fact, the family didn’t know she would take the microphone. Lexie Tandy didn’t even attend the event, because she had no idea her daughter would wind up in the spotlight for a moment that she will remember for a lifetime.
Tandy said Trump’s tweet was an attempt to rip into Clinton, not her daughter. But he implied that Hannah was involved in something untoward, she said. “I don’t want to get in a big match-up with Donald Trump, but let me tell you, I will be in one if he makes comments about my daughter. She’s 10. She’s just a little girl,” Tandy said.
The family plans to frame the Associated Press photo of Clinton hugging Hannah, an outspoken girl whose issues with bullying have been addressed, her mother said. Tandy described herself as a registered Democrat who hasn’t decided which candidate to support.
“But if Hannah could vote, I’m sure she’d be for Hillary,” she said with a chuckle.
Clinton says Trump's vulgarity doesn't shock her
Clinton has been tangling with Trump, including over his recent claim that she “got schlonged” in the 2008 election. She told the Register Tuesday night that Trump’s “bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign.”
On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign wouldn’t comment directly on Trump’s tweet claiming staging by her campaign. But Clinton spokeswoman Lily Adams emailed this statement on the kerfuffle: "Yesterday, Hannah showed the courage and maturity of someone three times her age. Hillary Clinton will always stand up for anyone who speaks up and speaks out against bullies who only show how weak they are when they demean others or try to shout them down."
A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.