Hillary, Get Ready for the Full Trump Treatment...
Want To Know Trump’s General Election Strategy? Check Out Who He’s Having Lunch With.
Salon reporter Simon Maloy puts it more bluntly: “Ed Klein is a hack, a conspiracy theorist, and a fraud,” he wrote. “All of these hot scoops are based on anonymous “sources” who always happen to be present when the most powerful people in the country cook up their various schemes and conspiracies, and who then provide verbatim details of those highly scandalous conversations exclusively to Ed Klein.”
Of course, it is not odd that Trump would dine with such a polarizing person. In fact, it’s par the course for Trump’s strategy in the run-up to a potential general election face-off with Clinton. Trump himself has been attempting to tone down his trademark inflammatory rhetoric. But at the same time, he’s surrounded himself with men who gained success by provoking offense and appealing to shock value.
Last month in New York, for example, as Trump stood behind a podium and called for unity within the Republican party, he was flanked by a man named Carl Paladino. An original Tea Party hero, Paladino is known for more than a few zany antics: forwarding emails containing racist memes and horse porn; brandishing baseball bats in the state capitol; bragging about boycotting a gay pride parade; and claiming people on welfare need to be taught personal hygiene, among other things.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/05/03/3774645/trump-lunch-date-ed-klein/
