President Trump's press conference Thursday may have been billed as an announcement about new labor secretary nominee Alex Acosta, but it was so much more than that. After mentioning Acosta twice during his opening remarks, Trump veered into his campaign promises and, of course, his campaign competitor, Hillary Clinton.
In the course of a 76-minute press conference, Trump managed to utter the name of the woman who lost the presidential election in November a grand total of 11 times. That's not even including the more implicit mentions, like when Trump falsely claimed he won the election with 306 electoral votes (he won 304) and landed more Electoral College votes than anyone since former President Ronald Reagan (former President Barack Obama won 332 in 2012).
Trump's first Clinton call-out was a reference to Clinton allegedly receiving a presidential debate question in advance, which happened months ago when Trump and Clinton were still vying for the White House. "Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine — seriously — can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair," Trump said.
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He then turned to how Clinton tried to "do a reset with Russia" while she was secretary of state and gave Russia "20 percent of the uranium in the country." "Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember?" Trump said. "With the stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks." At another point, Trump asked the audience if anybody really thought Clinton "would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump."
You may recall: Trump defeated Clinton to win the White House three months ago. To be fair, Acosta's name did come up a third time towards the end of the press conference when Trump jokingly asked CNN reporter Jim Acosta — with whom he has publicly sparred — if he was related to his new pick for secretary of labor.
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