Bill Clinton calls Donald Trump 'fact-free'


Bill Clinton called out Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying the Republican presidential candidate's statements about his wife, Hillary Clinton — including that she was "perhaps the worst secretary of state in history" — are "fact-free."
"You know, if he becomes the nominee, he'll have to sort of hone his criticisms a little more finely because the facts will be easy to marshal," Clinton told CNN's Erin Burnett. "But you know, he's good at this, that's what he does. And the people that he is telling it to now basically have only heard that story, so they believe it and it's probably good politics for him." Clinton cited his wife's ability to get Russia and China to agree to impose sanctions on Iran before the nuclear deal negotiations as a sign Trump is wrong. "Even the Republicans admit that the sanctions on Iran were well done," he said. Also, he added, Trump "told me what a good job [Hillary Clinton] did in the Senate for New York after 9/11."
Clinton, who said he does think Trump has a chance at securing the nomination, has a tip for him: Start sharing more ideas. "You have to be able to be identified," he said. "But at some point you also have to say what you are going to do. You can't just spend all your time saying everything everybody else did was wrong and they were all doofuses."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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