Donald Trump missed a golden opportunity to take down Hillary Clinton over Haiti

(Image credit: JUAN CASTRO/AFP/Getty Images)

published 20 October 2016

Donald Trump was mocked for trying to address Haiti based on his experience "at Little Haiti the other day in Florida," but while his takedown didn't really get off the ground, he did manage to make his main point. "I want to tell you, they hate the Clintons, because what's happened in Haiti with the Clinton Foundation is a disgrace. And you know it, and they know it, and everybody knows it," Trump said.

It is a train of thought Trump has been following for a few weeks now. As The Washington Post writes:

Trump comes late to Haiti. The Clintons have had a special interest in the country ever since they honeymooned there in 1975. President Bill Clinton restored Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994 after he was expelled in a coup. Clinton and former president George W. Bush agreed to head the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, created in 2010 after the devastating earthquake, to raise billions in aid. And Clinton became co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.Trump is right that many Haitians now loathe the Clintons. There are as many conspiracy theories among Haitians about the Clintons as you would find at a Trump rally. Some resent their heavy-handed role in Haitian politics. Others believe they have somehow found a way to benefit financially or have only helped the wealthy elite. The rumor mill has been fueled by gaffes like Hillary Clinton's brother Tony Rodham joining the advisory board of VCS Mining, a Delaware-based company that has tried to raise money to mine for gold in Haiti. [The Washington Post]

In Clinton's defense, the people Trump spoke with in Little Haiti were primarily "GOP operatives, one of whom had been a supporter of a right-wing militarist junta in the 1990s," journalist Jonathan M. Katz tweeted. He added that Trump's host was "Georges Saati, a right-wing extremist who's been accused of funding paramilitaries in Haiti."

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Katz added that while Clinton's rejoinder was weak, she scraped by unscathed. "That's because if you really wanted to nail her, you'd ask her about interfering in the 2011 election. You'd ask about why reconstruction was so explicitly meant to benefit American businesses and customers. You'd ask why after she promised to do aid differently after the quake the U.S. government and American aid groups did the same old thing," Katz explained. Read his entire breakdown here.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.