Donald Trump says Bill Clinton's infidelities are fair game because Michelle Obama mentioned them first

(Image credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

published 21 October 2016

While campaigning in Fletcher, North Carolina, on Friday, Donald Trump justified his attacks on Hillary Clinton's husband's infidelities by claiming first lady Michelle Obama leveled them first. "Wasn't [Obama] the one that originally started the statement, if you can't take care of your home ... you can't take care of the White House or the country?" Trump asked the assembled crowd, referencing a remark Obama first made in 2007.

Trump has recently suggested former President Bill Clinton's infidelities are evidence Hillary Clinton isn't able to handle the obligations of being president, but what he failed to note at his Friday rally is that the full context of Obama's statement indicates she was talking about balancing childcare with presidential obligations. At the 2007 event where she made that comment, Obama followed her remark with an explanation that she and husband President Barack Obama have "adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he's traveling around, I do day trips." Both the first lady and President Obama have also outright denied suggestions her remark had anything to do with Clinton, who was facing then-Sen. Obama for the Democratic nomination.

Still, Trump took the first lady's comment and ran with it. "She's the one that started that. I said, 'We can't say that, it's too vicious.' Can you believe it? I said that," Trump said. "They said, 'Well, Michelle Obama said it.' I said, 'She did?' Now she said that, but we don't hear about that."