Hasta La Creative!

One question that moderator Lester Holt did not pose to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during their first debate on Monday night: What do you think of each other’s ad strategies? And yet Trump let us know anyway, pointedly bringing up the Clinton campaign’s attack ads twice while addressing other questions.

The first time was in response to Holt bringing up Trump’s longstanding support of so-called birthers who insist that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. “He has really started his political activity,” Clinton said, “based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen,” adding that “Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination. Because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans.” After addressing the birther issue (“I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate and I think I did a good job…”), Trump circled back to the Justice Department suit and threw in his first objection to Clinton’s ads. Here it in context:

As far as the lawsuit, yes, when I was very young, I went into my father’s company. We, along with many, many other companies throughout the country — it was a federal lawsuit — were sued. We settled the suit with zero, no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do. But they sued many people. I notice you bring that up a lot. And I also notice the nasty commercials you do on me in so many different ways, which I don’t do on you. Maybe I’m trying to save the money. Frankly, I look at that, and I say: Isn’t that amazing? I settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt but that was a lawsuit brought against many, many real estate firms, it’s one of those things.

Continue reading at AdAge.com