Eugene Robinson: ‘You Get the Clintons, You Get Their Past’

BRZEZINSKI: “Gene, doesn’t Donald Trump in some says kind of kicked Bill Clinton off, sort of his strengths really to campaign for Hillary.” 
ROBINSON: “Well —“
BRZEZINSKI: “Doesn’t he sort of negate —“
ROBINSON: “No, not if — not if Bill Clinton didn’t let him do it.  I mean, I — look I think —“
BRZEZINSKI: “How would he —“
ROBINSON: “— if you’re the Clintons you can’t be bullied and intimidated by Donald Trump form — from attacking him. I think they’ve got to do what they’re going to do. I think if they back off at that point, I think, they do what Trump wants which is, they look weak and he gets [indecipherable] on the crude and offensive things he said about women in the past. Bill Clinton past was going to come up in any event at some point somehow because it’s there, right? You know you get the Clintons, you get their past. And so, I think now or later it was going to be there.” [crosstalk]
SCARBOROUGH: “Right. But I mean it’s safe to attack Donald Trump if you Bill Clinton on the economic policy, on policy, policy, policy, but the Clintons do have a problem — do they not if they attack Donald Trump for how he treats women, because that opens the door, right? We’re just talking of this one area.”
ROBINSON: “Yeah. But, you know, this isn’t an evidentiary hearing and every door is always opened in that sense, right? Because he could go after them on this grounds whether or not they attack him for being sexist. I think his positions on issues that are important to women is something that they’re going to go after. Some of the crude and offensive things he said in the past probably are things they’re going to go after because they want to show her up and energize the woman’s vote in favor of Hillary Clinton. And they have to look down the road at the possibility of running against him in the general election. They got to get those voters.”