COLUMBUS — Picking up where she left off at Sunday’s presidential debate, Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted Donald Trump for buying Chinese steel as a businessman while complaining about U.S. jobs lost because of cheap imports.
“He claims to be on the side of workers,” the Democratic nominee said before thousands of people on the oval of Ohio State University. “He especially likes to talk about how he supports American steelworkers. He even had the nerve — this is what kills me about him — to brag about how American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring.
“And the whole time he was hiding the truth, hiding the fact that he chose to buy illegally dumped Chinese steel instead of American steel,” she said, citing a recent Newsweek report.
She pointed to the recent bankruptcy of Columbus Castings, a Columbus-area steel products company that laid off 800 workers. She tried to make the case that Mr. Trump has been hypocritical about this and other issues.
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“When I think about that, and when I think about how Trump has been playing people, it really gets me upset,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There’s no justification for it, but it fits him to a T. For all his talk about putting America first, he’s made his products in at least 12 other countries.”
The Trump campaign in Ohio pointed to emails that had been hacked from Democratic computers and were released over the weekend by WikiLeaks, revealing Mrs. Clinton talking in paid speeches before Wall Street interests about “open trade and open borders.”
“Ohio jobs have gone overseas and Ohio workers have seen their wages diminished due to Hillary Clinton’s decades-long legacy of bad trade deals,” Ohio Trump spokesman Seth Unger said.
“Donald Trump will win Ohio because as president he can be trusted to secure our borders, renegotiate bad trade deals that have sent our jobs overseas, and always put America first,” Mr. Unger said.
Mr. Trump has challenged the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed during the administration of President Bill Clinton, and has claimed that Mrs. Clinton would sign the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal as president despite her voiced opposition.
Mrs. Clinton vowed that the TPP does not meet her test of protecting American workers and national security and again said she would not sign it as president.
Referring to Sunday’s debate, she took aim at Mr. Trump for the 2005 audio tape capturing him making sexually related comments about women.
“Donald Trump spent his time attacking me when he should have been apologizing,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We all heard on that tape what he thinks of women and how he treats women. And last night he doubled down on his excuse that, well, it’s just locker room banter ...
“A lot of athletes and coaches from the NBA, or Major League Baseball, or the NFL, and more have been coming forward, tweeting, and saying, no, that’s not what happens in our locker rooms,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Today marks Ohio’s deadline to register for the Nov. 8 election, and absentee and in-person early voting begins Wednesday for most voters. Overseas and military voters have been casting ballots for the last two weeks.
The Clinton campaign said Secret Service had estimated the crowd in Columbus at about 18,000, less than the 35,000 that President Obama drew in 2010 when he spoke at a rally in support of then Gov. Ted Strickland’s unsuccessful re-election bid.
Earlier in the day in Detroit, Mrs. Clinton promoted her tuition-free and debt-reduction plans for public college education in a speech to more than 3,500 supporters at Wayne State University.
Recounting some highlights of her second presidential debate against Mr. Trump Sunday night, Mrs. Clinton said she is trying to stay on the high road.
“What’s exciting is we are winning more and more support, not just from Democrats but from independents and Republicans,” Mrs. Clinton said.
A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed she had widened her lead over Mr. Trump to double digits. That poll was done over the weekend after the release of the Trump audio tape on Friday, but before Sunday’s second presidential debate.
Mrs. Clinton talked in Detroit about her support for free college tuition at public universities for families with less than $125,000 in income, a position she adopted from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who received more votes than she did in the Michigan primary election.
“How many of you already have student debt?” she asked. “Well that is going to be one of the first things I address. I am very proud of the plan that Sen. Bernie Sanders and I did together. It’ll enable you to use some of your money for other things. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
She rejected the claim Sunday night by Mr. Trump that her plan raises taxes on the middle class.
“I am not raising taxes on middle-class Americans, period,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She said her goal is for the United States to become the global leader in clean energy technology.
Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.
First Published October 11, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
