Story highlights
Hillary Clinton knocked Donald Trump's lavish lifestyle
She claims he's out of touch with most voters
Hillary Clinton cast Donald Trump as out of touch with the United States while campaigning Monday in Delaware, arguing that the Republican front-runner flies into states, gives speeches and then returns to the lap of luxury without listening to voters’ problems.
“Donald Trump says wages are too high in America and doesn’t support raising the minimum wage and I have said, ‘Come out of those towers named for yourself and actually talk and listen to people,’” Clinton said. “At some point, if you want to be president of the United States, you have to get familiar with the United States, you have to spend time with Americans of all sorts and backgrounds in every part of our country.”
Clinton has started to turn her focus to the general election after a sizable win in the New York primary last week, not even mentioning Democratic rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders once during her event.
Casting Trump as out of touch is new and opens up Clinton – who regularly travels via private jet and has multiple homes – to criticism for her own lifestyle. She and husband Bill Clinton own sizable homes in Chappaqua, New York, and Washington, as well as a Manhattan apartment. They also use an apartment in Little Rock that is owned by Bill Clinton’s presidential library.
But she didn’t shy away from her criticism on Monday, mocking Trump – who has cast himself as a populist champion – for his lavish lifestyle.
“Don’t just fly that big jet in and land it and go give a big speech and insult everybody you can think of and then get on the big jet and go back to your country club house in Florida or your penthouse in New York,” Clinton said. “I somehow don’t think that puts you in touch with what is going on.”
Clinton concluded by saying she has “spent more than a year talking and listening to people and I can tell you, there is a lot of concern, people are having a hard time.”
Trump regularly boasts about his wealth and owns multiple properties across the country, including an expansive home in Mar-A-Lago, Florida, and a reportedly $100 million penthouse in New York City.
Clinton, preparing for a fight against Trump in the general election, has tried a series of attacks against the boisterous businessman in recent weeks, casting him as a security risk because of his foreign policy views and ill-prepared and ill-suited for the job of president.
Trump has responded by depicting Clinton as low energy and only running for president to benefit herself. He has also given her the nickname “Crooked Hillary.”
Clinton has defended her focus on Trump while still campaigning against Sanders, telling reporters in New York earlier this month that she can “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“I intend to do everything I can to be the nominee. I am clearly focused on that,” Clinton said. “But at the same time, I want to start drawing the starkest distinctions, between what I know America stands for … and what Donald Trump is standing for.”