Former President Bill Clinton criticized what he described as “the corruption” of Donald Trump’s presidency and condemned the Iran War during a Democratic campaign appearance in Mississippi.
Clinton, 80, again poked fun at his age, saying that whenever he enters a room, “I’m the oldest person.” He also took aim at Trump while recalling their former friendship.
“I think about the high gas prices that are the direct result of a not very well thought-out attack on Iran,” Clinton said while campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom.
“Nobody would like it more than me if the Iranians never became a nuclear power and eventually gave over to a genuine democracy. We did quite a lot to sabotage their efforts when I was president, but I never thought we should go to war and see a lot of people die because we weren’t about to occupy the country,” Clinton said.
“You don’t start killing people unless you know how you’re gonna stop.”
Clinton himself ordered several bombing campaigns in the Middle East during his presidency, including strikes against Iraq in 1993 and 1996, cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, and another round of strikes on Iraq later that year.
The former president also condemned what he called the Trump administration’s “corruption” and “ego projects,” pointing to Trump’s reported desire to build an arch named after himself.
Clinton also offered his perspective on Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs, which the president has described as his “favorite word” and made a central part of his second-term policies.
Former President Bill Clinton criticized what he called “the corruption” of Donald Trump’s presidency and condemned the Iran War during a campaign speech in Mississippi.
“I think about the high gas prices that are the direct result of a not very well thought-out attack on Iran,” Clinton said while campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom (pictured).
Clinton said he and Trump “used to have quite a friendly relationship” and noted that he has “known President Trump a long time.”
“Twenty-four years ago, we’d play golf. Even then, he believed in these tariffs. He kept saying, ‘We’re the biggest, strongest country in the world, why don’t we just put a bunch of tariffs on these countries and stop paying taxes altogether?’”
Clinton said he would answer: “Because these people don’t just eat the tariffs. They just charge the people who buy the stuff, so we pay the tariffs.”
“He just, like now, he didn’t hear what he didn’t want to hear. You’ve got these higher gas prices, that’s the Iran War.”
Clinton also revived a joke he made the previous week, saying Trump had made the Oval Office look “like the entrance to Liberace’s bedroom.”
He was campaigning for Colom, a prosecutor seeking to unseat Trump-backed Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.
“My friend George Bush once said, ‘Democracy is self-correcting.’ We are about to find out in Mississippi if it’s true,” Clinton said before urging the crowd to vote for Colom.
Polymarket gives Hyde-Smith an 88 percent chance of winning in deeply Republican Mississippi.
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The former president said he opposed “the corruption” and “ego projects” of the Trump administration, citing Trump’s desire to build an arch named after himself.
Clinton also discussed Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs, which the president has called his “favorite word” and made a centerpiece of his second term. He recalled that they “used to have quite a friendly relationship” and said he has “known President Trump a long time.”
Clinton made his first public campaign appearance in Florida Tuesday night to stump alongside Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly at an interfaith event in Pembroke Park.
His appearance, two weeks before Election Day, marks the first time the 42nd president has appeared on the campaign trail this cycle.
Clinton, now 80, quickly sought to address the elephant in the room, noting at the outset of his remarks that, ‘one blessing’ of his age ‘is you can say whatever you want,’ he said to laughter.
‘Of course, many people don’t care anymore,’ Clinton quipped.
Though Clinton often waits until later in the race to support a candidate, some have speculated that the eleventh-hour appearance might have more to do with his age.
His appearance comes as Jolly has narrowed the gap with his Republican challenger, Byron Donalds, who now holds just a single-digit lead in recent polls in their bid to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
A Jolly victory would be something of a seismic shift for Florida, which has not elected a Democrat to the governor’s mansion since 1994.
The tighter-than-expected race has attracted the attention of a number of well-known Democrats in the final sprint to Election Day, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who have also thrown their support behind Jolly’s campaign.
Clinton spoke on behalf of Colom, a prosecutor running to replace Trump-endorsed Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith
President Donald Trump shares a moment with U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on stage during a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena in Corinth
Clinton has largely stayed out of the spotlight since his testimony on his former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The former President has denied any wrongdoing in connection to the billionaire pedophile.
Millions of people across America have already heeded that call in an election that will determine whether Trump’s final two years in the White House are smooth sailing with a Republican Congress, or bogged down with Democratic opposition.
Nearly 10 million more Americans had cast ballots five days before Election Day than at the same point in 2022, according to an Associated Press analysis of voting data.
The increases have been particularly pronounced in states with competitive Senate races – including Iowa and Kansas, where early voting is up roughly 30 percent and where Trump plans to visit on Sunday.
Democrats and Republicans each hope that rise in early voting favors them as they fight for control of Congress in an election that has turned largely on affordability issues and the president´s unpopularity.