Clinton: Trump could 'bankrupt America'

  • 24/05/2016
Hillary Clinton (Reuters)
Hillary Clinton (Reuters)

By David Eggert

Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump's economic policies would lead to lower wages, fewer jobs and more debt -- warning unionised workers that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee could "bankrupt America like he's bankrupted his companies".

"Ask yourself, how can anybody lose money running a casino, really?" the likely Democratic nominee told thousands at the Service Employees International Union international convention in Detroit on Monday.

Trump has accused Clinton of using the "the woman's card" to win votes. Clinton said if fighting for equal pay, paid family leave, a higher minimum wage and affordable child care is "playing the woman card, then deal me in".

Trump's call for the deportation of millions of people living in the US illegally and the end of automatic birthright citizenship also drew Clinton's ire.

She criticised sending a "deportation force" to schools, workplaces and homes to "round up moms, dads, grandparents - even children.

"He's talking about kicking children who are born here out of the only country they know," Clinton said.

The union endorsed Hillary in November. She thanked its members - who include childcare workers, home health aides, janitors and others - and called them "unsung heroes" who deserve a living wage.

She said there has never been more at stake for working families than in the 2016 election, noting that she supports raising the federal minimum wage and protecting the right to organise.

"Your fights are my fights," she said.

Clinton, pointing to the nearing end of the Democratic primary, applauded Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters for "challenging us."

"We are going to get unaccountable money out of politics. We are going to take on the crisis of income inequality," she said to loud applause.

"And we are going to unify the Democratic Party and stop Donald Trump. There is so much more that unites us than divides us."

Meanwhile, at a rally in East Los Angeles, California, on Monday afternoon, Sanders predicted he would win California's June 7 primary - the nation's largest with 475 delegates - through the strength of his rallies across the state.

He said that by the end of the state's primary he will have spoken to more than 200,000 people at his rallies.

"It is a grassroots campaign, not a fancy campaign," Sanders said.

He has pushed for the party to adopt a progressive platform at the Philadelphia convention in July.

The Democratic National Committee announced a 15-member platform drafting committee, the first step in that process, which will put together the first draft of platform.

Sanders will be allowed to name five members even if he is not the nominee, a gesture that could ease tensions between Sanders' camp and party leaders whom Sanders has accused of favouring Clinton.

Clinton will name six.

The party said in a statement the split was based on the results of state votes to date "in an effort to make this the most representative and inclusive process in history".

The party's chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will name the committee's final four members.

On Monday, Trump circulated a new online video that shows images of Bill Clinton, the former president, as voices of women play on the soundtrack saying he had assaulted them, before ending with the sound of his wife Hillary laughing.

Although none of the women are identified in the video, one of the voices is that of Juanita Broaddrick in an NBC interview from 1999 in which the former nursing-home manager accused Bill Clinton of raping her in a hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1978.

The Clintons have declined to discuss the accusation and are ignoring his personal attacks.

AP