August 30, 2016, 08:55 am
Clinton camp talking to Trump co-author for debate prep: report
By Rebecca Savransky
Hillary Clinton's campaign is in contact with Donald Trump's co-author as the team looks for ways to get under Trump's skin during the upcoming presidential debates, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Clinton's campaign reached out to Tony Schwartz, the co-author of "The Art of the Deal," looking to get information about the GOP presidential nominee's insecurities.
The Democratic nominee's team thinks Trump is most insecure about his "intelligence, his net worth and his image as a successful businessman," the Times reported.
Schwartz, who worked with Trump in the 1980s, has come out in strong opposition to the businessman.
In an earlier interview with The New Yorker, Schwartz said he "put lipstick on a pig" with the "Art of the Deal," adding he feels a "deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is."
Schwartz also said that he "never in a million years" thought Trump would run for president.
"It's a terrifying thing," he said, calling the Republican nominee "insecure," "easily provoked" and not "nearly as smart as people might imagine."
In an interview with The New York Times, Schwartz didn't comment about interactions he's had with the Clinton campaign but talked about some of Trump's problems.
“Trump has severe attention problems and simply cannot take in complex information — he will be unable to practice for these debates,” Schwartz told the newspaper.
“Trump will bring nothing but his bluster to the debates. He’ll use sixth-grade language, he will repeat himself many times, he won’t complete sentences, and he won’t say anything of substance.”
Still, Schwartz issued a warning for the Democratic nominee.
“Even so," he said, "Clinton has to be careful — she could get everything right and still potentially lose the debates if she comes off as too condescending, too much of a know-it-all.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/293767-clinton-campaign-talking-to-trump-ghostwriter-for-debate
