Clinton World stunned by Trump remarks

Donald Trump’s public mocking of Hillary Clinton has renewed criticisms of crass, sexist comments by the Republican presidential front-runner.

Clinton’s campaign on Tuesday decided against a frontal attack, with communications director Jennifer Palmieri offering inviting others on Twitter to repudiate Trump’s comments.

{mosads}But behind the scenes, Team Clinton saw the remarks at a Monday rally as a new low, and some allies predicted they would lead to his demise.

“We are watching the Donald melt down,” predicted Ellen Tauscher, the former congresswoman who served as undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs under Clinton.

“His racist, sexist, xenophobic rants are now wearing on people generally,” she said.

“Even the folks caught up in the celebrity culture that thought these performances were funny initially, which is stunning, now realize these comments seem predictable and pathetic,” Tauscher added. “What the Donald seems to miss, as he claims he loves women, is that this is a historic election for women and they are done with the juvenile, prurient, potty talk behavior.”

Other political observers contacted by The Hill weren’t so sure.

Trump has a history of attacks on both men and women — notably GOP presidential rival Carly Fiorina and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

So far, that hasn’t hurt him with supporters.  

“At this point, I don’t know how much more crass he can get,” said Martin Sweet, a political scientist and commentator. “If any other candidate would have said any of this stuff, he or she would have been gone a long time ago.”

Katherine Jellison, a professor of women’s history at Ohio University agreed.

“It seems like he says whatever he wants to say and his fans like him more,” Jellison said. “No matter how crude, his fans seem to like it. In the wake of Trump’s latest remarks on Clinton, “his poll numbers will probably go up.” 

At the same time, Trump has been suffering with women in the polls. A Quinnipiac University poll out on Tuesday showed that six in 10 women say they would be “embarrassed” of a Trump presidency.

Meanwhile, he has a lack of support among women in key early-voting states including Iowa. A CNN poll released earlier this month shows that he only has the support of 29 percent of women in Iowa.

And while Trump has criticized Clinton in a personal way before over her pantsuits and staffers including Huma Abedin, some in Clinton World believe it reached a boil with his comments about her bathroom break on Monday.

“I know where she went — it’s disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said to a cheering and laughing crowd at a campaign stop in Michigan. “No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting.”

Later, while discussing Clinton’s defeat to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, he said: “She was favored to win, and she got schlonged.”

In August after the first GOP presidential debate, he said Kelly “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

And a month later, he also said mocked Fiorina’s appearance saying, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? … I mean, she’s a woman and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

A Trump spokesman did not respond to an inquiry on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Clinton World was not amused by the latest round of comments.

“He crossed a major line,” one longtime Clinton confidante said. “Criticize her on policy, criticize her on politics, but her use of the bathroom — it’s just so sophomoric. Grow up!”

On Tuesday, left-leaning website  ThinkProgress called the Trump comments “astonishingly sexist.”

But Sweet and others say they don’t think the new controversy will stuck to Trump any more than the old ones.

“I don’t know what’s different now,” he said. “It’s not significant enough to move the dial. It’s just not out of character for him. The bar is so low for Trump for what people will tolerate. ”