Want To Know Trump’s General Election Strategy? Check Out Who He’s Having Lunch With.

Author: ThinkProgress

May 4, 2016 at 09:20

As Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump traveled through Indiana on Monday, one day before the state’s crucial primary election, he stopped to have lunch with a notable human being: Edward Klein.

Klein is apparently an old friend. The former New York Times Magazine editor-in-chief recently wrote that he’s known Trump “for 35 years, met with him on numerous occasions, talked to him on the phone countless times, traveled with him, and written two lengthy magazine cover stories about him.”

More importantly, though, Klein is also a expert on smearing Democratic politicians — particularly the party’s current presidential frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. After relatively respectable stints at New York Times Magazine and Newsweek, Klein essentially turned into a gossip columnist with a vendetta, writing negative and often salacious books on both Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, and the Kennedy family. Most of his books’ more controversial claims are based on quotes f-rom anonymous sources, causing both conservative and liberal writers alike to raise serious questions about his credibility.

Though Klein insisted he was only travelling with Trump “to gather material for a new book,” theWashington Post reported, the timing was curious. Trump is less than 250 delegates away f-rom securing his party’s nomination, and is increasingly uninterested in talking about his Republican opponents. “I would like to get onto Hillary,” Trump told reporters right before his lunch with Klein.

If Trump would indeed like to move on to attacking Hillary Clinton — and if he doesn’t care about whether his attacks are based in fact — then Klein is certainly the guy to talk to.. ...