Video playlist: Chelsea Clinton, Cory Booker, and Q&A; videos by Bill Lescohier and Kevin Coughlin
By Kevin Coughlin
Campaigning for Hillary Clinton on Monday in East Hanover, Chelsea Clinton and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) took aim at Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president.
“I never thought I would see the almost-daily diet of hate speech. The almost-normalization of bigotry. The sexism. The racism. The Islamophobia. The homophobia. The anti-immigrant rhetoric. The anti-workers’ rights rhetoric. The rhetoric against Americans with disabilities, the rhetoric against our veterans,” Chelsea Clinton told Democratic supporters in a packed ballroom at the Fair Bridge Inn.
“That’s certainly not the country I want to live in, and it’s certainly not the country that I want to grow up in,” said Chelsea, who is expecting her second child.
By contrast, she said, her mother has worked for a world of “love-based opportunities” that include health care for all.
A CBS poll over the weekend showed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a 61 to 34 percent lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders heading into Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New Jersey.
Chelsea Clinton told reporters her pregnancy is why she was campaigning in New Jersey, close to home, and not in California, where polls indicate the primary battle with Sanders is much closer.
She was introduced by Booker, whose name has come up as a potential vice presidential running mate for Chelsea’s mom. Chelsea Clinton said she had no information about that.
Neither Chelsea Clinton nor Booker actually mentioned Trump’s name. But it was clear who Booker meant when he contrasted Sen. Clinton with the Republican real estate magnate, who he accused of rejecting basic American ideals “almost every time he opens his mouth.”
“We have a person here who says what makes you great is not the content of your character; if you’re a woman, it’s how you look on the outside,” said Booker, who delighted the crowd by snapping selfies of himself and Chelsea Clinton with audience members.
“We have a guy that says, ‘Hey, you fight for this country, you die for this country, you sacrifice for this country, but if you’re a prisoner of war, you’re not a hero.’
“We have a guy that says, ‘Hey, if you have a certain religion, in this nation of religious freedom, you can’t get in because you pray a certain way.’ …. We can’t elect someone who is a fear-mongerer,” Booker said.
Morristown Green correspondent Bill Lescohier contributed to this report.
