How Hillary Hijacked Trump's Best Weapons

At the end of July, Trump was at a dead heat in the polls against Hillary Clinton. But in the span of just a week, things turned on their head for Trump. And according to polls, he's currently a long shot to be president. What's most interesting is that Trump didn't change much in that week. Rather, Hillary's team effectively countered techniques that Trump had been using for months. In this video, we're going to look at what persuasion mistakes Trump made, how Hillary capitalized on those mistakes, and what both candidates need to do to win. So let's start by exploring how some of Trump's most effective weapons have been turned against him. The first one can be called others have said Trump used the others have said technique in the Republican primaries. Often, for instance, watch here as he says that other people are saying Ted Cruz is ineligible to run for president.

Number two, this isn't me saying it. I don't care. Thank you. Lawrence Tribe. And numerous from Harvard, of Harvard said that there is a serious question as to whether or not Ted can do this. Okay. There are other attorneys that feel, and very, very fine constitutional attorneys that feel that because he was not born on the land, he cannot run for office. Here's the problem.

This technique allowed Trump to give controversial or politically incorrect viewpoints a voice box while claiming he was merely voicing someone else's opinion. It allowed him to discredit his opponents without technically dirtying his own hands. And on many occasions, he used. Other people are saying, to talk himself up or say how much he was winning. That worked like a charm for him in the primaries. But. But then that technique backfired.

He was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people have written that she was extremely quiet and it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that.

The background here is that the Khan family spoke out against Trump at the Democratic National Convention. And in this interview, Trump tried to shut down Mr. Khan by implying that Mrs. Khan wasn't allowed to speak at the convention. Right in line with this incident, Trump's favorability ratings took a dive. And the reason is partially because Trump wasn't allowed to distance himself from this comment like he had in the past. The other people are saying technique didn't keep his hands clean because instead of directing it towards his opponents, he directed it towards a gold star mother. Not only that, he did that immediately after accepting the Republican nomination, when the scrutiny on his words was going to be higher than ever. So Trump's big mistake here was in using a proven technique in the wrong situation. The landscape had changed and Trump didn't. But that wasn't the end of Trump's troubles. The second issue was when Hillary found out how to counter another one of his favorite techniques. You've probably seen this clip.

ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of isis. He's the founder of isis. Okay. He's the founder. He founded isis. And I would say the co founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.

This comment was on the news for days, and eventually pressure from the media got so bad that Trump had to repeatedly insist he was only being sarcastic. What's interesting here is that Trump had made similar comments since several times without any issue. Here he is on 60 Minutes in July.

Hillary Clinton invented ISIS with her stupid policies.

And here he is at a campaign rally all the way back in January.

They've created isis. Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama. Created with Obama.

What changed? How come these statements didn't hurt Trump until now? The answer is that Hillary's team and the media supporting her came up with a new strategy. They stopped trying to create witty comebacks, which Hillary was terrible at, and instead they framed Trump's exaggerated sarcastic comments as statements of fact, things he truly believed. Hillary responded on Twitter saying that no, Obama did not found isis. This created a trap, which Trump walked right into. If Trump said he was making a rhetorical point via exaggeration, he'd be backing down, which would go against his narrative of always winning. But if he doubled down on the sarcasm, he'd be on the record as factually incorrect as saying that Obama literally founded isis. Hillary's team put him in a strong double bind, and he. He chose the option of doubling down and suffered the consequences in the news cycle.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt pressed him on that.

I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.

No, I meant he's the founder of isis, but he's not sympathetic to them.

He hates them. He's trying to kill them.

He was the founder.

Then the Clinton campaign went on the attack. Hillary started saying that these kind of comments make Trump dangerous because of the confidence that he inspires in America's enemies. And this counter strategy, as seen in the polls, has worked so well that it likely signals a huge shift in Trump. Trump's campaign. The end of political incorrectness. It's just too costly. For him. Now, if Trump wants to avoid trouble, he needs to do two things. First, he needs to stick to the teleprompter. No more off the cuff, vague, sarcastic comments. There is too much spotlight on him and mistakes are clearly costing him more than they did in the primaries. Second, the era of winning all the time is over. Trump needs to apologize rather than double down to limit the downside of these sarcastic comments. After all, it was the insistence in in never backing down that took the Obama founded ISIS line into dangerous territory for him. If Trump can avoid mistakes, he still might be able to keep out of the media long enough to go on the attack against Hillary. And by the way, he has already started using the teleprompter more often and apologizing, so don't count him out yet. But Hillary is not standing still. She has also done quite a bit to boost her own favorability ratings. A big turning point for her was the national convention, not because of any policy speeches that she gave, but because her campaign did a great job of humanizing her. You see, Hillary's problem has always been that she comes across as robotic and cultly calculating. Trump's crooked branding of her has stuck and many perceive her as a liar. So her campaign took great lengths to show the human side of Hillary. For instance, the first thing of any substance that she said at the national convention was to mention her daughter, Chelsea.

Thank you. I am so proud to be your mother and so proud of the woman you've become. Thank you for bringing Mark into our family and Charlotte and Aiden into the world.

Then Hillary's team produced a video of her backstage at the convention, having conversations that you've likely heard in your own house, minus, of course, all of the celebrities.

You're as bad as I am. You never know what you. You got everybody so tired up, and I in particular, a very, very proud daughter.

She looks so pretty.

The brilliance of these clips is that because they are shot outside of a set with semi obstructed views and imperfect audio, moving cameramen, the audience gets the sense that this is all candid, that this is honest, that this, in these scenes, is the real Hillary Clinton. She seems like an excited mother and friend, like someone that, you know. It's not logical, but it's harder to imagine someone whose humanity you can see as a liar. And it's easy to forgive deception if you view that as a mistake that a good person made rather than as a pattern of a bad person. So more important for Hillary than coming across as honest is coming across as likable which is why you may have started to see her on comedy talk shows. And she's even started joking a bit.

Are you in good health?

Well, this has become one of their themes here. You take my. Take my pulse while I'm talking to you, okay? So make sure I'm alive.

Oh, my God.

There's nothing there.

There's nothing there. What can I say?

That's how we got to where we are today. With Hillary holding a commanding lead in the polls, Hillary found a way to humanize herself. She countered Trump's strategies and Trump played right into it by doubling down on some of the ridiculous things that he said. Hillary has now continued to press her advantage by associating Trump with the alt right and racist factions in America. Interestingly, Trump's response to those attacks is right out of Hillary's playbook when she.

Can'T defend her record. That's right. She lies. He said it. I want you to remember these three words. Shame on you.

Clearly, both sides are adjusting. And I expect that while shame might work well this month, by the time we get to Election Day, the strategies will have evolved even further. I'm especially looking forward to the debates where we can see the candidates go head to head without the immediate help of their teams. I'm almost definitely going to make a video breaking down those debates, so if you want to see that, make sure to subscribe by clicking the box here. If you want to see some of the subtle psychological tactics that got Trump this far and that most people missed, go ahead and click the box here to check that video out. And of course, if there's anything you'd like to see me do in the future, topics that you'd like me to cover, go ahead and write those in the comments below. So I'm looking forward to covering more on this after the debates when we've seen the candidates in the same room together without all the media spin cycle. Until then, I hope that you have enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one.