Donald Trump said Saturday that a drug test should be administered prior to the presidential debate next week because Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton appeared to be “pumped up” on drugs at their last face-off.
“Athletes, they make them take a drug test. I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate,” the Republican nominee told a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “I’m willing to do it.”
Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are set to next meet on the debate stage Wednesday in Las Vegas.
Mr. Trump said that he “didn’t what’s going on with her” but that at the debate Sunday in St. Louis, Mrs. Clinton started the 90-minute debate “pumped up” and turned lethargic by the end.
“She could barely reach the car,” he said.
The description recalled Mrs. Clinton’s health scare when she nearly collapsed when leaving early from a 9/11 commemoration ceremony in New York. The Clinton campaign belatedly admitted that she had pneumonia and she then took several days off the campaign trail to recuperate.
The health scare was a low point of the campaign for Mrs. Clinton, spurring questions about whether she had a more severe condition than she was admitting.
Mr. Trump has intensified attacks on Mrs. Clinton as he continues to slide in the polls following a 2005 videotape that surfaced last week in which he boasted that his celebrity status allowed him to kiss and fondle women he meets, and then several women came forward to claim he did to to them.
The New York businessman apologized for his lewd comments and denied the women’s allegations, which he said were made up in an attempt to get Mrs. Clinton elected.
“A lot of things are going on, folks. A lot of things,” Mr. Trump said at the rally. “I think she’s actually getting pumped, if you want to know the truth. She’s getting pumped up.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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