Hillary and Bill Clinton have become frequent targets of criticism for beleaguered President Donald Trump. | AP Photo Trump can’t stop obsessing about the Clintons The president’s vanquished general election opponent is a convenient foil as Trump battles controversy.

When President Donald Trump is backed into a corner, there’s one target he loves to fire at: the Clintons.

Whether trying to divert attention from investigations into his campaign’s possible Russia ties, attempting to sell a troubled health care overhaul, or simply looking for an easy mark, the beleaguered president has taken to attacking the family that Republicans have maligned for decades.


“Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech.......money to Bill, the Hillary Russian ‘reset,’ praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday night, as questions swirled about whether the White House was trying to undermine the panel’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

“What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians?” Trump asked on Twitter on March 20.

He even accused his general election opponent of rigging the race for Democratic National Committee chair, tweeting on Feb. 26: “The race for DNC Chairman was, of course, totally ‘rigged.’ Bernie's guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance. Clinton demanded Perez!”

When he hit the road to try to sell Republicans’ since-abandoned Obamacare replacement earlier this month, he couldn’t resist mocking Bill Clinton before a raucous crowd.

“Oh, he must have had a tough night when he went home that night,” Trump said of the former president, apparently diverging from his prepared remarks to ding Clinton for his wife’s election loss.

Even as the election fades in the rearview mirror, few issues seem to animate Trump’s supporters as much as his defeated opponent, who serves as a convenient foil as the White House battles multiplying controversies.

“Lock her up!” chants are still a fixture at Trump’s campaign-style rallies. At at least two recent campaign-style rallies, merchandise hawkers were selling bulls-eye targets featuring Clinton’s face for shooting practice. Indeed, in a Republican Party rife with divisions and internecine fighting, detest for all things Clinton seems to be one of the few unifying principles that has endured over recent decades ever since a fresh-faced Arkansas governor broke 12 years of Republican control of the White House.

While avoiding any head-on clashes with Trump, the Clintons haven’t exactly taken his punches sitting down.

Hillary Clinton has shown a willingness to assert herself on Twitter, from a simple missive celebrating a court’s rejection of Trump’s travel ban to a string of tweets touting the successes of the Affordable Care Act when the Republican replacement plan collapsed. She also voiced her support for the massive Women’s Marches that took place around the country shortly after Trump’s inauguration. And her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, has also become a more vocal Twitter presence, regularly hitting Trump and congressional Republicans.

But it’s not just public attacks. Trump continues to vent in private about Donna Brazile’s move to give Clinton questions ahead of a CNN primary town hall, an episode he also brings up frequently in interviews and press conferences.

Anti-Clinton sentiment was a major driver in Trump’s Electoral College victory, as both candidates had underwater approval numbers. For both Trump and his running mate Mike Pence, as well as Republicans up and down the ballot, attacks on the Clintons were central to election-season messaging. Allegations about corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s use of a private email server while leading the State Department were laced throughout Republicans’ stump speeches.

The White House has turned to using the same talking points in trying to defuse questions about Trump’s ties to Russia.

After a story broke on Trump’s former campaign chairman’s work for a Russian billionaire to advance Putin’s interests, press secretary Sean Spicer suggested the Clintons’ ties to Russia deserve more investigation. He referenced work Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s brother had done on behalf of a Russian bank and a paid speech former President Bill Clinton gave in Moscow for a Russian bank connected with a uranium deal.

“So an individual who worked for less than -- the campaign for five months for the President's two-year long campaign, who worked with a Russian entity a decade ago, is the subject of rampant media speculation all day long, even though the Clintons had much more expensive -- extensive ties, while Secretary of State Hillary was crafting a policy she said was designed ‘strengthen Russia,’” Spicer said.

The tactic has Democrats rolling their eyes.

“Trump clearly prefers campaigning to governing. He especially does not like the unmitigated scrutiny that comes with being the sitting President and so he is desperately in search of an enemy to be a political foil and help take the media focus off his own scandals,” Brian Fallon, Clinton’s former campaign press secretary, said in a statement to POLITICO. “At different times, he has tried to draw both President Obama and Hillary Clinton into a back-and-forth, or make pointless comparisons between himself and them, but neither they nor the public are gullible enough to take the bait. Trump will likely keep trying to find a sparring partner to shadowbox with, but the Democrats' best move is to sit back and let him continue beating himself up.”

The rhetoric carries real risks for Trump’s agenda, on everything from infrastructure and health care to taxes and government spending. With a divided Republican conference in the House and a slim majority in the Senate, Trump will need Democratic support for any substantial legislative accomplishments. And, with his approval ratings sinking and a Democratic base firmly against him, it’s hard to see how attacking the party’s 2016 standard bearer will make the prospect of negotiating with Trump any more palatable for Democrats.

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Republicans on Capitol Hill, craving a victory after the health care debacle, also seem weary of Trump’s devotion to his 2016 opponent.

“What I found in my role as a chief executive for eight years, is that legislative bodies are easily distracted and that there is a value to focusing on whatever you focus on. If not you can end up spending a lot of time going down different ratholes that may be counterproductive in terms of two or three or four or five things you hope to accomplish in a legislative sense,” said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a former governor. “In that regards, some of the constant tweeting is at minimum distracting, and at maximum counterproductive to a legislative agenda.”

“You're fighting yesterday's story if you're fighting against a candidate you were once running against that is no longer the candidate that you might be running against,” Sanford added.

“I think the President has obviously calculated this. It would be my guess with his political advisors, that we have to remind people that the Democrats are out to discredit my president by claiming we're doing certain things that they did without question when they were in office,” said Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), though he added that the drumbeat of Clinton attacks “doesn’t help me.”

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said a few weeks ago that he would prefer the president cut back on his Twitter habit.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment as to whether there is a strategy behind the Clinton attacks, or whether there is worry such rhetoric could make working with Democrats more difficult.

But others are glad to see the president pushing his message in the way he wants to push it — without the filter of one group that has been viewed as an adversary by Republicans even longer than the Clintons.

“It's Trump tweeting versus the mainstream media,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.). “The mainstream media doesn't seem too user friendly towards his presidency so what do you want him to do?"

Josh Dawsey and Shane Goldmacher contributed to this report.