Brian J. Tumulty

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton gamely took advantage of the media attention given to Donald Trump's early morning Friday tweet attacking former Miss Universe Alicia Machado with her own early morning tweet Saturday on her plan to increase national service.

Clinton's 3:20 a.m. tweet links to an essay on her plan to expand the ranks of AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000, increase the size of the Peace Corps and create a new National Service Reserve with 5 million members who would be available to mobilize in the event of a natural disaster or some other large calamity.

Clinton writes:

"My opponent and I have very different views — not just about what makes America great and what we should do to make it even greater, but also about that basic question of how progress happens at all. He believes in a strongman approach. He even stood on stage at his convention and said, 'I alone can fix it.'”

Trump, of course, used the wee hours of Friday morning to first urge his followers at 3:20 to not believe any unnamed sources speaking on behalf of his campaign:

Trump also tweeted at 5:14 a.m. that Clinton was "duped'' by the former Ms. Universe "without checking her past."

In a third tweet at 5:19 a.m. Trump said Clinton suffers from "bad judgement" (using the British spelling of the American word "judgment").

At 5:30 a.m. Trump followed up by urging his followers to check out a "sex tape'' of Machado, but without providing any evidence that one exists.



