Did Hillary Clinton capitalize on Trump’s hot mic?

When someone’s entire reputation is on the line, drastic measures can be taken.

Prior to Sunday night’s presidential debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump appeared with three women who accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety.

It was an attempt to get under the skin of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and deflect some of the public conversation away from the video leak that had dominated the weekend news and set his campaign into crisis mode.

During the first debate, Trump suggested that he might bring Bill Clinton’s accusers into the campaign narrative. Hillary Clinton’s campaign knew to prepare a response to that.

In drafting her response, Clinton probably weighed two options:

• She could defend herself and confront her opponent about his own checkered history with women.

• She could dismiss his defense and allow the debate to progress into policy issues.

The problem with the first approach is that it would her put on the defense and allow Trump to take control of the debate. The second option was a safe way to handle the situation but would fail to draw sympathy or highlight her opponent’s hypocrisy. She chose the latter.

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As a PR pro, I would have strongly recommended a third approach.

Instead of waiting for Trump to reference his defense, Clinton could have immediately acknowledged the accusers and showed emotion while discussing that painful period in her life. Once she had the crowd’s sympathy, she could have taken jabs at Trump’s infidelities and aggression towards women—putting him on the defensive.

Instead, Trump delivered his rehearsed attack, and it went nearly unchallenged by Clinton.

If you have a glaring weakness that your competition wants to expose, sometimes the best course of action is to take control of the issue and beat them to the punch.

Brian Hart is the founder and president of Flackable, a national financial public relations and digital marketing agency. Follow him on Twitter at @BrianHartPR. A version of this article first appeared on his blog.

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