Donald Trump is going after a Mexican billionaire to attack The New York Times
Donald Trump plans to invoke Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to advance his claim that the media and other global figures are trying to sink his campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A Trump adviser told The Journal that Trump intends to charge that Slim, the world's second-richest man and The New York Times' largest stakeholder, wants to help elect Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, citing Slim's donations to the Clinton Foundation as evidence.
Slim and his foundation have given between $250,000 and $500,000 to Clinton's foundation, according to The Journal.
Slim also gave a $250 million loan to The Times in 2008 and owns 17% of the newspaper.
Trump has clashed with The Times in recent days over the paper's reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct by the Republican nominee over the last several decades. The Times has stood by the stories and rejected demands by Trump's legal team to retract them.
The paper has also reported critically on Slim, including an August story detailing the billionaire's empire's struggles in the face of Mexico's telecom reforms.
Right-wing media has also harped on the connection between Slim and The Times since he took a stake in the paper. "Carlos Slim's blog" has become a nickname for the paper, and conservative commentator Ann Coulter has alleged that the paper turned "toward deranged hectoring in favor of illegal immigration" after the Mexican businessman got involved with The Times, according to New York magazine.
"Carlos Slim is an excellent shareholder who fully respects boundaries regarding the independence of our journalism," New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told The Journal. "He has never sought to influence what we report."
Trump and Slim himself have also clashed since Trump launched his presidential campaign last summer. After the American billionaire attacked some Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and criminals, Slim's television studio canceled a project it had planned with Trump, New York magazine notes.
Regarding Trump's reported plan to attack purported collusion between Slim, The Times, and Clinton, the Mexican billionaire's camp dismissed any suggestion of cooperation.
"This is totally false," Arturo Elias, Slim's spokesman and son-in-law, told The Journal. "Of course we aren't interfering in the US election. We aren't even active in Mexican politics."
An attack on Slim and his ties to the Clinton Foundation is likely meant to unite Trump's previous salvos against Mexico, The New York Times, and the "global power structure" that the Republican candidate has invoked again and again over the course of his campaign.