Yesterday, I posted on Clinton vowing to ignore Donald Trump’s line of attack on Bill Clinton’s career as a sexual predator and her own enabling and befriending predators and perverts. I’ve also laid out the reasons why, if Trump decides to persist, that her strategy of “nothing to see here” will fail.

Yesterday in a lengthy interview (the full tape runs 14 hours) with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, Hillary was asked about the subject:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declined on Monday to say if she has been in communication with any of the women involved in the sex scandals during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Asked if she has had any interactions with them, or feels empathy for any of them, Clinton told The Des Moines Register: “No, I have nothing to say and I will leave it to voters to determine whether any of that is at all relevant to their decision.”

GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump has brought the former president’s past marital infidelities and allegations of sexual assault into the political conversation again in recent days, saying on “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend that some of the women “have been totally destroyed. And Hillary worked with him.”

Clinton has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the women, or Trump’s comments.

Exactly two parts of Hillary’s interview have received coverage. First, her defending of her herculean flip flops (“I think [that] is a strength…”) and her refusal to comment on Trump’s comments.

For those who claim that Trump’s attacks will come to nothing because the press won’t cover them, take note. This is was covered by the Des Moines Register, a primary Hillary needs to win and where her support is collapsing. Her strategy of not responding can work, but it only works when you think the subject will go away. This is not going away as it strikes at the very core of Hillary’s candidacy.

What she did here was no different than a politician taking the Fifth. Her very refusal to respond to the attacks is a response. Any human, when confronted with those allegations, would not only deny them, they would be incensed by them, IF they were innocent. Her continued refusal to respond, especially if Trump and other candidates pick up the attack, will increase the damage.