Hillary Clinton’s first interview since she became the official nominee for president was with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday. During the interview, Clinton made the surprising statement that her mother watched a lot of Fox News.
At first, I was shocked, given that Clinton was famously close with her mother. During her Democratic National Convention speech, Clinton said about her mother, “I miss her every day.” And, as Associated Press reported, though Clinton’s father was a Republican, her mother was reportedly a Democrat.
Here’s the exchange between Clinton and a surprised Mike Wallace, via the FoxNews.com transcript:
WALLACE: You talked a lot in the convention about your mom and about her hard childhood and about her resilience and the lessons she taught you. I wonder in these last few days, have you been thinking of her? And what do you imagine she’s thinking of you?
CLINTON: Oh, Chris, I thought about her—well, I think about her every day. And particularly during the convention, I thought a lot about her when Chelsea got up to speak, because she and my daughter were so close. And I thought a lot about her when I walked out onto the stage to deliver that address.
And actually, that was the part of the speech that concerned me the most. Every time I talk about my mom, I get very overcome. She wouldn’t—you know, she wouldn’t like what you saw at the Republican convention, where, you know, just the outrageous things that were said and the kind of normalization of really offensive rhetoric in our politics. She wouldn’t have like any of that. She was a big FOX viewer, I will tell you.
WALLACE: Really?
CLINTON: Yes, she was. And I—
WALLACE: Why didn’t you take that from her?
CLINTON: Well, I once said to her—and she would get upset, I’ll be honest with you, she would get upset when some of the people who had on would say these terrible things about me. And that was when I was a senator running for president and for the first two years of being secretary of state.
I would say, well, mom, if it upsets you so much, why do you keep watching? She said, I like some of the people and I have to know what the other ones are saying, so I can understand and be against it.
So I think she had a very strategic reason for watching. She said to me one time, you know, Hillary, I don’t understand. You were such a wonderful child to raise. You never gave me a minute’s trouble or worry, then you become an adult and you get into politics and I just worry all the time.
So, she would worry, but she would be encouraging and she would say what she said to me when I was 4 years old in the face of a bully, because honestly I think that describes my opponent. I feel I have to get out there, go back out there, stand up to him, not just on my own behalf, because I can take care of myself, but on behalf of all these other people who he has so mistreated in this campaign.
OK, so Clinton was saying her mother watched Fox, basically, as oppo research. But I think there’s quite possibly a cynical reason Clinton just happened to mention this and it’s the same one Clinton just happened to make Fox News her first media stop after the convention: She’s trying to make herself appealing to Republicans and saying, "I get you."
One other thing worth mentioning in the interview is something John Amato, at Crooks and Liars caught: Wallace’s sleazy attempt to promote the baseless accusation that there was some kind of “pay to play” scheme behind donations and/or Bill Clinton speaking fees by “foreign interests” while Hillary was Secretary of State.
“Are we to believe that’s just a coincidence?” Wallace asked accusingly.
Clinton responded by refuting the allegations and saying how proud she is of the Clinton Foundation’s philanthropy.
Then she stuck it to Donald Trump:
CLINTON: And there is absolutely no connection between anything that I did as secretary of state and the Clinton Foundation. So, people can say that, but I’m proud of our philanthropic work, our personal/family philanthropic work, the work of the Clinton Foundation.
I’d like to see Donald Trump’s tax returns to find out how much philanthropy he’s ever done.
Nicely done, eh?
Watch the lengthy interview below, from the July 31 Fox News Sunday and let me know what you think.
WaPo took issue with basically 2 things:
“As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.
And although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/31/clintons-claim-that-the-fbi-director-said-her-email-answers-were-truthful/
I stand by what I said earlier. Hillary needs to do a blitz of interviews. Including WaPo. Let them probe deeper. This is a nothing burger.
Hell, even discuss the server in the basement. And I’ll talk threat surface areas to explain how Google, Department of State, etc. are more likely to be hacked.
What’s killing Hillary her remaining silent as the media speculates off the charts, assumes the worse because she won’t talk.
All I’ll say here is to reiterate Hillary needs a media blitz of interviews to repeat this performance. She buries Chris on the standard Fox #Benghazi! and email talking points. She’ll cut her negatives. Which is a much easier row to hoe than increasing Trump’s sky high negatives.