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      Hillary Clinton laments US extremism and calls for unity on 9/11 anniversary

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      Hillary Clinton laments US extremism and calls for unity on 9/11 anniversaryFormer US secretary of state makes an impassioned attack on turn towards extremism and divisiveness in American politics Hillary Clinton seized the opportunity presented by Sunday’s 21st anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington to make a thinly-veiled attack on the extremism and divisiveness stoked by Donald Trump, as she called for a return to national unity.The former US secretary of state and first lady invoked the bipartisan mood of the country in the wake of the 9/11 attack in which almost 3,000 people were killed.“We were able to come together as a country at that terrible time, we put aside differences. I wish we could find ways of doing that again,” she told CNN in and interview for the State of the Union politics show on Sunday morning.It was recalled how, as a Democratic US Senator for New York, in 2001 she flew over the burning wreckage of the World Trade Center at the disaster zone known as Ground Zero, in lower Manhattan, and went on air to pledge her unswerving support for Republican president George W Bush’s efforts to lead the US response.Clinton noted that she met with Bush and asked for $20bn in federal funds to rebuild. “And he said ‘You got it’,” she told CNN anchor Dana Bash.Clinton’s lament for the passing of such national togetherness then led her to make an impassioned attack on the turn towards extremism in American politics, albeit without mentioning Trump, the former Republican president who may yet run again in 2024, by name.She said that 9/11 reminded Americans “about how impossible it is to try and deal with extremism of any kind, especially when it uses violence to try to achieve political and ideological goals”.In another implicit reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) rightwing movement, she went on to say that a “very vocal, very powerful, very determined minority wants to impose their views on the rest of us. It’s time for everybody, regardless of party, to say no, that’s not who we are as America.”Clinton’s remarks came on the morning that the US marked 21 years of the al-Qaida attacks on the twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, as well as Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Joe Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon, where he recalled that “terror struck us on that brilliant blue morning” but did not destroy “the character of this nation that terrorists sought to wound”.Biden, who lost his first wife and their daughter to a car crash that also injured their two sons, then later lost one of those sons, Beau, to cancer, said: “I know for all of you who lost someone that 21 years is a lifetime and no time at all.”The US president was joined in the pouring rain by General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and defense secretary Lloyd Austin, who spoke about “a day of horror and loss” as 2,977 people were killed by the impact of the four passenger jets hijacked by the terrorists.First lady Jill Biden led commemorations at the memorial site in Shanksville, accompanied by her sister Bonny Roberts, whom Biden initially feared she might have lost that day as she was a flight attendant for United Airlines, which suffered two of the hijackings, but, it turned out, was not flying that morning.Kamala Harris and the second gentleman, her husband Doug Emhoff, joined the observance at the National September 11 Memorial in New York.The vice-president did not speak, as per tradition, allowing the commemoration to be led by the reading of the names of those who died and moments of silence to mark the points when the hijacked planes struck each of the towers.But in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, aired on Sunday, she spoke of America’s reputation as a world role model for democracy being under threat.She cited challenges from the right wing to election integrity, including the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden, and extremist Republicans’ unwillingness to condemn it, while also fielding many candidates in current elections who still refuse to accept the true result.“I think it is a threat…it is very dangerous and I think it is very harmful. And it makes us weaker,” she said.She added that when meeting foreign leaders, the US “had the honor and privilege historically of holding our head up as a defender and an example of a great democracy. And that then gives us the legitimacy and the standing to talk about the importance of democratic principles, rule of law, human rights….through the process of what we’ve been through, we’re starting to allow people to call into question our commitment to those principles. And that’s a shame.”On Sunday, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader in the US House of Representatives, slammed the Biden administration.“Twenty one years ago, we had a commander-in-chief [George W Bush] who united the country rather than divided the country,” McCarthy told Fox News. He said were the Republicans to take back control of the House in November’s midterm elections, “we would build a nation that is safe. We have watched Democratic policies make it the deadliest of America (sic) in the last 20 years.”TopicsSeptember 11 2001Hillary ClintonUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Judge rejects Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over 2016 Russia claims

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      Judge rejects Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton over 2016 Russia claimsCourt ‘not the appropriate forum’ for former president’s complaint that Democrats unfairly linked his winning campaign to Russia A US judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, saying the former Republican president’s allegations that Democrats tried to rig that election by linking his campaign to Russia was an attempt to “flaunt” political grievances that did not belong in court.In throwing out Trump’s lawsuit on Thursday night, judge Donald Middlebrooks of the US district court for the southern district of Florida said the lawsuit was not seeking “redress for any legal harm” and that the court was “not the appropriate forum” for the former president’s complaints.“He is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him,” Middlebrooks said in his ruling.Trump in March had sued Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and several other Democrats alleging “racketeering,” a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood” and other claims in a 108-page lawsuit that echoed the long list of grievances he repeatedly aired during his four years in the White House after beating Clinton.He had sought compensatory and punitive damages, saying he had incurred more than $24m in “defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses”.In his ruling, Middlebrooks said Trump had waited too long to file his complaint by exceeding the legal statute of limitations for his claims and that he failed to make his case that he was harmed by any falsehoods, noting that many of the statements made by the defendants were “plainly protected by the First Amendment” of the US constitution governing free speech.Representatives for Clinton and Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.Other defendants included Democratic representative Adam Schiff, who led one of the US House of Representatives’ two impeachments against Trump, and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who wrote a dossier circulated to the FBI and media outlets before the 2016 election.US intelligence officials and others in the US government have accused Russia of meddling in that election. Moscow has denied that it interfered in the campaign.TopicsDonald TrumpHillary ClintonUS elections 2016US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Hillary Clinton reveals lingerie ad that prompted trademark pantsuit look

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      Hillary Clinton reveals lingerie ad that prompted trademark pantsuit lookIntrusive press photographs and official visit to Brazil led to then first lady adopting style of dress that she made famous Hillary Clinton decided to start wearing the pantsuits that became her political trademark after “suggestive” photos taken of her during a visit to Brazil were used in a lingerie ad in the mid-1990s, she has revealed.Hillary Clinton addresses husband’s infidelity in trailer for new TV showRead moreThe former US secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate told CBS News in an interview that aired on Sunday that the choice came after a 1995 trip to Brazil she took with her husband, Bill Clinton, then in the first of two terms as president.A photo of Clinton showed a glimpse of her underwear while seated. The Brazilian lingerie company DuLoren deployed the image in an ad containing the words: “A tribute to one of the most important women of the decade.”DuLoren’s vice-president at the time insisted the advertisement “was meant as a compliment” to Clinton, but the company pulled the ad from circulation after an American embassy in Brazil complained.“I was sitting on a couch, and the press was let in – there were a bunch of them shooting up,” Clinton said, recalling the episode. “All of a sudden the White House gets alerted to these billboards that show me sitting down with I thought my legs together, but the way it’s shot, it’s sort of suggestive.”Clinton continued: “And then I also began to have the experience of having photographers all the time – I’d be on a stage, I’d be climbing stairs, and they’d be below me. I just couldn’t deal with it, so I started wearing pants.”Her daughter, Chelsea, who was seated next to her in the interview, at one point remarked: “So creepy.”Clinton followed up her time as the country’s first lady by representing New York in the US Senate from 2001 to 2009 before spending the next four years as secretary of state for the Barack Obama White House.She won the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, and her supporters during that race rallied around the social media hashtag “Pantsuit Nation”, paying tribute to her attire of choice while conducting political business. Many of those who voted in that election also wore pantsuits to the polls to tacitly signal their support for her, though she ultimately lost to her Republican rival Donald Trump.Clinton is promoting an Apple TV+ docuseries she made with Chelsea called Gutsy, which profiles brave and trailblazing women.The former secretary of state was asked in Sunday’s interview to define what a gutsy woman is.“I think a gutsy woman is … determined to make the most of her own life but also to try to use whatever skills, talents, persistence that she has to bring others along,” Clinton said.TopicsHillary ClintonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified material

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      Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified materialParty spent years chanting ‘lock her up’ at Hillary Clinton for private email system, says congressman, a vocal critic of Trump Congressman Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who has been one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump, called out his party for criticizing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while continuing to defend the former president’s decision to take sensitive government information to his home at Mar-a-Lago.Kinzinger’s comments came days after the FBI released a redacted version of the affidavit the agency submitted to a federal judge to justify a search of Trump’s home. The document details how Trump retained classified material at Mar-a-Lago and that the government had been working for more than a year to retrieve those materials. A batch of documents returned earlier this year contained 184 documents marked as classified, including 25 marked as top secret.“The hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting, ‘Lock her up,’ about Hillary Clinton because of some deleted emails or – quote/unquote – ‘wiping a server,’ are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the United States to heart,” Kinzinger, who is retiring from Congress after this term, said on NBC’s Meet The Press. “And it’ll be up to [the US justice department] whether or not that reaches the level of an indictment.“But this is disgusting in my mind. And, like, no president should act this way, obviously.”It’s not yet clear whether Trump will face criminal charges in the matter. But during the 2016 presidential campaign that propelled him to the Oval Office, Trump and his Republican allies said his Democratic rival Clinton should be punished for her use of a private email server while she was serving as secretary of state.“Lock her up,” became a rallying cry at Trump rallies on the campaign trail. A US state department investigation ultimately found there was “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information”.The former justice department official who oversaw the agency’s investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material, David Laufman, told Politico earlier this month that case and Trump’s were different.“For the department to pursue a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago tells me that the quantum and quality of the evidence they were reciting – in a search warrant and affidavit that an FBI agent swore to – was likely so pulverizing in its force as to eviscerate any notion that the search warrant and this investigation is politically motivated,” Laufman said.Trump has asked a federal judge to appoint a so-called special master who would determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in any criminal investigation into him. The judge late Saturday issued an order indicating an openness to appointing a special master in the case, though that ruling is not final and called for a Thursday afternoon hearing to further consider the matter.Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the US House committee investigating the deadly January 6 Capitol attack that Trump supporters staged in a desperate attempt to prevent the congressional certification of Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.The other Republican on the committee, the Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, recently lost her bid for re-election in a party primary against Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman.TopicsRepublicansDonald TrumpHillary ClintonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Hillary Clinton faced constant sexism in 2016 campaign, says ex-aide

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      Hillary Clinton faced constant sexism in 2016 campaign, says ex-aideHuma Abedin says candidate and her team would feel obliged to laugh off offensive remarks When Hillary Clinton ran for the US presidency in 2016, she received sexist comments “on a constant basis” and her team had “no idea” how to deal with them, her former aide Huma Abedin has said.Abedin, who worked closely with Clinton on her campaign, recalled that the former secretary of state was deluged with openly sexist remarks as well as unhelpful advice, or instructions to emulate male politicians.Abedin said these started when Clinton sought the Democratic nomination in 2008 and continued when she ran for president in 2016, and “nothing changed over that period”, which took place before the #MeToo movement began in 2017.Speaking to the Hay festival to promote her recent memoir, Both/And, Abedin said Clinton and her team would feel obliged to laugh off offensive remarks from conservative commentators such as the newsreader Tucker Carlson, who said: “When Hillary Clinton shows up on TV I inadvertently cross my legs.”Other frequent gendered criticisms included that her voice was too loud or annoying; commentary on her choice of dress – with some people recommending that she only wear dark colours, and other saying she should wear colours “to look more cheerful” – and advice that she look at a picture of her granddaughter when speaking to prevent her from “looking so angry”. Abedin told the audience: “Who says that to Boris Johnson or Barack Obama? Nobody ever says that!”Abedin recalled that one Hollywood director offered media training to Clinton. “I said: ‘Can you give me an example of who she should emulate, who’s her model? Give me an idea of a woman.’ He said: ‘Yeah, yeah, her husband.’ ‘Anybody else?’ ‘President Obama.’”However, she said Clinton did not suit the “personality-driven” nature of US politics, which she said favoured the likes of Donald Trump, a “charismatic shock and awe communicator”; Barack Obama, who would make people “think anything’s possible, it’s going to rain honey and ice-cream”; and Bill Clinton, who “connected with every single person in the room” whenever he gave a speech.While the latter two were “amazing orators, communicators of their generations”. Abedin said, “Hillary’s the first person to say that was not her strength, she’s a policy wonk and she gets stuff done”.She added: “If we voted for people based on how popular they were and how many numbers of people voted for them, Hillary Clinton would be in her second term as president now. But that’s not how we do it. There’s a system and it’s an outdated system.”Abedin shared how she and Clinton were connected through their mutual experiences of sex scandal. Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, while Abedin’s ex-husband Anthony Weiner was convicted of sexual assault after he sexted with a teenage girl.She said that while Clinton was still “judged” for having chosen to remain with her husband, she had been told “you left, but it was easy for you”.She stressed how difficult the experience of becoming part of “the first sex scandal in the digital age” had been. Although it did not damage her professionally, she felt like the “elephant in the room” and found it “hard being out on the streets”.She said Weiner’s sexting was the result of falling into “a pattern of behaviour online that started as a compulsion” and turned into an addiction.“We didn’t understand what it was … Anthony really struggled with the advent of social media. Twitter and Facebook in 2009 were these new portals. He was very popular and as he had more followers he fell down this rabbit hole of behaviour and it just exploded. We lost everything, he lost his reputation, he lost his job, it was very hard.”TopicsHillary ClintonHuma AbedinUS politicsWomen in politicsHay festivalnewsReuse this content More

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      There’s rage at this Roe v Wade mess – and those on the left who didn’t see it coming | Emma Brockes

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      There’s rage at this Roe v Wade mess – and those on the left who didn’t see it comingEmma BrockesFrom anti-Hillary Democrats to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who clung on at Supreme Court, unlikely targets are being identified for blame After the initial shock, the blame. On Monday, when news broke of the leaked US supreme court draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade, millions of horrified Americans sought emotional release. “I am angry,” said Elizabeth Warren, voice shaking, leading a pack of reporters straight over a flowerbed outside the supreme court. Her face ignited with rage as she reminded them that 69% of Americans are against overturning the abortion legislation. “The Republicans have been working towards this day for decades,” she said. In the background, a man shouted, “You want to dismember children in the womb!”For many of us, that man – the you-want-to-kill-babies guy – and his ilk were not the first target for righteous abuse. It’s hard, in moments of duress, to get much satisfaction from reiterating an existing and long-held revulsion, particularly when its subject is beyond reasonable reach. When considering the rightwing architects of this moment, there was no “what if” in attendance; all the what ifs belonged to the left. Political purists who in 2016 urged Democrats to avoid voting for Hillary Clinton (hi, Susan Sarandon) were the first in line, and social media echoed to the sound of, “We told you this would happen.”Biden condemns efforts of extremist ‘Maga crowd’ to overturn Roe v Wade abortion protections – as it happenedRead moreSacrificing the good in pursuit of the better and winding up with the absolute worst – a dynamic as familiar to British as to American leftwing politics – was, in this moment of horror, a more enraging consideration than flat hatred of the right. From revived outrage at the Bernie bros, it was a quick descent into rage against various champions of the left. “You know who I blame for this?” said a friend. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” The late supreme court justice’s vanity in hanging on to her seat, her overconfidence that Clinton would win, her refusal to listen to warnings from the Obama White House that, should the unthinkable happen and the Republicans regain the presidency, the first casualty would be Roe v Wade – her fundamental enjoyment, one assumed, of being RBG when she could have ceded her seat to an Obama appointee – twisted us up into pretzels. I love Ginsburg, so all this had about it the extra and extremely female zing of self-harm.Oh, and Clinton wasn’t off the hook either. “If she’d bothered to campaign in Michigan,” said another friend sourly, “none of this would’ve happened.” All the terrible, bad-tempered fights of that election flew back up into the air, like a water column after a bomb. The only Republican who came in for similar ire was that idiot Susan Collins, senator from Maine, a supporter of abortion rights who had nonetheless voted in line with her party to confirm both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court. Both had assured her, she said at the time, that they wouldn’t go after Roe v Wade. Shocked! Shocked, she was, this week to discover these were not men of their word.Of course, all this fury was mere displacement for the fundamental truth that rightwing forces were smarter, more organised, disciplined and talented in prosecuting a digestible narrative – “don’t kill babies” – than the fractured and dissembling left. Progressives tried to rally towards concrete solutions. There were things to be done – in the first instance, register to vote. (After less than a year of citizenship, I hadn’t. This weekend, I will). There was the call for fundraising. Celebrities started throwing around $10,000 matching donations to anyone giving to local abortion funds.And both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, as well as senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, hyped the necessity of codifying Roe v Wade in Congress, a move backed by President Biden that would enshrine the right to abortion in federal law irrespective of actions taken by the supreme court. It sounds good, and has the advantage of generating political action. But it is also a long shot, a case of last-resort measures, and too little too late. Earlier this year, Democrats tried to codify Roe, and while it passed the House it failed in the Senate, overcome by a filibuster. (Then “we must end the filibuster”, tweeted Sanders. None of this can happen quickly, if at all.)The fact is that if, as Warren said, the Republicans had been planning this moment for decades, rigging composition of the supreme court with precisely this endgame in mind, there was, irrespective of the scale of public outrage, no immediate way to turn back. In this first week of shock, before anger might become effectively organised, there was only the tiny compensation of the blame spiral.
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionAbortionElizabeth WarrenUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)WomencommentReuse this content More

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      Presidents eulogize Madeleine Albright at funeral: ‘Freedom had no greater champion’

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      Presidents eulogize Madeleine Albright at funeral: ‘Freedom had no greater champion’US leaders reflect on legacy of US secretary of state as family shared memories at Washington National Cathedral Presidents and dignitaries gathered in Washington on Wednesday to remember Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as US secretary of state, while drawing upon her life’s work to warn of the increasing precariousness of freedom and democracy.Family members and colleagues of Albright shared loving and affectionate memories of her during the funeral service at Washington National Cathedral, while US leaders reflected on her legacy.“Freedom endures against all odds in the face of every aggressor because there are always those who will fight for that freedom,” US president Joe Biden said in his eulogy of Albright, who died of cancer last month at the age of 84. “In the 20th and 21st century, freedom had no greater champion than Madeleine Korbel Albright.”Madeleine Albright obituaryRead moreRussia’s war in Ukraine hung heavily over the service, as those who eulogized Albright remembered her denunciation of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion during her final days.In her last opinion piece, for the New York Times, which was published just weeks before her death, Albright wrote: “Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin.”For Albright, the right of a country to determine its own destiny was personal. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, Albright’s family fled the country in the face of the Nazi occupation.After enduring the Blitz bombing in London, Albright’s family returned to Czechoslovakia once second world war ended, only to be driven out again amid the rise of communism. Her family then emigrated to the United States aboard a ship called the SS America.Former US president Bill Clinton, who nominated Albright first as US ambassador to the United Nations and then as secretary of state, noted on Wednesday at the funeral that her life was “sort of a microcosm of the late 20th century in Europe and the United States”.“Today we see in Ukraine all too tragically what Madeleine always knew – that the advance of freedom is neither inevitable or permanent. And that in politics, where the lure of power is strong and the temptation to abuse it is often irresistible, there are no permanent victories or defeats,” Clinton said.Albright’s funeral service came two months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and the war is now poised to enter a new, potentially more dangerous phase. A series of explosions in the neighboring country of Moldova has raised the threat of a larger regional conflict in eastern Europe.Multiple speakers at the Wednesday’s service, which was attended by more than 1,400 people, referenced Albright’s 2018 book on fascism as they addressed the devastation in Ukraine. In her book Fascism: A Warning, Albright sounded the alarm about the rise of autocratic leaders and the need to protect democratic governments.“She knew better than most – and she warned us in her book on fascism – that yes, it can happen here. And time and courage are of the essence,” said Hillary Clinton, who followed in Albright’s footsteps to become secretary of state, in the Obama administration.“If Madeleine were here with us today, she would also remind us this must be a season of action,” Clinton added.While the US and its allies work frantically to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks, Biden took a moment to commend Albright’s commitment to the US-led Nato military alliance, saying she had played a key role in ensuring the partnership remained “strong and galvanized, as it is today”.The president said he learned of Albright’s death as he traveled to the Belgian capital Brussels last month to meet with European leaders and discuss their ongoing aid to Ukraine.When he delivered remarks in the Polish capital of Warsaw, days later, there was a “deafening cheer” at the mention of Albright’s name, Biden said.“Her name is still synonymous with America as a force for good in the world,” Biden said on Wednesday. “She always had a knack for explaining to the American people why it mattered to them that people everywhere in the world were struggling to breathe free.”As the world now braces for a potentially lengthy and even bloodier war in Ukraine, Biden is counting on that message of shared democratic values to resonate with the American people.Reflecting upon the loss of his former adviser and longtime friend, Bill Clinton lamented that Albright was not here to continue preaching the importance of freedom across the globe.Clinton said he last spoke to Albright two weeks before she died. Brushing aside questions about her failing health, Albright instead wanted to talk about building a better future for the next generation.“What kind of world are we going to leave to our grandchildren? That question’s kind of up in the air. But not because of Madeleine Albright,” Bill Clinton said, adding: “We love you, Madeleine. We miss you, but I pray to God we never stop hearing you. Just sit on our shoulder and nag us to death until we do the right thing.”TopicsWashington DCUS politicsJoe BidenHillary ClintonBill ClintonBarack ObamanewsReuse this content More

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      Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to ‘do a better job’ of telling voters of successes

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      Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to ‘do a better job’ of telling voters of successesFormer New York senator and secretary of state believes Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspection Hillary Clinton has called on Democrats “to do a better job” of selling themselves to America’s voters to avoid humiliation in this year’s midterm elections where Republicans are widely expected to perform strongly and likely grab control of Congress.The former Democratic presidential candidate was speaking frankly on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying she thought last summer’s chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan was harmful to Joe Biden. The US president’s approval ratings have slumped in recent weeks to the lowest level since he took office.“I don’t think it helped, that is obviously the case,” Clinton, the former New York senator and secretary of state, told host Chuck Todd when asked if she thought Biden’s political troubles started with Afghanistan.“But there are a lot of good accomplishments to be putting up on the board. And the Democrats in office and out need to be doing a better job of making the case.”“The best politics is doing the best job that you can do. And there’s a lot that Democrats can talk about in these upcoming midterms. We’ve got a great story to tell. And we need to get out there and do a better job of telling it.”Clinton believes that Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspection, which she said was “always the chorus in Democratic party politics.”“Hand wringing is part of the Democratic DNA. That seems to be in style whether we’re in or out of power. We’re in power and there still is hand wringing going on,” she said.“But from my perspective, President Biden is doing a very good job… his handling of Ukraine, passing the American rescue package, the huge infrastructure package.“I’m not quite sure what the disconnect is between the accomplishments of the administration, and this Congress, and the understanding of what’s been done, and the impact it will have on the American public, and some of the polling and the ongoing hand wringing.”Clinton also had criticism for Republicans, whom she said were experiencing “an even greater disconnect” than her own party.Democrats, she said, need to be “standing up to the other side with their craziness and their calls for impunity and nuttiness that we hear coming from them. I don’t think the average American, frankly, wants to be governed by people who live in a totally different reality.”Todd questioned Clinton about Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was hostile towards her when she was Barack Obama’s secretary of state, and whose support for her 2016 presidential opponent Donald Trump, some believe, was partly fueled by his hatred for her.“We are seeing very clearly the threat that he poses, not just to Ukraine, as we can watch every night on our news, but really, to Europe, to democracy, and the global stability that we thought we were building in the last 20 years,” she said.“I would not allow Russia back into the organizations it has been a part of. There is a G20 event later in the year. I would not permit Russia to attend, and if they insisted on literally showing up I would hope there would be a significant, if not total, boycott.”TopicsHillary ClintonUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More