Hillary Clinton praises ‘tremendously impressive’ GOP tactics: ‘We have nothing like it on our side’
During the 2016 cycle, Hillary Clinton boasted about how Republicans were probably the enemy she was most proud of making. But now she’s sounding almost envious.
While riffing about Democratic failures to defend Roe v. Wade, Clinton, 76, griped that her party sometimes lacks the relentless resolve the right has.
“One thing I give the right credit for is they never give up,” she told the New York Times in a recent interview. “They are relentless. You know, they take a loss, they get back up, they regroup, they raise more money.”
“It’s tremendously impressive the way that they operate. And we have nothing like it on our side.”
A bevy of Democrats have complained about conservative infrastructure over the years.
Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have slammed organizations such as the Federalist Society that push for the appointment of conservative judges.
Clinton contended that Democrats had been complacent in the run-up to the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” the former Secretary of State argued. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.”
“We could have done more to fight.”
Democrats have since made abortion a top issue ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle, while many Republicans across the country have softened their stance.
The former 2016 Democratic presidential nominee gave the interview ahead of the release of her upcoming book, “The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America,” which is slated for release on June 4.
She recalled her failed presidential bid in 2016, a time in which both parties were jockeying to win the presidency in part so that they could replace the Supreme Court seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Clinton claimed that when she warned Democrats about the risk of Roe’s demise in 2016, she was dismissed as an “alarmist.”
Her defeat paved the way for former President Donald Trump to make three appointments to the Supreme Court — including to Scalia’s old seat, which the GOP-led Senate kept open for months.
During the Obama administration, some Democrats had quietly tried to pressure Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to step down when the party still had the Senate and they could replace her on the Supreme Court with a like-minded justice.
But, she declined and Republicans eventually captured the Senate and shifted the balance of power in the highest court in the land.
Trump managed to elevate Justice Amy Coney Barrett to Ginsburg’s old seat when she died in 2020.
Clinton also warned that the 2024 election cycle is “existential.”
“I mean, if we don’t make the right decision in this election in our country, we may never have another actual election,” Clinton ominously surmised to the outlet.
“I will put that out there because I believe it. And if we no longer have another actual election, we will be governed by a small minority of right-wing forces that are well organized and well-funded and are getting exactly what they want in terms of turning the clock back on women.”
While reflecting on her 2016 election loss, Clinton again slammed former FBI director James Comey’s late-stage letter announcing the bureau was reopening the investigation into her email server 11 days before the election. He later, again, declined to pursue charges.
Clinton contended that Comey’s move cost her female voters.
“But once he did that to me, the people, the voters who left me, were women,” she reflected. “They left me because they just couldn’t take a risk on me, because as a woman, I’m supposed to be perfect.”
“They were willing to take a risk on Trump — who had a long list of, let’s call them flaws, to illustrate his imperfection — because he was a man.”