Hillary Clinton appeared on the Pod Save America podcast alongside a number of former Obama staffers, laughing as she was handed a t-shirt saying “Totally Impartial Potential Juror” after former President Donald Trump was indicted on 37 counts in connection to his alleged mishandling of national security information.
The former secretary of state, senator, and first lady took part in the Monday evening recording released on Tuesday.
“You’re kidding!” she said, laughing as the hosts spoke of Mr Trump’s fresh indictment. “I have a lot of reactions to it. And I think the best reaction publicly is, you know, let’s see it unfold and let’s see what happens.”
After she was handed the t-shirt, she couldn’t resist pointing to its ‘Crooked’ logo and joking that it was the ex-president’s ‘nickname’.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump appeared at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course on Tuesday night, claiming that she “acid-washed” her emails, also contending that she stole china and furniture from the White House.
“Hillary Clinton broke the law and she didn’t get indicted,” he said.
“Hillary Clinton took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture, china, flatware, rugs and more from the White House and she wasn’t prosecuted,” Mr Trump suggested. “How about that one. She took the furniture and the china.”
“It seems likely right now that he will end up the nominee,” Ms Clinton said of Mr Trump. “I mean, something can happen between now and when they start actually voting in the primary. But the Republican rules, as you know, favour winner take all.”
“So the more people who get in against him, his chances actually go up. And then the response that we’ve seen in polling from Republicans suggests that they’re going to stick with him, that it’s more of a cult than a political party at this point, and they’re going to stick with their leader,” she added. “So I think that actually President Biden is in a very strong position to run a campaign that doesn’t have to talk about him. But I think other Democrats should and other concerned Americans should be asking hard questions.”
“I have said now for months that Joe Biden had a remarkable first two years as president. I don’t think he gets the credit for it. And in part, that’s because he’s not a performer. He’s a producer. You know, he gets up every day and he goes to work for the American people,” the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said.
“In a time where in politics, not just in our country but elsewhere in the world, entertainment is really important. And the shock factor and the insult factor and the scapegoating and the finger-pointing, he’s really not doing it,” Ms Clinton said about Mr Biden. “And he is very careful about how he tries to present himself. I think that contrast is important. His accomplishments are important and trying to get people to focus on, okay, when the circus leaves town, what’s your life going to be like? How are you going to feel about your future and your family’s future and the big challenges that we have here at home and around the world.”
“I think that’s the way to present a strong incumbent campaign against Trump,” she added.
Ms Clinton said Republicans “refuse to read the indictment. They refuse to engage with the facts. There’s nothing new about that. And what they refuse to admit is this is on a track about him, not about anybody else. No matter how much they try to confuse people and how much they try to raise extraneous issues”.
The former New York senator said that “it’s going to be fascinating, in a bizarre and sad way, to watch them spin themselves up”.
“Their efforts to defend this man are truly beyond anything that I ever thought possible in our country. It is so profoundly disturbing how this could have ... been the opportunity to say, ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us. We really appreciate it, but this is kind of serious, and so we’re not going to continue to defend you,’” Ms Clinton said. “But no, they’re all in ... the psychology of this is so hard for me to fully grasp.”
