Hillary Clinton was shocked – just shocked – to learn that her former friend and campaign fund-raiser Harvey Weinstein had been harassing and assaulting women for 30 years.
At least, that’s what she told her interviewer from Channel Four after Clinton took a brief break from signing books during the London leg of her globe-trotting book tour to promote “What Happened”, her “mea culpa” from the 2016 campaign where the former Secretary of State blames everyone from Bernie Sanders to Russia to James Comey to institutionalized sexism…you get the idea.
Asked point blank if she was aware of Weinstein’s history – purportedly an “open secret” in Hollywood – Clinton emphatically insisted that she had not. Clinton famously waited five days after the first allegations against Weinstein were published in the New York Times to issue a statement condeming Weinstein and his actions and announcing that her campaign would return his contributions.
“All I can tell you is that I did not hear those things.”
“The issue really is how terrible his behavior was and finally women have come forward to speak out about it and they hadn’t before.”
But after being repeatedly pressed about her connection with Weinstein, Clinton successfully changed the subject to focus on a more convenient target.
"Look, we just elected someone who admitted sexual assault to the presidency. So there's a lot of other issues that are swirling around these kinds of behaviors that need to be addressed. "I think it's important that we stay focused, and shine a bright spotlight, and try to get people to understand how damaging this is."
"I think it's important that we stay focused, and shine a bright spotlight, and try to get people to understand how damaging this is," she continued.
Furthermore, Clinton admitted that her campaign has yet to return Weinstein’s campaign contribution, saying that returning the donation is a surprisingly complicated process - but regardless, the status of Weinstein’s donation isn’t important, Clinton said.
We’re going to give it back. How long will it take? It has to come out of our campaign funds, but it will be done. But that’s not the issue the issue is how terrible his behavior was and finally women have come forward to speak out about it.
Clinton spent most of the interview’s remaining 18 minutes explaining how FBI Director James Comey and the Russians cost her the election while simultaneously claiming that, ultimately, her loss was her own fault.
That doesn’t explain why I led all the way through…we had a great convention…I was thought to have won all three debates…and yes I take responsibility…there were things I could have done…but in the end we had this perfect storm with the Comey letter.
Clinton also blamed Russians, implying that the “sophisticated” Russian propaganda effort unearthed by Facebook, Twitter and Google helped sway the vote in Trump’s favor.
I don’t blame voters for not voting for me…they were given a lot of wrong information. I was winning women by overwhelming measures. I was winning and then the momentum stopped.
You had Wikileaks which is now a part of the Russian intelligence apparatus.
It’s important to go into those as I do in the book. Russia’s not going away as a threat to democracy and what we need to do is figure out what happened and make sure it never happens again.
Certainly, the Russian interference affected voters’ decision making.
When pressed about losing the white woman vote, Clinton explained that “gender doesn’t yet serve as the motivator for voting like race does.” When Clinton's interviewer asked if her status as a Clinton and former first lady counteracted the "novelty" of her being the first female presidential candidate with a serious shot at winning, she rejected this out of hand.
Secondly there was a lot of anxiety about my vote share among white voters in part because I was standing up on race and guns and things that are quite culturally controversial.
Because gender doesn’t yet serve as the motivator for voting as race does.
Of course, Clinton takes responsibility for her loss. She just wants the public to understand that there were “other factors” that contributed to her defeat other than her own arrogance, miscalculation and unlikability.
I don’t blame others. I take personal responsibility...but I think it’s important that people understand what happened.
When you have a massive propaganda effort to prevent people from thinking straight, and you have people who are searching and trying to make sense of it but every search engine they go into is reflecting these allegations.
In conclusion, when asked what here biggest regret is, in life, Clinton responded with one word: Losing.
…And there you have it.