Even MSNBC journalists are unable to ignore Hillary Clinton stumbles after unveiling her new memoir Hard Choices last week. On the June 16 edition of Morning Joe, the liberal pundit Donny Deutsch described the first week of her book tour as a “disaster,” and an indication that the American public may be feeling “Hillary fatigue,” quite surprising coming from a network that inaugurated a new book club with Hillary’s memoir first on the reading list.
Former Republican congressman and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough questioned why Hillary was unable to “stay on message” and deflect any hardball questions. According to Scarborough, Hillary was “selling a book," not “running for president” and should have been able to stay “on message” and avoid scraps with liberal media outlets like NPR. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
Perhaps Hillary should brush up on “staying on message” before she goes on Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Tuesday night. If her friends at MSNBC are noticing her public floundering, things must be bad.
See transcript below:
MSNBCMorning JoeJune 16, 20147:44 a.m. Eastern2 minutesJOE SCARBOROUGH: The book tour, how was the book tour for Hillary Clinton last week?DONNY DEUTSCH: Well, it was a disaster. But if I'm Hillary's people, there’s one thing I'm looking at–SCARBOROUGH: Why was it, wait, wait.DEUTSCH: I’m going to tell you why.SCARBOROUGH: But how do you have a book that you know is coming out and you have it all planned and you're not in the middle of a presidential campaign and how was it, you just said it was a, quote, “disaster” and you love Hillary. She is even getting in fights with liberal NPR hosts. Like, really uncomfortable fights. This was–what happened?DEUTSCH: Beyond the specifics, is this an earlier -- I'd love to hear Mark's opinion on this, a precursor to, there is truly Hillary fatigue and it's just -- you kind of do -- are Americans -- forget the polls. 70 percent and she is formidable–SCARBOROUGH: But it's not 70 percent any more. She's down to the fifties.DEUTSCH: But, is it–do people want to change the channel at this point and was this the first episode?SCARBOROUGH: Mark, it was, it was really surprising last week, that Hillary had as rough a run on a book tour.MARK HALPERIN: Well, and, at the Romney event we have been talking about in Utah this weekend, people were concerned about finding a candidate to run against her but really emboldened by both the foreign policy crisis she is involved potentially in at least, as well as the poor rollout. And let's not forget she is doing a couple of more interviews for the book today, including one with a channel that goes by the name Fox. Let's see how she handles that.SCARBOROUGH: I don't understand why there wasn't a light touch. I just don't understand. Like, if you're going out and you're in Hillary's position, I would say to you and I'm sure you would say to me. Okay, here is the deal. You're selling the book. You're not running for president, there are going to be people trying to debate you. Just smile and say we can talk about that later, let me tell you about the book. It's called staying on message. She has been in public service since 1978.
