With 2016 election denier and two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton selling yet another book, it was the perfect time for ABC News program The View to invite her on and promote Vice President Kamala Harris’s run for the presidency. As part of this effort, the purported conservative voice at the table, Alyssa Farah Griffin took a role in teeing up Clinton to promote the supposed virtues of ABC’s chosen candidate.
In introducing Clinton, moderator Whoopi Goldberg energized the audience by proclaiming – without evidence – that, “A lot of Americans feel cautiously optimistic about the election right now.” The ABC host also invoked Clinton when declaring “it is up to us to make sure history does not repeat itself,” in terms of allowing former President Trump back into the White House.
Farah Griffin’s first question was a softball pitch designed to allow Clinton to bloviate about how Harris had supposedly “moderated” on many of her policy proposals:
Madam Secretary, I want to ask you about Kamala Harris, the vice president who now the presidential candidate for the Democrats. She has moderated on a number of policy issues from supporting the Green New Deal to at one point supporting banning fracking, now being for it.
I welcome centrism and welcome growing and evolving while you're in office but what would you say to -- and Bernie Sanders actually said basically she needs to do this to win. I agree it's a good strategy. What do you say to Republicans who can't support Trump or moderates who are worried this is more about getting elected and she may actually govern more to the left? You know her well.
Clinton’s initial reaction was to chalk it up to Harris being “a very practical person.” “She knows where she stands. She’s got a good moral compass,” she claimed. “And so being in that sort of practical world where you're neither, you know, one extreme or the other is what I want in the presidency.”
She followed up by trying to brush away Harris’s far-left positions by suggesting they were just things she said in an effort to get the Democratic nomination in 2016. “Secondly, you know, when you're campaigning in a primary, which is where some of this all came from, you know, you're maneuvering,” she argued.
Farah Griffin’s other question was a tee up for Clinton to pay lip service to denouncing political violence following the second assassination attempt on their favorite hate object:
FARAH GRIFFIN: Madam Secretary, we saw the second attempt on Donald Trump's life this past weekend, this assassination attempt. We know the Iranian regime has a price on his head. Are you fearful for his safety and for vice president Harris's for that matter and what do you make of this conversation around political rhetoric?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, political violence has no place in this country. Everybody needs to condemn it as strongly as possible. We need to do everything necessary to keep candidates and public officials safe because as you point out, Alyssa, it's not just home-grown terrorism. Now we have to worry about foreign adversaries. It's not enough they interfere in our elections. They seem to be encouraging the targeting of our candidates. So, let's do everything we can to make sure that everybody is safe and I can't be more strong about that.
These words would later be proven hollow as Clinton engaged in the same kind of inciting and stochastic terroristic rhetoric that inspired the second wannabe assassin:
This election, it's not just between two people. It's between two very different ideas about what our country should be. And it's between, you know, democracy and autocracy, it's between freedom and oppression, it's between someone who wants to bring us together, Kamala Harris wants to be the president for everybody.
Clearly, for them, they don’t want the public to be distracted by anything as trivial as an assassination attempt on the candidate they hate; and they need to keep the focus on getting Harris elected.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
September 19, 2024
11:02:30 a.m. Eastern(…)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: A lot of Americans feel cautiously optimistic about the election right now.
[Applause]
Yes, yes, yes, yes! But at the DNC last August, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reminded the Democratic National Convention that it is up to us to make sure history does not repeat itself.
[Applause]
(…)
11:10:47 a.m. Eastern
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Madam Secretary, I want to ask you about Kamala Harris, the vice president who now the presidential candidate for the Democrats. She has moderated on a number of policy issues from supporting the Green New Deal to at one point supporting banning fracking, now being for it.
I welcome centrism and welcome growing and evolving while you're in office but what would you say to -- and Bernie Sanders actually said basically she needs to do this to win. I agree it's a good strategy. What do you say to Republicans who can't support Trump or moderates who are worried this is more about getting elected and she may actually govern more to the left? You know her well.
HILLARY CLINTON: I'd say three things. Number one, she is a very practical person. This was a woman who prosecuted criminals, transnational trafficking, put people in jail for, you know, violating the law and hurting other people. She comes from that tradition. She knows where she stands. She’s got a good moral compass. And so being in that sort of practical world where you're neither, you know, one extreme or the other is what I want in the presidency.
Secondly, you know, when you're campaigning in a primary, which is where some of this all came from, you know, you're maneuvering.
(…)
11:29:52 a.m. Eastern
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Madam Secretary, we saw the second attempt on Donald Trump's life this past weekend, this assassination attempt. We know the Iranian regime has a price on his head. Are you fearful for his safety and for vice president Harris's for that matter and what do you make of this conversation around political rhetoric?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, political violence has no place in this country. Everybody needs to condemn it as strongly as possible.
[Applause]
We need to do everything necessary to keep candidates and public officials safe because as you point out, Alyssa, it's not just home-grown terrorism. Now we have to worry about foreign adversaries. It's not enough they interfere in our elections. They seem to be encouraging the targeting of our candidates. So, let's do everything we can to make sure that everybody is safe and I can't be more strong about that.
(…)
11:32:12 a.m. Eastern
CLINTON: This election, it's not just between two people. It's between two very different ideas about what our country should be. And it's between, you know, democracy and autocracy, it's between freedom and oppression, it's between someone who wants to bring us together, Kamala Harris wants to be the president for everybody.
[Applause]
And that includes people who don't vote for her. Because she knows if we don't start bringing our country together we are vulnerable, not only internally to division but externally to bad actors. You know, in Russia, in Iran, in China, and elsewhere who want to keep dividing us and bring us down. So, this is an election that is going to determine the future of America.
(…)
