Hillary Clinton's rivals dig in day after campaign kickoff

Hillary Clinton is joined by Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky at a campaign rally in New York City. (Photo: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

A day after Hillary Clinton formally kicked off her 2016 presidential campaign with a speech at a rally on New York’s Roosevelt Island, current and would-be rivals on both sides of the political aisle took aim at the former secretary of state on Sunday morning talk shows.

“First off, I thought that Elizabeth Warren wasn’t running for president,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “But when I listened to Hillary yesterday, it sounds like liberal political consultants put together that speech.”

Christie also criticized Clinton for not taking questions from the press.

“I’ve done 146 town hall meetings in the last five years in New Jersey and around the country,” Christie said. “Mrs. Clinton doesn’t hear from anybody. She doesn’t talk to anybody. She doesn’t take questions from anybody. How would she know what real Americans are really concerned about?

"Is it, you know, when she’s out giving paid speeches?” the Republican governor continued. “I don’t understand when she would know what she was saying yesterday about real Americans.”

On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed Clinton for refusing to take a stand on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that President Barack Obama is trying to fast-track through Congress.

“I would hope very much that Secretary Clinton will side with every union in the country, virtually every environmental group and many religious groups and say that this TPP policy is a disaster, that it must be defeated and that we need to regroup and come up with a trade policy which demands that corporate America starts investing in this country rather than in countries all over the world,” Sanders said.

“There is no question that what our trade policy has been for many years is to allow corporate America to shut down plants in this country, move abroad, hire people at pennies an hour and then bring their products back to the United States,“ the independent senator and Democratic presidential candidate continued. "It is a failed trade policy, and I would hope that the secretary joins Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and the vast majority of Democrats in the Congress in saying, ‘No. We’ve got to defeat this piece of legislation.’”

On "Fox News Sunday,” Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and TPP proponent, called Clinton’s silence on the trade deal “mystifying.”

“It’s about global leadership,” Ryan, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, said. “Surely, a person who was secretary of state understands a little bit about leadership.“

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Hillary Clinton waves to the crowd after delivering her speech on Roosevelt Island in New York City. (Photo: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, fanned out to defend the former first lady.

"She actually has been very clear about where she stands on trade,” John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “She’s rolled out a two-pronged task on how to look at trade agreements. First, does it grow jobs, grow wages, and protect American workers, and second, does it protect our national security?  That’s her position. She said that she wants to wait to see what the final deal is with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is the substance of the trade agreement.

"The agreement’s not final,” Podesta continued. “So when it is final, she’ll render a judgment about that. And she’s stated her concerns.  But she has a clear standard that it’s got to be good for American workers, or she thinks the United States will walk away from it.”

“Hillary’s not been on the sidelines,” Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said on “Face the Nation.” “There will be no tougher fighter at the negotiating table for everyday Americans when these trade agreements are being negotiated. So families can trust her to fight hard for them.”

“I think she made her case,” Karen Finney, the campaign’s senior spokeswoman, said on “Fox News Sunday.” "Over next several weeks, she will put some meat on the bones.”

Finney added that Clinton would be taking questions from the press in Iowa later Sunday.

“I think you will see this later today,” she said.