Hillary Clinton: The RNC’s ‘Only Unifying Theme’ Was ‘Criticizing Me’
Hillary Clinton said she thought the Republican National Convention’s focus on her was “very sad.”
“I don't know what their convention was about aside from criticizing me,” she said in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
“I seem to be the only unifying theme. There was no positive agenda. It was a very dark, divisive campaign.”
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and her newly-selected running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, together gave their first joint interview to “60 Minutes,” and airing Sunday, the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention, the two were determined to present a positive, upbeat image — in contrast to the RNC’s fiery stance.
At the RNC convention in Cleveland last week, speaker after speaker railed against Hillary Clinton for her handling of her emails and Benghazi attacks while Secretary of State, leading chants to “lock her up.” Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to call her “Crooked Hillary.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that Clinton’s use of a private email server for State Department affairs was “extremely careless,” but recommended that no criminal charges be filed against her, which angered many Republicans. Some Republicans also blame Clinton for security failures in Benghazi, which they say caused the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
In the interview, Clinton said the attacks on her at the RNC were “inaccurate, mean-spirited with no basis in truth.” She noted that several investigations of Benghazi have been conducted.
See also: Democratic Party Head Resigns Amid Email Furor On Eve of Convention
For her part, Clinton said she isn’t going to name-call Trump. “I’m not going to engage in that kind of insult fest,” she told CBS anchor Scott Pelley.
Instead, she said she would talk about his record in business and the “inflammatory” language and demeaning comments he’s made against women, Muslims and others. That, she added, is “fundamentally at odds with who we are as a nation.”
Responding to questions from Pelley about why there is such distrust of her, she said, “I often feel there is the Hillary standard and then there is a standard for everybody else.”
When asked why she chose Kaine as her running mate, Clinton didn’t mention the fact that Kaine is a popular politician from a swing state. Instead she stressed that he is “highly qualified” and is a “progressive who likes to get things done,” which is how she has described herself in the past.
See also: Tim Kaine Gets a Warm Homecoming in Richmond
Kaine ended on what surely will be a theme during the DNC. Getting the last word, he told Pelley that he thought electing the first woman president in 2016, nearly 100 years after women got the right to vote, would be “one of those instances of history really working out right in a poetic way.”
That is, he added, “something that is really exciting.”
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