Hillary Clinton admitted Monday that she had “tears in her eyes” when former President Donald Trump was convicted in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case.
During a meeting with Katie Couric at DAR Constitutional Hall in Washington DC, Clinton also lashed out at her former rival for blaming Democrats on Monday for the second attempt on his life.
Clinton is making the rounds to promote her new book, Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love and Freedomwhich will be released on Tuesday.
“If he were a real leader, he should be doing everything he can to calm things down,” Clinton said. “Not just throwing red cake on the table to make people angry.”
The former Democratic presidential candidate responded to the assassination attempt and then to Trump’s tweet claiming that “comrade Kamala Harris” and the “ridiculous lawsuits” against the ex-president were responsible.
Hillary Clinton (left) kicked off her book tour Monday night at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The former Democratic presidential candidate was interviewed by Katie Couric (right)
Clinton promotes her new book: Something Lost, Something Gained
“It was horrible,” Clinton told Couric when asked about Sunday’s incident at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club.
Couric then read aloud Trump’s tweet, in which he said, in part: “This communist leftist rhetoric has bullets flying and it’s only going to get worse!”
Clinton called it “unbelievable” that Trump would turn “something that is truly terrible” into “a political attack on his opponents and literally anyone who doesn’t support him.”
“Everything he talks about is about himself,” Clinton said. “And he’s not trying to reach people in any way. He’s not interested in representing all of America and all Americans.”
“And this is just one of many regrettable incidents,” the former foreign minister added.
Clinton also attacked Elon Musk for his shocking post questioning why no one had tried to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Let us all commit ourselves to having deep political disagreements about who our next president should be, about the policies that we think will benefit our country and the world, and let us condemn that kind of rhetoric,” she said.
Hillary Clinton (left) and Katie Courick (right) stand at the end of the interview. Clinton expressed her anger that former President Donald Trump did not try to “calm the mood” after Sunday’s second assassination attempt
Couric then addressed Trump’s conviction on 34 counts related to paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, in which Clinton was his rival.
The former first lady said she was busy editing her book and that was why she turned off her phone on the day in May the verdict was announced.
Then she realized that “my phone was blowing up” with “people I hadn’t heard from in years.”
“I quickly read that he was convicted of 34 felony counts of election interference in 2016 — because that’s what the trial was about. Hush money was a way to keep information from being released that could have swayed the vote,” Clinton said. “So it was election interference.”
“The fact that a jury of his peers in the place where he grew up, in New York, found him guilty was a great comfort to me about our system,” Clinton continued.
“And I got a little teary-eyed because I thought, ‘Wow, no one is above the law,’” she added.