Hillary Clinton’s campaign told reporters Friday that Great Britain’s rejection of the European Union would not translate into a wave of nationalist populism at the ballot box in the U.S. in November.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron led the Remain campaign with the hashtag “Stronger Together,” the exact same phrase that Clinton uses on the campaign trail. But even as pundits and voters connect the dots between Brexit and Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump, the Clinton staffers insisted that the two situations couldn’t be any more different.
“It is important to remember that a vote about whether or not the U.K. should stay in the European Union is profoundly different than who should be president of the United States,” Hillary for America communications adviser Jennifer Palmieri told reporters on a press call Friday. “The American election is about what’s happening here in America. Not what’s happening in Yorkshire or Cardiff.”
She added, “Hillary Clinton doesn’t believe Americans are isolationists.”
While Clinton said that she had “respect” for the choice of the British people, she also expressed concern for what the vote could mean for the American economy. In contrast, Trump welcomed the “brave and brilliant” vote as something that could help him do more business with the United Kingdom.
The Clinton staffers went on to criticize Trump’s response to global crisis, explaining he was “temperamentally unfit” to sit in the Oval Office and work the global leaders. Hillary for America senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan detailed the “emerging Donald Trump playbook in reaction to crisis,” stating that the presumptive GOP nominee has created a predictable response to any crisis situation.
Sullivan explained that first Trump engages in “pathological self-congratulations” for predicting said crisis, then he “consults only with himself” before taking action and finally, “rather than getting the facts he makes things up.” To back up his theory, Sullivan pointed to Trump’s tweet claiming Scotland was “going wild” over the vote. The policy adviser even went as far to call Trump “a reckless and erratic egomaniac who could easily drive us off a cliff.”
“We have a real confidence that Americans are a generous, tolerant, big hearted people who believe we are stronger together. Also Americans have common sense,” Sullivan stated.
“The lesson out of all of this is that we need someone like Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office not someone reckless and divisive person like Donald Trump,” he added.
