Hillary Clinton’s communications director privately loved Sen. Bernie Sanders’ signature campaign ad, which went viral after its release in January.
Jennifer Palmieri, who previously held the same communications director position at the White House, said she thought her reaction proved women liked the ad and therefore, she didn’t “see it as a great target” for the Clinton campaign to criticize.
“The America ad made me cry the first time I saw it and gave me chills the second time,” Palmieri wrote on Jan. 23, two days after the ad was posted on YouTube. “I have watched it two more times since then because I like watching it.”
Sanders’ ad featured scenes from his massive campaign rallies, set to Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.” While it was well-received, some criticized it for featuring mostly white people.
The clip was released just days before Sanders’ surprisingly strong finish in the Iowa caucus and victory in the subsequent New Hampshire primary. At the time, his surge in the polls had stirred speculation that Clinton might struggle to win a primary fight whose outcome was once a foregone conclusion.
Palmieri’s confession emerged in an email made public Thursday by WikiLeaks. The transparency website has to date published more than 44,000 emails taken from the inbox of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair.
Clinton’s team has declined to comment on nearly all of the revelations that have come from the WikiLeaks documents, citing the purportedly illegal nature of the way the website obtained the emails.
