A former top aide to Hillary Clinton claimed she would be president today if the new documentary series about her life had been released before the 2016 election.
“If we had this documentary the day before Election Day in 2016, she would be president right now,” Philippe Reines, who was an adviser for the then-Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign, said Tuesday on Morning Joe.
The former secretary of state and first lady stars in a documentary series called Hillary, which was released on Hulu last week and has been met with critical acclaim. Examining her life and legacy in politics, the series explores the intimacies of her marriage to former President Bill Clinton and her handling of her private email and server scandal.
“For all these years, we were — we did everything we could, from our perspective, to put her out there,” Reines said, later adding, “We’ve always been perplexed about the gap between what people see of her … and what she actually is and who she is.”
Reines, a longtime political consultant in Washington, D.C., praised the documentary series for depicting Clinton in an accurate and flattering light.
“Everyone is watching this movie, and it’s fantastic,” he said. “The only criticism I have of the movie is that it’s only four hours. It could be six, 10 hours, and I’d be riveted.”
One of the reasons pundits have theorized Clinton chose now to release such a wide-ranging look at her life is because she is, for the first time in years, not seeking political office.
Reines predicted a “collective groan from the media” if “Hillary Clinton tomorrow were to say, ‘You know what? I would love if Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders picked me to be their running mate.'”
“It’s not entirely within our power to make everyone open-minded about her,” he said, adding that “when people are open-minded about her, they absolutely will see her in a different way.”
Clinton has not endorsed a candidate for president in 2020.
