Irked at the latest media demand that she release her secret speeches to Wall Street analysts, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton charged that she is being held to a higher standard than others and said voters already know more about her than any other candidate ever.
“People have more information about me than anybody who has ever run for president,” she said in a phoned-in interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.
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“I believe there has been a concerted effort to tear me down, to attack me, to criticize me, and there certainly has been a double standard between me and others who run,” she told the editorial boards of both papers.
The questioners aggressively pressed Clinton on transparency and the speeches, and she pushed back just as hard in demanding that the media push rival Sen. Bernie Sanders to release his tax releases, as she has. She reasoned that tax releases, not high-priced speeches, has been the standard candidates have been judged on in the past.
This link has the audio of the interview. She was hit with a speech question at the start and her pushback starts at 13:02.
This is a key part of the interview:
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER’S DAN BIDDLE: “Secretary Clinton, Dan Biddle, Inquirer politics editor. It’s a thrill to be able to have a live Q&A with you, but I want to come back to those lunches, especially since you just used the words, ‘more public disclosure.’ As a citizen, I’m really unsatisfied with your saying you won’t disclose the transcripts of those lunch speeches for which you earned more money than most Americans make in several years because your rival candidates, whom you think are less qualified to be president than you won’t show us theirs. Especially in light of, you know many Americans have an issue, you know, in many a public opinion survey with your trustworthiness. I really want to know what was said at those lunches, and I would love you to either release those transcripts or convince me as a journalist in this trade for more than 30 years that when a major public official refuses to give full disclosure of a transcript like that, that official or that leader has something to hide.”
CLINTON: “Well, I can only say this: let’s make sure everybody is already as transparent as I. I’m sure you pressed Senator Sanders to release his tax returns because of course he hasn’t.”
BIDDLE: “Secretary, with all due respect, the question is will you disclose the transcripts –”
CLINTON: “No – no. I want to make a broader point because I’ve already told you what my answer is – when everyone meets the same standards, so will I. You know, I have to be very clear with you: I believe that the American people have more information about me than anybody who has ever run for president. I believe there has been a concerted effort to tear me down, to attack me, to criticize me, and there certainly has been a double standard between me and others who run. And at some point, I have to say, look, let’s meet the same standards. Let’s start with tax returns. That has been the standard.’ I have more than met that standard. People have been poring over my tax returns going back 30 years, and as I said, eight years are posted on my website. That is a very clear difference between me and Senator Sanders, between me and Donald Trump. And I, frankly, am always a little bit bewildered – everybody keeps asking me to do more and more and more, and I have said, let’s have the same standards, and I would be happy to do the same. But when you have transparency demands that only I meet and others running do not, you know, it kind of raises a question in my mind of people’s efforts to be held to the same standard that I’ve been held to. So I’ve been clear, I’ve been clear for months, when people release transcripts of speeches they gave, I will release mine. But in the meantime, I want to see their tax returns. That’s been the standard for decades, and they should meet that standard.”
BIDDLE: “So you won’t tell us what you said during those lunches?”
CLINTON: “You know, I talked about my experience as secretary of state, I talked about the world we lived in, I talked about global challenges. That’s what I talked about in all of the speeches that I gave. That’s why they asked me to come, as they asked Colin Powell, as they asked Condi Rice, as they asked Madeleine Albright because when you come out of being secretary of state, all kinds of people from auto dealers to banks to health care professionals are interested in your views about the world. And I probably told the story about the bin Laden raid maybe 25 times because that’s what they were interested in.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
