It is not every day that a politico embodies the absolute worst things they allege of their opponent. But projection appears to be Hillary Clinton’s only real talent.
The failed two-time presidential candidate counseled this week that Democratic nominee Joe Biden “should not concede” to President Trump “under any circumstances,” even if it means holding out long past Election Day.
“We’ve got to have a massive legal operation,” the former secretary of state advised during an interview with her 2016 campaign staffer Jennifer Palmieri. “We have to have our own teams of people to counter the force of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places. This is a big organizational challenge. But at least we know more about what they’re going to do.”
Clinton added, “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually, I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.”
There is more.
“In the recent Michigan primary,” Clinton continued, “I was told, in Detroit, Republicans had 40 lawyers challenging absentee mail-in voting and a local reporter talking to one of the lawyers he knew was told it was a ‘dry run’ for November.”
It is unclear to what Clinton is referring. A Nexis search for additional details of her anecdote regarding Detroit and Republican attorneys produces some news reports, a newsletter, and a U.S. Senate transcript featuring state officials, legal experts, and news commentators referring to the recent primaries in Michigan, New York, Connecticut, and elsewhere as a good “dry run” for working out absentee voting kinks ahead of the presidential election.
Boy, we are a long way from 2016, back when the Clinton campaign claimed that even so much as questioning the legitimacy of a presidential election represents a real and grave threat to American democracy.
After then-Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested he might dispute the election if it did not go in his favor, Clinton and her campaign were quick to react.
“We’ve been around 240 years,” she said during a presidential debate on Oct. 19, 2016. “We’ve had free and fair elections, and we’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them, and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election.”
Clinton added of Trump, “He’s denigrating — he’s talking down our democracy. I, for one, am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our major two parties would take that kind of position.”
Her official Twitter account said later on Oct. 24, 2016: “Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. That’s a direct threat to our democracy.”
That same day, during a campaign appearance in New Hampshire, Clinton claimed Trump was “the first person, Republican or Democrat, who refused to say that he would respect the results of this election. Now, that is a direct threat to our democracy.”
Later, during a rally at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she said, “To say you won’t respect the results of the election, that is a direct threat to our democracy.”
“The peaceful transfer of power is one of the things that makes America America,” she said, adding in what is, in retrospect, a terrific line, “Look, some people are just sore losers.”
But that was then. This is now. Now, the failed presidential candidate is running around claiming a “foreign adversary” chose America’s president in 2016. She is also advising the Democratic nominee not to concede “under any circumstances.”
Clinton has gone from attacking Trump for his vague comments about respecting the outcome of the 2016 election to undermining the legitimacy of a presidential election that is still months away. And the only thing that has changed in all this time is that Trump defeated Clinton.
Look, some people are just sore losers.
