Former president Bill Clinton appeared on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday and despite not being an impartial judge, host Jake Tapper had Clinton weigh in on the 2016 Republican field.
Clinton offered up some praise for their “youth” and “impressive” abilities, but mostly criticized how large the field is. He said he was sympathetic to the GOP primary voters who would have to whittle the field down.
From the transcript:
First of all, they’ve got a lot of youth, a lot of energy. They’ve got some significant diversity, and they’re no dummies.
It’s interesting. They believe what they believe. They still believe that trickle-down economics still work better than investment, and they’re convictions are so great that they’re undeterred by evidence. That’s always amazing to me, but they are impressive. And they have some differences of opinion — like the national security issues and the incarceration issues — it’ll be interesting to watch them debate.
I sympathize with the question of how the primary voters are going to decide who to vote for and whether it’s fair or unfair for some people to be eliminated from the televised debate. I don’t know how you listen to 12 people, or however many they’ve got, but here’s what I think:
Republican primary voters, since you and I have been doing this, end up voting for the person they think has the best chance to win. Because the Tea Party has taken over the House. They’ve got all their ideological dreams fulfilled. The reason I’m saying this is it may be harder this year than before to figure out who’s the most electable candidate.
Watch the clip below via The Daily Caller:
