Hillary Clinton admitted in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show that she may have been too guarded with the media and that she takes “responsibility” for her campaign attacking two New York Times reporters over their coverage of her use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
Clinton was referring to what the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple called a “beatdown with clubs” of New York Times reporters Michael Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo.
“They really just shattered those guys’ reputations, forced them backwards, and unapologetically so,” Hewitt said. “Did they protect you too much? And did they hit back too hard at legitimate critics and questions?”
“Well, let me answer that this way, Hugh,” Clinton said. “I think, as I say about the book, I did think that I had to be careful in public, and probably I did have my guard up too much. You know, those days are over. I am trying to be as candid and open as I can be because there’s a lot at stake.”
Clinton said that if her voice will help get the country back on track through “reason-based discussions” about our differences, she wants to be a part of the discussion to chart a path forward.
“So I will take responsibility because clearly, it is challenging when the press–and not just the press on the right, but the press in general–decide that my emails are the most important story of the campaign,” Clinton said. “And that clearly was just pounded day after day after day. And, you know, I take responsibility for the mistakes I made, but it was … a pretty overblown scandal as far as scandals go.”
Clinton then compared the email coverage to that of Uranium One and Benghazi as examples of stories in which the facts were deliberately misinterpreted in an attempt to reinforce the notion that her loss was due more to her political enemies than the mistakes she made.
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