Hillary Clinton has remained largely out of sight this week, keeping her public remarks to a minimum as she raises millions of dollars at private fundraisers, but her absence from the spotlight has done nothing to stanch the flow of bad press.
On the contrary, even though the Democratic nominee has kept a mostly low profile over the past few days, she and her campaign managed somehow to have a rotten week.
One of the heads of Clinton’s transition team blamed recent general election ally Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Monday for the Democratic nominee’s lousy approval numbers.
“He did do significant damage to Hillary’s negatives,” Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden said in a Politico interview, which was released Monday.
“I mean, he drove a lot of those negatives, and the truth of it, I mean, just to be candid or honest about it, you know, I think getting those kinds of attacks from another Democrat or another liberal or another progressive is much tougher for Hillary, and it was really hard,” she said.
Tanden’s criticism for Sanders comes even after the Vermont lawmaker announced his plans to return to the campaign trail to stump for Clinton.
It’s time that Hillary Clinton cut ties with the Clinton Foundation, the charitable organization whose acceptance of foreign and corporate donations have raised concerns over the years about possible conflicts of interest, the New York Times’ editorial board declared Tuesday.
“The Clinton Foundation has become a symbol of the Clintons’ laudable ambitions, but also of their tangled alliances and operational opacity,” the board wrote in a piece that did the candidate no favors by keeping the charitable organization at the forefront of the news cycle.
“If Mrs. Clinton wins, it could prove a target for her political adversaries. Achieving true distance from the foundation is not only necessary to ensure its effectiveness, it is an ethical imperative for Mrs. Clinton,” it said.
One of Clinton’s more outspoken supporters also said Tuesday that the candidate needs to end her relationship with the foundation, especially as it continues to weigh down her bid for the White House.
“We have got to get rid of extraneous issues, and if this foundation is an extraneous issue that goes to the heart of whether it’s trust or transparency, then get rid of it,” Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries, said.
“Because there is so much on the table, right now, for the American people and for the future of this nation that extraneous issues such as the foundation, which if that is something that needs to be cut off, then it should be cut off,” he said.
A poll released Tuesday delivered some of Clinton’s worst news – and headlines – for the week.
Her approval rating dropped to record lows in August, according to an ABC News/Washington Post released Wednesday.
Only 41 percent of the survey respondents say they view Clinton favorably, while 56 percent said the exact opposite.
The Washington Examiner reported:
And among registered voters, 59 percent see Clinton unfavorably, about the same as the 60 percent who see Donald Trump unfavorably. These numbers make Clinton and Trump the two most unpopular presidential candidates in the past 30 years.
The numbers show a huge slide for Clinton among the groups that she’s counting on to win the general election, including women, independents and Hispanics.
In July, Clinton had a 54-43 favorable to unfavorable rating among women. But that flipped in late August, and she’s now at a deficit: 45-52. This is the first time in a year that most women have seen her unfavorably.
Independents continue to see Clinton unfavorably, but it’s gotten worse for her over the last few weeks. Her favorable-unfavorable ratio was 39-59 in early August, but now it’s 31-66, according to the poll. Clinton is still favored overall by Hispanics, but it’s now much closer to even. In early August, she had a 71-28 favorable to unfavorable rating, but that slipped to 55-40 in late August, a 16-point drop.
The only place where Clinton saw gains was with Republicans and “very conservative” Republicans, where she posted a two-point and one-point increase, respectively.
Clinton caught heavy flak from a CBS News anchor Wednesday over the candidate’s extremely limited media availability.
Sure, Clinton doesn’t fight with reporters like GOP nominee Donald Trump does, CBS’ Nancy Cordes said. But that’s because the former secretary of state doesn’t’ talk to media at all.
“[Trump’s] combative approach is a far cry from Clinton’s,” she said. “She’s generally too busy ignoring reporters to insult them.”
Yes, You Will Regret Everything:
Criticism for Clinton’s candidacy is not confined to America’s borders.
The leader of France National Front, a hard right group that has much in common with the GOP nominee, said Wednesday that a Clinton presidency would be a disaster for America, Europe and the world.
“For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton. Anything but Hillary Clinton. Because I think Hillary Clinton means war. Hillary Clinton means devastation. It means world instability,” Marine Le Pen said.
Vice President Biden openly acknowledged Thursday that Clinton is an unpopular candidate with many Democrats.
“I know some of you are mad at Hillary … but let me tell you something, she never yields, she doesn’t break, she gets it,” he said at a campaign stop in Ohio.
Also, even if Democrats are still mad at her, at least she’s better than Trump, the vice president added in a not-so-glowing endorsement.
“Do you think there’s any possibility that Donald Trump would do anything other than continue to try to break the labor movement, all kidding aside?” he asked.
Vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., had the unfortunate task Thursday of trying to convince reporters that the Democratic nominee hasn’t been hiding from the press, a conversation that no running mate should be having just months before the general election.
“Hillary talks to the press every day and so do I. Hillary isn’t hiding,” Kaine said in an interview on CNN. “Hillary was talking to the American Legion [Wednesday]. … Is talking to the American Legion hiding?”
Trump and the Republican National Committee are not the only ones who’ve mocked Clinton’s recent big-money fundraising blitz.
In fact, Donald Trump’s trip to Mexico City this week actually makes him look presidential in comparison to Clinton, who has spent most of the week fundraising, NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie said Thursday.
“Back to the optics, though, for a second,” Guthrie said. “If you look at the side-by-side of this week, Donald Trump went to Mexico. He sat down. He had a dignified meeting with a foreign leader. Hillary Clinton has spent most of this week scooping up money in the Hamptons for fundraisers.”
Kaine was unable Thursday morning to stave off a flurry of question from the hosts of “CBS This Morning,” as they demanded to know why Clinton hasn’t held a press conference in more 250 days.
The moment occurred as the hosts discussed a joint press conference this week in Mexico City between GOP nominee Donald Trump and President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“[Trump] immediately opened up the floor to reporters for questions. When will we see Hillary open up the floor and take questions from reporters at any event?” one host asked Kaine.
Kaine dismissed the question and maintained that Clinton has taken questions from members of the press.
“You see Hillary take questions from reporters every day. She does — she talks to the press everywhere she goes,” Kaine said.
Kaine was widely criticized by media Thursday for claiming Clinton has been open with media.
Hours after his media tour that day, a Clinton aide announced reporters would soon be allowed to travel with Clinton on her plane.
On Friday, an unnamed Clinton aide and a tweet from a Politico reporter may have undone some of the goodwill the Democratic candidate scored this week by announcing journalists would soon be allowed to travel with her on her plane.
The aide jokingly told Politico’s Glenn Thrush Friday that he hopes the decision to accommodate Clinton’s traveling press corps on her plane will finally get them to “shut the hell up” about her lack of media availability.
Thrush then tweeted the following:
It turns out that the aide was mostly kidding around, as Thrush clarified later in a statement to Mediaite.
But Thrush’s note didn’t come until after reporters were already good and angry about the aide’s alleged comment.
Clinton’s strategy of lying low will likely backfire and tank her election bid altogether, ABC News contributor and political analyst Matthew Dowd claimed Friday.
“She has disappeared basically off the campaign trail,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“She hasn’t held a press conference in nine months. Almost as if you put her face on a milk carton to find her these days, in the course of this race,” Dowd said, adding she needs to get out in front of cameras and address her bad press.
He added, “I think she needs to go out and start confronting the press.”
“If [the news cycle] becomes about her, she loses this race,” Dowd said.
Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz declined Friday to endorse Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
“We are not making any endorsement in current presidential election. We are dedicated to fostering a bipartisan foreign policy, and we will devote ourselves to this effort now and after the election,” former secretaries of state Kissinger and Shultz said Friday in a joint statement.
The non-endorsement comes after Clinton touted her relationship with Kissinger repeatedly during the Democratic presidential primary
“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better — better than anybody had run it in a long time. So I have an idea of what it’s going to take to make our government work more efficiently,” she said at a debate in February.
This is the news that will likely last through the Labor Day weekend, and cause headaches for the Clinton campaign in the weeks to come.
The FBI on Friday released more than 50 pages of notes from its interview with Clinton during its investigation of her use of a private and unauthorized email server.
The notes show she reportedly told FBI agents that she didn’t understand the State Department’s classification system when she headed the agency.
Clinton also reportedly told agents in July she thought the classified “C” markings on her emails were simply party of an alphabetical system of ordering.
The FBI notes also revealed Clinton used approximately 13 separate personal mobile devices to send and receive classified information over her private email server. Eight of these mobile devices were used when she served at the State Department.
Clinton’s attorneys said they were “unable locate any of these devices” during the whole of the FBI’s investigation of her private server,
Bonus:
There was one bright spot this week for Clinton: Her address Wednesday at the American Legion National Conference in Cincinnati was well received, and drew mild kudos from politicos and pundits. However, it did little to distract from her negative press, and it disappeared almost immediately from the news cycle.
