She attempted – and failed – to become president in 2008 and 2016. What advice could she possibly offer?
In an interview with “The View” on ABC News Friday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said he would not meet with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for advice, as other 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls have done. Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Senator John McCain and an avowed conservative, posed the question to Bernie about whether he’d take Clinton’s help in his bid to win the presidency in 2020.
McCain said:
We’re hearing about a lot of candidates who are meeting with Hillary Clinton for advice, people like Amy Klobuchar. Do you think you’ll do the same?
Sanders replied:
I suspect not. She hasn’t called me. Look, we have differences. You know, Hillary has played a very important role in modern American politics.
Bernie Sanders asking Clinton for advice is like asking someone who strikes out in clutch moments for tips on how to hit a home run in the World Series.
But McCain’s question must sting for Bernie Sanders in another way: If it weren’t for Clinton conducting a hostile takeover of crucial Democratic Party resources, he might be the president right now.
Hillary Clinton literally rigged the 2016 Democratic primary to ensure Sanders would not get in her way to becoming president. This was not a very democratic thing to do. Indeed, it was antithetical to the spirit of free and fair elections that America promotes around the world.
Don’t take my word for it, though, when you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Donna Brazile, who was the chief of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 Democratic primary, revealed that Clinton effectively steered Party resources to her own campaign – which violates federal campaign finance law in the United States, as I have previously written .
Writing for POLITICO Magazine , Donna Brazile explained:
I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process…
…When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
I had been wondering why it was that I couldn’t write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn [refering to the Clinton campaign’s headquarters]. Well, here was the answer.”
So before Bernie Sanders ever had a shot at the 2016 primary, the entire party apparatus had already signed away its support to Hillary Clinton – who gained control of the DNC by assuming it’s many debts as part of the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement.
Brazile said in the POLITICO Magazine piece:
… I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.
Brazile was not exactly an innocent fly on the wall during this whole process: She lied about giving debate questions to Clinton at a town hall and was fired from her role at CNN as a contributor for doing so.
McCain’s mere suggestion that Sanders would be interested in aid from Clinton must be viewed in the context that McCain despises ‘radicals’ like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders – people who want Medicare-for-All and universal higher education.
Again, don’t take my word for it. DYOR and get it from the horse’s mouth:
This makes my head explode. By the way, I do hope the Democrats run a Democratic Socialist, because I think they’ll lose spectacularly. I will look forward to election night when I finally tell everyone ‘I told you so,’ if you end up running a radical.
https://youtu.be/vW32S19vp0k?t=78
Indeed, the notion that a conservative has any interest in Sanders winning is laughable. McCain probably would like for Clinton to give Bernie advice because then it would expose Sanders to criticisms he’s a Clinton puppet who has no spine given what Clinton did to Sanders in 2016.