On Tuesday’s “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel, conservative commentator Mark Steyn criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the revelations surrounding her new memoir and the media appearance she has made in promoting it.
Steyn mocked her remarks about her and her husband’s financial situation, her tenure as the country’s top diplomat and he expressed his doubts that Clinton would actually follow through with a 2016 presidential run.
Transcript as follows:
PERINO: And joining us, columnist and author of the book “Lights Out,” one of my favorite people, Mark Steyn.
Thanks for joining us, Mark.
You heard her perspective of what she is taking credit for. What’s yours?
STEYN: Yeah. Well, Dana, before we get on to that, the sob story at the beginning, she — the Clintons have a house on the sunshine coast in Queensland. They have a place on the west coast of Ireland, too. So, just in terms of their non-North American properties, it’s no wonder they have problems paying the mortgages. That’s not a good way to relate to ordinary people.
On the “blame Bush” thing, for starts, that is not going to play. That’s ancient history in political terms. And, second, it’s not true. If you go back to the standing in the world of the United States under the Bush administration with enemies, he called up Putin and said we would like to use Russia’s Central Asian military bases, through which to go into Pakistan. And Putin said yes. Putin wouldn’t say yes to Obama today. That’s Hillary Clinton’s legacy.
In Iraq, the al Qaeda flag flies in Fallujah on buildings American troops built. And as we have just heard, al Qaeda has taken hold of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, earlier today.
Pakistani General Musharraf, the State Department called him up and said this is what we need. He said he would go along with it. Now we can’t get out of jail in Pakistan the doctor who basically fingered Osama Bin Laden to the Americans. And this administration can’t get him out of jail.
It’s completely false, completely false to say that she rebuilt American relationships in the world.
PERINO: You’re an author of several books. I’m curious, as an author looking at what she was trying to accomplish with “Hard Choices,” was it a book to discuss her legacy or is it a book that would be maybe considered a campaign platform for 2016 presidential run?
STEYN: I think — think what she is doing is she is trying to run in soft focus again. I mean, where she went wrong in 2008 is she wanted to run basically as first lady. She wanted to run as queen consort and be treated as a member of the royal family, rather than as a down-and-dirty politician. And it failed for her last time. And it will — the book is written in that same kind of vanilla, soft-focus sense again. And it will fail for her this time.
Look, realistically, she is a 69-year-old woman whose actual accomplishments are extremely minimal. Until she became secretary of state, she had never held any executive position. And she did a terrible job in that executive position. She basically — she basically floated through it as the sort of celebrity cherry on the top of the cake. She racked up more air miles than anybody and she had nothing to show for those air miles. She flew while Benghazi burned. That’s the short version of her tenure.
PERINO: Based on — given that and your perspective, and based on what you have seen so far, in the time we have left, can you tell me, do you think she is going to make a decision to run for president?
STEYN: Look, I would be surprised if she actually goes through with it. I think the book tour is useful for testing the waters. I would like a female leader, you know, Australia, New Zealand; Julian Gillard (ph), Helen Clark, Kim Campbell in Canada. Everybody has had female heads of government except the United States. But this isn’t the one that’s going to do it, Dana.
PERINO: All right. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.
STEYN: Always a pleasure.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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