MSNBC’s Mitchell: Hillary’s ‘Retelling History’ on DOMA Failing Fact Checking

Monday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” veteran chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News Andrea Mitchell said Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s “retelling of history, that there would have been a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage,” is not standing up to fact checking.

Mitchell said, “She’s running scared in Iowa after what happened last time. She came in third. So she pulled out all the stops, Katy Perry, Bill Clinton in his first public campaign appearance for her on Saturday night. But Bernie Sanders did have some points to make, particularly on DOMA, because of Rachel Maddow’s interview on Friday night when Hillary Clinton said to Rachel that the reason why Bill Clinton supported the Defense of Marriage Act was a defense against an even worse contingency which was the possibility, the likelihood, according to Hillary Clinton’s history —retelling of history, that there would have been a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. So he took a least worst option and in 1996, supported the Defense of Marriage Act. Well, that, Bernie Sanders then argued is demonstrably not true.”

“And it’s been pointed out by a number of fact checkers today and yesterday,” Mitchell continued. “Hillary Rosen, who was there then, tweeted to her friends, Bill and Hillary, saying that’s not what happened, I was there. Don’t continue saying this. Bottom line is, that it was politically advantageous. He was running for re-election. Bob Dole was in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, and like several other of the issues that were supported then, you know, by [Dick] Morris, who was helping him in his re-election campaign. He went for it and offended a lot of his liberal supporters and this was just one other instance.”

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