Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton suggested Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump had other motives when he was raising the issue of Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern with which President Bill Clinton admitted to having an “inappropriate relationship.”
Partial transcript as follows:
DICKERSON: All right, Senator, let me ask you about a general election opponent you may face. That is Donald Trump. You got into a pretty ugly exchange. You charged that he — you charged him with sexism, and then he put out an Instagram video of your husband and Monica Lewinsky. Your reaction to that?
CLINTON: Well, if he wants to engage in personal attacks from the past, that’s his prerogative. You know, so be it. I’m going to draw the distinctions between where I stand and where he stands when it comes to equal pay for women, raising the minimum wage, which affects two-thirds of the women, who are the ones receiving the minimum wage, protecting a woman’s right to make the most personal health care decisions. That’s why I’m so proud to have the endorsement of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that I received today in New Hampshire, because I’m going to fight as hard as I can against any efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, something that he supports. So, there are very clear distinctions. He can say whatever he wants to about me. Let the voters judge that. But I am not going to let him or any of the other Republicans rip away the progress that women have made. It’s been too hard-fought-for. And I’m going to stand up and make it clear there’s a huge difference between us.
DICKERSON: Secretary Clinton, what do you say, though, to those even in your own party who say that — a discussion of that portion of your husband’s career is fair game to talk about in an election?
CLINTON: Well, it’s been fair game going back to the Republicans for some years. They can do it again if they want to. That can be their choice as to how to run in this campaign. Didn’t work before. It won’t work again, because it is what people are focused on, not for the past, but for the future. What are we going to do to get wages rising? What are we going to do to create more good jobs? What are we going to do keep rights? What are we going to do to make sure that the Supreme Court has people on it who will defend women’s rights, who will defend marriage equality, who will defend voter rights? So, I can’t run anybody else’s campaign. They can say whatever they want. More power to them. I think it’s a dead end, blind alley for them, but let them go. I’m going to talk about the differences between us, because I think that’s what Americans care about.
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