Hillary Clinton Returns: ‘I’d Like to Be President’

On Friday, failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stated she would “like to be president” during a live taping of Recode Decode at New York City’s 92nd Street Y.

“I’d like to be president,” stated Clinton. “I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the oval office in January 2021, there’s gonna be so much work to be done.”

She said:

I mean, we have confused everyone in the world, including ourselves. We have confused our friends and our enemies. They have no idea what the United States stands for, what we’re likely to do, what we think is important. So the work would be work that I feel very well prepared for, having been in the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department, and it’s just gonna be a lot of heavy lifting.

When questioned on whether she would be a part of the heavy lifting, Clinton said, “I have no idea, Kara. I’m going to, you know, I’m not even gonna think about it till we get through this November 6th election.”

In the 2016 election, Clinton garnered only 232 electoral votes while Trump received 306.

Trump took 30 and a half states as the Republican candidate, while Hillary Clinton sealed 19 and a half states as the Democrat candidate in the United States presidential election of 2016.

Hillary Clinton’s return as a potential presidential candidate in 2020 could not come at a worse time for Democrats. The Democratic Party is trying to seal the midterm elections and complete a takeover of the House majority for the first time in nearly a decade, but the race has tightened in the weeks leading up the November 6 midterm election.

Clinton has been trying to help Democrats as much as possible but has not taken a high-profile role on the midterm campaign trail. But now that she is herself floating a potential presidential bid in 2020, she is deliberately inserting herself into the discussion with less than two weeks until election day.

By most accounts on both sides of the aisle, Hillary Clinton’s return to national electoral politics would likely be a disaster for the Democratic Party. Republicans and Democrats have spoken out about Clinton’s negative influence on the Democratic Party in the midterm elections, and any effort by her to run for president again would likely only energize the GOP even more than the party’s base is already fired up.

“The longer a scandal-plagued Hillary Clinton lingers in American politics, the worse off House Democrats will be,” said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to NBC News.

“Hillary Clinton is the kiss of death and she represents the part of the Democratic Party that led to historic losses and that elected Donald Trump president,” said a leading Democratic strategist who requested anonymity due to fear of political retribution, per the Washington Examiner.

During an interview in India, Hillary Clinton shared her thoughts on “middle America.” Clinton said she won “the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic” and “moving-forward,” and she added that she did better in “places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product.”

Among other topics discussed in the interview were Russia, Facebook, and the 2018 midterm elections.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @RealKyleMorris.