Hillary Clinton attempted on Wednesday to strike a conciliatory note about the nation’s political divisions, but her message was quickly undercut by sharp partisan blame aimed at conservatives.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the former Democratic presidential nominee said the country needed to “stop demonizing each other,” before immediately claiming that “most of that, right now in our country’s history, is coming, you know, from the right, coming from people who want to dominate. They want their point of view.”
Clinton insisted that Americans needed to move beyond “finger-pointing and scapegoating,” suggesting that both parties should instead focus on policy questions such as health care and artificial intelligence. “We can have legitimate disagreements. How do you provide quality, affordable healthcare to everybody? Let’s figure that out. How do you deal with what’s going to be job loss from AI? Let’s get working on that,” she said.
Her call for unity, however, was anchored in what she called a “truth-based reality” — a phrase that, for many conservatives, underscores Democrats’ long-standing tendency to define political legitimacy by their own preferred set of facts. “Facts and evidence have to matter again, and then we can start having good debates,” Clinton said.
The former secretary of state also used her television appearance to take aim at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., labeling his ideas “crackpot” and tying them directly to the Trump administration. According to Clinton, “people are dying because of the Trump administration’s MAHA initiatives.”
Her criticism of Kennedy — who has drawn both fascination and skepticism for his challenges to establishment health policies — drew gasps and nods of approval from co-host Mika Brzezinski.
Clinton argued that returning to older practices would endanger Americans. “When I hear people, you know, like Kennedy and others, talking about getting back to a time when we aren’t vaccinating, we’re drinking raw milk — and people didn’t live,” she said.
The former first lady’s remarks also recalled her controversial rhetoric from the 2016 campaign, when she famously described Donald Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”
Though she has since softened her language, calling them “confused” rather than malicious, Wednesday’s comments suggested she still views the Right as the primary driver of the nation’s political rancor.
For many conservatives, Clinton’s posture captures the paradox of Democratic messaging: appeals to civility paired with barbed accusations against political opponents.
By framing the debate as one side embracing “facts and evidence” and the other descending into domination and scapegoating, critics argue, Clinton risks deepening the very divides she claims to want to heal.
Even so, Clinton was unsparing in her final assessment of Kennedy and his allies. “It’s so wrongheaded, it’s so short-sighted, and it’s going to cause deaths,” she said of his policies.
The exchange reflected the enduring challenge for Clinton and other Democrats: attempting to position themselves as champions of unity while continuing to cast conservatives as the main obstacle to the civility they claim to seek.
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