>
Just days before his departure, President Barack Obama pondered the many causes of Hillary Clinton’s upset loss in 2016 — and considered how things might have turned out if key actors, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, had made “different decisions.”
Obama made the comments unofficial during a meeting with progressive columnists just three days before he was succeeded by Donald Trump after the bitter election, where Clinton won the popular vote but Trump triumphed in the Electoral College.
A transcript was included in a cache of documents provided by the Department of Justice to: Bloomberg as part of a FOIA request – apparently by accident.
Obama expressed his general optimism about the country, saying there were “several contingencies that led to Trump being elected and not somehow suggest that the country is always racist, misogynist, what have you,” he said — after a campaign with candidate Clinton and many of her surrogates accusing Trump of racism.
And the fact of the matter is, aside from the fact that Hillary Clinton got the significantly larger share of the vote, I think it’s fair to say there’s a whole host of different things happening — how the email thing unfolded. , and some kind of necklace from Bill Clinton gets on that plane to announce Comey,” Obama said.
Former President Barack Obama broke out about Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 in off-the-record comments to reporters before he left office
“At a lot of different times people could have made different decisions that would have made it play differently.”
He referred to various pivotal points in the elections. One was the Clinton email scandal and how it “unfolded” — a comment that could include elements from Clinton’s decision to keep a private email server in her home, to her decision to send her team thousands of “personal ‘ e-mails deleted, for its own audience. explanation that the candidate would give. Clinton eventually apologized, calling it a “mistake.”
He also referred to Bill Clinton’s infamous June 2016 meeting with then-AG Lynch on a tarmac road in Phoenix in 2016. Clinton said the two talked about grandchildren and other matters, but critics said it was inappropriate at the time. email inquiry was underway.
The third event he mentioned was former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to hold a press conference in July 2016, where he said Clinton had committed no crimes but had been “extremely careless.” He then held a second press conference announcing that the investigation was being reopened after authorities discovered additional emails on former Representative Anthony Weiner’s disgraced laptop.
Like many leading Democrats, Obama pointed to the way former FBI Director James Comey handled the email investigation
He also brought up how the Hillary Clinton email scandal played out
Obama said there were “several contingencies that led to Trump being elected” and said the results “do not somehow suggest that the country is invariably racist, misogynist…”
He also mentioned former President Bill Clinton’s asphalt meeting with Loretta Lynch
Clinton’s meeting with Lynch took place during the FBI’s email investigation
Obama, seen this month in San Diego, made the comments to reporters. The DOJ released them in response to a FOIA request
Obama also considered the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, which US intelligence attributes to Russia. The documents appeared on websites during the campaign.
He referenced a series of media reports based on the hacked information.
“I think the Russian leaks, how that went, how all these things were reported – I mean, I’m just being honest with you, and many of you share this view. You weren’t necessarily to blame, but how that turned out,” he told opinion journalists.
He also pointed to widespread poll failures and Clinton’s strategic campaign mistakes.
“Some poll and analysis failures that lead to a leading Democratic candidate never appearing in Michigan or Wisconsin, or appearing in a union hall, right? I mean, there’s just a lot of things that could have happened where we wouldn’t have this particular conversation.”
It is not clear why the government handed over the material.
“It’s a document I didn’t specifically ask for,” tweeted reporter Jason Leopold.
In other comments, Obama expressed his confidence in American institutions and the difficulty Trump would face in undoing his legacy, such as by trying to repeal Obamacare.
“I think four years is okay. Include some water, but we can bail soon enough to be okay. Eight years would be a problem. I would be concerned about an ongoing period where some of these standards have broken down and begin to corrode