The obvious question, is she running? Or nurturing hopes of running again?
Hillary Clinton’s marginalization has been tremendous. Not all that long ago the Clintons dominated the party organization to an almost inconceivable extent. But 2016 broke the Clinton machine and sidelined Hillary (not to mention Bill) pretty catastrophically. The money isn’t coming in the way it used to, but Hillary is still around.
When asked if she was “comfortable” with President Joe Biden’s announced timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, Clinton declined to answer. Instead, she called it a “wicked problem” and said Biden “made the decision that he thought was the right decision.”
Her focus, however, would be “on what happens to the people, particularly the women in Afghanistan, if the Taliban come back into power, if the government collapses,” she said, echoing concerns among some about a potential power vacuum after U.S. forces leave. If that happened, she said she hoped the U.S. and its allies would help Afghans out of the country to “deal with what I expect to be a very large refugee flow.”
That was on MSNBC. Here’s Hillary on CNN.
When CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Clinton what she thought of the decision, she said: “Well, it’s been made, and I know it is a very difficult decision.”
The first major consequence was “the potential collapse of the Afghan government and a takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban,” Clinton said.
“Probably with a resumption of civil war in certain parts of the country, but a largely Taliban-run government at some point in the not-too-distant future,” she added.
“It’s one thing to pull out troops that have been supporting security in Afghanistan, supporting the Afghan military, leaving it pretty much to fend for itself, but we can’t afford to walk away from the consequences of that decision,” Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton isn’t just randomly popping up on two of the major non-FOX cable news networks by chance. It’s a campaign. And while the Clinton machine may not look like it used to, there’s still enough clout to book Hillary on MSNBC and CNN with some indirect criticism of Biden.
The question is, “Why?”
1. Hillary is emphasizing refugees and may just be looking to kickstart the Foundation machine again.
2. It’s yet another trial balloon. Biden is a weak figurehead. Kamala is unpopular. All sorts of Democrats will potentially test the waters. And while Hillary seems like a really implausible 2024, let alone 2028 candidate, she’s a good deal younger than Biden and has name recognition.
If you want to imagine a really bizarre scenario, we could hypothetically see a Hillary vs. Trump rematch in 2024. Not likely, but nothing is impossible.
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