MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said Tuesday she was concerned the Hillary Clinton campaign would have cut off her interview with the candidate if she asked too many questions about Clinton’s private email server at the State Department.
Clinton sat down with Mitchell on Friday and the main topic from the start was her use of a private, unsecured server as secretary of state, which has caused serious problems for her campaign with questions about her honesty, trustworthiness and handling of classified material. While other presidential candidates have made dozens of media appearances, Clinton has given just three nationally televised interviews since her campaign began.
“We were told we had a 15-minute interview,” Mitchell said. “I asked more than 12 minutes on emails before I felt, out of concern that they would cut it off, obviously, that I had to move on, so I couldn’t ask everything that I did want to ask, but I think we did get a good chance to ask a lot of questions and discover that she did not have an answer for why she did the personal server in the first place.”
Clinton also twice refused to apologize for having a private server during the interview, and she said she “was not thinking a lot” when she made the decision to have a private email in the first place.
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski expressed frustration with Clinton’s decision to agree to an interview the Friday before Labor Day weekend, implying her intention was to bury any news that might come out of Mitchell’s questions.
“You know this game,” Mitchell said. “You saw the game getting played. You watched it right before your eyes. Her trying to sort of answer and then more information coming out over Labor Day weekend. What is that? We all know this. Are we all going to pretend that didn’t happen?”
