Hillary Clinton Says 2020 Election Is 'Unfinished Business,' Hopes That 'National Nightmare Ends'
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused President Donald Trump of giving people license to say racist and sexist things. She also expressed a hope that he would soon be defeated.
The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate spoke to TV host and comedian Conan O'Brien on his podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Tuesday about Trump.
O'Brien also took the opportunity to criticize Trump and compared him unfavorably to former presidents he's met. Clinton said the election was a key factor in fighting racism and misogyny.
O'Brien asked Clinton about progress in women's rights. He mentioned his own daughter and late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the role Clinton played in changing conditions for women.
"I do think that we have to admit that we've made progress," Clinton said. "We've made progress in these two really thorny, difficult areas of our communal namely, namely race and sex."
"And we've seen racism and we've seen sexism that we've had to fight against and overcome and we've had to change the laws and there's a constant pushback that sometimes is not as, you know, visible or effective as it can become.
"And so when I look at where we are, I think that Trump and his enablers gave a lot of permission to people to say things and act in ways that were deeply racist and misogynistic.
"And part of what I hope part of this election will be about is reclaiming any ground that's been lost and continue to push forward because it's unfinished business. If anybody lived through the last months, how can you not see the need for a moral reckoning with systemic racism? How can you deny that?" Clinton asked.
Later in the podcast, O'Brien and Clinton discussed Trump more specifically. O'Brien said he'd had a cordial conversation with the late President George H.W. Bush, who invited him to his home.
"You do not have to be an ethicist to know that this president has completely undermined the norms of behavior and as a dad, I'm embarrassed," O'Brien said. "I'm embarrassed and I've, several times, said to my kids, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this is the president that you've got."
"I really resonate to that," Clinton said, explaining that she had disagreed with Republican and Democratic presidents on policy but Trump was different.
"This is an aberration," she said. "I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of presidents, Republicans and Democrats, and on human level, as you're describing, you could feel the humanity
"You could sense the values - the norms - whether you agreed with them or not. But you knew that this was a person who had thought a lot and really struggled and often overcame problems in his or her own life.
"What we're going through now is just so different from anything that I think we've ever experienced, really," Clinton said. "So I'm hoping that we end this experiment, this national nightmare, in this election."
