On Thursday morning’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – host Michael Patrick Leahy was joined by all-star panelist’s Crom Carmichael and Carol Swain to discuss whether or not Hillary Clinton will jump back in the 2020 Democratic presidential race.
During the show, the team mulled over how Clinton would position herself if she was to get in the race and suggested that she would not participate in debates but would be ‘asked’ by the party to become the nominee. They also discussed her current stance on issues and how she’s been playing herself in the media recently as a ‘moderate’.
Leahy: Carol Swain, Crom has said he thinks Hillary Clinton now wants to get back into the game. She didn’t win in 2008. She didn’t win in 2016 but she still thinks she deserves to be President. What do you think Carol? Is she going to get in?
Swain: I don’t count her out. And when you look at the other candidates, they’re so far to the left, I think she could easily get in and try to position herself more towards the middle. Even though she’s a leftist. We know that. The others are so bizarre. I think that for a lot of people she might be consoling. Her problem would be her health as well as the fact that she’s not very well-liked.
Leahy: Yeah, I don’t think most people like her. Crom, you were saying that her recent comments suggest that yes, she really wants to get in.
Carmicheal: Yes. She came out and said that she named a particular individual, I don’t remember the name. But this is an individual that is in custody and is an illegal immigrant. And Hillary Clinton is saying that the sanctuary city where this individual is in custody, that this sanctuary city should cooperate with ICE and have this person deported.
Hillary Clinton is trying to pull some plays out of Barack Obama’s playbook. The problem is that Hillary Clinton is on record believing a lot of things that she now is trying to say she doesn’t. For example, she’s all in favor of the green new deal.
She’s all in favor of hurting the very people that Donald Trump was just talking about on the energy side. And by the way, if you want to hurt the energy sector in this country, then you’re going to have to figure out what you’re going to do to stabilize the oil markets in the Middle East and American troops are going to have to go back into the Middle East to protect the oil.
We don’t have to do that as long as we are energy independent. I think she’s trying to position herself to be a ‘moderate.’ As Carol says, there’s nothing ‘moderate’ about Hillary Clinton. The needle now I’m at the 80% certainty level that Hillary Clinton is going to get back in the race at some point.
Swain: I have some advice for her.
Leahy: OK. (Swain giggles) Hit the record button Hillary. Because Carol Swain is about to give you some very good advice. Listen up. Hit record now. Go, Carol.
Swain: If Hillary Clinton wants to get in, she needs to take a strong position about the transgender movement when it comes to women’s sports as well as children being given puberty-blocking drugs. And we would call that child abuse. The fact that there’s plenty of health evidence that it causes sterilization.
There are all kinds of ill effects on the children that are given those drugs. And they are too young to make decisions. A seven-year-old, a parent is making a decision that could destroy that child’s life. And so if she wants to get votes from ordinary Americans than she needs to take a strong position on those two issues.
Carmichael: And she was being interviewed with Chelsea and an LGBTQ, whatever it is (Leahy laughs) and that question came up and Chelsea immediately was all in on the left side of the issue. And Hillary Clinton was immediately asked if she agreed with Chelsea, and she backed off.
Swain: Oh yeah, I remember that. And it had to do with can a man with a beard and a penis be a woman.
Leahy: And Chelsea said yes they can.
Swain: Yes.
Leahy: And Hillary said, ‘No comment.’
Swain: And Hillary said, ‘No.’ And here’s the thing about it. Women’s sports are being destroyed by men who could not win in male sports but they compete in women’s sports and they win every game.
Leahy: So that might be an opportunity for her. (Swain giggles)
Carmicheal: What I’m saying is, I’m only talking about this in the context of is she going to get back in the race. She would have support, Hillary Clinton 100% if she weren’t planning on getting back in the race. Every answer she’s giving now has a political motivation behind it to try to make her appear to be a ‘moderate.’
Which she’s not even close. I don’t think she can fake it very well. She may want to come up with a name, whatever the female name is for Pierre. (Leahy and Carmichael laughs) Come up with her own name.
Swain: She has her husband Bill Clinton the greatest master of all advising her.
Leahy: Well, he’s the master of many things.
Swain: Right.
Leahy: And one of those things is not so good. The MeToo situation with women is not going to work well for him.
Carmicheal: It still exists and he was around last time in 2016 and he was trying to give her advice and her campaign advice. The question for me is, so let’s assume for purposes of discussion that Hillary does want to get back in. Let’s assume that.
Leahy: She does.
Carmicheal: Just for the purpose of discussion. Is she going to get back in a try to win the primaries? Or is she going to try to destroy secretly or behind the scenes each of the current Democrat candidates so the party asks her?
Leahy: You know the Babylon Bee? So the Babylon Bee which is a satire site put out a little headline today, (Giggles) ‘Hillary Clinton one day before Tulsi Gabbard’s Suicide put a condolence note out.’ (Group laughs) Now it’s a satire site, but you know…
Swain: Well, she’s going to do both because she has to knock the other candidates out of the way. And they are a pathetic bunch. And so the Democrats, the only thing that they have is their attacks on President Trump.
Leahy: That’s it.
Swain: They don’t have a candidate.
Carmichael: But will she attack them as a candidate in the primaries or will she attack them as somebody on the sidelines and then offer herself to the Democrat party as the savior coming in on a white horse?
Swain: No this is how she does it. She will use her allies in the media to destroy these candidates and then they will draft her.
Carmicheal: Alright. That’s what I think.
Leahy: When will that happen in your scenario?
Swain: It has to happen pretty soon right? (Laughs)
Leahy: Well, I don’t know.
Swain: By the first of the year. (Laughs)
Leahy: You think?
Swain: You need that much time to campaign.
Leahy: (Whispers) Do you think she’ll be in before the first of the year?
Swain: The spring. Let’s say the spring.
Leahy: I don’t think she wants to be in front of the voters.
Carmicheal: I don’t think so. I don’t think she wants to debate. I don’t think she wants to debate any other Democrats.
Leahy: No.
Carmicheal: I think she wants to be literally be hand-selected by the party and not go through the primary process.
Leahy: Because it will hurt her because she’s just so awful.
Carmicheal: It’s the same way Adam Schiff is conducting his hearings. Hillary Clinton wants to conduct her campaign in secret.
Leahy: The star chamber campaign of Hillary Clinton. What do you think Carol?
Swain: I mean it makes a lot of sense. You cannot count her out. And Bloomberg, I don’t think he’s going anywhere fast.
Leahy: No, he’s boring. The boring billionaire. Let’s just say this happens. Let’s say Hillary and her allies in the media go after Biden. He’s easy to go after. Go after Elizabeth Warren. She’s kind of frenetic.
Carmichael: Which they’re now doing. They’re going after Warren now.
Leahy: Yeah. And they will continue. And Bernie, let’s not even go there. Bernie is fading shall we say. So, it’s before the convention and nobody’s got a majority of the delegates. And she orchestrates it so that at the convention Hillary Clinton wins the nomination. Let’s say that happens. How do the supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren react? Carol?
Swain: Well I don’t think they would support here. But I think she would try to get Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and various people like that to endorse her because they don’t stand a chance of winning.
Leahy: Crom, to me, I think the flaw with the Hillary Clinton plan is some percent of left-wing Democrats are going to not support her and either not show up. Could they mount a third-party candidacy? What would happen then?
Carmicheal: I’m not suggesting that she would win the general.
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmicheal: I’m talking about how I think she thinks about how she can win the nomination. She does not want to stand on a stage and debate ten people or debate eight people.
Leahy: Here’s what I think. I think she decided to claim that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian bot and is a Russian asset because she thinks if she gets the speculation and if she gets the nomination by stealth Hillary does. If she steals the nomination, then there will be disaffected Democrats and they’ll have to rally around someone. And Tulsi Gabbard is actually, probably somebody who might have the left-wing rally around against her.
Carmicheal: Well Hillary threw Jill Stein under the bus too.
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmicheal: She’s also a Russian agent.
Leahy: The social Democrat or green party nominee.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Hillary Clinton” by Hillary Clinton.
I only wish that “Crooked Hillary” would get into the fracas. I would love to see her crash and burn on election day. Maybe then she would just shut up and go away.
Hillary Clinton has enemies not only from rightists like Blackburn, but from leftists like myself. Hillary Clinton is a dangerous war-monger who is willing to risk a nuclear world war with Russia, North Korea, and elsewhere just to assure the Necons and Neolibs that she is just as “macho” as Mitch O’Connell and his ilk.
If she gets the nomination, it is possible that many leftist will desert the Democratic at the top of the ticket to either choose a third- or fourth-party candidate or to boycott the Presidential part of the ticket and concentrate down-ticket on supporting leftist and progressive candidates like AOC, et al. That’s what I will do. During 2016, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary, but voted for Dr. Jill Stein in the general election because I could not stand Hillary Clinton’s bellicosity which made Donald Trump look like a dovish sweetheart in comparison. Nor could I vote for Trump because of his xenophobia and bigotry.
Many leftist, I hope, will boycott Clinton even if that risks another Trump re-election. If progressives and leftists concentrate on the Congressional, Senatorial, and statewide/citywide elections, they can elect enough people to block Trump’s extremist impulses without having to elect Crooked Hillary or Slick Willieto the Oval Office