Potential 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says President Obama’s 2008 campaign engaged in sexist behavior by asking her to attack former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin because she’s a woman.
Clinton describes an exchange after she suspended her presidential campaign and had an “awkward” meeting with Obama to clear the air.
“That very first day, the Obama campaign said, ‘We want you to go out and criticize her,’ ” Clinton said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday about Palin. “’Go out and criticize her? For what? For being a woman? No. Let’s wait until we know where she stands,’” Clinton said she recalled saying at the time.
Clinton said she made clear she wouldn’t attack someone for being a man or woman.
She described the exchange in her memoir Hard Choices, which was released on Tuesday.
Asked if the climate is different now for a woman running for president, Clinton said “I think it’s different for women across the board. It’s not just in the political sphere that we continue to have these obstacles to women’s full participation.”
The American public has much “greater awareness” now about the “double standard,” Clinton added.
On Monday, Palin posted a photo of an excerpt from the memoir on Twitter about the request to launch an attack on her.
“Well, that’s not exactly what I said,” Clinton said responding to Palin’s tweet on “Good Morning America.”