Bill Clinton handed Trump a grudging victory that left Leftists panicking
The Clintons have been lurking for decades. Now they’ve been thrust into the spotlight once again.
Because Bill Clinton handed Trump a grudging victory that left Leftists panicking.
Former President Bill Clinton made waves Wednesday by acknowledging that President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 race “fair and square,” a sharp contrast to his lingering view of the 2016 election as illegitimate.
“This time, Donald Trump won the race, fair and square,” Clinton said during an appearance on The View, quickly adding, “I think.”
Speaking with the co-hosts of the ABC talk show, Clinton revisited his frustration over Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.
Co-host Joy Behar reminded him of a passage in his memoir, where he admitted losing sleep over the outcome.
“How are you sleeping now?” Behar asked, referencing Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris. “What’s going to happen now?”
“I’m sleeping better now because I did everything I could for the alternative,” Clinton replied.
He pointedly noted, “Unlike in 2016, there was no outside influence like the FBI Director interfering at the last moment in violation of 70 years of policy, and it changed 5% [in polling] overnight.”
The Clintons have long pinned much of the blame for Hillary’s 2016 loss on then-FBI Director James Comey.
His late October letter announcing a reopening of the investigation into her private email server, they argue, swung critical polling in Trump’s favor.
President Clinton emphasized the unprecedented nature of the polling shift, saying he had never seen such a dramatic turnaround in his lifetime.
Despite this, Hillary Clinton had entered Election Day in 2016 with strong backing from experts who largely predicted she would defeat Trump — even after Comey’s intervention.
“Anybody that says that he didn’t give Trump the election needs to—” Clinton began Monday, before abruptly stopping himself.
As for the 2024 election, Clinton conceded Trump’s victory was legitimate — at least based on what he knew.
“I’m not like [Trump]. I have to have some evidence to make a charge, so as far as I know, he won it, and there’re a lot of reasons why,” he stated.
Looking forward, Clinton urged his party to ensure a peaceful transfer of power and find ways to cooperate with Trump and the Republicans.
“I do not think we should just be jamming them, even though they do that to us a lot,” he remarked. “I think it’s a mistake.”
Clinton, who rose to the presidency in 1992 by bridging rural and urban voters, acknowledged the Democratic Party’s current struggles with working-class and rural communities.
A generation after his coalition-building success, these voters have largely abandoned the Democratic fold.
Pressed on how Democrats might reclaim these voters, Clinton offered a candid critique of his party’s approach.
“We need to quit screaming at each other and listen to each other,” he said, underscoring the emphasizing of dialogue over divisiveness.
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