The Democratic National Convention got off to a bit of a rough start Monday, as some supporters of Bernie Sanders fought back the party's attempts to get delegates to unify behind presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Democrats, dealing with a brewing controversy sparked by leaked DNC emails that revealed party officials had sought to undermine Sanders' campaign for the nomination, hope that this week will quell some of the intra-party doubts about Clinton. The former secretary of state also remains haunted by some past controversies as she heads into the general election against Donald Trump. Here are 16 of Clinton's most controversial statements from this election cycle:
- In August, with questions already brewing over her use of a private email system as Secretary of State, Clinton was asked if she had "wiped" the server after her tenure. Clinton responded with a joke, "What, like with a cloth or something?"
- Clinton had a misstep during a March town hall in Ohio that has followed her in the months since. Discussing her campaign promise to develop clean energy further, Clinton said, "We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." The comment proved so polarizing and effective that a candidate for the Supreme Court of West Virginia, where coal employs many citizens, used it in a campaign ad to separate herself from Washington politics.
3. Clinton’s extensive social media team has occasionally missed the mark, most notably with their post, "7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela." In addition to using the Spanish word for "grandmother," the post also cited "el respeto" and a photo with Latin singer Marc Anthony. The post was mocked with the hashtags #NotMyAbuela and #NotMiAbuela on Twitter, and many thought it was blatant pandering to Hispanic voters, or "Hispandering.
4. With the FBI investigation over her private email server as secretary of state well underway, Clinton chose to poke fun at the brewing controversy while at an August event for Iowa Democrats. Clinton mentioned her campaign’s recent creation of a Snapchat account and added, "I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves."
5. Besides the Snapchat comment, Clinton has joked on other occasions about the swirling controversy around her private email server while at the State Department. Back in June 2015, while attending a fundraising event, Clinton quipped that the White House’s hacking by Russian forces would not have happened "had they been using my server." The joke took on added significance in July when the FBI released the results of its investigation into Clinton’s server, which found no "direct evidence" of hacking but implied that it was quite possible given the server’s weaknesses.
6. Republicans who oppose Clinton’s presidential campaign have often brought up a comment the former secretary of state made during the hearings into the attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Clinton answered a question about what may have prompted the attack by saying, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" Some have tried to imply that Clinton was referring to the loss of four American lives at the American consulate in Benghazi. But played in context, Clinton was responding to a question over whether the attackers had been part of a street protest.
7. In September, Clinton finally stated a clear position on the controversial Keystone Pipeline, tweeting, "Time to invest in a clean energy future—not build a pipeline to carry our continent's dirtiest fuel across the US. I oppose Keystone XL." But Clinton had spent years before that angering environmental activists by avoiding a definitive statement on the pipeline, telling a Canadian audience in January 2015, "You won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion.
8. FBI Director Jim Comey stirred up Clinton’s email controversy in early July when he released findings of his agency’s investigation into her use of a private email server when she was at the State Department. Comey concluded that the former secretary of state had been "extremely careless" and that Clinton had, in fact, sent or received classified material from her personal server. This finding conflicted with Clinton’s statement from August, which she has often repeated since: "I did not send classified material, and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified."
9. During a tense primary battle, Clinton’s Democratic rival Bernie Sanders repeatedly requested that she release transcripts from her paid speeches to Wall Street executives after leaving the State Department. Clinton made hundreds of thousands of dollars in these private speeches but, when asked about transcripts from them during an April debate, Clinton deflected by citing her legislative record against big banks and asking Sanders to release his tax returns: "Let’s set the same standard for everybody. When everybody does it, okay, I will do it. But let’s set and expect the same standard on tax returns. Everybody does it, and then we move forward."
10. Almost a year before officially announcing her campaign, Clinton told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in an interview that she and former President Bill Clinton had left the White House "not only dead broke but in debt." The comment seemed tone-deaf given that, in the years since Clinton’s presidency, the couple had earned more than $100 million dollars from paid speeches and other income. Less than two months later, Clinton apologized for the "inartful" comment.
11. The debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, took center stage in October when Clinton told PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff that she was walking back her previous support of the deal. This flip-flop was emphasized in June, when the RNC released 2012 footage of Clinton praising the deal, "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open, free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field.
12. Speaking to NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell following the death of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, Clinton credited Reagan with starting "a national conversation" around HIV/AIDS. Clinton’s praise of Reagan’s "very effective, low-key advocacy" rankled many in the LGBT community who felt that the Reagans had done nowhere near enough to stop the spread of the deadly epidemic. Clinton later issued an apology, writing, "While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I’m sorry.
13. Clinton raised eyebrows about the influence of her husband and former President Bill Clinton when she implied during a Kentucky speech that he would be placed in charge of the economy under her administration. The former secretary of state told the crowd, "My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, 'cause you know he knows how to do it." Clinton quickly clarified that her husband would not have a cabinet role in her administration.
14. Clinton got visibly irritated in February when responding to Ashley Williams, a 23-year-old Black Lives Matter activist who interrupted a private fundraiser for Clinton in Charleston. Williams was displaying a sign that read, "We need to bring them to heel," a reference to a 1996 speech where Clinton also described gang members as "super-predators" following the passage of her husband’s highly controversial 1994 crime bill. As Williams continued to criticize Clinton for her past comments, the former first lady snapped, "Do you want to hear the facts, or do you just want to talk?"
15. Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, landed herself in hot water when she criticized Sanders’ healthcare proposal by telling a New Hampshire crowd, "Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance." Politifact rated Chelsea’s attack as "mostly false," but Hillary Clinton chose to double-down on the criticism when she said at an Iowa campaign event, "I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act. I don't want it repealed. I don't want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate."
16. Clinton sharply criticized Bernie Sanders for comments he made in a New York Daily News interview about his plan to break up big Wall Street banks. During an appearance on MSNBC, Clinton said, "I think he hasn't done his homework, and he'd been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood." Sanders slightly mischaracterized Clinton's criticism and responded responded a rally at Temple University, where he said, "And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, 'not qualified to be president'… Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified if she is… through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds."
