(CNSNews.com) – This past February, a New York Times reporter contacted the Hillary Clinton campaign to see how Hillary, Bill and other Democrats “regard Trump as a potential election opponent.”
The email exchange is particularly interesting in light of Tuesday’s election results.
Reporter Patrick Healy told the Clinton campaign, “I wanted to run some points by you about President Clinton, based on our reporting with allies and campaign advisers and other Dems who have spoken to him.”
Among those points, Healy wrote: “We’re told that President Clinton, like Secretary Clinton and some others, think Trump could pose a real threat in battleground states that President Obama carried in 2008 and 2012 — like Virginia and Ohio — and he will be competitive in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.”
As it turns out, Trump won at least four of those six states, giving him the victory that Clinton believed was hers.
Healy also asked the Clinton campaign in that February email: “We’re told that President Clinton (like Mrs. Clinton and some other Dems) thinks that Trump would be a formidable opponent in the general election, and that Dems are in a form of denial if they dismiss Trump as a joke who would be easily defeated in November. President Clinton, like others, thinks that Trump has his finger on the pulse of the electorate’s mood and that only a well-financed, concerted campaign portray(ing) him as dangerous and bigoted will win what both Clintons believe will be a close November election.”
The complete email exchange, dated Feb. 29, 2016, and released on Nov. 9 by WikiLeaks, can be seen here.
In response to Healy’s inquiries, Christina Reynolds, a member of the Clinton campaign, said she thought Healy’s “first point” about Trump being a “formidable opponent” was “OK”. But, she added, “don’t love pointing to states where we think he’ll do well, unless that’s just a total done deal.”
Source: CNS News
