Bill's 'awful' gaffe

Clinton campaign mops up Bill's 'awful' gaffe

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Hillary Clinton’s campaign early Tuesday morning pushed back against reports that former President Bill Clinton called President Barack Obama’s policies “awful,” insisting that only Bernie Sanders' campaign would openly attack the sitting president.

At a campaign stop in Washington state Monday on behalf of his wife, Clinton highlighted the former secretary of state as a change-maker but acknowledged there may be a few reasons people wouldn’t support her. He added, however, that voters should support her “if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that,” according to USA Today.

Hillary Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon sought to clarify early Tuesday that the former president was referring to Republican obstruction of Obama when he used the term “awful.”

“Sanders is only Dem in race who actually attacks @POTUS,” Fallon wrote, retweeting a report from The Hill in which Sanders criticized Bill Clinton for his comments regarding Obama.

Hillary Clinton often embraces Obama’s presidency on the trail. Sanders, meanwhile, hasn’t shied away from being critical of the president. But on Monday night he said he didn’t know that he’d “call President Obama’s 72 straight months of job growth an ‘awful legacy.’”

USA Today updated its report with a statement from Bill Clinton spokesman Angel Urena, who also maintained that Clinton was referring to Republican obstructionism.

“When Republicans controlled the White House, their trickle-down approach drove our economy to the brink of a collapse,” Urena said. “After President Obama was elected, Republicans made it their number one goal to block him at every turn. That unprecedented obstruction these last eight years is their legacy, and the American people should reject it by electing Hillary Clinton to build on President Obama's success so we can all grow and succeed together.”