Late in the 2008 primary season, Hillary Clinton justified her refusal to drop out when it appeared impossible for her to win the nomination by saying “we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California” during the 1968 primary.
On today’s With All Due Respect, host Mark Halperin asked Hillary surrogate Neera Tanden whether there was a parallel between Hillary’s remark and that of Donald Trump today, who said “Second Amendment people” maybe could do something about a President Hillary trying to abolish the Second Amendment. Predictably, Tanden said there was “absolutely no parallel.” Why? Because Hillary was “talking about a person she had deep respect for.” Right, but on whose possible assassination she was hanging her nomination hopes.
Along similar lines, earlier in the show Halperin cited Joe Biden’s remarks during the 2008 campaign that Obama would have a “problem” if he tried to take away Biden’s guns. When Hillary supporter Donny Deutsch said Biden should not have “taken heat” for the remark, Halperin responded: “if you want to have the the moral authority [to criticize Trump] you can’t look at Joe Biden and dismiss it.”
Kudos to Halperin for exposing the Dems’ double-standard.
Note: this Insurrectionist would argue that Hillary’s remark was more offensive than Trump’s. Halperin himself recognized that Trump was “clearly kidding,” although it was a topic he should not have been joking about. In contrast, Hillary was dead serious in 2008 when she cited RFK’s assassination as justification for staying in the primary against Obama.
MARK HALPERIN: Neera, I want to get back to this issue of what Donald Trump said today if I could. Do I remember correctly or incorrectly that you were with Hillary Clinton on the day in 2008 when she made reference to the murder of Robert Kennedy?NEERA TANDEN: I was not with her when she made those comments.HALPERIN: But you did talk to her about what happened, right? Am I misremembering and you were not involved in that it all?TANDEN: I don’t think I was involved in that, but I would say these are very, very different remarks than what was discussed toay.HALPERIN: Let me just remind people what she said. Cause Republicans are already bringing this up and I just wanted to give you a chance to respond. It was at the end of the nomination fight, and she was, there was a question about why she was still staying in the race, and she brought up the notion that things happen late in nomination fights,and that Robert Kennedy had been killed late in the nomination fight. Some of President Obama, then Senator Obama’s, supporters looked at that as kind of a reference to the notion that perhaps he could be killed and took some offense at it. So Trump was clearly kidding, I believe. It’s true it’s a topic maybe he should not be joking about. Not maybe: shouldn’t be joking about. Do you see any parallel there? What do you say to Republicans who say she has a history of making the same kind of remarks off the cuff?TANDEN: I would say there’s absolutely no parallel. She is talking about a person that I think you have written she had deep respect for. In that race she was never, never said anything remotely as belligerent against then Senator Obama as Donald Trump says every day. This takes place against the backdrop of a lot more violence in his rallies, people are actually getting beaten up at his rallies, and people are making chants like, lock her up, and even worse, at rallies, then to make a comment essentially about the potential murder of an opponent seems far out of bounds. And I think obviously Republicans are going to go look at comments of everyone and try to clean this up.
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