Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump’s actions are ‘destabilising and dangerous’

Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump’s actions “destabilising and dangerous”, and criticised his 2016 campaign for ‘feeding scapegoats and prejudices’.

The 2016 Democrat Presidential candidate, speaking to Channel 4 News, covered a wide range of issues, including her own campaign, Donald Trump and the the recent allegations of rape and sexual harassment against film producer Harvey Weinstein. – who donated to her campaign.

“He certainly is behaving in an impulsive way that confuses people, which I think is not good for the stability of the world,” Mrs Clinton said about Donald Trump, who she called “very dangerous”.

“There’s some real-world examples right now. Apparently he’s going to decertify the Iran nuclear agreement and it’s a very major mistake.

“There is no evidence that on the nuclear programme Iran has cheated in the agreement that the UK and other powers, along with the United States, entered into with Iran.

“So basically for political reasons or for personal reasons – it’s unclear which – he is basically throwing open the door to Iran’s nuclear programme one more time.

“I think that is very dangerous.”

“There could be accidental interpretations of his tweets and his bellicose statements that I think might prove to be quite dangerous.

“And when you think about it, why, if you’re having a serious threat from the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea, and the potential capacity for them to have missiles that could carry a nuclear weapon to Japan, even to the United States, why would you also pick a fight with Iran?

“The choices he’s making are ones that I think are destabilising and dangerous.”

Mrs Clinton, reflecting on her own campaign during last year’s election, said that she felt she had “let everyone down” and that there were “several problems with her candidacy”.

“I didn’t win, and not only did I not win, but I lost to someone who I believe during the campaign would be a very divisive figure and was not ready to be President,” she said.

“It’s an odd experience having won more votes, but having the lost the opportunity to serve as President. And I felt very sorry about that.

“If I had lost to another kind of Republican, I would have been disappointed, no doubt about it, but this was something different.

“I think there were several problems with my candidacy. The kind of leadership I was offering based on my experience, the preparation, the ideas I had, what I knew I could do because I had served in the Senate for eight years, I’d been Secretary of State for four years, was not a perfect match with the anger and the resentment that a significant percentage of the electorate felt.

“I think I could have done more to reflect it and to be clearly sympathetic with the legitimate part of the anger. Because there are two kinds of anger.

“There was economic anxiety, where people were feeling they hadn’t recovered, they weren’t back on a track to be economically self-sufficient, successful. Then there was all the cultural anger on race and immigration and all the rest.”

Mrs Clinton also criticised Donald Trump’s campaign for giving “great opportunity” to white supremacists, and ‘feeding prejudices’.

“One thing that has happened is that, in the Trump campaign, the white supremacy point of view – and those who practise it – was given great opportunity to be part of the campaign, to express themselves.

“People in major positions, people who had before been pushed, pushed to the margins of our politics, like David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, were embraced by the Trump campaign.

“People who used to have maybe 12 followers online all of a sudden had thousands because Donald Trump running for president was retweeting their white supremacist, racist comments.

“I think what he did was to unleash feelings that were not that far below the surface, but which had been kept in check.

“George W. Bush rejected that kind of behaviour, John McCain publicly, when he ran against Barack Obama, rejected comments that were aimed at Obama. So Republican leaders in recent times have tried to walk a different line. Not that they maybe didn’t take votes from people who felt that way, but they did not pander to them.

“And then along comes Trump who from the very first day of his campaign, goes against immigrants, goes against Mexicans, calling them, you know, criminals and rapists and the like. And then he was off to the races. Whatever scapegoat you wanted, whatever prejudice you held, was going to be fed by Donald Trump.

“He certainly is behaving in an impulsive way that confuses people, which I think is not good for the stability of the world. There could be accidental interpretations of his tweets and his bellicose statements that I think might prove to be quite dangerous, so yes.

“And when you think about it, why, if you’re having a serious threat from the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea, and the potential capacity for them to have missiles that could carry a nuclear weapon to Japan, even to the United States, why would you also pick a fight with Iran?

“The choices he’s making are ones that I think are destabilising and dangerous.”

Mrs Clinton also called film producer Harvey Weinstein’s alleged actions “terrible”, and promised to give his campaign donations to charity. The co-founder of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company has been accused of rape, and more than a dozen women have also made allegations of sexual harassment against him. Mr Weinstein denies the allegations.

“We’re going to. It has to come out of our campaign funds, but it will be done,” Mrs Clinton said.

“But that’s not the issue, the issue really is how terrible his behaviour was and finally women have come forward to speak out about it, which they hadn’t before for all the reasons that they relate.”

Mrs Clinton also said that she had no knowledge of Weinstein’s reputation, and spoke of the need to “shine a bright spotlight” on similar behaviour.

“I did not hear those things. We just elected a person who admitted sexual assault to the presidency. So, there’s a lot of other issues that are swirling around these kinds of behaviours that need to be addressed,” she said.

“I think it’s important that we stay focused and shine a bright spotlight and try to get people to understand how damaging this is, and the women coming forward is the only way that that story will be told.”