Hillary to Colbert: ‘I’m Not Running for My Husband’s Third Term’
Hillary Clinton‘s presidential platform may have similarities with her husband’s tenure, but she’s not aiming for “the Clinton Administration 2.0,” as she adamantly told Stephen Colbert during Tuesday’s episode of The Late Show. “I’m not running for my husband’s third term,” she said. “I’m not running for President Obama’s third term. I’m running for my first term. But I’m going to do what works.”
The Clinton comparison arose when the Democratic hopeful noted that 23 million jobs were created during her husband’s administration. “The implication of that is that we get the Nineties back again if you’re president of the United States,” Colbert said. “Do I have to wear parachute pants and slap bracelets, and we are going to all have to get jiggy with it?”
Clinton laughed at the suggestion, noting that Colbert would “look good in parachute pants,” but steered the conversation back to more serious territory – including taxes, the development of the middle class and other pressing political issues. “The wealthy need to pay more – I’m sorry to break it to you,” she said. “We have to raise the minimum wage – it’s a poverty wage now. It’s disgraceful that people are working full-time and can’t get out of poverty.”
She also explained why she wants the challenge of taking over the White House.
“I want to be president because I want to build on the progress that we’ve been making and make it possible for more people in this country, particularly young people, to live up to their own God-given potential,” she said. “And that means we’ve gotta get back to providing opportunities. We’ve gotta get back to making the economy work for everybody. And we have to defend the progress we’ve made in women’s rights and gay rights, and we have to protect voting rights and immigrant rights and everything else.”
Asked whether she’d rather run against Donald Trump or Ben Carson, Clinton deflected the question. And when Colbert pressed the issue, asking, “You can picture them in the office, right?” she fired back, “Well, I can picture them in some office.”
The candidate said to celebrate her 68th birthday on Monday, she “slept late” and “watched bad TV, little binge-watching here and there” with husband Bill. “We finally finished House of Cards,” she said. “It took awhile … I do like Madam Secretary. And I watch The Good Wife.”