Clinton: Idea of Trump Win Makes Me 'Literally Sick'

In a wide-ranging interview with journalist Kara Swisher for Swisher's Sway podcast, Hillary Clinton makes clear that she thinks a woman would have handled the pandemic better than President Trump. "I have no doubt, especially if it were me," she says in the New York Times transcript. "I mean, I was born for that." They spoke of the examples of New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern and Germany's Angela Merkel. "I would have done what you see these women leaders doing," she says. "You listen to the science. You bring in people in an open, inclusive way. You communicate constantly, you make the case by explaining why what you’re doing is in the long-term interests, not only of health, but also, of the economy." Other topics:

• The election: Clinton says she thinks Biden will win and can't entertain the the alternative. "It makes me literally sick to my stomach to think that we’d have four more years of this abuse and destruction of our institutions, and damaging of our norms and our values, and lessening of our leadership, and the list goes on."
• It's different: She suggests that voters are savvier now than in 2016, less susceptible to misinformation. "Well, I think it worked with me because it was the first time," she says of fake stories (such as one that the pope endorsed Trump) and conspiracy theories. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. And I think a lot of voters aren’t going to be fooled again."
• Her loss: She "absolutely" thought she was going to win in 2016, and blames losses in crucial states primarily on FBI chief James Comey's letter about her emails and the confusion it caused with voters. She also cites Russian interference and negligence by social media platforms such as Facebook in regard to misinformation. "So there were just a lot of pieces of this perfect storm that were at work," she says. "Look, I mean, I tried to take responsibility, ultimately, it was my campaign, but we were facing unprecedented challenges, and those are not unprecedented anymore."

(More Hillary Clinton stories.)