Hillary Clinton slams Republicans for ‘flirtation’ with Putin model of governing

Clinton was asked, in reference to her "rich history" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, "Do you think it is a good idea to have the summit right now, and is there any hope of Joe Biden getting a deliverable that would make this summit worthwhile?" Clinton responded "Yes," but added that we would have to wait until the summit was over to find out.

Clinton continued by stating that despite past cooperation from Russia, "There is a continuing challenge from Putin, because even when you get an agreement about something that you think is in the interests of the United States, he’s going to continue to prod, undermine, and literally try to make our lives difficult as we know."

She added that "we don’t have Trump being in affect a spokesperson for Putin any longer," stating that "we have a president who will stand up and defend American interests," in the face of Putin’s challenging.

Clinton said she would "like to see a resumption of negotiations about nuclear arms, we know that Russia’s been really pushing forward with tactical nuclear arms posing great dangers," adding thatch would like to see Russia and eventually China get involved in nuclear negotiations.

She also added that creating a process to deal with cyber crimes and cyber attacks, like another Geneva convention, would be ideal. When asked, "does Congress have President Biden’s back?" Clinton responded by saying overall, yes Congress does support him, yet there are some that may be knowingly or unknowingly acting for Russia.

"I think that on this, yes. There has been, as you rightly know, a big flirtation by some on the right in the Republican Party with the Putin model. They really resonate to the authoritarianism. And they find that kind of macho approach to everything quite attractive," said Clinton, adding that the core of elected officials will "back up our president."

"When you take an oath to serve the United States, you take an oath to protect and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. We never thought we had to worry about domestic enemies. We never thought we had to worry about people who didn’t believe in our democracy, in our constitution, in our separation of powers, in our institutions," said Clinton.

"Sadly, what we’ve seen over the last four years and particularly since our election in 2020 is that we have people within our country who are doing Putin’s work," she continued. "Now whether they are unwitting or witting, they are doing his work to sow distrust, to sow divisiveness, to give aid and comfort to those within our country who, for whatever reason, are being not only disruptive but very dangerous."