Face The Nation's John Dickerson: Clinton's Dishonesty Holding Her Back
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - 'Face The Nation' Host John Dickerson said Hillary Clinton continues to face hurdles in her presidential campaign because she is still not being honest when asked questions about her use of a private email server while heading the State Department.
Dickerson, who spoke with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said she is still not telling the truth in interviews and would be facing a much more difficult road to the White House if the GOP candidate was not Donald Trump.
"If it were Marco Rubio or a number of the other candidates that were running in the Republican field, they would be in much better shape. The thing I would add is that, not only is this a change election and she doesn't represent change in the traditional sense, not only that, but she has low trust worthiness numbers, but she also, then, walks into her biggest liability. When she spoke to Chris Wallace and said that Director Comey of the FBI had said she... was truthful in her responses about her email server, immediately the Washington Post gave her four Pinocchios. That's not just a gaffe. That's a reassertion of her core problem. So, when a candidate keeps doing that, it makes them a weak candidate. If it were any other opponent other than Donald Trump, she would be having a tougher time this election."
He stated Clinton has been much less willing to talk to him since declaring her candidacy than her rival for the Presidency has been.
"I've done, I think 19 with Trump and I've done four or five with Secretary Clinton. Donald Trump is much more accessible. Though he, on some issues and some answers, it's very hard to get him pinned down, on other things, he's remarkably candid and free with his thinking, which is something that I wished every politician did."
Dickerson also discussed President Obama's comments that Donald Trump is unfit for the office of President and Republicans should withdraw their endorsements of him, calling his statement unprecedented.
"It is remarkable and I can't think of an instance where a President has done that before. Part of that is because you've had a couple of instances where candidates have been running away from the Presidents who were in their same party. So, Al Gore tried to get away from Bill Clinton. John McCain tried to get out from under the Bush legacy. They didn't want the President's talking at all. This is really the first case since Reagan and Bush in the 1988 campaign where you had a President weighing in. But Reagan didn't really weigh in on Dukakis, although there was that one instance where he was asked about Dukakis' medical records and he said, I'm not going to pick on an invalid."
Dickerson's new book, Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories From Presidential Campaign History, is on sale now.