During Friday’s broadcast of “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski lashed out at Hillary Clinton and her campaign handlers for not having any substantive events during her first week of campaigning in Iowa.
Brzezinski slammed the “set up” events the campaign has held thus far, while hitting Clinton for her “flat voiced” delivery. The co-host also told the “Morning Joe” panel that she wishes the campaign would let her loose and have her hold events such as the town hall Chris Christie held while he was in New Hampshire earlier this week.
The MSNBC host made the remarks after former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean took exception with The Daily Mail’s Wednesday report that “ordinary” Iowans in the crowd at one event included a former Obama campaign staffer who ended up working for Vice President Joe Biden.
“You’re deflecting,” Brzezinski told Dean. “Here’s the deal: the past couple days — and I really wish you wouldn’t make me say this, because I’d love to see her break out and do well. It would be so exciting to me. But what I’ve seen of her the past few days are very set up conversations with very flat-voiced messaging made up because they can’t have her in a crowd with people coming at her and really asking her questions.”
Brzezinski then defended the former secretary of state. She made no secret of her admiration for Clinton, though she has been a vocal critic of her email practices.
“They are wrong. She’s accomplished, she’s articulate and she can handle herself. Let her go,” she said. “Look at what Chris Christie can in New Hampshire. He has everything dogging him. He has his entire credibility on the line and quite frankly probably won’t make it because of Bridgegate. He goes to New Hampshire, stands in front of 300 people and let them tear him apart and he does just fine.”
“You think Hillary Clinton, who is elected Senate twice, who served as First Lady, as secretary of state, cannot handle a crowd in New Hampshire? You have to prepare people for her?”
“You’re hitting it on the nose,” said Amy Holmes, host at TheBlaze. “If you campaign as an authentic candidate, you have to be an authentic candidate.”
“It’s not authentic what we saw this week,” Brzezinski responded.