Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Friday there’s “no doubt” that there’s “smoke” emanating from the questionable donations taken by the Clinton Foundation.
Although he admitted that much, Axelrod told “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist that he isn’t sure there is fire past the initial smoke, saying everyday voters are more concerned with paying their bills than with donations to the foundation.
WILLIE GEIST: You’ve read through most of these stories. You’ve been following the coverage of it I know. The Clinton campaign says smoke no fire. What are you saying?
DAVID AXELROD: I began my career as a newspaper reporter. I used to do investigative reporting, and what i was always told by my editors and what was drilled into me was you can have A and you can have C, but if you don’t have B, it’s not a story. There’s no doubt that there is smoke around these contributions, and the way the foundation raises money it will continue to be an issue.But there is absolutely no evidence even in the stories that were written that Secretary Clinton made an extraordinary decision influenced by this money. The Times acknowledged that. And, in fact, there were nine agencies involved in this decision. So were all of them in as secretary of treasury and everybody in on this conspiracy to help a contributor to the Clinton Foundation? I don’t think so. So I’m a little surprised that the sort of play of this story.
DONNY DEUTSCH: Isn’t the bigger story, and this is one of many, fair or not, Hillary Clinton at this point in the arc of her career and her life, for better or worse, just draws this in and starts to get in the way of her being an effective leader or candidate. That there is something about the Clintons 20 years later that a bug turns into a plague. And, to me, this marginalizes her ability to lead. Fair or not, it’s one that we’ll continue to cover.
AXELROD: I think it is fair to say that an accumulation of these stories is a burden for her campaign, and there is no question about it. But I just caution everybody at this table as a voice from the midwest that people out there are not sitting there reading all the details of these stories. They’re trying to pay their bills. and they’re be looking for somebody who can help on that. If she comes out with a strong message that offers hope to these folks and they believe she’s an advocate for them, I don’t think this gets in the way.
