In an interview with Time, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended 89-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose failing health has prompted calls for her to resign from office.
Clinton's comments came after she said during the weekend that "people have the right to consider" 80-year-old President Joe Biden's age as an issue in whether to reelect him in 2024.
However, Clinton, the 2016 Democrat presidential nominee, said Feinstein's resignation would not be "worth the trade-off" with judicial appointments.
"Let me say a word about my friend and longtime colleague Dianne Feinstein," Clinton told Time on Monday at the Chicago Humanities Festival. "First of all, she has suffered greatly from the bout of shingles and encephalitis that she endured. Here is the dilemma for her: she got reelected, the people of California voted for her again, not very long ago. That was the voters' decision to vote for her, and she has been a remarkable and very effective leader."
In answering about Feinstein, Clinton blamed Republicans for not agreeing "to add someone else to the Judiciary Committee if she retires."
"I want you to think about how crummy that is," Clinton told Time. "I don't know in her heart about whether she really would or wouldn't [retire], but right now, she can't. Because if we're going to get judges confirmed, which is one of the most important continuing obligations that we have, then we cannot afford to have her seat vacant.
"If Republicans were to say and do the decent thing and say, 'Well this woman was gravely ill, she had just lost her husband to cancer … of course we will let you fill this position if she retires.' But they won't say that. So what are we supposed to do? All these people pushing her to retire: fine, we get no more judges? I don't think that's a good trade-off."
Feinstein, due to health issues, was absent from the Senate for nearly three months this year. That created a logjam on the narrowly divided Judiciary Committee because Democrats were unable to confirm Biden's judicial nominees.
Clinton, 75, pushed back when asked how Democrats have allowed their leadership to get too old. She added that she does not support term limits.
"I do not believe in broad questions about age," Clinton told Time. "If you don't want to vote for somebody, don't vote for them. But don't impose some artificial check on the voters. I don't buy this whole debate. And, frankly, a lot of the people pushing it. I don't understand what their real agenda is, because part of it is a bank shot against Joe Biden. And I think Joe Biden has done a very good job."
At the Financial Times Weekend Festival in Washington D.C., during the weekend, Clinton was asked about Biden almost falling during the G-7 summit in Japan.
"It's a concern for anyone. And we've had presidents who've fallen before who are a lot younger, and people didn't go into heart palpitations," Clinton said. "But his age is an issue. And people have every right to consider it."
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