Hillary Clinton Tuesday defended her meetings with corporate executives and Wall Street donors while Secretary of State, saying that she was working hard to get more jobs for Americans, and "that meant representing big business and small business and everybody in between."
"The fact is, I saw a lot of people when I was secretary of state, and I worked really hard to increase exports from American businesses," the Democratic front-runner told
"CBS This Morning" host Charlie Rose.
"I saw a lot of business people," Clinton continued. "I saw a lot of union leaders. I saw as many people as I could fit in the day who needed something from their government."
But she doesn't think criticism that she's too close to Wall Street has hurt her image, as she's backed regulation on big banks and financial services.
"I also represented New York and represented everybody from the dairy farmers to the fishermen," she told Rose. "So, yes, do I know people? And did I help rebuild after 9/11? Yes, I did."
Clinton also admitted she took money from corporate donors, but insisted that it "has nothing to do with my positions. Anybody who thinks that they can influence me on that ground doesn't know me very well."
Meanwhile, Clinton also told Rose that she isn't running because she wants to be the first female president, but because she loves the United States.
"I think this will be one of those watershed elections where we're either going to get the economy to work for everybody, or we are going to see increasing inequality and unfairness in a way that we haven't seen since, you know, the 1920s," said Clinton.
She also pushed back about the idea that Washington and its politics are the root of America's problems, as the the Founding Fathers set up the government to allow for the separation of powers, which makes it difficult to get things done.
"Some years, it's really hard," Clinton said, "and we're in one of these periods where we have a minority within the other party that doesn't believe in compromise, doesn't believe in reaching consensus."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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