Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe says Hillary will flip-flop on TPP — again

One of the original policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders — and a rare area of agreement between Sanders and Donald Trump — is President Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations (but not China). Clinton originally supported the TPP, but after the details were released, she joined Sanders (and Trump) in opposing the deal. On Tuesday, after talking at the Democratic National Convention, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) told Politico that if elected, she would support TPP again, with unspecified changes.

McAuliffe, a longtime friend and ally of the Clintons, started off talking about his own views. "I worry that if we don't do TPP, at some point China's going to break the rules — but Hillary understands this," he said. "Once the election's over, and we sit down on trade, people understand a couple things we want to fix on it but going forward we got to build a global economy." Politico asked if that meant Clinton would also support TPP. "Yes," he said. "Listen, she was in support of it. There were specific things in it she wants fixed." If Democrats win back the Senate and House, he said, "if we get enough things done, enough opportunities to change TPP, I'm optimistic going forward," McAuliffe said. "We cannot let China write these rules for 11 other countries."

Clinton national campaign chairman John Podesta quickly quashed McAuliffe's statements:

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Democrats can blame the leaked hacked Democratic National Committee emails on Russia, but McAuliffe stepping on Clinton's unity-fest is a self-inflicted injury.