On Wednesday's Daily Show, Trevor Noah and guest Hillary Clinton discussed the ongoing Russian incursion into American democracy, the Steele dossier on President Trump's Russian connections, and, as Noah put it to Clinton, "Why won't you just go away?"
Clinton noted that, as social media giants are telling Congress, "Russian trolls and bots and agents are still fomenting discord and conflict within our country. That is classic propaganda, and the Russians are really good at it." Cyber-warfare "is a form of war, and we've never had an adversary who attacked us with so few consequences," she said. "And I think that's, in large measure, because the president is so ambivalent. I mean, he has to know — we'll find out what he knew and how involved he was — but he had to know that people were making outreach to Russians, to the highest levels of the Kremlin, in order to help him, to hurt me, but more importantly to sow this divisiveness."
Noah asked about the Steele dossier, which Clinton's campaign helped finance, and she said "of course" there's a difference between her campaign paying for legal opposition research and Trump's team possibly working with Russia to influence the election, and "I think most serious people understand that." She noted that the dossier's allegations did not come out during the election, but said the public had a right to know that the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign's Russian connections for months before the election.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
As for the pointed questions about why she's still talking in public, Clinton chalked them up to some combination of "rank sexism," "media guilt," and "people who are genuinely worried that, you know, we've got to make room for new voices." She said she's speaking in part to promote new voices, adding: "I'm not going anywhere. I walked in the woods, that was enough. I'm done with that, I'm back." Watch below. Peter Weber
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.