Hillary Clinton says she once considered GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump as a man who was "affable and was good company," and has been surprised to see him as a candidate begin to "traffic in prejudice and paranoia" instead.
"I didn't know him that well, but I did know him," the former secretary of state told
MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski in an interview taped on Thursday and airing on Friday morning's program.
"It's been most surprising to me to see somebody who was affable and was good company, who had a reputation of being bigger than life, really traffic in a lot of the prejudice and paranoia and some of the comments that he's made which has been so divisive and mean spirited," Clinton continued.
Those actions, the Democratic front-runner said, don't "quite fit in with what I thought I knew about him. So I think it will be interesting to see what — if he does get the nomination — he decides to do with it, how he presents himself.
"But he has really been offensive and in many respects surprising to those of us who did know him."
Meanwhile, Clinton, responding to questions from Scarborough about why Trump's past actions don't seem to come under scrutiny like hers do, said that she's used to being closely watched.
"I think part of the reason why I'm going to be the nominee and the next president is because I have withstood all this," she responded. "I have been vetted. I've been at this for decades now and despite all the incoming, I'm still here.
"I'm still forging ahead because I think, in most cases, most people kind of see through it and we go on together."
Such vetting has not yet begun with other candidates, but it will, Clinton continued, admitting that for now, it looks like Trump will be the eventual nominee, although she's "not going to handicap their race."
"My best memory on this is that the Republicans in Nevada had fewer voter turn out than we did in Nevada; I think it was like 70,000 to 80,000," said Clinton.
"That's a very small group of people who are making this decision right now. When it moves to the general election, I think you're going to see a real seriousness of people, whoever the Republicans nominate, turning and saying, 'What do we know?'"
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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