Democratic operative and Hillary Clinton adviser James Carville dismissed talk that Clinton's email controversy threatens to spiral her presidential hopes, saying the allegations that classified information was sent over her private server is much ado about nothing.
"It's mostly just stupid media people talking to other stupid media people making stuff up, and spinning themselves up on something that's not going to amount to a hill of beans," Carville said Wednesday on
MSBNC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."
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Carville complained to guest host Luke Russert that he was forced to take time from his vacation to defend Clinton over nothing.
"I had to come out because of all the foolishness going on," Carville said, singling out Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza for writing about "a total
Democratic freakout, and then he quotes a guy who talked to a guy."
Post owner Jeff Bezos needs to "get this place in order," he said. "There's nobody editing this newspaper as far as I can see."
If there really is no "full-scale Democratic freakout," Russert asked, then why is there a rise in support for Bernie Sanders and why is Clinton's support
below 50 percent with Democrats for the first time?
"Look, polls go up and down," Carville said. "This is foolishness. … Hillary is going to be just fine, it's going to be just fine."
Russert asked why the media would be doing such a thing and why the FBI would be investigating if there is nothing to the allegations.
"Did you read the Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker piece that said basically there's zero chance that she did anything that was wrong?" Carville responded. "This always goes on. This goes on and on, it's never going to stop."
Carville mocked Clinton critics with a high-pitched voice, saying, "'We don't like Hillary. Why are Paul Begala and Jim Carville out there defending her? Why can't we attack her like I want to?' I understand this, I've been dealing this for 23 years now."
Cillizza shot back on Wednesday,
writing on his blog that although he did use unnamed sources, they were all top-level Democratic strategists.
Cillizza also said Carville doesn't get to decide who in the Democratic Party is credible and who isn't.
"Perhaps the people he talks to about Clinton's issues aren't as candid with such a well-known Clinton adviser is they are with a journalist offering them anonymity," he said.
Cillizza also says he never claimed the email issue would be a death blow to Clinton's candidacy.
"All it means is that, at the moment, Clinton is struggling to get herself extricated from this e-mail story, and the aggregate of polling suggests it is hurting her image with voters," he said.
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