During a blunt, live interview in New York City, Hillary Clinton claimed that any other Democrat would have defeated Trump in 2024 if former President Joe Biden had simply stepped aside much earlier.
Speaking with The New Yorker editor David Remnick at the 92nd Street Y, Clinton called Biden’s choice to seek a second term a “terrible miscalculation.” It is her sharpest public attack yet on how the party handled the election cycle.
The Mistake That Cost the White House
According to Clinton, the entire crisis started because Biden broke his original, unwritten promise to be a transitional leader who would pass the torch to a younger generation after one term. Clinton stated that Biden made a terrible mistake not just for the country, but for his own historic legacy by forcing a campaign he could not finish.
She argued that if Biden had stepped down early, a normal, competitive primary contest would have taken place to choose a fresh nominee.
Clinton explicitly noted that “whoever emerged from that contest,” including Kamala Harris, a governor, or a senator, would have easily beaten Donald Trump.
The White House reacted with immediate anger to the interview. When asked about Hillary Clinton’s assertion that any other Democrat would have defeated Trump in 2024, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle fired back, calling Clinton “a whiny loser who no one wants to hear from.”
My Opinion
It is incredibly rich to listen to Hillary Clinton lecture people on how to beat Donald Trump. The party establishment spent years gaslighting the public about Joe Biden’s stamina, and now they want to act shocked that he stayed in the race too long.
It is deeply frustrating to watch top Democrats play the blame game after the fact. Clinton is completely right that running an 81-year-old candidate was a disaster, but she was one of the exact same people who publicly defended him in 2022 and called any questions about his electability “silly.” The party elite created this bubble, protected Biden from any primary challengers, and only panicked when his disastrous debate performance made it impossible to hide the truth anymore.
Leaving Kamala Harris with just a few months to put together a national campaign was a handicap, but pretending that any random Democrat would have won is totally delusional. The Democrats lost because voters were deeply angry about inflation and the economy under the Biden-Harris administration. Throwing a random governor into the race wouldn’t have magically changed people’s grocery bills. Clinton’s comments aren’t a helpful analysis; it’s just a bitter attempt to rewrite history and shift the blame away from the party’s elite.
A Deeply Divided Party Looking Backward
The interview highlights just how fractured the Democratic leadership remains. While Jill Biden recently admitted she thought her husband was having a medical emergency during that fateful debate, the party is still struggling to accept why they truly lost.
Ultimately, because of Hillary Clinton’s claims that any other Democrat Would Have Defeated Trump in 2024, she has reopened a wound that the party is desperate to heal. Instead of looking forward to the 2028 midterms, the party is stuck bickering over past mistakes while Donald Trump settles back into the Oval Office.
