Chelsea Clinton denies mother’s election denial

Chelsea Clinton last week denied her mother Hillary ever denied the 2016 election results despite the latter's repeated comments that Trump stole the election and is an “illegitimate president”. 

“I believe [Trump] knows he’s an illegitimate president,” Hillary Clinton said in a 2019 interview with CBS. “He knows that — there were a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did. . . . I know that he knows that this wasn’t on the level.” 

The same year, during a Los Angeles stop in her “Evening with the Clintons” tour, she lamented how "You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.” 

In a 2020 interview with The Atlantic, Clinton reiterated the claim. 

“There was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level,” she claimed. “We still don’t know what really happened . . . But you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this [sic] other shenanigans and stuff going on and not come away with an idea like, ‘Whoa, something’s not right here.'” 

But in a Friday interview with The View, Chelsea Clinton simply said it never happened. She made the comment after host Sunny Hostin referred to a recent interview with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in which he quoted Hillary denying the election. 

“When we pressed [Cruz] on the MAGA Republicans’ election denial . . . he argued that your mother did the same thing after the 2016 election,” Hostin said. “What’s your reaction to that?” 

“Well that’s funny, Sunny, I’m pretty sure that I remember that next day I was standing behind her when she conceded, and that she said while she campaigned very hard against President Trump, she hoped that he would be a president for all Americans. That, of course, is not what ultimately happened,” Clinton answered. “I think that Senator Cruz just might have a slightly different memory of that.” 

“She went to the inauguration, as far as I recall,” Hostin agreed. 

Clinton then said her parents attended the inauguration to show their “support for a peaceful transfer of power” before taking another shot at Trump. 

“They listened to that, you know, white nationalist screed and his painting of our country as this dystopian, horrific hell-scape of which only he could save us. He also admittedly envisioned a million people standing in front of him, so he was a little bit off that day, morally and numerically,” Clinton said. 

The election denial denial came the same week the former secretary of state announced that if the Democrats lose in 2024, it will have been a stolen election. 

“I know we’re all focused on the 2022 midterm elections, and they are incredibly important, but we also have to look ahead, because our opponents certainly are,” the twice-failed presidential candidate said in the video. “Right-wing extremists already have a plan to literally steal the next presidential election, and they are not making a secret of it.” 

To support her claim, she used a conspiracy theory involving state legislatures. 

“The right-wing controlled Supreme Court may be poised to rule on giving state legislatures . . . the power to overturn presidential elections. Just think, the 2024 presidential election could be decided not by the popular vote, or even by the anachronistic electoral college, but by state legislatures, many of them Republican-controlled.” 

Chelsea Clinton’s election denial denial also comes amid militant rhetoric by Democrat leadership against “MAGA Republicans” for denying the “results” of the 2020 election, calling them a “threat to democracy” and portraying them as enemies of the state. 

However, the White House has made clear that denying the results of the 2016 election is not the same as denying the results of the 2020 election and that such a comparison is ridiculous. 

When Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy confronted Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in September about her past denials of Trump’s victory and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s victory, Jean-Pierre said the comparison was “ridiculous”. 

“You tweeted Trump ‘stole’ an election,” asked Doocy. “You tweeted Brian Kemp ‘stole’ an election. If denying election results is extreme now, why wasn’t it then?”  

“So let’s — let’s — let’s be really clear: That — that comparison that you made is just ridiculous,” Jean-Pierre stammered, failing to provide an explanation why.