Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, put to rest the rumors that she might be considering a run for president in 2020.
“She says she’s not running for president,” Podesta said during a CNN interview on Tuesday. “I take her at her word. She’s not running for president.”
As for what Clinton is doing, Podesta said she’s been busy doing humanitarian work in Puerto Rico, which is still reeling from 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Axios also reported earlier this month that Clinton was meeting with presidentual hopefuls, including Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker.
“If you’re directing a senior official in a campaign, there aren’t very many suspects.”
John Podesta, whose emails were hacked, and then released by Wikileaks, offers his thoughts on Robert Mueller’s investigation, and Roger Stone’s indictment.https://t.co/XtRSKomU3d pic.twitter.com/X0HplWYjjm
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) January 30, 2019
Speculation about a possible Clinton candicacy began on Sunday after CNN’s Jeff Zeleny appeared on Inside Politics.
“Clinton is telling people that she’s not closing the doors to the idea of running in 2020,” Zeleny said. “I’m told by three people that as recently as this week, she was telling people that look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying ‘look, I’m not closing the doors to this.'”
Zeleny, however, clarified that this news “does not mean that there’s a campaign-in-waiting, or a plan in the works.”
“Most losing presidential candidates never totally close the doors to running for president [again],” Zeleny said. “But I think we have to at least leave our mind open to the possibility that she is still talking about it. She wants to take on Trump. Could she win a Democratic primary to do it? I don’t know the answer to that.”