Hillary Cites Indonesian TV Appearance in Touting Her Communication Skills

Monday in a home of her supporters in Mason City, IA, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, made remarks about her media availability as far as it applies to her connecting with the public.

Clinton said when she was the nation’s top diplomat in the Obama administration and she wanted to “talk to the people,” she went on Indonesian TV’s morning show, “The Awesome Show” and took questions from the host and audience.

Clinton said, “On my very first trip as secretary of state, I went Asia. And I went in part because everybody I called, all of the leaders in the countries that I spoke with were saying, you know, we just don’t know whether the United States cares about us anymore. Nobody’s been paying any attention to us. We feel like we’re not important anymore. I said we are and the president feels that way. So I went out and one of the countries I went to was Indonesia, in part because it’s a very important country, but also President Obama had had a personal connection with it. And my idea was not only to talk to the leaders but to talk to the people—what’s called public diplomacy. So that as I was out there talking to presidents and prime ministers and others I  would also find ways of trying to connect to tell people, look, the United States really does care about the the world we’re trying to create together.  And that’s part of my message from my new president.”

She continued, “So I went on—I agreed to go on a show in Jakarta, which was their morning show. And it was like a combination of MTV and a reality show and all of that. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So I go onto the set and people are jumping and they’re singing and they’re dancing, and it’s called ‘The Awesome Show.’ So I’m on ‘The Awesome Show,’ and I’m talking a little bit with the interviewer, and then they asked people if they have any questions. And somebody in the audience says, I want to ask you, we saw you campaigned very hard against President Obama, he campaigned very hard against you. He won. you lost. And then he asked you to be his secretary of state. Why? And I realized, you know, in a lot of these new democracies and other places of course, you run against somebody and you lose, you could get exiled or imprisoned, even killed, not asked to be secretary of state. So this was a very legitimate question.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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