Woodward on Hillary: ‘Too Often It Doesn’t Seem Like She’s Talking Straight’

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” veteran journalist Bob Woodward said of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “too often it doesn’t seem like she’s talking straight.”

Partial transcript as follows:

WOODWARD: Well, I — I think she won that round because she is qualified. And he never should have said she’s unqualified. What he was arguing, she is disqualified because she voted for the war in Iraq and she did some of these other things. But you — you’re never going to win — I mean she is the most qualified and there’s lots of criticism and I think the e-mail issue is ticking away and may tick away for a long time. But she has an amazing amount of experience.  The problem is, and — and this goes back — she is not connected with enough voters. People repeatedly say they think she’s dishonest. She’s not talking to them straight. And I think at some point, particularly on the e-mail issue, she’s got to come out and kind of say, look, I’m going answer all the questions. I’m going to tell you exactly what happened and not look at this as some sort of legal battle. It is a political battle. It is a public relations battle. Now, I think all the inclinations she has and her lawyers have don’t do that, but I think that’s a lingering problem.

WALLACE: I — you talk about her and — and continuing vulnerabilities. I want to put up some numbers from the Wisconsin exit polls from last Tuesday, which are pretty alarming if you’re in the Clinton camp. Among voters under 45, Sanders beat Clinton 73 percent to 26 percent. Among independents, Sanders beat her 72 percent to 28 percent. Now, look, you know, I think some Democrats are saying, look, she’ll end up running against Trump. She’ll end up running against Cruz and the Democrats will line up. But — but she’s got some real vulnerabilities as a candidates, doesn’t she?

WOODWARD: And I — I think the issue that lingers going back to Vietnam and Nixon’s trouble and so forth, they want a president who talks straight to them. And — and she does — too often it doesn’t seem like she’s talking straight. And at the same time she has the capacity, in a one-on-one extended interview, to really sound knowledgeable and straightforward. So she — she’s got a hurdle to get over. This is more than a mere bump in the road.

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