Hillary Clinton: Not Running for President in 2020
VOA NEWS/ Ken Bredemeier
Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, is ruling herself out of a rematch in 2020 as he seeks a second term in the White House.
«I’m not running, but I’m going to keep working, and speaking, and standing up for what I believe,» Clinton said in a New York television interview.
«I want to be sure that people understand: I’m going to keep speaking out,» Clinton said. «I’m not going anywhere. What’s at stake in our country, the kinds of things that are happening right now are deeply troubling to me.»
A long list of Democratic challengers has already announced they are seeking the Democratic Party presidential nomination to oppose Trump, including five women in Congress, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California, along with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s key challenger for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has announced he is running again and another prominent Democrat, former Vice President Joe Biden, says he is in the final stages of deciding whether to run.
Clinton said she has counseled several of the contenders for the party’s nomination.
«I’ve told every one of them, don’t take anything for granted, even though we have a long list of real problems and broken promises from this administration,» Clinton said.
A handful of her political advisers had suggested in recent weeks that she might make another run for the party’s nomination after winning nearly 3 million more votes in the 2016 election than Trump. She lost the White House, however, in the country’s Electoral College, which determines the overall outcome based on the winning candidates in each of the country’s 50 states and the city of Washington.
Asked if she considered the possibility of running again, Clinton said, «I don’t think so.»
Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, served two terms as a senator from New York and as secretary of state during former President Barack Obama’s first term in office.
Since the 2016 election, Clinton has periodically attacked Trump’s performance in the White House.
Meanwhile, Trump often derides her as «Crooked Hillary,» his favorite mocking nickname for her from the campaign trail three years ago, a reference to the FBI investigation of her use of a private email server during her tenure as the country’s top diplomat. At the mention of her name at political rallies, Trump’s most ardent supporters still chant, «Lock her up!»
Clinton was not charged with any criminal offenses, but she partly blamed her defeat on the email probe that extended to just before the November 2016 voting.