Hillary Clinton Wraps Network Interviews with Town Hall on CNN, Ping Pong on Fox News

By Chris Ariens 

FNCHillaryFollowing ABC, CBS and NBC interviews last week, Hillary Clinton finished a round of network news interviews related to her new book, “Hard Choices,” with a live town hall on CNN followed by a live joint interview today on Fox News.

The town hall moderated by Christiane Amanpour included questions from the audience, ranging from immigration, to gun control, and marijuana policy. The town hall wrapped at 6:02 and 40 minutes later, Clinton was on Fox News taking part in a joint interview with Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren, which amounted to a ping pong match as Baier got 7 minutes, followed by Van Susteren for 7 minutes, then Baier, and back to Van Susteren, wrapping at 7:20pm.

Today’s news of the arrest of a suspect in the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack led both interviews. CNN’s Amanpour spent about 5 minutes on the arrest and Clinton’s role as Secretary of State at the time. Amanpour went for the emotional, asking Clinton if she had known how dangerous the situation in Benghazi was shaping up to be, “might you not have held [Amb. Chris Stevens] back on 9/11, of all days?” “I think we would have certainly cautioned, and maybe even directed people to just shelter in place,” Clinton said.

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On Fox News, Baier spent his first 7 minutes, and part of his second 7 minutes, questioning Clinton on Benghazi, from the news of today’s arrest, to that night in 2012, to how the administration characterized it early on, and whom to blame for it. “This was the fog of war,” Clinton said.

Other topics in the Fox interview included the crisis in Iraq, the release of POW Bowe Berghdal, (and the Guantanamo prisoners released in exchange), the IRS scandal, whether she’ll run in 2016, and the detention of Sgt. Andrew Tahmooresi in Mexico, a case Van Susteren has been following closely.

As Clinton finished her round of interviews the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll were released. 38% of registered voters said they would “probably” or be “almost certain to” vote for Clinton should she run in 2016, while 37% said they would definitely oppose her.

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