Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a new interview criticized her fellow Democrats for their response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, arguing they could have “done more.”
“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” Clinton said in an interview with The New York Times, published Saturday. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.”
“We could have done more to fight,” she added.
The former first lady issued a dire warning in the interview, conducted in February, claiming that Democrats spent decades in a state of denial that abortion rights — which had been enshrined for generations under Roe v. Wade — could be revoked. While in that state, Clinton said the anti-abortion movement was able to chip away at the legal precedent until it was too late.
“One thing I give the right credit for is they never give up,” Clinton said. “They are relentless. You know, they take a loss, they get back up, they regroup, they raise more money.”
“It’s tremendously impressive the way that they operate. And we have nothing like it on our side,” she added.
The former presidential nominee also slammed the conservative justices on the high court who handed down the history-making Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling, which handed abortion access decisions back to the states. She also hit Democrats in the Senate, who, she said, didn’t do enough to stop those justices from being appointed.
“Our side was complacent and kind of taking it for granted and thinking it would never go away,” she said in the interview, per the Times.
Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to former President Trump, said she tried to raise alarms during her campaign about anti-abortion efforts, but was largely dismissed as an alarmist. The Times noted that polling and focus groups from that time showed voters truly did not believe that Roe v. Wade was at risk.
With Trump in the middle of his third campaign, Clinton warned that the election this fall is “existential” because it could mean a small group of conservatives would continue “turning the clock back on women.”
Following the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that resulted in controversy around in vitro fertilization, Clinton warned that birth control would be next on the to-do list for Republicans who want to restrict women’s rights.
In the same interview, the former secretary also signaled that she faced sexism while on the campaign trail, claiming she was deserted by female voters because she was “not perfect.”
