Story highlights
Top Clinton aide says campaign has 'a lot of respect' for Vice President Joe Biden
"We never thought that this was going to be easy," Jennifer Palmieri says
Hillary Clinton’s campaign isn’t worrying about whether Joe Biden jumps into the Democratic presidential race, communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Sunday.
In an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter on “Reliable Sources,” Palmieri – a former aide in President Barack Obama’s White House – said the Clintons and the campaign have “a great deal of love” and “a lot of respect” for the vice president.
She said she anticipated the recent round of news coverage about whether he will enter the Democratic later this summer or early in the fall.
“We’ll let him make his decision,” Palmieri said. “However hard it is to secure the Democratic nomination is however hard it is. We have no illusions – we never thought that this was going to be easy. There’s a lot of views in the Democratic Party, and we’ll be prepared to handle whatever comes our way.”
Palmieri also downplayed recent polls that have showed that voters, by large margins, say they don’t consider Clinton honest and trustworthy.
“I don’t feel that level of discomfort. I don’t see a lot of evidence of it. I see Hillary Clinton leading, beating every Republican in most national polls, the vast majority of national polls,” Palmieri said.
“In the coverage, it gets lost: She has the most money, and she’s beating every Republican in most of the polls. So you can’t really ask for much more than that,” she said.