Chuck Todd Lauds Clinton: Look At Her ‘Confidence’ Now Versus 3 Weeks Ago

Ifill: ‘So there’s something very revealing’

TODD: “Well, let me go to, speaking of Rachel and her form, Gwen. Let me play a few highlights from Clinton, Sanders, and O’Malley. Let’s take a look."
[clip starts]
CLINTON: "I want us to use diplomacy, which is why I spent 18 months putting together the sanctions against Iran. However, I will not, I think it’s irresponsible to rule out force."
SANDERS: "To me, as opposed to maybe some other unnamed candidates, the issue of Keystone was kind of a no-brainer. It never made sense to me from day one as to why you would extract and transport some of the dirtiest fuel on this planet."
O’MALLEY: "Look, contrary to Donald Trump’s assertion, the enduring symbol of our country is not the barbed wire fence, it is the Statue of Liberty."
[clip ends]
TODD: "Gwen, what do you make?"
IFILL: "First of all, without sucking up overly much, Rachel, you did a really good job on that."
MADDOW: "Thank you for saying so."
IFILL: "I really fell in love with the format. The idea in which you actually engage back and forth with candidates for periods of time without them trying to break the rules, without them trying to duck or change a question."
TODD: "By the way, we would do this with any Republicans that want to do this one by one by one—"
IFILL: "I would too. I would do it."
TODD: "I think the one-by-one format, if you care about—"
IFILL:  "If you care."
TODD: "If this is what everybody says about the policy stuff."
MADDOW: "And we can mix it up between parties. You can do that format where you alternate a Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican."
TODD: "I think you can do one issue, you can do it one issue at a time, you could do a national security forum."
IFILL: "Yeah, and you learn interesting things. I mean, to listen to Bernie Sanders say, “I don’t want to name the names of these people” was kind of disingenuous. Of course he’s talking about Hillary Clinton. You listen to Hillary Clinton say, “I don’t want to answer your question, Rachel.” I prefer to have someone just say, “I don’t want to answer your question, Gwen,” than pretend to answer something else. So there’s something very revealing. If we’re going to run campaigns, as we were just talking about, based on personalities, then let’s find out some more about their personalities. Let’s find out about their true transparency. I think we don’t find that out in one-on-one-on-one debates, especially with ten people on stage."
TODD: "Boy, I could tell you, Rachel, the confidence though of Hillary Clinton today versus three weeks ago."

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