Clinton emails: 'Daschle? Or Podesta?'

Then-secretary of State Hillary Clinton mused with her friend Sidney Blumenthal about whether her allies John Podesta and Tom Daschle were anonymously undermining President Obama in 2010.

 

 

"Why do you think it might be Daschle? Or Podesta?" Clinton asked Blumenthal in a July 2010 email exchange, released as part of the latest tranche of Clinton emails from the State Department.

 

 Podesta is now the head of Clinton's presidential campaign and Daschle is a former Democratic Senate Majority Leader and current Clinton campaign supporter.

 

Clinton was responding to an email from Blumenthal in which he sent a Financial Times article titled "Obama Faces Growing Credibility Crisis." In it, two anonymous "advisers" to Obama gave quotes critical of the president's leadership. 

 

One adviser said, "I never thought I would say this, but even I’m unsure what President Obama really believes." The other adviser said that Obama "wasted his first year on healthcare." 

 

"It's still the economy stupid," the adviser added, alluding to President Clinton's famous phrase from his 1992 election campaign. 

 

Blumenthal had told Clinton, "Knowing Luce [author of the FT piece] and his sources, I'd venture that the adviser quoted is either Tom Daschle or John Podesta."