Archive for the ‘Hillary Clinton’ Category

A peek inside Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn HQ – Annie Karni …

Hillary Clintons Brooklyn campaign headquarters is finally ready for its close-up.

On Thursday, the campaign ended a three-month period during which its HQ was considered off the record to visitors and allowed POLITICO to tour and photograph the space.

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It has great views, said communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who on Wednesday posted online that tweeting, photos, visits now welcome! Her proclamation came after New York Times Magazine writer Mark Leibovich dinged the campaign for trying to keep its actual, physical workspace off the record.

After POLITICO asked for a tour, the campaign delivered on its promise the following morning, part of a new effort to engage with the national media that follows on the heels of Clintons first national television interview last week.

We want to make sure people can do their work, but otherwise were happy to have people come check it out, Palmieri said.

The original policy of prohibiting journalists from reporting on the campaign headquarters, she said, was misinterpreted as overly controlling. When people come in for meetings, you want the operation to continue to function and that if something is overheard, or a memo is seen, its not going to get reported on, Palmieri said. It seems like that was received the wrong way.

The Clinton campaign signed a lease on the 11th floor of 1 Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn Heights last April, and the campaign will expand to occupy a second floor in October.

Visitors are required to sign in on an iPad, and sign a confidentiality agreement. You agree not to disclose any Confidential information or any information derived therefrom to any third person and to take all reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of such Confidential Information with the highest degree of care, the statement reads.

By 10 a.m. Thursday, the open-plan office was teeming with staffers, volunteers and interns, many wearing official Clinton campaign apparel. Campaign manager Robby Mook and other senior officials were in their daily senior staff meeting when POLITICO arrived to photograph the office.

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A peek inside Hillary Clinton's Brooklyn HQ - Annie Karni ...

Hillary Clinton Focuses On Middle-Class Wages In Sweeping …

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton focused on the problem of stagnant middle-class wages on Monday in the first major economic policy speech of her presidential campaign.

In sweeping remarks at the progressive New School in New York City, the Democratic candidate said that higher wages are driven by strong, fair and long-term growth, offering policy proposals that fit into each of those three categories. Clinton praised the policies pursued by President Barack Obama, but suggested that more needs to be done to help middle-class families. Her message echoed themes espoused by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has made her mark on the Democratic Party by arguing that the economy is rigged against the middle class.

Clinton's speech also name-checked three of the leading Republican presidential hopefuls -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio -- and criticized their economic philosophies.

At the beginning of her address, Clinton suggested that the economy is "not delivering the way that it should" for the middle class.

"It still seems to most Americans that I have spoken with that it is stacked for those at the top," Clinton said, criticizing the concept of trickle-down economics for concentrating wealth at the top while leaving middle- and lower-income Americans with less.

"Twice now a Democratic president has had to come in and clean up the mess left behind," she said, praising the economic records of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and Obama. "We have to build a growth and fairness economy -- you can't have one without the other."

Though Clinton lauded Obama for saving the automobile industry, proposing new rules for overtime pay and passing the Dodd-Frank and Affordable Care Acts, the crux of the speech was that other policies that could further boost paychecks have yet to be enacted.

"The defining economic challenge of our time is clear: We must raise incomes for hardworking Americans so they can afford a middle-class life," Clinton said. "We must drive strong and steady income growth that lifts up families and lifts up our country."

Progressives have criticized the former secretary of state for not coming out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership being pushed by the Obama administration. While Monday's speech did not add to the remarks Clinton has already made on the subject, she did say that the expansion in global trade has hollowed out America's manufacturing industry. She added that the United States needs to "set a high bar for trade agreements" but also "be prepared to walk away" if the agreements don't meet the administration's standards.

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Hillary Clinton’s ‘highest priority’: Email addresses …

When Clinton launched her campaign in April, her staff -- armed with the list of 2.5 million email addresses from the former secretary of state's failed 2008 campaign -- hit send on their first 2016 message.

The realization they received shortly after that stunned them: Less than 100,000 of Clinton's 2008 emails addresses were still active and usable.

Teddy Goff, Clinton's top digital strategist, had thought going into the campaign that around 1 million of the 2008 emails would still be active. But the realization that only a fraction of those emails still worked was a slightly sour point on an otherwise "successful" day for the campaign, he said.

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"It wasn't as if we all kind of retreated into a bunker to drown our sorrows or anything like that," Goff said Wednesday. "In the midst of that day, discovering that we were really rebuilding a list virtually from scratch, it was a realization that there was going to be a tough road ahead."

To respond to this problem, Goff and the campaign launched what they dubbed The "Hillbuilder Project," an internal campaign push that urged all staff members to think about and act on how they could build the campaign's email list. Goff called building the email list the "the single highest priority, for now" on the tech and digital side of the campaign.

Signs were put up around the Brooklyn headquarters that read, "What are you doing to grow the list today?" Organizers in New Hampshire, Iowa and other states were urged to get emails from everyone they spoke with and add them to the database. And at an all staff meeting on June 12, the day before Clinton's first big rally in New York, campaign manager Robby Mook included list building as one of the campaign's top three priorities for the summer.

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"This is not just a digital thing," Goff said, "this is a campaign priority."

The campaign's goal, Goff added, was to provide "relevant content" and allow people to connect with the campaign so that they can "provide an experience that people are going to like."

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Hillary Clinton’s State Dept legacy is tied to Iran deal …

What's bound to draw attention as the agreement's political ramifications come into focus: Clinton owns a piece of it. She helped the negotiations get started.

The Democratic presidential front-runner said President Barack Obama -- who tapped her as America's top diplomat in his first term in office -- called her late Monday night to tell her that negotiators had struck a deal: Iran will rein in its nuclear program and allow for close monitoring.

After a Tuesday morning meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill, Clinton tread carefully, saying she hadn't yet been brought up to date on the specifics of the agreement.

"Based on what I know now, and I will be being briefed as soon as I finish addressing you, this is an important step in putting the lid on Iran's nuclear program," she told reporters after that meeting.

After her comments and between Capitol Hill meetings on Tuesday, Clinton received that briefing. Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and National Security Adviser Susan Rice briefed Clinton and other former secretaries of state and former national security advisers.

Clinton made reference to her role in the negotiations, saying she was "part of building the coalition that brought us to the point of this agreement."

Her top policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, sought to direct some credit toward his boss as well Tuesday morning at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, saying she was "centrally involved in the outset of all of this."

RELATED: Get up to speed on the Iran nuclear talks

Clinton explained her role in the negotiations in her memoir, "Hard Choices." She wrote that she began back-channel talks with Iran through the sultan of Oman, who had helped free American hikers imprisoned on espionage charges and suggested the nuclear talks.

She then had Sullivan, a top aide at the State Department, play a central role in getting the negotiations off the ground -- flying to Oman, meeting with Iranians and eventually leading to a September 2013 phone call in which Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to formally pursue the negotiations.

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Hillary Clinton endorses nuclear deal – Michael Crowley …

During their 2008 battle for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton argued bitterly about Iran. When Obama said he would meet with Irans leader without preconditions, Clinton called him reckless and naive. After Clinton threatened to destroy Tehran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel, Obama likened her to George W. Bush.

But now, Clinton and Obama are inextricably linked on the subject, thanks to the nuclear deal reached in Vienna on Tuesday. As her former rivals secretary of state, Clinton helped to launch the historic diplomacy with Iran. And, should she succeed him as president, its fate could depend on how committed Clinton is to making it work.

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Current and former administration officials say Clinton and Obama worked in harmony on Iran while she was his top diplomat. But they also consider Clinton more distrustful than Obama of a possible thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations. And they recall her as more willing to contemplate the possibility of conflict, pushing in Cabinet meetings for more detailed contingency planning in the event diplomacy failed. In one senior meeting, Clinton even encouraged a conversation about whether the U.S. should consider granting Israel approval to bomb Irans nuclear sites, according to two former administration officials, though she never actually endorsed that view.

In some recent remarks, Clinton has also hinted at a tougher view than the one that prevailed in Vienna, including her belief that Irans breakout period the time it would take to enrich enough uranium for a bomb should be longer than one year. Tuesdays agreement imposes a breakout time of only one year.

But Clinton has supported Obamas diplomacy, which she has tracked closely via regular briefings from Obama officials and the president himself, and in a Tuesday meeting with House Democrats she strongly endorsed the final deal.

On the campaign trail, she has highlighted her own hand in the deal. Im very proud of the role Ive played in building the coalition and the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table, she said during a recent appearance in New Hampshire.

That doesnt mean the nuclear deal will be an easy political proposition for Clinton. The Republican National Committee, which casts it as a surrender to Irans Islamist government, refers to the Obama-Clinton nuclear talks, which it says Clinton secretly spearheaded.

The agreement could also complicate Clintons relationship with some Democrats, including wealthy Jewish donors, who consider the nuclear deal too accommodating of Iran and a grave threat to Israels security.

One former senior administration official said it was always unthinkable Clinton would oppose a deal: No way, he said. Clinton is too personally invested in the talks and could pay a high political price for abandoning the president.

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Hillary Clinton endorses nuclear deal - Michael Crowley ...