President Obama appeared with Hillary Clinton for an interview on 60 Minutes Sunday, leaving many to speculate that the joint sit-down was an unofficial endorsement by Obama for Clinton’s potential presidential bid in 2016 .
Though Obama and Clinton were once bitter rivals during the 2008 presidential primaries, they’ve worked closely since the latter’s appointment to the office of secretary of state. It’s no secret that Clinton is thinking about running again, but then again, so is VP Joe Biden, notes Newser . So by sitting down with Clinton, is Obama endorsing her over his own right-hand man?
Not necessarily.
“The main thing is I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say ‘thank you,’” says President Obama. “I’m going to miss her, wish she was sticking around, but she has logged in so many miles I can’t begrudge her wanting to take it easy for a little bit.”
Clinton also tells Steve Kroft that a sit-down alongside Obama is long overdue. She says that a public chat with Obama would have been “improbable” after 2008 because “we had that very long, hard primary campaign.”
Clinton says that she fought hard, “but I lost. And then President Obama asked me to be secretary of state, and I said yes. And why did he ask me, and why did I say yes? Because we both love our country.”
So is Clinton gearing up for a 2016 run? Depends who you ask. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said on CNN that while Clinton has the resume, her decision will likely hinge on her health.
“The question is whether she’s up for the exhaustion of going to the Iowa caucus, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina and having (Monica) Lewinsky and other issues from the ’90s come back and haunt her in some ways,” Brinkley said. “Does she have that fight in her?”