OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A video featuring Hillary Clinton went viral last week over its central theme that she is “running again.”
While the gist of the video leads viewers to believe she’s running once again for president after failing to secure victory twice before, in reality, she is seen “running” into the office of Dean Keren Yahri-Milo at Columbia University, where she will assist in teaching a course on foreign policy in the fall.
“Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs made the announcement on Twitter on Thursday with a cringey video that began with students getting alerts on their phones saying that Hillary Clinton was ‘running again,’ before cutting to an eager Clinton jogging into Dean Yahri-Milo’s office,” the Western Journal noted.
After the dean told Clinton she was six months early for the course, Clinton replied: “I wanted to be prepared Keren. You know, when it comes to crisis situations, you’ve always got to be prepared.”
“I think you’re more prepared than anyone to teach this course,” Yahri-Milo responded.
After discussing that she would cover the theoretical side of foreign policy while Clinton would provide examples of these theories being put into action, the dean then asked: “Are you ready for whatever questions the students throw at you?”
Clinton then replied: “Bring it on!”
Want to be Inside the Situation Room with Secretary @HillaryClinton?
She and Dean Keren @YarhiMilo are co-teaching a new course on foreign policy decision-making at @Columbia this fall.
Learn more: https://t.co/Oif8rzUimC pic.twitter.com/dE83ptkTkl
— Columbia | SIPA (@ColumbiaSIPA) March 22, 2023
The video generated a tidal wave of responses, many of them mocking and derisive in tone.
— Brian Doherty (@BDOH) March 23, 2023
Is this course subtitled:
“What Not To Do” pic.twitter.com/cNaIEFNabF
— God Fearing Patriot (@MaskdMarauder) March 23, 2023
“Embarrassing. Sad. Plain awful. But what difference, at this point, does it make?” one user responded, quoting a line Clinton infamously used during a Senate hearing on the Benghazi debacle when she was President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
“[Will] she include details on her push to launch an unnecessary war in Libya in order to build her résumé to run for president 2016?” another Twitter user asked.
“War monger. Criminal,” wrote another.
“You have a better chance of survival if you join the military during war time. Than if you are an associate of Hillary Clinton,” still another said.
In February, a former MSNBC host made a stunning admission about the network and her ability to criticize Clinton.
Krystal Ball, herself a one-time Democratic congressional candidate from Virginia, served as co-host of “The Cycle” from 2012 to 2015 on the left-wing Comcast-owned network. In an interview with top podcaster Joe Rogan, Ball, 41, recounted a 2014 monologue when she urged then U.S. Sen. Clinton (N.Y.) not to try for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
“I did this whole thing that was like, ‘She sold out to Wall Street. People are gonna hate this lady. She’s like the terrible candidate for the moment. Please don’t run,’” Ball said during an appearance last week on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
“I was allowed to say it,” she said, adding: “I deliver my thing. I did it exactly how I wanted to do it.”
But her advice for the eventual nominee, who then lost to Donald Trump, did not go over well with Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC at the time, the New York Post reported.
“Afterwards, I get pulled into an office and you know, ‘Great monologue, everything’s fine. But next time you do any commentary on Hillary Clinton, it has to get approved by the President of the network,’” Ball told Rogan.
Ball went on to say that most cable news hosts are not necessarily talented, but they are more often chosen because they “are reliable purveyors of whatever” narrative the network wants to push.
🚨Bombshell insight into NBC News🚨
Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball to Joe Rogan on how MSNBC tried to control her coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2014:
"I did a monologue when Hillary Clinton was building up to run for president… I did this whole thing that was like, 'She sold… pic.twitter.com/Rfqi3Tnh0A
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 12, 2023
“Listen, I’m a human being,” she added. “I’m sure I responded to the incentives of that system, like, ‘God, I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss.’”
“For sure,” Rogan responded.
“That’s the way that it works [in cable news],” she added. “Oftentimes, people [who work at the network] know where the boundaries are. They know what they’re allowed to say. So they don’t need that direct intervention of censorship.”
The former host noted further that most people who work in cable news “aren’t really there because they’re talented.”
“They’re there because they are reliable purveyors of whatever it is that that network wants to purvey,” Ball said. “That’s ultimately why they get the job, and they understand the parameters of the task.”
