Hillary Clinton: ‘McConnell Cares Only About One Thing, And That’s Power’

In an interview Friday evening with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the death Friday of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threatens to deepen the “divisiveness and absolute poisonous atmosphere that currently infects our politics,” with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowing to put a replacement candidate to a vote of the Senate by the end of the year—if not before Election Day.

“Mitch McConnell cares only about one thing and that’s power,” said Clinton. “He cares about literally nothing else. And, of course, he’s going to do everything he can to fill that seat.”

Justice Ginsburg, named to the Court by President Bill Clinton, was a role model for Mrs. Clinton, who told Maddow “losing her is such a massive hole in…you know, my young adulthood, my becoming a lawyer, both practicing and teaching law, looking up to her and following her career. But much more than that, it is such a devastating loss for justice and equality.”

Clinton said Ginsburg’s death, at 87, presents “a real threat to the steady march toward progress that we need to continue. This is the 100th year of the anniversary of women getting the right to vote. It took, you know, many more years before there were legislative protections for women of color, and we’re still fighting those battles.”

Of the looming political fight, Clinton said Democrats in the Senate “will have to use every single possible maneuver that is available to them to make it clear that they are not going to permit Mitch McConnell to enact the greatest travesty, the monumental hypocrisy that would arise from him attempting to fill this position.”