Hillary Clinton said Monday she thought President Obama does not get enough credit for his efforts to save the economy from the abyss at the outset of his presidency. Reflecting back on a day she visited with Obama just a couple weeks after he had won the 2008 election, she said, "I remember him saying to me at that point, 'The economy's so much worse than we were told.' " She noted that 800,000 jobs a month were being lost at the time and added, "I think he doesn't get the credit he deserves for having fought for a recovery that is taking hold."
Her remarks came during a New Hampshire press conference in response to a question about whether there were economic policies that she would fight harder for than President Obama has. Reporters asked Clinton several questions about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. She made clear the she neither supported nor opposed the deal but stressed several times that Friday's failed vote opened the door for President Obama to return to Congress and make adjustments that could attract more votes.
"I think now there's an opportunity for the president and his team to reach out and meet with the people who have said on the floor—like Nancy Pelosi did—that we need a better deal," she said. "I think this a chance to use this leverage so the deal does become one that more Americans and more members of Congress can vote for."
As for her personal view on the deal: "I will wait and see what the deal is and then I will tell what I think about it." Clinton also notably plugged the Affordable Care Act. Though she said improvements could be made to the law, she told reporters the president had provided the American people with "the promise of health insurance" for the first time.
But Clinton's most gripping answers came as she recalled the urgency surrounding the economic meltdown during the end of Bush's presidency—when they came to the Hill to ask Congress to make what she called "extraordinary decisions"—and Obama's first days in office.
She said she was grateful now that the country is in a position to begin addressing income inequality, but she worried about us suffering from "collective amnesia" about how we arrived at that moment. "Let's have a debate on what the evidence is—not act like yesterday never happened," she said to reporters, challenging them to help raise the level of the debate. "There were reasons why we ended up in the great recession."