Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate, offered some tough love to the mainstream American media in an interview with the British publication the New Statesman this week.

Journalist Harry Lambert spoke with Clinton in early June ahead of a speech was giving in the U.K. at the invitation of former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband.

Lambert introduced the interview by summing up a conversation he had with Miliband, who described the polarization in the U.S. as “not just polarized but Balkanized.”

“It’s not that different groups hate each other, it’s that they think the other group is actually a threat to the country,” Lambert quoted Miliband as saying of the U.S., setting the stage for his line of questioning to Clinton.

Lambert pushed Clinton on what Biden and the Democrats can do better to improve their electoral chances come November.

“It’s hard enough making a living if you’re not encouraged to get up every day and try to find common ground with other people,” Clinton said, invoking the positive messages of her husband and Barack Obama.

Democracies need “leaders who endeavor to bring out the best in us, not the worst, who don’t play to our fears, but help us address them,” she added.

“But the press and politicians of the right – from Fox News to Donald Trump – have succeeded by leveraging those fears. Trump’s army of supporters are motivated to get up in the morning not because their world is hopeful, but because they have been told it is – like Ukraine – under attack,” Lambert shot back.

“They wake to defend it. Isn’t the problem for democracies that fear, not hope, is the great motivator?” he asked Clinton.

“I don’t think the media is doing its, job to be honest. I think you’ve got a right-wing media machine led by Fox and others, and a very potent right-wing presence on social media, and the so-called mainstream media hasn’t yet caught up to the reality we live in,” she responded.

“They are much too reluctant to stand up for the truth in the face of massive lying – to call a lie a lie – to be on record as saying that we are in a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, and it can’t just be business as usual,” Clinton argued.

Lambert continues, explaining his conversation with Clinton. “Millions of voters are now unreachable for the Democrats. And after the collapse in President Biden’s approval ratings over the past year, the party is set to lose both houses of Congress in November’s midterm elections,” he writes.

Clinton then weighs in on former President Donald Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election. She argues that “those [Republican] voters have been misled. The right-wing media plays up the people on the far left as a way of dividing the Democratic Party.” Clinton notes that at its core, Trump’s conspiratorial allegations and attacks on the Democrats hinge on a “way overstated” influence of the far-left in American politics.

The post Hillary Clinton Slams Mainstream Media As Too Reluctant to ‘Call a Lie a Lie’ and Take on the Battle ‘Between Democracy and Authoritarianism’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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