Former MSNBC host Karen Finney is the Hillary Clinton campaign’s head spokesperson, and she can get a cable news anchor or two rather frustrated with her ability to dodge questions. It got so bad that new State of the Union host Jake Tapper said she nearly snapped his brain when he questioned her on the controversial trade vote in the House last week.
“I had Karen Finney on the show yesterday, and I thought I was going to have an aneurysm trying to get a position from her,” Tapper said.
Clinton is caught between the White House and the Democrats’ liberal flank on President Barack Obama’s massive trade negotiations. Last week House Democrats rejected a trade proposal that threatens Obama’s fast-track authority on trade, potentially imperiling the deal. Where Clinton stands on the issue is, even after her remarks Sunday afternoon, fairly vague.
“Clearly she knows what she thinks about this trade legislation,” Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward said. “If she were president, she’d do it one way or the other. Tell us now!”
Reporters have grown increasingly blunt in their expressions of unhappiness over the Clinton campaign’s reticence with the press, with Tapper’s colleague Wolf Blitzer even taken to trolling them on-air.
