After historic victory, Clinton on ‘great threat’ of Trump

How do you go about winning them over, winning their trust and getting them to vote for you in November?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, Judy, first of all, let me say I think my supporters are pretty enthusiastic, too, and they have turned out for me by the millions, many more millions than Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

And I want the stand up for my supporters. You know, they may not be the most vocal and demonstrating, but they show up and vote. And we have a broad-based, inclusive foundation for this campaign that we’re going to build on going into the general election.

But of course I recognize that Senator Sanders really connected with young people in our country. A lot of his energy came from their support for him, and we are going to be reaching out. We’re going to be working to make sure that every young person who supported Senator Sanders, if that young person cares about income inequality or making college affordable or making sure everybody has health care, those are goals we share.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me ask you about Donald Trump, because it’s typical in American — modern American politics, voters want a change in direction, usually after one president for this long. Doesn’t he represent that?

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, I think he represents a great threat to our society and our economy.

Now, there may be some people who respond to his sloganeering and his bigotry and bullying, but I just don’t think that a majority of Americans are going to buy it. And we saw just this past week his racist attack on the federal judge, accusing him of being unable to be impartial in hearing the case that is exposing the fraud at Trump University.

And it is just heartbreaking, as well as outrageous. So, I think he has a lot of challenges in overcoming the words and deeds that he has already used in this campaign and before that I think make him unqualified to be president, temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Donald Trump is saying, as I think you know, that he’s going to make a major speech early next week. He says he’s going to detail how you, as secretary of state, that there were conflicts of interests while the Clinton Foundation was doing business with foreign countries while you were in office, that the foundation benefited personally from this.

He’s going to talk about, he said, millions of dollars being exchanged. Is this something you’re worried about? And is the foundation something you need to sever you and your family from completely if you’re elected?

HILLARY CLINTON: I am not worried about this.

I mean, this is just more of the same recycled attacks that people like Donald Trump have been making against us for a long time. There’s no factual basis to it. That’s been proven time and time again. I can’t stop someone from retreading arguments that have been disproved over and over again.

He can say whatever he wants to. He can run whatever campaign he wants to. So I’m not going to respond to his personal attacks. That’s something that, you know, he can choose to do. I’m going to respond, however, to the attacks that he makes on women and immigrants and Muslims and people with disabilities and POWs and federal judges, and the list keeps growing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Secretary Clinton, one question on foreign policy. You were described in a recent acclaimed book by Mark Landler as being the — quote — “house hawk” in the Clinton war cabinet.

And we know that you — and you talked about this — you encouraged the president to intervene in Libya in 2011. Recently, President Obama said his worst mistake in office was probably failing to plan for the day after what he thought was the right thing to do in intervening there.

How do you see your responsibility in that?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, it’s important to remember where we were and why the president made the decision he did, because this was a presidential decision.

I have advised the president. Sometimes, he follows my advice. Sometimes, he doesn’t. Sometimes, he uses a combination of what he hears from his advisers. We were looking at a potential disaster, as Gadhafi threatened to massacre large numbers of his population.

The Europeans, our Arab allies were urging us to help them to try to prevent that. After due diligence, we came up with a way of supporting their efforts that didn’t cost a single American life. And we saved a lot of Libyan lives.

Now, could we have done more after the Gadhafi regime was ended? Well, that’s always second-guessing. And I’m sure that there’s more we could have done, but let’s look at what we did do.

We, along with the U.N. and others, helped to superintend two free and fair elections, something that is still quite an accomplishment by the Libyan people. They chose moderate leaders.

Unfortunately, preexisting rivalries within the country has prevented the government from really being able to act on behalf of the nation. So, of course, if there were more things to be done that we could have influenced, I think that’s something we should be looking at and evaluating, because Libya still is a country that is struggling to be successful.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, a quick running mate question. How big a negative do you think it would be to choose a sitting senator from a state with a Republican governor, knowing that would mean a Republican replacement?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I know it’s a big concern to my friends in the Senate, and I respect that concern.

I’m going to choose someone who I think would be ready to be president at a moment’s notice. Obviously, I will listen to my former colleagues, as they are working so hard to take back the Senate. But I’m going to really be focused on the qualifications that the person brings to the job.

And I haven’t gotten into that in the depth I will, but that’s what my guiding star will be.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Secretary Clinton, we thank you. And, again, congratulations.

HILLARY CLINTON: Thanks a lot, Judy. Great to talk to you.