MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell told a Politico podcast that she and the rest of the press "were harassing" Hillary Clinton about her private email server use throughout the summer of 2015.
In a wide-ranging interview posted Monday with "The Global POLITICO," Mitchell reflected on the 2016 campaign and President Trump's criticism of her and other media figures.
Mitchell told host Susan Glasser she had no prior relationship with Trump before the 2016 campaign and had no ax to grind with him.
"Maybe he saw the Clinton press corps as some sort of a support group but that was hardly the case," Mitchell said. "We had very little contact. We were harassing her and, you know, shouting questions at her all summer long about the private server. She had that really badly constructed initial news conference eight days after The New York Times revealed in March that there was the private server."
Mitchell went on to call Clinton's initial press conference in 2015 about her private email server use "horrible."
"And then she did not answer questions or do an interview until September 4," she said. "From March to September, she dissipated all of the momentum she might have had after a launch of a campaign by not resolving the email issue."
Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state and alleged mishandling of classified information clouded her campaign and consistently fed mistrust issues she never resolved with voters.
While Mitchell criticized Clinton's email conduct during the campaign, she also once erroneously said the accusation that acting DNC chair Donna Brazile once fed Clinton a town hall question was "knocked down." NBC also stealth-edited a report from last year when Mitchell initially said Juanita Broaddrick's rape accusation against Bill Clinton was "discredited."
She reported on Clinton's election loss to Trump as "history put on hold again," saying the Democrat struggled to gain voters' trust by "never escaping questions about here use of a private email server."
Much of the Politico interview focused on her coverage of the Trump administration. Mitchell said "people just flat-out lie."
"You know, black is white and white is black, and they mislead you," she said. "It's really disconcerting to see the podium in the White House briefing room being used to mislead or misdirect or obfuscate."