Weekly Standard online editor Daniel Halper joined the cast of MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss his new book, Clinton, Inc., and why the Clintons are like the mafia.
"There's this notion that you're once in and you're never out. You're sort of always a part of Clinton world even when you leave. But at the same time, the only people that are really there and really on top of it are the family. It's the centrality of the family—Bill, Hillary, and now Chelsea—that makes the metaphor apt."
Host Joe Scarborough joked about his disappointment that, although he had invited liberal columnist Joe Conason on to spar with Halper, Halper won Conason over in the green room with his mafia theory.
Conason confirmed he had found the same dynamic in his own reporting on the Clintons: "I was interviewing somebody for my book, somebody who was the chief of staff for President Clinton and the Foundation, and at some point I said to her, 'What was it like when you said good-bye to him?' And she looked at me like I was an idiot. She said, 'Joe, don't you know that with them, there is no good-bye?'"
Halper noted that, although similar things could be said about other powerful families, "That's kind of the point of the book, to explain politics and how politics works. But it uses people who are the best at it: Bill and Hillary Clinton. They are the best. Their story is applicable in other ways to other stories."
In true mafia fashion, the Clinton machine has been pressuring the media to ignore Halper's book, with the Clintons' spokesperson saying the actions of authors like Halper "should neither be allowed nor enabled."