Hillary Clinton’s director of communications Jennifer Palmieri, whose job is to be an articulate proponent of the candidate, was incomprehensible on Wednesday when asked about Hillary’s financial ties to Bill Cosby.
The Huffington Post reported earlier this year that Cosby, who has been accused by multiple women of drugging and raping them, has donated thousands of dollars to Clinton’s political charity, the Clinton Foundation.
Palmieri was asked on Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect whether Clinton would join with a group of Democratic senators who are calling for Cosby to be stripped of his presidential medal of freedom.
Palmieri was evidently blindsided by the question.
"It’s, um, I don’t, I don’t know we would, uh, it is, uh, I just saw the president’s, um, uh, comments about it," Palmieri said, racking up an impressive five filler words in her first sentence of speech. "It’s, you know, it’s really, um, really disturbing stuff and I imagine she’ll probably be asked about it."
Bloomberg co-host Mark Halperin then twisted the dagger by asking whether the foundation would consider returning Cosby’s gift.
"The foundation has gotten money from Bill Cosby in the past, he’s campaigned for her in the past," Halperin said. "Do you know if the foundation would consider giving the money back?"
"Um, I don’t," Palmieri responded. "They, um, but you know, the, uh, the foundation has, uh, it’s, uh, buh, there’s been a lot of donors that, uh, have given, uh, have given money, uh. They, uh, as our friend Paul Begala said, it’s, you know, wealthy people giving money to help poor people. Uh, we think that’s, uh, that’s a positive thing."
"So you don’t see any reason to give the money back regardless of what the donors have done?" Halperin said in a perfectly comprehensible sentence with zero filler words.
"I mean, I think that you should, uh, uh, I mean the Foundation can also speak to this," Palmieri floundered. "But um, you know, this is a, wealthy people giving, uh, you know — it’s a good overall point by the way — it’s like wealthy people giving money to the foundation to do good works for poor people."
"Right," Halperin said.