Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) responded to Hillary Clinton's critical remarks about President Donald Trump and his voters by imploring her, the media and even "Meet The Press" host Chuck Todd to stop talking about the 2016 election.
Clinton has come under fire from her own party after blasting Trump voters as bigots and misogynists during a recent trip to India, while boasting about winning "optimistic" and "diverse" parts of the electorate.
"I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward," Clinton said. "And his whole campaign, ‘Make America Great Again,' was looking backward. You know, you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women, you know, getting jobs, you don’t want, you know, to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are. Whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it."
Todd noted to Brown on Sunday it sounded like Clinton was describing voters like those in Pennsylvania who appear to have elected Democrat Conor Lamb in the state's 18th congressional district special election last week, the sorts of voters Democrats need to win back after Trump swept the Rust Belt in 2016.
"I'm not going to look back," Brown said. "I don't think voters or citizens in my state particularly care about the 2016 election, whether it was Hillary or Donald Trump."
"Well then answer me this, what does she not get?" Todd asked. "Why do you think she viewed those voters that way?"
"I'm not going to come on your show and analyze what Hillary gets today or not, and what she got in 2016, and I'm not going to analyze how Donald Trump keeps talking about Hillary Clinton," Brown said.
Brown noted when he won his first election for state representative, he spent several days reliving his victory and realized "nobody cared."
"Maybe the press ought to stop covering it, and maybe Hillary and Trump ought to quit talking about it. I mean, the election is over, and it's time that we move on," Brown said, going on to say issues like pensions and infrastructure should take the lead.
Brown already told HuffPost Clinton's latest remarks were "not helpful," comments Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) echoed on "Fox News Sunday." Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) said they were "fighting words," adding, "I don’t think that’s the way you should talk about any voter, especially ones in my state."
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) took it one step further, telling her brother on the radio that Clinton couldn't go away "soon enough."
Todd told Brown we were all stuck in a "time warp, where we're going to have relive the 2016 election over and over again."
"Help us get out of it, Chuck," Brown said. "You have a pretty loud microphone."
"I am half teasing there. I think we all want to get out of the 2016 election," Todd said.