John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, said that the candidate issued a "weird denial" about cutting taxes on the middle class in an interview she did with Charlie Rose, according to newly released hacked emails.
The message was hacked from Podesta’s email account and posted by Wikileaks. The U.S. intelligence community has accused Russia of orchestrating the hacks in order to influence the U.S. presidential election.
Clinton was asked whether she would cut taxes on the middle class in an interview with Rose on December 1, 2015.
"This campaign is about middle-class economic future," Rose said. "Do you recommend cutting middle-class taxes?"
"Well not raising them certainly," Clinton said.
"Didn’t you say you were in favor of cutting them?" Rose responded.
"Well I'm in favor of giving specific tax credits and breaks so that middle-class families can meet some of their obligations," Clinton said. "So for example more help on child care, more help on caregiving like taking care of an elderly relative with Alzheimer's, making sure we keep the tax credits for education."
"So in effect those are cutting taxes but they are not an across the board cut, they are tied to certain activities or services that middle-class people need," Clinton added.
After the interview, Podesta exchanged emails with Kristina Schake, Clinton's deputy communications director. He wrote that Clinton had responded with a "weird denial" about whether she would cut middle-class taxes.
"In a generally sloppy part of the interview when he turned to taxes, I think she raised three questions: 1) a kind of weird denial that she's cutting middle class taxes, 2) strumming around in the payroll tax and saying it's not that big a deal, and 3) opening the door to a repatriation holiday, although generally being against it," Podesta wrote.
"I think we need to be ready for all, but the payroll tax answer seems the most problematic if the spin is that the payroll tax isn't big deal to most people as opposed to a small cut in the payroll tax wouldn't be smart," Podesta added.
Schake replied that Clinton needed more guidance on how to answer questions about taxing the middle class.
"Just discussed in senior comms so we are prepared for when it airs tonight," Schake wrote. "Brian will do talking points for us that could be used as a statement too if we need it. For her prep we should give her guidance on a stronger, more positive answer on her middle-class tax cuts. Charlie even tried to help her on that answer."
Jake Sullivan, Clinton's top foreign policy adviser, wrote that they hadn't done any prep on the economy before the interview.
"Yes – in this case we didn't do any prep for economic policy q's, in part because we didn’t expect the interview to go 55 mins!" he wrote.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to requests for comment.