The press secretary for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign on Thursday refused to back his former boss's criticism of the Democratic National Committee.
Brian Fallon appeared on CNN and was asked to respond to Clinton's comments from a day earlier, when she ripped the DNC's data operation as "nonexistent" and "bankrupt."
"I'm not going to point fingers at the DNC," Fallon said. Host John Berman then pointed out that Clinton had done just that.
"I'm not going to join in that," Fallon said. "I think that there's probably criticisms that could be fairly made against the DNC. There's also criticisms that can be made against our own campaign."
Fallon argued that Democrats should stop infighting over their 2016 loss.
"I think we're past the time where we should be re-litigating our failures," he said. "It would be more productive to sit down with Tom Perez and folks at the DNC and focus on rebuilding our party from the inside out to be better prepared for midterm elections in 2018."
He offered a qualified defense of Clinton's criticisms by saying that she was at least showing authenticity that people do not associate with her.
"I think a lot of people have gone around for years saying that she's inauthentic and seems scripted," Fallon said. "This is what she legitimately thinks. You can't then turn around and criticize her for saying what she really feels about how the election went last cycle."
Fallon also revealed that Clinton had been holding this line of argument in private.
"Whether you agree with it or not, this is what she's saying in private to aides that worked on the campaign, to supporters of her," he said. "This is what she truly thinks, so you were hearing from Hillary Clinton in a very unfiltered way yesterday."
Other former aides have had harsher things to say about Clinton's criticisms of the DNC team. The former DNC data director tweeted Wednesday that her comments were "f***ing bulls**t."