Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) defended Hillary Clinton’s lies about her email scandal Wednesday, telling NBC someone is bound to use the wrong words if asked the same question 150 times.
Today host Savannah Guthrie brought up Clinton’s trust issues in her interview with Kaine, saying they has dogged Clinton throughout her campaign. Polls consistently show a majority of the public does not find Clinton honest, often citing her email scandal.
"If you look at what she said over the past year or so about her email, I can count at least four statements that just turned out not to be true. Has she earned that mistrust?" Guthrie asked.
"Savannah, if you ask somebody a question 150 times or 200 times, you’re going to be able to find that they don’t use exactly the same word every time, and there’s going to be variations, and then people are going to play on those," Kaine said.
Guthrie cut in that Clinton actually used the same verbiage, but "it just happens to not be true."
"I’ve heard her say, ‘I made a mistake, and I’ve learned something from it, and I wouldn’t do it again, and I apologize,’" Kaine said.
Clinton did not use different verbiage, however, consistently saying she never sent or received classified information over her private server, which FBI Director James Comey refuted. Her talking points about her server never being hacked, turning over all her work-related emails, and denying the criminal nature of the FBI’s investigation were also dismantled by Comey.
"She hasn’t acknowledged a mistake with regard to what she has told the American people," Guthrie said.
"The bottom line is this," Kaine said. "This is an area where she says I made a mistake, and I’ve learned from it, and I’ve improved, and I’m going to do differently. When has Donald Trump, during the course of this campaign or his life, said, ‘I made a mistake and I’m better and I’m going to learn from it and grow from it?’"
Clinton also claimed on Fox News Sunday last month that Comey said her statements about her emails had been "truthful," which earned her a "Pants On Fire" rating from PolitiFact for being brazenly false.