Longtime Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said that Hillary Clinton will have to face the media soon to answer questions about Clinton Foundation donors and her use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State, both issues that broke legal protocol.
They're legitimate questions, and she is going to have to address all of those and a lot more over the course of this campaign," Pfeiffer said. "She’s probably going to have to do it sooner rather than later. She'll have an announcement in a short while and after that I suspect her engagement with the press is going to have to increase."
"But if she doesn't answer the questions, that will hurt her in the long run. I’m not sure it has yet. But in the long run, you have to take those on or it will add up over time."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper suggested that Clinton might not have been hit in the polls because she has avoided discussing the scandals.
"One could argue that the reason she's been able to avoid any harm from this is that she has avoided any questions about it. She has really kept the press at arm's length during all of her various trips," Tapper said. "She hasn't given any significant interviews.
"There are substantive questions that she is avoiding that I don't understand why just putting them off until she has to do them makes it better?" Tapper said.
Pfeiffer conceded that Clinton cannot avoid the media much longer.
"Over the course of time, she’s going to have to engage with the press and they will be critical to her success."