On Hannity & Colmes, Santorum falsely claimed Sen. Clinton is “not doing any kind of interviews”

On Hannity & Colmes, former Sen. Rick Santorum asserted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is “not doing any kind of interviews.” Clinton has, in fact, given interviews to numerous media outlets in recent weeks, but Santorum's false claim went unchallenged.


While discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign during the October 15 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributor and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) claimed, “You're not going to find out what Hillary Clinton believes. She's not doing any kind of interviews.” In fact, in the past month, Clinton has given interviews to newspapers, television shows, and radio programs. For instance, on October 15 -- the same day as Santorum's appearance on Hannity & Colmes -- Clinton appeared on both the Fox Business Network and the ABC daytime talk show The View. On September 23, the five major Sunday morning network talk shows (CBS' Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday, ABC's This Week, and CNN's Late Edition) all aired separate interviews with Clinton. Neither co-host Sean Hannity nor co-host Alan Colmes challenged Santorum's false assertion.

From the October 15 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: Well, it was interesting, too, because, Senator Santorum, within like five days, she changed her position on this $5,000 baby bond of hers. Now, look, politicians can change their mind. I mean, Alan is going to come over, “Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani” --

COLMES: You do my part. Go ahead.

HANNITY: But there is a difference. If she's changing here on very specific issues that she's making, you know, a month ago, two weeks ago, not on a significant, heart-wrenching, soul-searching issue like abortion, right?

SANTORUM: No, this is what you're going to expect to see from Hillary from here on out. She's playing to try to do two things. She's sort of moving from running a primary campaign to running a general election campaign, and she's finding herself now where she thinks she's won the nomination, and so she's trying to play both sides.

You're not going to find out what Hillary Clinton believes. She's not doing any kind of interviews. She has no access to the press when they travel with her. She's going to be very, very scripted. She's going to try to keep everybody happy, both in the primary and for the general. This is all about politics. She does not want you to know what she really thinks. She's not going to give you access to dig to what she really thinks --

COLMES: Hey --

SANTORUM: She's trying to just keep everybody happy until she gets to the last few months of the campaign.

COLMES: Hey, Rick, this is going to surprise you. I don't always agree with Hillary Clinton. In fact, I'm very upset that she voted to declare the Iran Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. I think that moves us a step closer to war, so I object to her position on that.

However, in this case, I do not see it as an exact flip-flop. She was -- in the first instance, the question was, would you engage directly with leaders of other countries? She said no. Here she says, there would be negotiations with Iran. It wouldn't necessarily be between her and [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, but that there would communication between the countries. They're not exactly the same thing.

SANTORUM: Well, what she did was criticize Barack Obama for saying that he would negotiate without conditions with Iran -

COLMES: Directly, himself.

SANTORUM: -- directly. Well, and saying that she would negotiate without conditions with Iran generally, that is a very nuanced -- if that's not a flip-flop, that's about as nuanced as it gets off the cuff in New Hampshire. I just don't buy it. I think what it is, is she's trying to appeal to both audiences. She's trying to play it down the middle. And, you know, when you're in a campaign where everybody's watching every word you're saying, you can't do that and get away with it.

COLMES: Well, I do see a difference between her directly engaging with the leader of other countries and having negotiations between countries. But, [Democratic strategist] Rich Masters, you know, Sean is correct. You cannot, they cannot paint her as a flip- flopper if Rudy Giuliani -- because he knew I was going to say this -- or Mitt Romney will be the nominee when they have flip-flopped on every key -- in fact, I'm going to let him do my stuff from now on -- on every single key issue, which are serious, important, mainstream issues. They flip-flopped on everything.