Hillary Clinton: Trump can’t win the next election... people are onto him

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Hillary Clinton has insisted Donald Trump would not be re-elected even if he wins the Republican nomination to run for president next year.

The former Democratic candidate said “people are more onto him” than during the last two elections.

Ms Clinton added that he “has a hard core of support” which will help him secure the Republican nomination. But, speaking to Sky News, she said: “In a general election against president Joe Biden, I do not believe he can win.

“People are more onto him and his behaviour than they were before.”

Ms Clinton went on to say she believes Mr Biden will be re-elected no matter who he comes up against. The 75-year-old branded Mr Trump’s main Republican rival Ron DeSantis “unproven”, adding that “nobody really outside of Florida knows very much about him”.

She added: “In Florida they are watching him do crazy things. So I actually believe that president Biden will be re-elected regardless of who the Republican nominee is.”

Ms Clinton praised Mr Biden’s record in office, including garnering support for Ukraine, uniting Asian countries against “Chinese aggressiveness” and “passing major legislation through congress”. She said: “Look what he’s getting done.”

She said: “We are living back in a time when a lot of people expect their leaders to be performers, not producers.” Ms Clinton added that Mr Biden is “not a performer” like Boris Johnson or Mr Trump, “and thank God for that”.

Dismissing criticism of Mr Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second presidential term, as too old to run for re-election, Ms Clinton said: “I feel like I could do the job. I’m in my mid-seventies.”

Ms Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Mr Trump after a campaign dubbed “the most bitter in recent American history” by The New Yorker.

She spoke to Sky’s Beth Rigby at Belfast’s Queen’s University, where she is chancellor, for a three-day conference to mark 25 years of the Northern Irish peace deal.

Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, former UK prime minister Tony Blair and former Irish PM Bertie Ahern spoke on Monday, addressing the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Ms Clinton, Barack Obama’s former secretary of state, also urged the US and Nato to “do much more” to supply the planes and anti-aircraft missiles Ukraine needs amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

“Ukraine is getting enough help to be able to withstand the Russian invasion. It needs to get enough help to repel the Russian invasion,” she said.

Ms Clinton warned that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s brutality “knows no bounds”. “The Russians are taking enormous losses. I want to keep the pressure up and make it even more on the Russians because as we now look at the available information, they could get more brutal in terms of the air defence,” she said.

“That’s why the Ukrainians need more help to repel that,” she added.