WASHINGTON — (CNN) Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state did not pose “a national security problem,” President Barack Obama said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Obama, in a wide ranging interview with CBS’s Steve Kroft that aired Sunday, said that he thought that Clinton had made a mistake in handling her emails but added that he thinks the controversy been “ginned-up” in part because of politics.
Kroft asked the President if he echoed the belief from Clinton and former president Bill Clinton that the email controversy “wasn’t a big deal”.
Obama didn’t comment on that question directly but added,”It is important for her to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the American public. And they can make their own judgment. I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
Obama was also mum when asked if he wanted his vice president to get into the 2016 race but said he was “going to let Joe make that decision.”
“I don’t think there’s any politician at a national level — that has not thought about being the president,” Obama told Kroft.
“And if you’re sitting right next to the president in every meeting and, you know — wrestling with these issues, I’m sure that for him he’s saying to himself, ‘I could do a really good job.’”
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