Hillary Clinton was clearly annoyed by Savannah Guthrie's line of questioning during a "Pancakes and Politics" town hall event in New Hampshire Monday. The Today Show host posed several unflattering questions to Clinton about her inability to connect to voters and brewing email scandal.
"They just don't connect with you, they don't trust you, they might not like you," Guthrie began.
"Oh, that really hurts my feelings!" Clinton responded.
Since journalists aren't supposed to let a politicians' feelings get in the way of an important question, Guthrie posed the issue to the Democratic presidential candidate again: "Are you having a problem connecting?"
"Well I don't know," Clinton said. "You can ask me that and it's not the nicest question to hear because I feel I have a long record of working on the issues I believe are important to people and I'm going to continue to do that...I'll admit I'm a more reserved person then maybe some people in politics are..."
But, Clinton was quick to point to her appearance on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend as proof she "also likes to have a good time."
Guthrie then shifted to another unpopular topic with Clinton: her use of a private server as secretary of state. After pointing out that Clinton has contradicted herself by offering an apology for her unsecure handling of classified material, while also dismissing it as a GOP agenda, Guthrie asked, "If you're blaming the Republicans, how genuine is that apology?"
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"It's both," she said. "I'm sorry that I made a choice that has resulted in this kind of situation and I've said I made a mistake. Obviously if I had to do it over again I wouldn't...But it's also as we now know very clearly the way the Republicans are trying to, as they admit, bring my poll numbers down. So I'm very committed to answering questions and being as transparent as possible."
Clinton was referencing House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's recent comments that suggested the GOP created the Benghazi Select Committee as a means to hurt her politically. He has since walked back those remarks and other Republicans have rejected them as "absolutely terrible."
Clinton said she's looking forward to testifying before the Benghazi committee later this month and answering "real questions," yet repeated that it "is nothing but a partisan exercise."
Guthrie acknowledged Clinton's claim that the State Department may have allowed her to use a private server, yet she insisted, "Do you get how bad it looks?"
"Well, Savannah first of all it was allowed," Clinton irritatingly answered. "And I've said it wasn't the best choice and every government official gets to decide what is personal and work-related. If I had two separate accounts, as many people do obviously, I would have decided every hour what was personal, what was work-related...I have gone further than anyone in American history, as long as we've had emails I've gone longer and farther to try and be as transparent as possible. Nobody else has done that."
Just to be sure Guthrie and the town hall attendees were clear, Clinton expanded on what she thought of the email brouhaha, calling it "beyond the pale."
To be fair, Hillary did admit she was ashamed about one aspect of this unfolding controversy:
"I'm a little embarrassed the emails are so boring."
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