Media

Maddow interrupts Clinton interview to show her sneezing Panda video

by Joe Concha - 09/15/17 8:59 AM ET

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interview with Hillary Clinton on Thursday night included an interruption by the host to show a video of a baby panda sneezing.

“Welcome back,” Maddow said after a commercial break. “My interview with Secretary Hillary Clinton is subject to an interruption because of this important video of a sneezing panda.”

Maddow proceeded to show the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee footage of a sneezing panda cub startling his unsuspecting mother.

“Madam Secretary, one of the things that you deal with in a surprisingly straightforward way in your new book is that people are obsessed with your human nature,” Maddow said while the clip continued as Clinton laughed.

“Pandas just live their lives,” Maddow said while reading a passage Clinton’s book released Tuesday, “What Happened.”

“They eat bamboo. They play with their kids but for some reason, people love watching pandas hoping for something, for anything to happen,” Maddow continued reading. “In the book, you called [people’s interest in you] the panda principle.”

“It is true, people ask me these questions all the time,” Clinton said. “And I thought well, you know what? I just want to embrace it and go ahead and tell you what I have for breakfast and all the rest of it and maybe it will give people a little bit of satisfaction that they know me better than they thought they did.”

Clinton has numerous interviews over the last week promoting her new tell-all book about how she lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.

The book details Clinton’s perspective of the campaign, explaining her team’s strategy and why she believes she lost to Donald Trump in a race almost all observers predicted she would win easily.

In the book, Clinton points the finger at Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Vice President Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, Russian meddling in the election, The New York Times’s coverage of her email controversy and NBC’s Matt Lauer for asking questions about the emails during a presidential forum, among others.

After the interview, Maddow assessed that Clinton’s career as a politician is far from over.

“She is definitely still in the arena,” Maddow said. “So, she’s — this is not a retired politician.”

Tags Bernie Sanders Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Joe Biden