UPDATE: For my own part, I think I would have tried to keep this from being just about Hillary Clinton attacking Tulsi Gabbard — whom she didn’t name in the original comments; Gabbard is the one who made it all about her.
I think I’d try to put it as:
“I am not going to say anything about Gabbard — I think her record as a combat veteran and her actions in Congress and on the campaign trail speak for themselves and I don’t need to comment on them.
What I will talk about is the important matter the former Secretary of State was trying to raise. There was serious interference in our election in 2016 by Russia to the benefit of one candidate — Donald Trump. The Mueller report confirmed in detail what our intelligence agencies and our allies had found and tried to warn us about. Further — that interference is continuing today and we are not doing anything to deal with it that matches the seriousness of the threat.
And when I say we, I mean the United States government that should be working to ensure we have free and fair elections we can trust in this country regardless of which party is in the White House or controls which branch of Congress or the courts.
This shouldn’t be a Democratic problem or a Republican problem — it is an American problem. The fact that the President and the Attorney General are engaged in a campaign to discredit those facts and create a distraction, the fact the Senate Majority Leader is blocking action to secure our elections — that is what matters here.
All Democrats are united in demanding that we must ensure our elections are secure. It is the foundation of our democracy. As the saying goes, “If you see something, say something.” Secretary Clinton has seen with her own eyes what the problem is. We should pay attention.”