Podesta: Hillary Campaign Successfully Telling America 'This Is Not About Her'

The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s new presidential campaign says he thinks it kicked off with the right message: “that this is not about her.”

John Podesta told PBS that her announcement video and subsequent road trip to Iowa served their purpose of underscoring that the campaign is “about every day Americans and what she wants to do to be their champion.”

“Look, we are on week one of a 19-month campaign. So I think that the press will have plenty of time to ask her questions. But right now she wants to have a dialogue with the voters and I think she doesn’t want that necessarily intermediated with just through reporters’ questions. She wants to go directly to voters to listen to their stories, to understand what the challenges of their lives are,” he said when the lack of press access to the candidate was noted.

Clinton, who got back in the van and headed to New Hampshire, is “in a ramp-up phase,” Podesta stressed.

“I think at this point she wants to have — she laid down the challenges that she thinks that are facing America starting with building a new economy for the future. That’s going to reward people for hard work. And she is definitely going to put specifics on it. But again, this is going to be a long campaign and we are in a phase where we’re building out the campaign organization. She’s talking to voters,” he said.

“Sometime next month when we have a more official, if you will, launch of the campaign she’ll explain to the American public what she wants to do. And that’s the appropriate moment where she will begin to put specific policy proposals out. But that’s not going to be a one-shot only deal. I know you want to see the whole platform today. But we have 19 months and we’re going to build up to a position where people really understand what — why she wants to be a champion for every day Americans, what she’s going to do and why she thinks she’s the best candidate to do it.”

Podesta said he’s “sure” Clinton will have some ideas about “tough regulation” and “fighting against dark money” in campaigns.

“I think the first thing that she will do in quite frankly, and that this will set her apart from her Republican opponents, is that she’ll appoint Supreme Court justices who protect the right of every American to vote not every corporation to buy an election. So you know, that is, I think, going in position for her. And I think that we need campaign finance reform. There’s too much dark money in politics and she would like to see it out,” he said.

“…We will take money if it’s legal, obviously. And if it’s from, you know, we’re just going to have to have the resources to — to compete in this election, which is going to be supercharged with special interest money coming at any Democratic candidate but particularly Hillary Clinton.”

Podesta said the campaigns is going to be “asking people to raise money from their friends and neighbors,” but “we’re not going to cut off resources from people who have participated in the political system and have a right to.”

He added that Clinton will release her health records “at an appropriate time.”

“There will be reassurance from her doctors that — when it’s appropriate. And if there is anything to see in there, you’ll see it.”