Hillary Tells Howard Stern That Being Tougher Toward Trump 'Would Have Worked Against Me'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said she decided to be “very careful” during the debates with President Donald Trump because being tougher toward him would have worked against her.

“I don’t know if I was too nice but I was certainly very careful and the reason is look, I grew up in a time when if you were going to get through a door as a woman you did not react to anything,” Clinton said during the interview before telling a story of men “harassing” her and other women while taking a law exam at Harvard.

“I’ve thought a lot about this afterwards. Suppose I had turned around and said, ‘Back up you creep. You’re not going to intimidate me,’ the headlines would have been ‘lost her calm,’ you know, ‘switches into being angry.’ It would have worked against me and then all the pundits would have said, ‘well, if she can’t take Donald Trump, how is she going to take Vladimir Putin?’ So I’m not unaware of this,” she added.

Stern, who has interviewed Trump many times in the past, has said an appearance on his show could have helped Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Clinton agreed with Stern.

“I think you were right,” she said. “I did not prioritize the media the way I should have. I think that was a miscalculation. I really do.”

Stern also asked Clinton questions about her personal life.

“Contrary to what you may hear, I actually like men,” she said.