Bill Weld: Nobody more qualified ‘on paper’ to be president than Hillary Clinton
Bill Weld, the Libertarian vice presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor, suggested Friday that there was one candidate far-and-away the most qualified to be president.
According to Weld, that candidate was not his Libertarian running mate, Gary Johnson, but Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“I’m not sure anyone is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States,” Weld told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.
“But I mean that’s not the end of the inquiry, though,” he added, lauding his and Johnson’s gubernatorial records in Massachusetts and New Mexico, respectively.
Of course, Weld’s first quote caught more traction than the second and was featured in more than a few national headlines.
Weld hit the cable news circuit again on Monday, hoping to provide a bit more clarity on his remarks.
“Well, I said I’m not sure there’s anybody more qualified than she is on paper,” Weld told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “I mean she’s got quite a resume. … I think Gary Johnson would be the best president because of the policies—fiscal and military and otherwise—that he would implement.”
Weld: I said nobody is more qualified than Clinton “on paper” but Johnson’s policies make him the best president https://t.co/apYKw3ztRQ
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 3, 2016
Weld went on to praise Johnson’s non-interventionist position on Syria (a bumpy topic of late for the Libertarian nominee).
Though the Libertarian ticket is looking to disrupt the traditional two-party system, Weld has made it clear he does not hold equal views of Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Weld, who has been uncompromising in his criticism of Trump, told Todd last week that he thinks “very highly” of Clinton, who he worked with on the House Judiciary Committee in the 1970s.
As The Atlantic‘s Molly Ball reported Monday in a profile of Weld: “He believes Clinton is wrong on policy, particularly fiscal and military matters—but Trump is unthinkable.”
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