Bill Clinton: Democrats can keep control of the House if they ‘say the right things’

During an appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” former President Bill Clinton said that while he was optimistic about Democrats keeping control of the House and the Senate, he believes that the Republican Party will “scare the living daylights out of swing voters.”

During the interview, Zakaria pressed Clinton on whether Democrats, who have seen encouraging signs about their midterm prospects recently, can break the long trend of the ruling party losing control of Congress in midterm elections.

“Absolutely we could hold both these Houses, but we have to say the right things,” Clinton said. “And we have to know the Republicans always close well. Why? Because they find some new way to scare the living daylights out of swing voters about something. That’s what they did in 2021 when they made critical race theory sound worse than smallpox.”

During Clinton’s second term in office, Democrats gained five seats in the House, which was the first time a sitting president’s party increased their number of seats in the midterms in decades, according to The Insider.

Clinton said that the current state of play is “not much different” than when he was in office, however Clinton did accept that both parties are more divided now than they were in recent years.

“It’s just that there’s so many fewer because as the parties have gone more ideological and clear and somehow psychically intolerant, they pull more and more of people toward the extremes,” he said on CNN. “But there’s still some people hanging on there who are really trying to think and trying to understand what’s going on.”

Zakaria also quizzed Clinton about the recent death of Ken Starr, the prosecutor who had investigated Clinton’s alleged affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky.

“Well, I read the obituary, and I realized that his family loved him, and I think that’s something to be grateful for, and when your life is over that’s all there is to say. But I was taught not to talk about people that I — you know. I have nothing to say. Except I’m glad he died with the love of his family,” Clinton said.