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Hillary Clinton lambasted the Trump administration over its Signal chat leak and repeatedly called its policies "dumb" in a blistering essay published Friday in the New York Times.
The former Democratic presidential candidate and secretary of state assailed President Donald Trump and his team as careless and stupid over its short tenure in office so far.
"It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws," Clinton wrote. "But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb."
Clinton posted on X earlier this week, "You have got to be kidding me," in response to the news from The Atlantic that editor Jeffrey Goldberg had been accidentally included on a group Trump administration chat about attacking Yemen. Clinton's use of a private email server at the State Department and accusations she mishandled classified information dogged her unsuccessful 2016 presidential camapign.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during an unveiling of her portrait at the State Department on September 26, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Secretary Clinton joined her predecessors to have their portraits hung at the seventh floor of the State Department. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) (Fox News Digital)
ATLANTIC JOURNALIST AT CENTER OF LEAK STORY FACES FURY FROM TRUMP, TOP OFFICIALS
Clinton boasted in the Times essay that she employed "smart" power as the first secretary of state under President Barack Obama.
"The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless," Clinton wrote.
Among Clinton's complaints were the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), closing embassies and consulates, and layoffs within the government hitting intelligence agencies.
Clinton hammered away at the theme that Trump's team was unintelligent, calling various Trump administration moves "not smart," "dumb power," "dumb," and "dumb and dangerous."
She also contrasted the Trump administration's government trimming initiative, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) with her husband's work in the 1990s.
SENATE ARMED SERVICES LEADERS ASK PENTAGON WATCHDOG TO PROBE LEAKED SIGNAL CHAT
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during their first debate of the 2016 election cycle. Clinton assailed Trump's team as "dumb" in a New York Times essay on Friday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"During the Clinton administration, my husband’s Reinventing Government initiative, led by Vice President Al Gore, worked with Congress to thoughtfully streamline bureaucracy, modernize the work force and save billions of dollars. In many ways it was the opposite of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach. Today they are not reinventing government; they’re wrecking it," she wrote.
Clinton's attacks on Trump come at the end of a week dominated by the Signal chat leak news.
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The Atlantic has posted the private messages which it says show a severe national security breach, while Trump Cabinet members have maintained no classified material was discussed in the forum.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
David Rutz is a senior editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @davidrutz.
