Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol on Tuesday defended his suggestion that Dick Cheney should run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, arguing that the former vice president was just an "everyday American."
During a Sunday panel discussion on ABC, host George Stephanopolous had asked guests to name “the most promising Republican candidate not in the race yet."
“If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don’t we get to nominate Dick Cheney?" Kristol asked as other panelists laughed. "I mean, he has a much… he has a much better record."
On Tuesday, Newsmax host Steve Malzberg asked Kristol if Cheney could defeat Clinton in a 2016 race.
"I don't know, the media has done such a job on him and he didn't really defend himself there in the Bush administration," Kristol lamented. "He might be behind a little bit."
"But you know, he could get in his van and have the secret service drive him around Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa, go to Chipotle, be a regular, everyday American," he added, mocking Clinton's van tour to Iowa. "The great irony is that Dick Cheney is an everyday American."
"Dick Cheney drives his granddaughter to rodeo competitions in Wyoming, and he drives himself in a van that's got like one of those horse things hooked up in the back for the rodeo horse."
"And the Hillary thing, can that possibly work? People are going to look at that and say, she's just mixing and mingling with the peasants out there, that just shows how much in touch she is with the rest of us?" Kristol wondered. "It's just kind of weird. She goes into some Chipotle with her aide and they have sunglasses on and they just buy their burrito and don't talk to anyone."
Watch the video below from Newsmax, broadcast April 14, 2015.
