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| - In November 2024, soon after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential election, a quote attributed to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton circulated online.
According to one X post (archived), Clinton said in 1994: "We could use someone like Donald Trump as President; someone who could not be bought or changed."
(X user @imUrB00gieman)
However, the former Democratic presidential nominee did not say the words quoted above in 1994, nor at any other time. Variations of it have been on the internet since at least 2016, when Snopes reported on a satire website falsely claiming that Clinton said she wanted to see people like Trump run for office. However, no reliable news sources nor any of Clinton's speeches have included the quote. As such, we find that this claim originated as satire.
The Clinton Presidential Library archives contained no evidence that Clinton had ever made such a statement about Trump while she was first lady in 1994.
Searching for variations of the quote on Google also revealed that no reliable news sources had confirmed that she said such a thing. It had popped up on various social media sites for several years, but with no links to evidence of her having said it.
In 2016, Snopes first reported a similar fake quote Clinton allegedly said in 2013: "I Would Like to See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They're Honest And Can't Be Bought." The statement first emerged on The Rightists, a now-defunct website that posted a mixture of fake and real news.
Per previous Snopes reporting, The Rightists used an unverified speech that Clinton reportedly made at a private Goldman Sachs event in 2013 and amended quotes from it. Per NPR, Clinton refused to verify whether the 2013 speech at Goldman Sachs was real. The speech, which was spread by WikiLeaks, stated (emphasis, ours):
MALE ATTENDEE: My question is, as entrepreneurs, we risk a lot. And Mike Bloomberg had 30 billion other reasons than to take office. Do we need a wholesale change in Washington that has more to do with people that don't need the job than have the job?
SECRETARY CLINTON: That's a really interesting question. You know, I would like to see more successful business people run for office. I really would like to see that because I do think, you know, you don't have to have 30 billion, but you have a certain level of freedom. And there's that memorable phrase from a former member of the Senate: You can be maybe rented but never bought.
And I think it's important to have people with those experiences. And especially now, because many of you in this room are on the cutting edge of technology or health care or some other segment of the economy, so you are people who look over the horizon. And coming into public life and bringing that perspective as well as the success and the insulation that success gives you could really help in a lot of our political situations right now.
In the article, The Rightists amended a few quotes from the above speech to make it seem as if Clinton was referring to Trump (emphasis, ours):
And then she just had to go on. "In fact, when you say businessmen and women, I can't help but think of a particular one that I would just love to see running for the presidency at some point in the future," Clinton added. "I don't know what it is exactly about him, I can't quite put my finger on it, but my instinct is almost never wrong. And it's telling me that Donald Trump would be very successful if he were to venture into politics in the future."
Asked to elaborate on her statement, the former Secretary of State argued that she thinks that businessmen "can't be bought" and that they're "very honest." "And I think that goes especially for Donald Trump, whose successful projects and business ventures have made him synonymous with big business and, more importantly, creating thousands of jobs. I also think he understands the philanthropic and charitable side of things quite well, which is a crucial skill for any politician," she praised her current counter-candidate.
In sum, the above emphasized quotes did not appear in the 2013 unverified Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs speech, nor did they appear during Clinton's term as first lady in 1994. Snopes previously debunked variations of this statement in 2016 and in July 2024.
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