Hillary Clinton says Republicans ‘play to destroy’

Hillary Clinton said she “could not understand” how Republicans got away with their negative attacks on her, and that they “play to destroy.”

In a Wednesday night CNN town-hall meeting for the two Democratic presidential hopefuls, a voter asked how Mrs. Clinton was able to stand up to GOP criticism.

“I can laugh up here but it’s not easy. It’s a brutal experience and when it first started happening to me, back in the early ’90s when I was working on health care, I was unrecognizable to myself, what talk radio was saying, what Republican members of Congress and their allies were saying. I was just stunned. I could not understand how they got away with it. I have had to learn to take criticism seriously but not personally,” Mrs. Clinton told the Derry, New Hampshire, audience.

“Now that I’ve been through this for so many years, my understanding of the political tactics that the other side uses is pretty well versed,” she added. “They play to keep, they play to destroy, they are constantly doing whatever they can to win and they have a history now, going back 35, 36 years of going after people who they believe they can’t otherwise stop unless they engage in those negative attacks.”

Mrs. Clinton promised voters she can whether the onslaught of negative advertisements being funded by GOP hedge-fund managers and operatives in the upcoming presidential election.

“I’m still standing and I will be standing,” she said.