Did Hillary Clinton say in 2013 that she "would like to see people like Donald Trump run for office"? No, that's not true: In the extensive publicly accessible record of Clinton statements, Lead Stories found only that she said in 2013 that she would like to see business owners running for office. There is no evidence Clinton specifically said she would like to see Trump run for office.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) where it was posted on March 7, 2024. It read:
Hillary Clinton In 2013. "I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office: They're Honest And Can't Be Bought."
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Mar 11 14:19:20 2024 UTC)
The post did not mention when or where Clinton purportedly made the remark, nor did the post provide any attribution or other sourcing.
A search of the Google News index of thousands of information sources, using "Hillary Clinton AND 'I would like to see people like Donald Trump run for office'" did not yield any results that would back up the Facebook claim (archived here).
In 2013, Clinton was speaking with Lloyd Blankfein, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, where she made a similar comment to the one seen in the claim. Clinton spoke about how she would like to see more business people running for office:
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.
Here is the 2016 NPR article (archived here) where the quote was found. Clinton did not mention Trump.
Lead Stories has contacted the Clinton Foundation and will update this article when a relevant response is received.
Other Lead Stories articles on claims concerning Hillary Clinton are here. Other Lead Stories articles on claims concerning Donald Trump are here.
The claim has previously been debunked by multiple fact checking organizations, including by Snopes in 2016, by FactCheck.org in 2018 and by Reuters in 2020.
