Story highlights
Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien shouted questions at Hillary Clinton during a town hall
"You are very rude and I'm not ever ever going to call on you," Clinton said
Hillary Clinton bluntly addressed a Republican state representative heckling her about Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual impropriety on Sunday in New Hampshire, telling the woman she was “very rude.”
When Clinton began taking questions at a Derry town hall, Katherine Prudhomme O’Brien, a GOP state representative from Rockingham, stood up feet from Clinton and began shouting. After Clinton dispatched the protestor once, O’Brien tried again during another lull in the program.
“You are very rude, and I’m not ever going to call on you,” Clinton said forcefully, looking directly at the woman. “Thank you.”
O’Brien’s shouts were inaudible to most in the audience because a chorus of Clinton supporters repeatedly booed her, but after the event, the lawmaker said she was trying to ask the 2016 candidate about her husband’s sexual impropriety decades ago.
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“I asked her how in the world she can say that Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey are lying when she has no idea who Juanita Broaddrick is,” O’Brien said. “She told me this summer she doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t want to know who she is. How can she assess that they are lying, which she told someone last month?”
Clinton rolled out a plan to address campaign sexual assault in 2015, telling an audience in Iowa that rape victims “have the right to be believed.”
“Today I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault,” Clinton said. “Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed and we’re with you.”
But some, especially Republicans who are bothered by Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual impropriety, saw the comment as hypocritical.
“She says that rape victims should be believed,” O’Brien said. “I agree with her, that is true, they should be believed and we should assess what they are saying, she doesn’t even what to access it.”
This is not the first time Clinton has been directly questioned like this, but the former secretary of state has never responded so forcefully to the questions.
A woman asked her last month about Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones, all woman who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety.
“I would say that everyone should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence,” Clinton said calmly before moving onto other questions.
With Bill Clinton set to make his first solo-appearance on the campaign trail on Monday in New Hampshire, some Republicans have sought to make his history an issue.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump said last week that Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones and the “many” other women who have accused Bill Clinton of having affairs were “fair game” on the campaign trail.
He has since revisited the line repeatedly in interviews and on the stump.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s top Democratic rival in the nomination fight, said Sunday on CNN that he would not be bringing up Bill Clinton’s sexual history.
“No, I think we’ve got more important things to worry about in this country than Bill Clinton’s sex life,” Sanders said.
