Hillary Clinton Likens Donald Trump to ‘a Political Arsonist’ (Video)

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton defended herself against charges of secrecy that have dogged her presidential campaign, pushed back on Bernie Sanders’ surging campaign, and discussed those pesky quarter-million-dollar speeches in a panoramic interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Clinton took issue with the tone of the campaign of Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, and especially the incidents of violence that have occurred at several recent Trump campaign events.

“When you — as I’ve said before about Donald Trump’s appearances, his rhetoric, his demagoguery — when you incite violence, you are acting like a political arsonist,” Clinton told Todd on Sunday.

“And I want people to understand there’s a very different way of working towards our common ground that we have to seek and find in order to move our country forward,,” she said. “We may have differences, of course we do. But we don’t condone violence. We don’t say we’ll pay the legal fees of people who punch other Americans, who are protesting, attending an event. That is just not appropriate behavior when you’re running for president.”

Clinton responded to a video clip in which Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, chided her for being paid $250,000 per speech. “It must be a speech written in Shakespearean prose,” Sanders sad. “And if it is such an unbelievably great speech, I think the Secretary should share that speech with rest of us.”

“I guess it’s a backhanded compliment, comparing you to William Shakespeare,” moderator Todd said. “But let me ask you this, you have said you would release the transcripts of these speeches when all of the other candidates have done. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in the Democratic race, and he says he’s released all of his transcripts because he didn’t give any of these paid speeches. What say you?”

Clinton said Sanders and his campaign were “undermining or, again, misrepresenting my record when it comes to being tough on Wall Street.” She added, “I’m the only candidate in the Democratic primary, or actually on either side, who Wall Street financiers and hedge fund managers are actually running ads against. So I find this, again, a kind of, you know, circuitous way to raise questions about my record.”

Clinton also defended her record and positions on financial issues. “I don’t just talk about breaking up the banks, because we now have the authority, thanks to President Obama, under Dodd-Frank,” she said. “I talk about taking the other risks on, like the hedge funds and everybody else.”

You can see a video of Clinton’s full interview above. “Meet the Press” airs Sundays on NBC.