Hillary Clinton confidante Neera Tanden says she doesn’t expect Clinton to run for New York mayor — or anything else, ever again.
“I think she’s going to figure out ways to help kids and families. That’s been what she’s been focused on her whole life, and a lot of issues that are affecting them, over the next couple of years,” Tanden told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday.
“But I don’t expect her to ever run for any elected office again,” she said.
Tanden, a close Clinton ally and the head of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, was shooting down reports of chatter in New York political circles that Clinton could run against incumbent Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“I don’t expect her to run for this and I don’t expect her to run for other office,” Tanden said. “I think her job is to — what she’s thinking about right now is how to help those kids and families as she has her whole life.”
If Clinton were to run — and win — it would put her on another collision course with President-Elect Donald Trump, who has been shaping his government from Fifth Avenue’s Trump Tower.
Clinton has largely remained out of the public eye since losing a bitterly fought campaign against the former reality star and businessman in the November vote.
She has given few clues to what her next role will be, leaving a void in which speculation has run rife.
A New York challenge would see her take on fellow Democrat de Blasio, whose popularity has plummeted since he took over from Michael Bloomberg in 2014. The next mayoral election is in November.
In an opinion piece for CNN, Errol Louis, host of “Inside City Hall,” said it was safe to assume that “nobody in her right mind — certainly, nobody as familiar with the workings of government and politics as Clinton — would lightly take on the headaches of the nation’s largest city for such nakedly political reasons.”
As someone who was so close to the top job in the White House, it could be considered a step down, or at least a complex, high-profile role with many challenges and fewer rewards.
“The mayor attempting to steer this vast enterprise is only one player in a local government with an $82 billion budget and unique, frustrating complexities,” Louis wrote.
Clinton was most recently seen on Sunday at the final performance of the “The Color Purple,” on Broadway with her husband, Bill, and daughter, Chelsea.
Video posted to social media showed the audience standing and cheering after actress Patrice Covington was to said to have pointedly referred to the family during the show’s farewell speech.
