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Colo. gov: Clinton would be treated differently if she were a man

Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado, says Hillary Clinton faces more attacks advertisements and criticisms as a woman
Colorado governor: If Hillary Clinton was a man, she would face less criticism 05:51

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper suggested Sunday that Hillary Clinton's email scandal would be treated differently if she were a man.

"Some people say, and you'd have to look at it, if she was a man all this stuff wouldn't be at the same level," the Democratic governor said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There's an awful lot of criticism--literally millions of dollars of criticism against her every week, over things that really aren't that, against a man, wouldn't be brought up like that."

"I think they've parsed this about as much as they can," he said of the email issue. "I mean, she was trying to protect family and friends from unwanted scrutiny -- she said it's a mistake, right? Let's move on."

Hickenlooper was speaking about the State Department audit report last week, which sharply criticized Clinton for her use of a private email server during her four years as Secretary of State. Asked whether that report involved an element of sexism, he said it didn't--but that other past secretaries of state weren't receiving the same kind of criticism Clinton is for her actions.

"It points out that previous secretaries of state had done roughly the same -- had used their own servers, like Colin Powell, and no one had come out officially at the time and said, you know, this is a bad precedent," he said. "Again, she's admitted she made a mistake. I don't understand, it's not like the end of the world. I understand it's been made a big deal because people have spent millions of dollars trying to blow it into this incredible flame."

He said presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump's "judgment" is far more problematic than Clinton's, especially because he refuses to admit his mistakes.

"Compare it to Donald Trump where he changes what he says every single day, he never says he's made a mistake," he said. "Whose judgment do you want to rely on?"

In regards to Democratic superdelegates--Hickenlooper is one from Colorado--he rejected the argument from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that Sanders should win superdelegates in the states where he won primaries or caucuses. Sanders won in Colorado, but Hickenlooper said he's still planning to vote for Clinton.

"I admire so many of the issues that Bernie has raised ... but I think that Hillary is more likely to, in an incremental kind of hard, problem-solving approach, is going to get results sooner, I think, than him and I think I should support who I think is going to do the best job," he continued.

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