"Once I’m doing the job, we’ll be back to people viewing me as the person doing the job instead of the person seeking the job," Hillary Clinton said. | AP Clinton: All the 'discredited negativity' comes out when I run

Hillary Clinton can't directly place her finger on what accounts for high levels of partisan discontent in the United States, particularly directed toward her when she runs for public office.

But the former secretary of state remarked in an interview published Monday that it is "always amusing to me" to have high approval ratings once she is on the job despite being one of the most polarizing candidates in recent political memory, other than presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.


"I think there are a number of factors. Again, I’m not sure I totally understand it all. The media environment — particularly the social media environment — drives negativity. It’s what captures eyeballs. It’s what gets people to tune in or log on. It is just human nature," Clinton told Vox's Ezra Klein, adding that there is a "really rich environment for that to capture people’s minds and change their attitudes."

The presumptive Democratic nominee remarked upon "a lot of behavioral science that if you attack someone endlessly — even if none of what you say is true — the very fact of attacking that person raises doubts and creates a negative perspective."

"As someone Exhibit A on that — since it has been a long time that I’ve been in that position — I get that. I get it," Clinton said. "And it’s always amusing to me that when I have a job, I have really high approval ratings; when I’m actually doing the work, I get reelected with 67 percent of the vote running for reelection in the Senate. When I’m secretary of state, I have [a] 66 percent approval rating."

Klein did not appear convinced, writing in his analysis that other politicians like Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have strengthened their poll numbers under similar circumstances.

The former secretary of state continued, commenting that whenever she runs for a job, "all of the discredited negativity comes out again, and all of these arguments and attacks start up. So it seems to be part of the political climate now that is just going to have to be dealt with."

"But I am really confident that I can break through that and I can continue to build an electoral victory in November. And then once I’m doing the job, we’ll be back to people viewing me as the person doing the job instead of the person seeking the job," Clinton said. "Look, I’m not making any special plea, because it’s just reality. But every recent study has shown that if you take all of the media and all of the Republicans and all of the independent expenditures, tens of millions of dollars of negative attacks have been run against me. And that’s just something I’ve learned to live with, and I don’t pay a lot of attention to it anymore."