WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 14: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the American Jewish Committee Global Forum on May 14, 2014 in Washington, DC. The AJC held the form to discuss topics related to the Jewish communities all around the world. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Former secretary of state and potential 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ridiculed Matt Drudge and Karl Rove as “gamers” simply looking to “divert attention” from real issues facing Americans. (credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — Former secretary of state and potential 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ridiculed Matt Drudge and Karl Rove as “gamers” simply looking to “divert attention” from real issues facing Americans.

In an interview with National Public Radio, Clinton responded to recent comments from the Drudge Report namesake and Karl Rove, dismissing claims that she may have posed with a walker on the cover of People magazine.

NPR host Terry Gross posed the question: “So I have to ask you about the kerfuffle over the People magazine cover that you were on. You were standing with your hands resting on the back of a chair, apparently a patio chair. But the photo was cropped, so all we saw of the chair was the bar across the top of the chair. And your good friend, Matt Drudge, tweeted, is Clinton holding a walker? Now, you know, obviously it wasn’t a walker but – and he didn’t lie. He didn’t say you were holding a walker. He just asked a question in the tweet. Is that a technique that you’ve become used to, like…”

Clinton responded: “They are trying constantly to, you know, raise false canards, you know, plant, you know, false information, and that’s what they do.”

“Yeah, Karl Rove tried that with my health and got totally, you know, shot down. I am so used to these people. They’re like a bunch of, you know, gamers,” said Clinton.

Clinton added that she believes Rove and Drudge pose such questions simply to avoid a “real debate” of important issues affecting the American people, saying it’s business-as-usual for conservatives to attack her on matters that are “totally off subject.”

“They don’t want to have a real debate about what the tax policy of this country should be. They don’t want to have a real debate about how we begin growing the economy again and putting more people to work. They don’t want to have a real debate about climate change and clean energy. They want people to get diverted and totally off subject, and that is their modus operandi.”

She continued her criticism: “But I have to say, Terry, that if that’s the best they have to offer, let them do it because that is not the debate that I think the American people want to have. And, you know, there’s a difference between fair game and playing games. And it is, unfortunately, too common in today’s political environment that people want to play games that divert attention from the real issues that affect our country and its future.”

Clinton is currently on a nationwide book tour for her new memoir, “Hard Choices.”

— Benjamin Fearnow