Hillary Clinton ripped into Margaret Thatcher when asked why the British prime minister failed to make the cut in her book of Gutsy Women.

Emma Barnett with BBC Radio 5 told the former secretary of state she thought the decision to leave out Thatcher was "quite striking," saying she thought Thatcher fits the description of "gutsy women, even if you didn't like her."

"She doesn't fit the other part of the definition in our opinion, which really is knocking down other barriers for others and trying to make a positive difference," Clinton responded. The 2016 presidential candidate praised Thatcher as "strong" and "clever" but reiterated there were no "apparent" positive differences or changes the prime minister had effected for women.

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton haven’t included Margaret Thatcher in their book of “gutsy” women@HillaryClinton tells @EmmaBarnett that Thatcher didn’t try to “make a positive difference” for other women



🎧Full interview: https://t.co/VqEUpMJ4jd#EmmaBarnettGetsAnswers pic.twitter.com/GDyYigC2pG — BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) November 12, 2019



Clinton also slammed the British press in the interview for racism and sexism in their treatment of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. "I think absolutely there's a racist and a sexist element to what's going on here," she said. "To think that some of your, what we would call mainstream media, actually allowed that to be printed in their pages, or amplified, was heartbreaking and wrong." The 72-year-old said she wanted to "hug" the Duchess of Sussex and tell her to "hang in there."

Thatcher died in 2013 at the age of 87. She was known for her fierce advocacy of free-market policy and an iron-willed political style that made her prime minister throughout the 1980s.