When asked directly about the recent debt debate, Clinton referred to her recent trip to Hong Kong, where she assured world leaders that the United States always eventually deal with its internal challenges — after exhausting all other options. But she said the episode had a negative effect on U.S. international leadership.

“It does cast a pall over our ability to project the kind of security interests that are in America’s interests,” she said. “This is not about the Defense Department or the State Department or USAID. This is about the United States of America. And we need to have a responsible conversation about how we are going to prepare ourselves for the future.”…

“If you go out to the American public and you say ‘what’s the easiest thing to cut?’ it’s always foreign aid,” Clinton said. “We understand that we have a case to make and there is a new way of looking at it.”