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ByCatherineLucey The Associated Press CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA Hill- ary Clinton said Monday she does not need to apol- ogize for using a private email account and server while at the State Depart- ment because "what I did was allowed." In an interview with The Associated Press dur- ing a Labor Day campaign swing through Iowa, the front-runner for the Dem- ocratic presidential nom- ination also said the lin- gering questions about her email practices while serv- ing as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state have not damaged her campaign. "Not at all. It's a distrac- tion, certainly," Clinton said. "But it hasn't in any way affected the plan for our campaign, the efforts we're making to organize here in Iowa and elsewhere in the country. And I still feel very confident about the organization and the message that my campaign is putting out." Yet even in calling the inquiry into how she used email as the nation's top diplomat a distraction, Clinton played down how it has affected her person- ally as a candidate. "As the person who has been at the center of it, not very much," Clinton said. "I have worked really hard this summer, sticking to my game plan about how I wanted to sort of reintro- duce myself to the Ameri- can people." As she has often said in recent weeks, Clinton told AP it would have been a "better choice" for her to use separate email accounts for her personal and public business. "I've also tried to not only take responsibility, because it was my decision, but to be as transparent as possible," Clinton said. Part of that effort, Clin- ton said, is answering any questions about her email "in as many different set- tings as I can." She noted she has sought for nearly a year to testify before Con- gress about the issue, and that she is now slated to do so in October. The one-on-one inter- view with AP was the sec- ond for Clinton in the past four days. On Friday, she did not apologize for using a private email system when asked directly by NBC, "Are you sorry?" Asked Monday by the AP why she won't directly apologize, Clinton said: "What I did was al- lowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has con- firmed that. "I did not send or receive any information marked classified," Clinton said. "I take the responsibilities of handling classified materi- alsveryseriouslyanddidso." Clinton's efforts to ad- dress the email issue comes as her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, exits the summer surging in still- quite-early public opinion polls and drawing massive crowds to his rallies and events. Asked for an example of how she differs with Sand- ers on policy, Clinton de- murred. "I'm going to keep laying out what I would do as president, what I stand for. ... I'm very much look- ing forward to the debates that we're going to have and we'll have plenty of time to draw those contrasts." Last year, Clinton turned over roughly 55,000 pages of emails to the State De- partment that she sent and received using a home-brew email server set up at her home in suburban New York while serving as sec- retary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton has said she set up her own system instead of using a State Department account for the convenience of using a single hand-held email device. The State Department is currently reviewing and publicly releasing those emails, some showing that Clinton received messages that were later determined to contain classified infor- mation, including some that contained material regard- ing the production and dis- semination of U.S. intelli- gence. Clinton says no email apology: 'W ha t I di d wa s al lo we d' PRESIDENTIAL RACE CHARLIENEIBERGALL—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Monday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. By Ken Thomas The Associated Press PITTSBURGH Hearing chantsof"runJoe,run,"Vice PresidentJoeBidenmarched in Pittsburgh's annual La- bor Day parade on Monday as speculation swirled about a potential late entry into the Democratic presidential campaign. Thevicepresidentdonned a black-and-gold United Steelworkers union hat and told hundreds of union members that the gap be- tween the wealthy and poor was hurting the nation. "The tax code's not fair. It's simply not fair," Biden said in a city long associ- ated with organized labor. "The wealthy aren't paying their fair share. There used to be one America." Biden later walked along the city's downtown with a large contingent of steel workers, hearing encour- aging words along the pa- rade route. "Give it a go, Joe!" shouted one woman. Biden is seriously con- sidering a late entry into the 2016 Democratic pres- idential campaign. His en- try could jumble a Demo- cratic contest that has seen front-runner Hillary Clin- ton's lead diminish in early states against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an indepen- dent who describes himself as a democratic socialist. Underscoring the volatile nature of the race, an NBC News poll released Sunday showed Sanders gaining an advantage over Clinton in New Hampshire, a state where Bill and Hillary Clin- ton have maintained deep ties during their political careers. Biden, however, said last week he wasn't certain if he and his family had the "emotional energy" for an- other campaign. But the campaign was clearly on the minds of his audience. During a speech before a few hundred steel- workers, Biden said the me- dia liked to portray him as a populist. "They'll prob- ably say (I'm) competing with Bernie Sanders, who is doing a helluva job by the way." When one man shouted that Biden should run for president, the vice presi- dent responded, "You gotta talk to my wife about that. I gotta talk to my wife about that." His wife, Jill Biden, is said to share some of her husband's misgivings about whether the family should pursue another presidential bid following the death of their 46-year-old son, Beau Biden. POSSIBLE PRESIDENTIAL RUN 'G iv e it a g o, J oe ': C ro wd ch ee rs Bi de n KEITH SRAKOCIC — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Vice President Joe Biden, center, greets some of the crowd as he walks in the annual Labor Day parade on Monday in Pittsburgh. ANDREW HARNIK — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama speaks at the Greater Boston Labor Council Labor Day Breakfast, Monday in Boson. Obama will sign an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to offer their employees up to seven days of paid sick leave per year. By Josh Lederman The Associated Press BOSTON Courting unions on Labor Day, President Barack Obama denounced Republicans for a "constant attack on working Ameri- cans" and said he was us- ing his executive power to force federal contractors to give paid sick leave to their employees. Obama was met with re- sounding applause at a ma- jor union rally and break- fast in Boston on Monday when he said he had signed the executive order aboard Air Force One as he flew in to mark Labor Day. He said Republicans who claim the mantle of middle-class pro- tectors are talking big, but they"havetowalkthewalk." Obama said opponents of his economic policies "won't let facts or evidence get in their way." "You just wait, you look up at the sky and prosper- ity will come raining down on us from the top of what- ever high-rise in New York City," he said sarcastically. "But that's not how the economy works." He added that the GOP's mindset has been "wrecking the econ- omy for a long, long time." The Labor Day gesture to workers' groups came as Obama works to smooth over tensions with the la- bor movement over his trade agenda. Major unions are opposing Obama's push for sweeping new trade deals with Asia and Eu- rope, with some threaten- ing to work against Demo- crats who voted to support those talks in Congress. Unions have warned that the deals could lead to the widespread job elimina- tion. Obama has signed a law providing money to re- train workers if their jobs get shipped overseas. Under the executive or- der, employees working on federal contracts gain the right to a minimum of one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours they work. Stretched out over 12 months, that's up to seven days per year. The order will allow employ- ees to use the leave to care for sick relatives as well, and will affect contracts starting in 2017 — just as Obama leaves office. Business groups said Obama's order would make it harder for small busi- nesses to retain federal contractors and could hin- der economic growth. "Once again President Obama is using the fed- eral procurement system to do something it was never been designed to do: usurp the legislative au- thority of Congress to de- termine appropriate work- place policies," said Randy Johnson, senior vice presi- dent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The White House wouldn't specify the cost to federal contractors to implement the executive order. The Labor Depart- ment said any costs would be offset by savings that contractors would see as a result of lower attrition rates and increased worker loyalty, but produced noth- ing to back that up. Vice President Joe Biden echoed Obama's theme in a march with an influen- tial labor leader, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who introduced Biden in Pittsburgh as a "brother" and "a champion of work- ing men and working women." A few along the parade route chanted "run, Biden, run," in a reference to Biden's ongoing delib- erations about whether to run for president in 2016. In Boston, Obama was flanked by prominent Dem- ocratssuchasSen.Elizabeth Warren and a giant banner reading"Workers andCom- munity" in red, white and blue. Labor leaders Randi Weingarten and Mary Kay HenryjoinedObamaforthe flight on Air Force One. In the corridors of the hotel hostingthebreakfast,boxes of campaign signs could be spotted bearing the name of Democratic presiden- tial candidate Bernie Sand- ers, who opposes the trade deals. 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