Schmidt’s job, he said is “difficult” because he has to be “secretary of state” for Google. Assange said it was “sad” that Schmidt had to resort to insults in his interview with ABC News yesterday.

Aware of the arrival of Assange’s book, Schmidt adamantly denied his allegations in that interview.

“Julian is very paranoid about things. Google never collaborated with the NSA and in fact, we’ve fought very hard against what they did,” Schmidt said. “We have taken all of our data, all of our exchanges, and we fully encrypted them so no one can get them, especially the government.”

Assange said the clash of ideologies was “not a matter of personalities. At least, not until last night.”

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