If you happened to be up early enough yesterday to watch CBS Sunday Morning, there was quite a bit of news on the impending battery Florida would be taking from Hurricane Irma and the usual human-interest stories that the CBS show is best known for.
But sandwiched between the aforementioned coverage was an in-depth interview with former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s soon to set off on a nationwide tour, promoting her new book, What Happened, out tomorrow. What she said might surprise you. Below, find some of the most important takeaways from her sit-down with Jane Pauley.
-Clinton told Pauley she had no idea what the outcome would be on Election Day 2016. She said she laid down on a bed as the results started coming in, but as midnight struck, she realized she had lost.
-She first called Trump to concede, then President Obama. “I felt like I’d let everybody down,” she told Pauley.
-She hadn’t written a concession speech because she had been so sure that she was going to win that she’d instead written a victory speech.
-After losing, she and former president Clinton returned to Chappaqua, New York, where Clinton said she began doing everything except thinking about politics—including “alternate nostril-breathing” yoga.
-Clinton talks about going to the inauguration—something defeated candidates don’t usually do, but because she was a former first lady, she was required to by tradition. She referred to Trump’s inauguration speech as a “cry from the white nationalist gut.”
-Assuming she would win the presidency, Clinton bought the house next door to her and Bill’s in Chappaqua in order to accommodate staff. Instead, she ended up writing What Happened at the empty house’s dining room table.
-Clinton feels that Trump tapped into a “nostalgia” that helped rein in “millions of white people.”
-She admits that using “personal email” was her biggest mistake, and that the discovery of additional emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer “stopped [her] momentum.” She blames former FBI Director James Comey for costing her the election.
-She also blames fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders for allowing Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” meme to survive as long as it has.
-“Is your political career over?” asked Pauley, to which Clinton responded, “Yes, as an active politician.” She says she’s done with “being a candidate,” but not with “politics,” as Clinton says she believes “our country’s future is at stake.”
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