In a funny twist, when I arrived, one of the first people I saw was Senator Chuck Schumer, my friend and former colleague. “Hillary!” he said. “How are you? I just had pneumonia!” At this point, the fact that I had pneumonia wasn’t public, so this was totally out of the blue. The difference between us was that Chuck didn’t have to go out in public as a candidate when he was under the weather. He told me he had followed his doctor’s orders and stayed home for a week. Looking back, I should have done the same. Instead, I ended up having to parade in front of the cameras after leaving my daughter’s apartment—where I had gone to rest—to reassure the world that I was fine.
Luckily, most of my memories of being in New York during the campaign were a lot better.
I raced all over the city for the New York primary, hitting all five boroughs. I played dominoes in Harlem, drank boba tea in Queens, spoke at historic Snug Harbor on Staten Island, ate cheesecake at Junior’s in Brooklyn, rode the subway in the Bronx (struggling with the MetroCard reader like a typical commuter), and had ice cream at a shop called Mikey Likes It on the Lower East Side. As I tucked into my ice cream, an English reporter who was part of the traveling press corps that day shouted, “How many calories are in that?” All of us, including the rest of the press, booed in response, me louder than anyone. In the end, we won the New York primary by 16 points.
I went on Saturday Night Live and taped that episode of Funny or Die’s Between Two Ferns, which was surely one of the more surreal experiences of my life. It’s an odd thing to be a politician on a comedy show. Your job isn’t to be funny—you’re not, especially compared with the actual comedians, so don’t even try. Your job is to be the straight guy. That’s pretty easy, especially for me, whose life is basically taking whatever’s thrown my way. The most important thing is to be game. Luckily, I’m game for a lot. SNL asked me to play a character named Val the Bartender, who would pour drinks for Kate McKinnon, who played me. “Would you sing ‘Lean On Me’ together?” they asked. I said yes, even though I have a terrible singing voice. (For a couple weeks after, people would shout, “Hey, Val!” at me on the trail.) On Between Two Ferns, when Zach Galifianakis asked me, “I’m going to sneak up on you in a gorilla mask, is that cool?” I said sure. Why not? You only live once.
I marched in the 2016 New York City Pride Parade. Back in the day, in 2000, I was the first First Lady in history to march in a Pride parade. This time we had a big contingent from Hillary for America marching together behind a “Love Trumps Hate” banner. The New York City crowds cheered for us with gusto.
Most importantly, Bill and I welcomed the arrival of our grandson, Aidan, on June 18, 2016, at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was a sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky—a prediction, perhaps, of his personality. He is the happiest little boy.
It’s hard to ask more of a city than that.
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There’s one more group of days I want to describe, because they’re unlike any other: debate prep.
It’s the debate prep team’s job to put me through my paces so I’m not hearing anything for the first time during the actual debate. My team, led by Ron Klain, Karen Dunn, and Jake, helped me prepare for all twelve debates. Ron is a lawyer and veteran political strategist who served in the Clinton and Obama White Houses. Karen, also a lawyer, worked for me in the Senate and later for President Obama. And Jake, who knew every word of every one of our policies, was a champion debater in college and grad school. All three had helped prepare President Obama for his debates as well. They worked with two indefatigable campaign staffers, Sara Solow and Kristina Costa, to produce thick briefing binders for me, covering hundreds of topics. As a lifelong fan of school supplies, I fussed over the tabs and dividers and armed myself with a bouquet of highlighters in every color. I spent evenings studying in hotel rooms across America and at my kitchen table. By the end, I knew my opponents’ positions inside and out—in some cases, better than they did.
We held most of our debate prep sessions at the Doral Arrowwood, a hotel near my home in Westchester County. We were joined by more people from my team: campaign consultants Joel Benenson, Mandy Grunwald, and Jim Margolis; Tony Carrk, our head of research and an Obama debate-prep veteran; and Bob Barnett, who had helped prepare Democratic candidates for debates since Walter Mondale. We would gather at noon and work late into the evening. We’d practice specific exchanges, fine-tune answers, and try to plan out dramatic “moments” that would help shape the coverage of the debate, although often the most important clashes are the hardest to predict. The hotel would supply us with a smorgasbord that they’d replenish throughout the day—sandwiches, salads, fruit, bagels, and chicken soup. They also had a freezer full of Oreo ice cream bars that we kept emptying and they kept refilling. Anytime you looked around the room, you’d see someone holding one or the stick and wrapper on the table in front of them.
Debate prep helped me get ready emotionally for some of the most consequential moments of the campaign. A presidential debate is theater. It’s a boxing match. It’s high-stakes surgery. Pick your metaphor. One wrong move—one roll of the eyes or slip of the tongue—can spell defeat. In debate prep, I practiced keeping my cool while my staff fired hard questions at me. They’d misrepresent my record. They’d impugn my character. Sometimes I’d snap back and feel better for getting it off my chest. I’d think to myself, “Now that I’ve done that here, I don’t have to do it on live TV.” It worked.
I remember becoming frustrated with my team’s advice at one point. I couldn’t quite understand how they were recommending I handle a potentially contentious exchange with Bernie. Finally, I said to Jake, who had been peppering me with questions and grimacing at my answers, “Just show me! You do it!” So he became me, and I took on the role of attack dog against myself. It was a truly surreal experience. Finally, he mock-pleaded for mercy: “You’re right, you’re right, do it your way.”
Then there was Philippe-as-Trump. That was a sight to see. The first time I walked into the room for a prep session with him, he was already at the podium, staring at the distant wall and refusing to make eye contact with me. “Oh God, he’s ready to be obnoxious,” I said. None of us had any idea.
Philippe took his character study very seriously, including the physicality. Trump looms and lurks on a debate stage, so Philippe did too, always hanging out on the edge of my peripheral vision. He wore a suit like Trump’s (a little baggy), a tie like Trump’s (way too long), and actual Trump-brand cuff links and a Trump-brand watch he found on eBay. He wore three-and-a-half-inch shoe heighteners, flailed his arms like Trump, shrugged and mugged like Trump. I didn’t know whether to applaud or fire him.
The weeks that Philippe spent studying tapes of Trump in the Republican debates paid off. He knew how Trump’s mind worked: how a question about Social Security would take Trump on a twisted journey into government waste, undocumented immigrants, and terrorism, always terrorism. He would say the craziest things—which I know Philippe is capable of doing all on his own, but he made clear to us from that first day that 90 percent of what he’d say was straight from the horse’s mouth, with the remaining 10 percent being his best guess as to what Trump would say. I never knew which was which. In the end, Trump hardly said a thing in any of the three debates that I was hearing for the first time.
It quickly became evident that normal debate prep wouldn’t work this time. Trump wouldn’t answer any question directly. He was rarely linear in his thinking or speaking. He digressed into nonsense and then digressed even more. There was no point in refuting his arguments like it was a normal debate—it was almost impossible to identify what his arguments even were, especially since they changed minute to minute. Winning, we realized, would mean hitting hard (since he couldn’t bear it), staying cool (since he often resorted to viciousness when cornered), throwing his own words back at him (since he couldn’t stand hearing them), and making my own arguments with clarity and preci
sion (since he couldn’t do the same for himself).
At our last practice before the first debate, I walked in to find Philippe-as-Trump and Ron-as-me practicing the opening handshake. They were half joking, but Philippe had raised the issue that, unlike two men debating who just meet in the middle and shake hands, there was a question of whether Trump would try to hug or—dare I say it—kiss me. Not out of affinity or chivalry, but rather to create a moment where he would tower over me, making it clear he was a guy and I was a girl. Fair enough, I said, let’s practice. Philippe came at me with his arms outstretched. I tried to stiff-arm him and get away. It ended with him literally chasing me across the room, putting me in a bear hug, and kissing the back of my head. What can I say? We were committed. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth pulling up on YouTube.
It stopped being funny when we saw the Access Hollywood tape. I was not going to shake that man’s hand. When we came onstage in the actual debate, I think my body language made it pretty clear he should stay away. And he did. But throughout that debate, which was town-hall style—meaning we weren’t confined to standing at podiums and could walk around the stage—Trump stalked and lurked. Philippe had done the same thing during prep.
Several times a session—and we had twenty-one of them in the general—just as he had warned, Philippe-as-Trump would say something so outlandish, none of us could quite believe it. Then he’d tell us it was almost verbatim from a Trump rally, interview, or primary debate. One day Philippe-as-Trump started complaining about how the “Mike guy” screwed up and the “Mike guy” shouldn’t get paid. We were totally confused but kept going. When the ninety-minute session was over, I asked, “Who is Mike?” It turns out he was saying “mic guy.” Philippe explained that, on two occasions, Trump had blamed the microphone for bad audio and said the contractor shouldn’t get paid. After his dismal performance in the first debate, Trump really did say it was because his mic had been sabotaged. Philippe had called it.
In the end, thanks to our practice sessions, I felt that deep sense of confidence that comes with rigorous preparation. Like accepting the nomination, these debates were a first for me. The pressure you feel when you’re about to walk onstage is almost unbearable—almost, but not quite. You bear it by working hard to get ready. You bear it by having good people by your side. You bear it by not just hoping but knowing you can handle a lot, because you already have.
At least, that’s what always worked for me.
* * *
* * *
No matter how I spent the day or where in the country I happened to be, I always called Bill before falling asleep. We’d catch each other up on the latest news about the election or what was happening with our family and friends. Sometimes we vented frustrations about how the campaign was going. Then we’d take a moment to figure out when we’d see each other next, and say good night. I’d fall asleep feeling calmer and wake up in the morning with new energy and a list of new ideas to pursue. Even on the hardest days, those conversations kept me grounded and at peace.
It is hard to be a woman.
You must think like a man,
Act like a lady,
Look like a young girl,
And work like a horse.
—A sign that hangs in my house
Sisterhood
Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.
—Nora Ephron
On Being a Woman in Politics
In these pages, I put to paper years’ worth of frustration about the tightrope that I and other women have had to walk in order to participate in American politics. I have a lot to say—I could fill an entire book—and not all of it is upbeat or even-tempered. But there is joy and pride to be found in this chapter, too. My experiences as a woman in politics have been complex and disappointing at times, but ultimately rewarding beyond measure.
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In politics, the personal narrative is vital.
My husband had a powerful story to tell: he lived for a while on a farm with no indoor plumbing, his father died before he was born, he stopped his stepfather from beating his mother, he became the first in his family to go to college.
Barack Obama had a powerful story to tell: he was raised by his teenage mom and grandparents, his father was Kenyan, he spent part of his childhood living in Indonesia and grew up to become a community organizer and law professor whose story could have been written only in America.
Few people would say that my story was quite so dazzling.
I grew up in a white middle-class family in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago. My dad served during World War II and left every morning for his small business in the city along with all the other fathers in our neighborhood heading to their jobs. My mom stayed at home to take care of my brothers, Hugh and Tony, and me, like all the mothers in our neighborhood. And my life looked like the lives of all the girls I knew. We attended excellent public or parochial schools, where first-rate teachers had high expectations for us. I went to our local Methodist church for Sunday services and youth activities all week long. I was a Brownie, then a Girl Scout. I got my first summer job when I was thirteen, working at a park three mornings a week. My hangouts were everyone’s hangouts: the public library, the local movie theater, swimming pools, skating rinks. My family watched TV together at night. When the Beatles performed for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, my friends and I gathered together around the screen, alternately silently captivated and shrieking with glee.
It’s a story that many would consider perfectly ordinary. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my childhood, and every year that passes, I appreciate more how hard my parents worked to give it to me. But my story—or at least how I’ve always told it—was never the kind of narrative that made everyone sit up and take notice. We yearn for that showstopping tale—that one-sentence pitch that captures something magical about America; that hooks you and won’t let go. Mine wasn’t it.
Yet there is another story of my life; one that I believe is as inspiring as any other. I wish I had claimed it more publicly and told it more proudly. It’s the story of a revolution.
I was born right when everything was changing for women. Families were changing. Jobs were changing. Laws were changing. Views about women that had governed our lives for millennia were changing—finally! I came along at just the right moment, like a surfer catching the perfect wave. Everything I am, everything I’ve done, so much of what I stand for flows from that happy accident of fate.
The fact that the women’s movement happened alongside the civil rights movement—indeed, was entwined with it in many ways, compelling America to reckon with entrenched notions of human value and opening doors of opportunity that had previously been sealed shut to millions—made it that much more thrilling and meaningful.
I know that for a lot of people, including a lot of women, the movement for women’s equality exists largely in the past. They’re wrong about that. It’s still happening, still as urgent and vital as ever.
And it was and is the story of my life—mine and millions of other women’s. We share it. We wrote it together. We’re still writing it. And even though this sounds like bragging and bragging isn’t something women are supposed to do, I haven’t just been a participant in this revolution. I’ve helped lead it.
I was one of just 27 women out of 235 students in my class at Yale Law School. The first woman partner at the oldest law firm in Arkansas. The first woman to chair the national board of the Legal Services Corporation. The person who declared on the world stage that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” The first First Lady to be elected to public office. The first woman Senator from New York. In fact, for a few weeks, I was both. By a quirk of the calendar, I was sworn in before Bill left office.
And I was the first woman to be nominated for President by a major political party and win the national popular vote.
I never figured out how to tell this story right.
Partly that’s because I’m not great at talking about myself. Also, I didn’t want people to see me as the “woman candidate,” which I find limiting, but rather as the best candidate whose experience as a woman in a male-dominated culture made her sharper, tougher, and more competent. That’s a hard distinction to draw, and I wasn’t confident that I had the dexterity to pull it off.
But the biggest reason I shied away from embracing this narrative is that storytelling requires a receptive audience, and I’ve never felt like the American electorate was receptive to this one. I wish so badly we were a country where a candidate who said, “My story is the story of a life shaped by and devoted to the movement for women’s liberation” would be cheered, not jeered. But that’s not who we are. Not yet.
Maybe it’s because we take this story for granted—yeah, yeah, the women’s movement happened, why are we still talking about it? Maybe it’s too female. Maybe it’s at once too big (a sweeping historical shift) and too small (just another middle-class Midwestern girl finding her way in the world).
But I do think it’s special.
It’s not a typical political narrative, but it’s mine.
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This has to be said: sexism and misogyny played a role in the 2016 presidential election. Exhibit A is that the flagrantly sexist candidate won. A whole lot of people listened to the tape of him bragging about sexually assaulting women, shrugged, and said, “He still gets my vote.”
What Happened Page 11