Hillary Clinton’s camp sought to ‘maximize’ Trump

Hillary Clinton’s campaign held a strategy session on how to build up Donald Trump when he was a reality TV star hurling insults at rival Republicans, according to a new campaign book.

The agenda for a Clinton campaign meeting early in the primaries sent out by campaign manager Robby Mook was titled: ”How do we maximize Trump?’ according to a new book by New York Times reporter Amy Chozick, who spent years covering Clinton’s two campaign.

 It was a strategy borne of the belief that Trump would torch fellow Republicans, then be easier to beat than more traditional candidates like Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, or Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

‘They were never going to let me be president’ Hillary Clinton said upon being told of her defeat, according to a new book

That was one of several assumptions that ultimately proved false that are catalogued in Chozick’s book, ‘Chasing Hillary.’

Vice President Joe Biden, who had a fundraising network and Pennsylvania roots that helped connect him to some of the voters Clinton once ham handedly mocked as ‘deplorables,’ confided he stayed out of the race partly out of concern to what Clinton’s vaunted network would do to him.

‘Biden had confided (off the record) to the White House press corps that he wanted to run, but he added something like ‘You guys don’t understand these people. The Clintons will try to destroy me.,” Chozick writes, the Daily Beast reported.

Hillary Clinton 's campaign held a strategy session on how to build up Donald Trump when he was a reality TV star hurling insults at rival Republicans, according to a new campaign book

Hillary Clinton ‘s campaign held a strategy session on how to build up Donald Trump when he was a reality TV star hurling insults at rival Republicans, according to a new campaign book

The Clintons at first thought Jeb Bush might get the GOP nomination, according to the book. Here Bill and Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton speaks at a gathering in Little Rock, Ark., on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017

The Clintons at first thought Jeb Bush might get the GOP nomination, according to the book. Here Bill and Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton speaks at a gathering in Little Rock, Ark., on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017

In another poor decision, Chelsea Clinton poured French champagne into people’s glasses at about 9 pm, hours before her loss, according to Chozick.

She says someone told her it was Veuve Clicquot, according to a preview in the New York Times.

When the election was lost, it fell to Mook to deliver the bad news to the candidate.

‘I knew it. I knew this would happen to me,’ Clinton responded, according to the book. ‘They were never going to let me be president.’

Many Democrats at first considered Donald Trump an asset as he savaged fellow Republicans

Many Democrats at first considered Donald Trump an asset as he savaged fellow Republicans

The defeat was the culmination of a long campaign where a retinue of mainly female reporters contended with a candidate who kept herself at a distance, dismissing the email scandal, and eager to have it end. Some of them were calling it ‘Hillary’s Death March to Victory.’ 

Among Chozick’s other observations: ‘Her only clear vision of the presidency seemed to be herself in it.’ 

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who opted not to run, told reporters off the record the Clinton camp would go after him

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who opted not to run, told reporters off the record the Clinton camp would go after him

DOESN'T LOOK SO DULL: Some reporters were calling the campaign 'Hillary's Death March to Victory'

DOESN’T LOOK SO DULL: Some reporters were calling the campaign ‘Hillary’s Death March to Victory’

Trump’s attacks were able to set the tone for the campaign. ‘Hillary had berated our pea-size political brains for being uninterested in policy. Now, Trump had made her as devoid of substance as he was,’ she writes in a Washington Post excerpt.

She also writes of Clinton: ‘For all the lesbian theories, Hillary enjoys nothing more than flirting with a handsome, preferably straight man,’ mentioning Ed Henry of Fox News getting called on in front of a skein of female reporters.

 

 



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