Books are causing quite a stir in Washington this week. We're still flipping through the pages of former FBI Director James Comey's A Higher Loyalty, but as soon as we close it we'll be opening New York Times reporter Amy Chozick's Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.
Chozick, who covered the 2016 Clinton campaign, shares some intriguing details about how the team reacted to some of the most reported moments of the election. The Daily Beast shared a few of the more juicier excerpts.
Believing that Trump would be an easy opponent, the Clinton camp was apparently eager to help his chances.
From early on, the Clinton camp saw Trump as an enemy to encourage, Chozick writes. During the campaign, as had been previously reported, there was an effort to elevate Trump into a so-called Pied Piper in order to tie him to the mainstream of the Republican Party.
“An agenda for an upcoming campaign meeting sent by [Campaign Manager] Robby Mook’s office asked, ‘How do we maximize Trump?’” Chozick writes, describing a time when the GOP primary was still crowded. (The Daily Beast)
Chozick also suggests that the Clinton camp was none too happy to hear that Vice President Joe Biden was considering a White House run. She also witnessed the Democratic candidate give up on trying to improve her national image.
‘Oh, what’s the point?" she reportedly told a pollster. "They’re never going to like me."
A former Clinton staffer told The Daily Beast this was all a lot of nonsense from an untrustworthy reporter.
"Amy was not always an honest broker, and this book seems to be more of the same," the campaign staffer said. "It ridicules people with a smile, contributing little to the public discourse.”
Donna Brazile's Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House, offers more intriguing reading on the failed Clinton campaign. In it, Brazile explains how the mismanaged Democratic National Committee tied her hands financially and let the Clinton campaign run much of the show. A joint fundraising agreement between the DNC and the Clinton campaign allowed the latter to "control" the DNC's funds, Brazile said. The agreement "broke her heart."