WMAL Interview - AMIE PARNES - 04.25.17

INTERVIEW — AMIE PARNES — Senior White House Correspondent, The Hill & Co-author of new book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign”

ABOUT BOOK: It was never supposed to be this close. And of course she was supposed to win. How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the riveting story of a sure thing gone off the rails. For every Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Hillary’s campaign–the candidate herself. Through deep access to insiders from the top to the bottom of the campaign, political writers Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes have reconstructed the key decisions and unseized opportunities, the well-intentioned misfires and the hidden thorns that turned a winnable contest into a devastating loss. Drawing on the authors’ deep knowledge of Hillary from their previous book, the acclaimed biography HRC, Shattered offers an object lesson in how Hillary herself made victory an uphill battle, how her difficulty articulating a vision irreparably hobbled her impact with voters, and how the campaign failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury from the hard-fought primary against Bernie Sanders. Moving blow-by-blow from the campaign’s difficult birth through the bewildering terror of election night, Shattered tells an unforgettable story with urgent lessons both political and personal, filled with revelations that will change the way readers understand just what happened to America on November 8, 2016.
‘Shattered’ Revelation: Clinton Campaign Hatched Russian Hacking Narrative 24 Hours After Hillary’s Loss. (Breitbart) — The new Clinton campaign tell-all, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, reveals how Hillary Clinton personally placed blame for her bruising defeat on Russian meddling “within twenty-four hours of her concession speech.” The blistering behind-the-scenes book, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, illustrates how Hillary Clinton furiously blamed her defeat on the FBI investigation into her private emails, Russian interference, and Trump’s supposed support from “white nationalists.”
‘Shattered’ authors: Bill Clinton pushed for different tone in Hillary’s campaign. (ABC News) —  The 2016 Hillary Clinton team painted itself as “a joyful campaign,” Amie Parnes said. “It actually wasn’t.” In the book, the authors describe how the campaign ignored the advice of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, to reach out to communities that weren’t already on board with Hillary Clinton’s policies. “He thought, these eggheads don’t really know politics. They don’t understand persuasion,” Allen said, adding that Bill Clinton wanted to go to suburban and rural areas where it was likely that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t win the majority. “He knew there was some power just in showing up.” Allen said that in her 2008 presidential bid, Bill Clinton was blamed for asserting himself too much in the primary campaign’s strategy and ultimately hurting her chances at the presidency and that this time around, he tried to stay behind the scenes “because he didn’t want to be blamed for defeating his wife again.” Allen and Parnes detail in the book the night of the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton chose to wait until morning to give a concession speech — a move many found odd.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS ABOUT THE BOOK:
Clinton stopped polling the last month of the election.
Clinton believed more in spending money on people who already agreed with her over trying to persuade people to vote for her. Bill Clinton disagreed and wanted to spend his time persuading.
The book reveals how Clinton questioned her aides what was happening in the country. She didn’t understand it.
The authors describe several people were tasked to write a speech for her but they grew frustrated because they couldn’t figure out WHY she was even running.
The book reveals how Hillary’s people and Bill’s people frequently disagreed with each other.
The book shows how campaign staffer roles became reduced and only the “Super 6” really ran the campaign: John Podesta, Jennifer Palmieri, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin and two others.
The book authors had previously written a book about Hillary Clinton before entitled “HRC.” The first book was a sympathetic look at Hillary and they believed her to be a smart woman.  This book “Shattered” is unsparing but not unsympathetic. The book reveals a bigger picture of her campaign operation.