Story highlights
At times, the nearly 500-page book reads like Clinton's burn book of zingers
Clinton does take some responsibility for her stunning 2016 loss
(CNN) —
Hillary Clinton latest memoir, in the eyes of the former secretary of state and those around her, is meant to be a reflection on the 2016 election and serve as an examination of Donald Trump’s stunning win.
At times, though, the nearly 500-page book entitled “What Happened” reads like Clinton’s burn book of zingers, where page after page oozes with her contempt for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, fired FBI Director James Comey, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a host of other political figures.
Clinton does take some responsibility for her stunning 2016 loss, admitting that she didn’t see the defeat coming, misunderstood the electorate and underestimated Trump from the outset. She also notes how there are times she looks back at the campaign and wishes she reacted more vigorously than she ultimately did, despite her staff and advisers urging restraint.
But the former secretary of state lays plenty of blame at the feet of outside influences, including Comey’s persistent investigation into her email practices and the Russia’s meddling, to explain the loss.
James Comey
Of all the 2016 figures in Clinton’s book, most of the blame for her loss is heaped on the fired FBI director.
Clinton’s most damning accusation against Comey – whom she labels the “rash FBI director” – is that she would have won the election before he informed members of Congress that he was reopening the investigation into her emails on October 28.
“If not for those decisions, everything would have been different,” she said. “Comey himself later said that he was mildly nauseous at the idea that he influences the outcome of the election. Hearing that made me sick.”
Comey turned the entire election “upside down” in late October.
“Now voters were worried my presidency would be dogged by more investigations, maybe even impeachment,” she concluded.
Clinton also regrets how she handled Comey’s July 5 news conference where the former FBI director said she had been “extremely careless” in handling her email.
That comment, Clinton writes, was “completely unexpected and inappropriate.”
“My first instinct was that my campaign should hit back hard and explain to the public that Comey had badly overstepped his bounds – the same argument Rod Rosenstein would make months after the election. That might have blunted the political damage and made Comey think twice before breaking protocol again a few months later,” Clinton writes. “In the end, we decided it would be better to just let it go and try to move on. Looking back, that was a mistake.”
Vladimir Putin
For Clinton, there is no one more deserving of American derision than the Russian President, who she charges with undermining her campaign to elect Trump.
Putin, Clinton writes, had a “personal vendetta against me and deep resentment toward the United States,” which led him to launch “a massive covert attack against our own democracy, right under our noses.”
Clinton says Putin “doesn’t respect women and despises anyone who stands up to him, so I’m a double problem.”
Clinton writes that Trump was “the perfect Trojan Horse for Putin” and, as she has in the past, writes that Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election is more serious than the Watergate scandal.
And all of this continues to consume Clinton, who writes that she thinks about Trump’s accusation about not being a puppet “every time” she sees the President on TV.
“No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet,” Trump said during a debate.
“This man is President of the United States,” Clinton writes. “And no one is happier than Vladimir Putin.”
Julian Assange
Clinton’s view of Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is that he is a charlatan front for the Russian government.
She calls him “odious” and a “hypocrite” for saying he is a “champion for transparency, but for many years, he’s been helpful to Putin, one of the most repressive and least transparent autocrats in the world.”
Clinton writes that it was “maddening” that Putin and Assange were working together to undercut her 2016 campaign.
“Of course I had to face not just one America-bashing misogynist but three,” she writes. “Of course I’d have to get by Putin and Assange as well.”
Joe Biden
Clinton generally heaps praise on Biden, but his comments during a March appearance at the University of Pennsylvania angered her, she writes.
“Joe Biden said the Democratic Party in 2016 ‘did not talk about what it always stood for – and that was how to maintain a burgeoning middle class,’ ” Clinton writes. “I find this fairly remarkable, considering that Joe himself campaigned for me all over the Midwest and talked plenty about the middle class.”
Clinton rejects the idea that she didn’t speak enough about the economy, but does say in the book that her campaign had struggled staying on message, a knock that she somewhat pins on the media.
Barack Obama
Clinton showers former President Barack Obama with praise throughout the book, but during a lengthy section on Russia, the former secretary of state openly questions what would have happened if Obama had more forcefully called out Russia for their 2016 election meddling.
The comment, which pales in comparison to Clinton’s other attacks in the book, is as close as Clinton comes to attacking her former boss.
“I do wonder sometimes about what would have happened if President Obama had made a televised address to the nation in the fall of 2016 warning that our democracy was under attack,” she writes. “Maybe more Americans would have woken up to the threat in time. We’ll never know.”
Clinton also subtly knocks Obama for his suggestion that she lay off directly criticizing Sanders, her Democratic primary opponent whom she largely ignored in early 2015.
“My team kept reminding me that we didn’t want to alienate Bernie’s supporters. President Obama urged me to grit my teeth and lay off Bernie as much as I could,” Clinton writes. “I felt like I was in a straightjacket.”
Bernie Sanders
Clinton’s book is chock full of scorn for Sanders, her 2016 rival and Vermont senator.
Clinton does praise Sanders – saying he “deserves credit for understanding the political power of big, bold ideas” and for inspiring “millions of American, especially young people.” But the kind words are largely overshadowed by her enmity.
She knocks Sanders for his stance on guns.
“Bernie Sanders, who loved to talk about how ‘true progressives’ never bow to political realities or powerful interests, had long bowed to the political reality of his rural state of Vermont and supported the NRA’s key priorities, including voting against the Brady Bill five times in the 1990s,” she writes.
And the attacks he leveled against her, saying they lay the groundwork for Trump.
“(Sanders’) presence in the race meant that I had less space and credibility to run the kind of feisty progressive campaign that had helped me win Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2008,” she writes.
“Because we agreed on so much, Bernie couldn’t make an argument against me in this area on policy, so he had to resort to innuendo and impugning my character,” she adds.
Jill Stein
Stein “wouldn’t be worth mentioning” in other scenarios, Clinton says, but the Green Party candidate who attacked the former secretary of state throughout the campaign contributed to her loss, Clinton writes.
“So in each state, there were more than enough Stein voters to swing the result, just like Ralph Nader did in Florida and New Hampshire in 2000,” Clinton writes.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 28, 2016. The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state was the first woman to lead the presidential ticket of a major political party.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Lee Balterman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Before marrying Bill Clinton, she was Hillary Rodham. Here she attends Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her commencement speech at Wellesley's graduation ceremony in 1969 attracted national attention. After graduating, she attended Yale Law School.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Getty Images
Rodham was a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, whose work led to impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in 1974.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
DONALD R. BROYLES/AP
In 1975, Rodham married Bill Clinton, whom she met at Yale Law School. He became the governor of Arkansas in 1978. In 1980, the couple had a daughter, Chelsea.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
A. Lynn/AP
Arkansas' first lady, now using the name Hillary Rodham Clinton, wears her inaugural ball gown in 1985.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Danny Johnston/AP
The Clintons celebrate Bill's inauguration in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1991. He was governor from 1983 to 1992, when he was elected President.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Bill Clinton comforts his wife on the set of "60 Minutes" after a stage light broke loose from the ceiling and knocked her down in January 1992.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
LYNNE SLADKY/AP
In June 1992, Clinton uses a sewing machine designed to eliminate back and wrist strain. She had just given a speech at a convention of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
STEPHAN SAVOIA/AP
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton jokes with her husband's running mate, Al Gore, and Gore's wife, Tipper, aboard a campaign bus.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
Clinton accompanies her husband as he takes the oath of office in January 1993.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Getty Images
The Clintons share a laugh on Capitol Hill in 1993.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Clinton unveils the renovated Blue Room of the White House in 1995.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
AFP/Getty Images
Clinton waves to the media in January 1996 as she arrives for an appearance before a grand jury in Washington. The first lady was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in the investigation of the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. The Clintons' business investment was investigated, but ultimately they were cleared of any wrongdoing.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images
The Clintons hug as Bill is sworn in for a second term as President.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
KATHY WILLENS/AP
The first lady holds up a Grammy Award, which she won for her audiobook "It Takes a Village" in 1997.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
The Clintons dance on a beach in the U.S. Virgin Islands in January 1998. Later that month, Bill Clinton was accused of having a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
Clinton looks on as her husband discusses the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 26, 1998. Clinton declared, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." In August of that year, Clinton testified before a grand jury and admitted to having "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lewinsky, but he said it did not constitute sexual relations because they had not had intercourse. He was impeached in December on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Roberto Borea/AP
The first family walks with their dog, Buddy, as they leave the White House for a vacation in August 1998.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
SUSAN WALSH/AP
President Clinton makes a statement at the White House in December 1998, thanking members of Congress who voted against his impeachment. The Senate trial ended with an acquittal in February 1999.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
KATHY WILLENS/AP
Clinton announces in February 2000 that she will seek the U.S. Senate seat in New York. She was elected later that year.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Harry Hamburg/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images
Clinton makes her first appearance on the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Sen. Clinton comforts Maren Sarkarat, a woman who lost her husband in the September 11 terrorist attacks, during a ground-zero memorial in October 2001.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
BILL PUGLIANO/AP
Clinton holds up her book "Living History" before a signing in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in 2003.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Ronda Churchill/AP
Clinton and another presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, applaud at the start of a Democratic debate in 2007.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
The Washington Post/Getty Images
Obama and Clinton talk on the plane on their way to a rally in Unity, New Hampshire, in June 2008. She had recently ended her presidential campaign and endorsed Obama.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Charles Dharapak/AP
Obama is flanked by Clinton and Vice President-elect Joe Biden at a news conference in Chicago in December 2008. He had designated Clinton to be his secretary of state.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/POOL/AP
Clinton, as secretary of state, greets Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a meeting just outside Moscow in March 2010.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Getty Images
The Clintons pose on the day of Chelsea's wedding to Marc Mezvinsky in July 2010.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Pete Souza/The White House/Getty Images
In this photo provided by the White House, Obama, Clinton, Biden and other members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Kevin Lamarque/Pool/AP
Clinton checks her Blackberry inside a military plane after leaving Malta in October 2011. In 2015, The New York Times reported that Clinton exclusively used a personal email account during her time as secretary of state. The account, fed through its own server, raises security and preservation concerns. Clinton later said she used a private domain out of "convenience," but admits in retrospect "it would have been better" to use multiple emails.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Brendan Smialowski/AP
Clinton arrives for a group photo before a forum with the Gulf Cooperation Council in March 2012. The forum was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
Obama and Clinton bow during the transfer-of-remains ceremony marking the return of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who were killed in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
Clinton ducks after a woman threw a shoe at her while she was delivering remarks at a recycling trade conference in Las Vegas in 2014.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Douglas Gorenstein/NBC/Getty Images
Clinton, now running for President again, performs with Jimmy Fallon during a "Tonight Show" skit in September 2015.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Clinton testifies about the Benghazi attack during a House committee meeting in October 2015. "I would imagine I have thought more about what happened than all of you put together," she said during the 11-hour hearing. "I have lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done." Months earlier, Clinton had acknowledged a "systemic breakdown" as cited by an Accountability Review Board, and she said that her department was taking additional steps to increase security at U.S. diplomatic facilities.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
ADAM ROSE/CNN
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders shares a lighthearted moment with Clinton during a Democratic presidential debate in October 2015. It came after Sanders gave his take on the Clinton email scandal. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails," Sanders said. "Enough of the emails. Let's talk about the real issues facing the United States of America."
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Evan Vucci/AP
Clinton is reflected in a teleprompter during a campaign rally in Alexandria, Virginia, in October 2015.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Clinton walks on her stage with her family after winning the New York primary in April.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
@hillaryclinton/Twitter
After Clinton became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, this photo was posted to her official Twitter account. "To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want -- even president," Clinton said. "Tonight is for you."
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Obama hugs Clinton after he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The president said Clinton was ready to be commander in chief. "For four years, I had a front-row seat to her intelligence, her judgment and her discipline," he said, referring to her stint as his secretary of state.
Photos: Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight
PHOTO:
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/Getty