Clinton’s ‘skin crawled’ as Trump hovered at debate
Her new book is an attempt to ‘pull back the curtain’ on losing bid for presidency
WASHINGTON— Hillary Clinton said her “skin crawled” as Donald Trump loomed behind her at a presidential debate in St. Louis last year, and added that she wished she could have pressed pause and asked America: “Well, what would you do?”
The words, Clinton’s most detailed public comments about what happened during one of the campaign’s more memorable moments, are included in her new book, What Happened, which she called an attempt to “pull back the curtain” on her losing bid for the presidency.
Some of the moments during the campaign, she said, “baffled” her. Others seemingly repulsed her: In recounting the October incident, she referred to Trump as a “creep.”
The book comes out Sept. 12, but audio excerpts, read by Clinton, were played Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. In the recording, Clinton noted that she wrote about moments from the campaign that she wanted to remember forever — as well as others she wished she could “go back and do over.”
The moment from the debate appeared to fall into the latter category.
“This is not OK, I thought,” Clinton said, reading from her book. “It was the second presidential debate and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces.
“It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’ ”
The debate took place two days after Trump was heard bragging about groping, kissing and trying to have sex with women on the Access Hollywood tape — comments made in 2005 on an apparent hot mic.
Afterward, some critics said Trump should drop out of the race. But he ended a video response to the yearsold tape’s release by saying: “See you at the debate on Sunday.”
Trump’s actions during the debate were viewed as bullying even before the hovering moment that Clinton recounted.
His actions were widely mocked and criticized after the debate, and even featured in a Saturday Night Live skit that showed him zooming, Jaws- like, toward Clinton.
Clinton said in the audio clip played on MSNBC that What Happened is not a comprehensive account of the 2016 race — and that it was difficult to write.
“Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldn’t bear the idea of letting them down — but I did,” she said
Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher, says What Happened is Clinton’s “most personal memoir yet.”
The book also includes her take on suspected Russian interference in the election.
Clinton’s loss has already been the subject of the bestselling Shattered, a highly critical book by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, and a more sympathetic account, Susan Bordo’s The Destruction of Hillary Clinton.