Tubman? Feds pass the buck
IF YOU STILL want to be “with her,” it will cost you.
Hillary Clinton — who repeatedly came under fire during the presidential election campaign for accepting big-buck donations and hefty speaking fees — will be pocketing a pretty penny for personal encounters on her upcoming book tour.
Clinton devotees can get close to the failed presidential candidate for just over $2,000 when her “What Happened” book tour arrives in Canada later this month.
The memoir recounts her victory in the popular vote over Donald Trump — and her loss in the Electoral College.
Privileged fans in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are being offered the chance by book tour organizers to buy a $2,375.95 “VIP platinum ticket.”
The pricey ducats include two front-row seats to her talks in those cities, a meet-and-greet and photograph with Clinton backstage, and a signed copy of “What Happened,” according to the press tour website.
A publishing industry insider said the steep fees are unusually high, even for a public figure.
“It is standard for high-profile authors to do book tours that sell tickets to events, but Clinton’s tour takes it to a new level of greed,” the insider told Fox News, which first reported on the VIP costs.
A Simon & Schuster spokesman, however, defended the ticket prices, telling the network it is “customary for a venue to charge for tickets at events featuring high-profile writers.”
As of Thursday, general admission tickets starting at $71.25 were also available for the Clinton events in Canada, with pricier slots available for VIP treatment at her talk.
Tickets are available at a range of prices for events across the United States, too.
VIP tickets to a Nov. 1 event in New York can be purchased for $750.
General admission tickets to a Broward County, Fla., event on Oct. 3 range in price from $50 to $375.
Simon & Schuster hyped the press tour in an announcement earlier this week.
“Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for President in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-thanfiction twists, Russian interference and an opponent who broke all the rules,” it said.
The book is due out Sept. 12. TREASURY SECRETARY Steve Mnuchin Thursday danced around committing to an Obama administration initiative to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.
“People have been on the bills for a long period of time. And this is something we will consider,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “Right now, we’ve got a lot more important issues to focus on.”
Mnuchin’s predecessor Jack Lew last year announced plans to replace the controversial Andrew Jackson with abolitionist heroine Tubman (inset) — with the former President featured on the back of the bill instead.
Donald Trump criticized the move as “pure political correctness” on the campaign trail.
“Andrew Jackson had a great history and I think it’s very rough when you take someone off the bill,” Trump said then, adding he thought the “fantastic” Tubman should go on another bill.