Clinton to Trump: ‘Congratulations, Donald’
NEW details have emerged of what Hillary Clinton told President Obama on the night she had to phone Trump and concede defeat in the presidential election.
World
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HILLARY Clinton had to eat humble pie twice on election night.
Democratic US Presidential nominee Mrs Clinton apologised to President Barack Obama for her bruising loss — right after calling Republican President-elect Donald Trump to offer him “congratulations,” according to a new book chronicling her 2016 presidential bid called Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.
“Mr. President, I’m sorry,” she said, according to a Washington Post review of the book due out today.
The White House urged Mrs Clinton to concede as Mr Trump claimed battleground states — some by slim margins — because Mr Obama wanted to avoid a messy recount.
“You need to concede,” Mr Obama told Mrs Clinton directly, later repeating the instruction to her campaign chairman John Podesta for good measure.
The directive came after Mrs Clinton ignored previous messages from White House staff to throw in the towel.
Around 7:45 on election night, when Mrs Clinton and her aides still thought they were headed to the White House, vote-counter Steve Schale told campaign officials they were going to lose the biggest battleground in the country, the Washington Post reported.
“You’re going to come up short,” Mr Schale said.
In that moment Bill Clinton reportedly became furious. Mrs Clinton was stoic. Their cocksure aides started to blame one another.
According to the newspaper’s review, the call with Mr Schale marked the beginning of a riveting account of the final, dreadful hours of Clinton’s long pursuit of the presidency, as told by reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes in their new book.
The “blow by blow” account of the drama on election night in the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan reveals how Mrs Clinton’s confidence at her victory was replaced by resignation as Mr Trump won the biggest upset in modern political history on November 9 last year.
Mrs Clinton finally succumbed to the loss with the words: “Give me the phone”, according to the book.
She reportedly then called Mr Trump and said: “Congratulations, Donald.
I’ll be supportive of the country’s success and that means your success as president.”
Minutes after the Democratic Presidential candidate made the call to Mr Trump, and suppressed “the anger that touched every nerve in her body”, she rang Mr Obama.
She told him she knew she had “let her country down” and that his legacy lay “shattered at Donald Trump’s feet”.
“Mr President, I’m sorry,” Mrs Clinton said.
Mrs Clinton conceded the loss publicly the next morning.
Originally published as Clinton to Trump: ‘Congratulations, Donald’
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