NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of her new memoir, Hillary Clinton offers up what sounds like a far-off wish: “I hope I’m alive to see the United States elect a female president.”
Turns out her book went to the printers a tad too soon. Clinton wrote that sentence before Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, suddenly making that wish feel a whole lot more immediate. It was too late to update the print version of “Something Lost, Something Gained,” which comes out this week, though the audiobook now has an epilogue.
So how does Clinton feel about that wish now?
“Really optimistic,” she says, praising the vice president as a candidate and in particular her recent debate performance. “I think I’m going to be around to see the first woman president!”
Clinton, 76, has written memoirs before – from “Living History” in 2003 up through “What Happened?” in 2017, about the painful loss to Donald Trump that thwarted her own quest to be the first female U.S. president. This latest feels more intimate. Inspired by the song “Both Sides Now” by one of her favorite musicians, Joni Mitchell, the book aims to be a snapshot of how she sees the world now, she says — rather like catching up with her over dinner.
So it goes from the macro – for example, a chapter on how she imagines the years following a Trump re-election, starting with troops patrolling America’s cities – to the micro, describing life as a grandmother or mornings at home with Bill, competing over the Spelling Bee puzzle in The New York Times.
First lady, lawyer, senator, secretary of state, and of course presidential nominee. University professor, fledgling Broadway producer. Clinton has lived many chapters, and the book’s actual chapters shift easily between eras.
She recounts in spy-novel-worthy detail an operation to save threatened women in Afghanistan as the Taliban were taking over in 2021, then reflects in the next chapter on the unique “sisterhood” of former first ladies, at one point defending Melania Trump from criticism of her attire at Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service: “She came. That’s what mattered.”
But she makes no secret of her animosity toward Donald Trump. It’s clear that in the “something lost” category of her title is the election that still hurts, deeply. In one recent anecdote, she recounts running into a retired FBI official who apologized for his role in how the bureau handled the investigation over her emails, a probe that was reopened days before the election.
She writes that she stared for a minute, unable to speak. “I would have been a great president,” she then told him, before walking off.
Clinton spoke to The Associated Press last week ahead of her book’s release. Some more takeaways:
Clinton wore white, honoring women’s suffrage, when she accepted the Democratic nomination; Harris did not. Clinton spoke of “18 million cracks” in the ultimate glass ceiling when she lost; Harris has not emphasized gender in her speeches. Why the difference?
Well, says Clinton, it’s been eight years. When she ran, it was so new for the country to have a female major-party candidate that it had to be a focus. Nearly a decade later, the country’s gotten more used to the idea.
”We now don’t just have one image of a person who happens to be a woman who ran for president – namely me,” she said. “Now we have a much better opportunity for women candidates, starting with Kamala, to be viewed in a way that just takes for granted the fact that yes, guess what? She’s a woman.”
Clinton writes that admirers often come up to her and say “You warned us, and I wish we had listened.” (She adds: “What am I supposed to say to that? Yes, I did.”)
But Clinton also writes that she takes no pleasure in hearing or feeling she was right – “in fact, I hate it” – even when she learned one afternoon in May that Trump had become the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes, a moment she says brought “a jolt of disbelief” and “a pang of vindication” plus some tears.
Asked what she is most afraid of “being right” about now, she replies: "I’m most afraid that people will not take Donald Trump seriously. And literally.”
Not surprisingly for the woman who coined the phrase “Women’s rights are human rights” three decades ago, Clinton writes about many female activists and dissidents she’s worked with around the globe. She also tells the story of how she joined with colleagues in a secret operation to get hundreds of women out of Afghanistan – professors, lawyers, activists and their families – who were likely to be targeted by the Taliban once U.S. troops left.
But Clinton also discusses new pursuits. Like teaching, for the first time in 50 years, at Columbia University. And Broadway producing. Clinton was among the producers of “Suffs,” the Tony-winning musical about women who fought for the right to vote in the early 20th century. She ends her book with a song from the show, “Keep Marching.”
Is there more producing in the future? “I don’t know,” she says. “I can tell you it’s been one of the greatest experiences in my life.”
Being a grandmother “truly is the one experience of life that is not overrated,” says the grandmother of three, who dedicates her book to them.
But Clinton gets most personal when addressing her marriage, which she says brings her “new joys every day.” She does not feel the need to elaborate on her reference to past challenges. “It’s no secret that Bill and I had dark days in our marriage in the past,” she writes. “But the past softens with time, and what’s left is the truth: I’m married to my best friend.”
Asked now if she feels some people still don’t believe that, and wonder why she stayed, she replies: “I’m sure there are people who don’t get it. (But) this was for me an opportunity to basically say what I believe, which is that every life has challenges, opportunities, setbacks, disappointments, successes, achievements. And you have to make a decision almost every day about how you’re going to live that day.” Hers, she says, were right for her.
Clinton’s schedule is organized by an aide, to the minute. A phone call might be planned for 10:14 a.m. But what does that mean about her much-documented walks in the woods near home in Chappaqua, New York.
Clinton schedules time for those, too. Sometimes Bill comes, but his walks are more like “an ambling conversation” where he needs to chat with everyone they see. As for her, she needs to “just get out and walk as fast as I can.”
Sometimes she plans speeches while walking. Other times, she says, she thinks about absolutely nothing. “The Japanese have this great phrase that translates to forest bathing, where you just literally walk in the woods and just take it all in.”
She advises readers to do the same when the political climate starts to overwhelm: “Put down your phone and go outside. Take a walk.”
FILE - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 28, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
This cover image released by Simon and Schuster shows, "Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty," by Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Simon and Schuster via AP)
Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday. In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 people captive inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
In solidarity with Hamas, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with Israel almost daily for the past year. Israel escalated its campaign against the group in recent weeks.
Rumors circulated for weeks over head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status after an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
Here's the latest:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The funeral of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah drew the largest crowd of top leaders in the paramilitary organization together Tuesday for the first time since Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel.
The Guard’s leadership hasn’t been as visible in the two weeks since Iran’s Oct. 1 attack on Israel. The Guard is the main power behind Iran’s theocracy and oversees its arsenal of ballistic missiles — which would be crucial in any future attack on Israel.
At the funeral in Tehran for Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, the Guard’s chief commander, Gen. Hossein Salami, attended alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and the head of the country’s judiciary. Other Guard generals also attended, including Gen. Esmail Qaani of the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, about whom rumors had circulated for days regarding his status after the strike that killed Nasrallah.
At least two prominent Guard generals were not on hand: Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Guard’s aerospace division that oversees its missile program, and Gen. Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guard’s navy, did not attend.
Iran offered no explanation for their absence, though Israel has threatened to carry out a serious retaliatory strike against Iran.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 15 people overnight, including six children and two women, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.
A strike early Tuesday hit a house in the southern town of Beni Suhaila, killing at least 10 people from one extended family, according to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. The dead include three children and one woman, according to hospital records. An Associated Press camera operator at the hospital counted the bodies.
In the nearby town of Fakhari, a strike hit a house early Tuesday, killing five people, including three children and a woman, according to the European Hospital, where the casualties were taken.
The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes. It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of sheltering in civilian areas.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — In northern Gaza, where Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, residents said families were still trapped in their homes and shelters Tuesday.
Adel al-Deqes said his relatives tried to move to another place in Jabaliya in the morning, but the military shelled them.
“We don’t know who died and who is still alive,” he said.
Ahmed Awda, another Jabaliya resident, said they heard “constant bombing and gunfire” overnight and Tuesday morning. He said the military destroyed many buildings in the eastern and northern parts of the camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
“They bombed many buildings; some of them empty buildings,” he said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The head of the expeditionary arm of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has appeared in television footage aired Tuesday by Iranian state television.
Rumors circulated for weeks over Gen. Esmail Qaani’s status in the time since an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September. But Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
While Iranian state television did not acknowledge the rumors, it made a point to film Qaani for over a minute and later share the footage from the airport ceremony online.
Qaani was on hand for the repatriation to Iran of the body of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who was killed in the airstrike.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia’s government has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on five Iranians contributing to the country’s missile defense program, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Tuesday.
Iran’s launch of at least 180 ballistic missiles against Israel on Oct. 1 was “a dangerous escalation that increased the risk of a wider regional war,” Wong said in a statement.
The fresh sanctions target two directors and a senior official in Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, the director of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, and the commercial director of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group.
The decision brings to 200 the number of Iran-linked individuals and entities now sanctioned by Australia.
“Australia will continue to hold Iran to account for its reckless and destabilizing actions,” Wong said.
People chant slogans during the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People and officials attend the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, Gen. Esmail Qaani, mourns during the funeral ceremony of the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Mourners carry the coffin of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' deputy commander Brigadier Gen. Abbas Nilforushan who died alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last month during his funeral in Karbala, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Pro-Israel protesters holds Israeli flags as demonstrators protest Israel's war against Hamas outside the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A displaced family fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, sits next to their tent on Beirut's corniche, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Families fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, sit in front of the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Mourners carry a picture of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the funeral procession of their relatives, in Maisara near the northern coastal town of Byblos, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Middle East latest: Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill at least 15 people overnight
Middle East latest: Israeli strikes on southern Gaza kill at least 15 people overnight
