Hillary Clinton is publishing a book called What Happened in which she examines the forces that led to her historic presidential loss in 2016.
In an interview with Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley, Clinton admitted that she was completely shocked by her loss, and that she hadn’t even drafted a concession speech because she was so sure she would win.
“I felt like I had let everybody down,” she said of the moment she realized that Donald Trump was now the president-elect.
–Hillary Clinton apologized to Obama on election night–
In speaking about the factors contributing to her loss, Clinton didn’t hold back from criticizing both Bernie Sanders and former FBI Director James Comey. She blasted Comey for bringing the email scandal back to life just days before the election and also fired back at Sanders for the “lasting damage” he caused her with his attacks during the primaries.
However, she didn’t shy away from her own responsibility for the loss, laying it at the feet of not just the sexism she had to overcome but her failure to connect with voters.
“I understood that there were many Americans who, because of the financial crash, there was anger,” she said. “But I believed that it was my responsibility to try to offer answers to it, not to fan it. I think…that it was a mistake because a lot of people didn’t wanna hear my plans. They wanted me to share their anger. And I should’ve done a better job of demonstrating I get it.”
“I couldn’t get the job done, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life,” Clinton wrote in the memoir.
However, even though Clinton is making her voice heard now, she is not going to run again.
“I am done with being a candidate,” she said, though she didn’t say that she would be leaving politics entirely.
“I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake,” she said.