White House Responds to Hillary Clinton’s New Book

Copies of Hillary Clinton's new book 'What Happened' sit on a shelf before a book signing event at Barnes and Noble bookstore September 12, 2017 in New York City. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

On the same day as Hillary Clinton released her book “What Happened,” the White House said that she was trying to prop up book sales with “false and reckless attacks.”

In the book Clinton attempts to explain why she lost the 2016 presidential elections. The book has been criticized for a lack of self reflection and for instead laying blame on others. Among those who Clinton blames in the book for her election loss are then FBI Director James Comey—who was later fired by Trump—Russian President Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, and the media.

“Fascinating to watch people writing books and major articles about me and yet they know nothing about me & have zero access. #FAKE NEWS!,” Trump wrote in an apparent reference to Clinton’s book.

The book has been criticized by media organizations such as The Washington Post, which endorsed Clinton in 2016, and reported more favorably on her than Trump during the campaign.

“Hillary Clinton’s new memoir of her failed presidential campaign is titled ‘What Happened.’ A better title would be ”What Happened?“ because Clinton apparently has no idea” writes Marc A. Thiessen in an opinion article in The Washington Post.

Asked whether President Trump will read Hillary’s new book, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Sept. 12: “Whether or not he’s going to read Hillary Clinton’s book, I am not sure. But I would think that he’s pretty well-versed on ‘what happened.’ And I think it’s pretty clear to all of America.”

“I think it’s sad that after Hillary Clinton ran one of the most negative campaigns in history and lost, and the last chapter of her public life is going to be now defined by propping up book sales with false and reckless attacks,” she said.

The Clinton campaign and organizations and superPACs supporting her spent a total of $395.7 million dollars on advertising during the presidential campaign, according to numbers by the Associated Press.

According to an analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project only 25 percent of the ads aired by the Clinton camp were about policy, with the majority being personal attacks against her opponent Trump.

The Trump campaign and supporting superPACs and organizations spent $99.1 million during the elections–just a fourth of the what the Clinton camp spent.

Members of the media set up prior to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at the Bridge View Center in Ottumwa, Iowa on Jan. 9, 2016. Trump has repeatedly talked about media bias during his campaign for the White House. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

An analysis by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorestein Center of news coverage during the 2016 presidential race found that 77 percent of media coverage of Trump was negative, compared to 64 percent for Clinton. Media organizations, on average, only spent 10 percent on policy positions.

The negative tone of Trump’s coverage was most prevalent by CBS, which reported negatively on him 89 percent of the time. CBS was followed by the USA Today at 88 percent negative, The Washington Post at 87 percent, and The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, each at 86 percent.