Original subtitles

- Okey-dokey.

All right, thank you everyone.

- Okey-dokey artichokey.

Are we, are we set, you guys?

We're good back here.

- Okay, terrific.

All right, the final chapter.

- Well,

it wouldn't be a fitting end

if there weren't some fitting stories, right?

Exactly, exactly.

- That's kind of--

- We have about 36 days left

the election's gonna be close.

For better or worse!

- For the better.

Let's put this...

- That's really, the weight of our responsibility

is so huge.

And I don't say this lightly.

I believe if,

- Interesting, interesting, I mean,

what his agenda is, is himself.

- But you're, but it's... - His formal agenda is...

- This connection with Ukraine thing is weird.

This is what scares me

and I don't mean to make even more.

- Yeah if we wouldn't already had done that.

- You know, in the last, when I Secretary of State.

So I'm gonna let them chat for a couple of minutes

then we're gonna regroup in here

then we'll do a brief with them.

Hey, you guys, these colors okay next to each other.

I don't know, they kind of clash a little bit.

I remember asking in late September,

should we do like feature story about October surprises?

This is a famous thing that happens in campaigns

and the consensus was like, no,

there's not gonna be any October surprises,

this campaign's done.

And of course it was like one October surprise

after the other.

- October 7th was two days before the second debate.

It was a Friday and we were going to be cloistered all day

at a hotel near Hillary's home doing debate prep with her.

And then things started to hay wire.

This is CNN, breaking news.

- United States now openly saying

what many inside the government strongly suspected

that Russia is directly behind a series of cyber attacks

targeting the upcoming presidential election.

- The Russians at the highest levels

of the Russian government

have authorised cyber attack on political targets

and the individuals in the U. S.

- Bomb shell, okay.

This is a bomb shell and having worked in the White House

I knew how hard it was

to get all of that on a piece of paper

and have people say yes,

we are willing to make that kind of accusation about Russia.

- They now have it absolutely called that Russia

is trying to destablize the American election.

- We were so excited, like finally

we can have the press pay attention

and so we're on a conference call

with our colleagues back in Brooklyn

to say, okay, what do we do?

Who are we gonna put on cable?

Someones gotta write an op-ed

- Somebody came over and said,

"My god, my god, my god,

did you see what the Washington Post is reporting?

- Pete, thank you for that and there's some breaking news

this coming in just in the last few seconds.

NBC News has just become aware of a video

capturing Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women.

- There were TV screens around the room

and we all start looking at the Access Hollywood footage

and we have no idea what it is,

what is he, what is this?

A lewd and graphic recording

from Donald Trump's past.

- And raised the volume and like, my God.

- It was shocking.

It was beyond

what anybody ever expected to see

and there it was.

- Somebody said to me,

"hey, there is this video that just came out of Trump

from Access Hollywood" and I was like no,

stay focused on Russia.

But there is no way the Russia story is holding up to that.

Trump has been accused repeatedly

of treating women shabbily.

- Three advisers told us

they believe this tape is very damaging

and no amount of debate preparation

or catchy one-liners can or will take the sting out of it.

- This is the moment where Donald Trump

loses this campaign.

- People were like, man, it's over, it's done.

That's unbelievable.

How is he gonna get out of this?

But then almost immediately after,

as I recall,

Wikileaks dumped John Podesta's emails.

- Wikileaks has released a batch

of more than 2,000 hacked emails

from the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman,

John Podesta.

- I get a tap on the shoulder,

taken out of the room.

Now I'm in a three-ring circus.

'Cause I'm trying to pay attention to what was going on.

We're following the Access Hollywood unfolding

and I'm trying to fight back

on the email release.

- John Podesta tweeting,

I'm not happy about being hacked by the Russians

in their quest to throw the election to Donald Trump.

- The most significant thing

in the first dump of emails

were the excerpts of her Wall Street speeches

which we had all you know tried to get.

- They don't just have the transcripts

of the Wall Street speeches.

What they have is the document

that our research director did

where we told him go back, look at the Wall Street speeches.

Find anything that could be taken out of context

to sound bad and make a document out of that.

And that is what leaked.

What leaked is the document that said,

present the Wall Street speeches

in the worst possible light.

That is the document that was leaked.

Not the actual transcript of the speeches.

- Honestly, the rest of the day was kind of a blur

because all of us were lost in our own heads

trying to process what was going on.

And we have a debate in 48 hours.

- Okay.

You ready?

- As ready as I'll be I guess.

That's great.

- At the time,

I was

really uncertain about what was gonna happen.

These three events all in one day.

And what did that mean for the debate,

what did that mean for the campaign?

- But the story seemed substantively the same.

So, we go to the debate.

This stuff with the emails is happening

but you know Access Hollywood

is still pretty prominent at that point.

And somebody rushes in and says

there's some sort of press conference happening

it's not clear what.

- Are you ready?

- So, thank you very much for coming.

- Going back to the earliest days of his presidency

there were women

who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misbehavior.

Donald Trump sort of stirred up a lot of people's misgivings

about Bill Clinton.

- Hillary Clinton can't go after Donald Trump

for being a sexual predator because of Bill Clinton.

And Donald Trump knows that

and he brings with him

you know Bill Clinton's accusers

to their debate in order to kind of

throw her off her game to shake her.

And our coverage officially is underway.

There is the Democratic nominee

with her husband and daughter Hillary Clinton

arriving in the VIP entrance now.

These women are going to be sitting

inside here.

He's invited these women

who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual abuse if you will.

- Trump you know pulled his stunt,

before the second debate.

And all of a sudden, your mind is going crazy.

I mean and, and racing around like this is incredible.

What am I gonna do about it?

How do I deal with it?

But I kept coming back to,

from my own experience,

the best response was just not getting rattled,

not letting him rattle me,

not showing that he was getting to me.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the Republican nominee for president Donald J. Trump

and the Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton.

- Hello, hello.

He has said that the video doesn't represent who he is.

But I think it's clear to anyone who heard it

that it represents exactly who he is.

Because we've seen this throughout the campaign.

No answer the question.

Do you still believe, I do--

Would you please?

It's called extreme vetting.

- That was the slot that the Obamacare,

approach was to take.

He was stalking me.

He was leering over me.

He was you know sort of preening like a alpha male.

I knew he was doing it.

I was well aware of it.

So, I was trying to figure out what do I do?

If I wheeled around

and I said back up you creep

you're not gonna intimidate me,

would I sound angry and would people recoil from that?

Because all he's doing is just standing there.

Mr. Trump, you have two minutes.

It is such a great question.

- I think that would have been a mistake

because then the headline would have been,

Clinton rattled, right.

You know maybe in this universe

'cause I do think that we,

the post 2016 election world is a different universe.

I think a woman could do that

and be lauded for standing up to that man

that was trying to intimidate her.

But not then.

- It's just awfully good that someone

with the temperament of Donald Trump

is not in charge of the law in our country.

Because you'd be in jail.

- Secretary Clinton.

She's got bad judgment,

And she should never be president

of the United States.

- Thank you, everybody.

I'm good, I'm good.

- Okay, now that we're no longer mic'd.

Survived another night.

I'm sorry if you sit there and see me.

- It was just like a litany of lies.

- Yeah. - It's just unbelievable.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- And he pulls off just the angry guy thing.

Look whatever he's gotta do

he didn't do.

But I think you know people are gonna read he came in.

- Hi, Mandy.

Come in.

Keep all the doors shut. - Yeah, yeah.

- The president just came in. - No, I meant...

But to be honest I think this is gonna be like a wash.

I think it's a lot like the Sanders/Clinton debates

were like you, you got it.

- During the campaign we would do focus groups.

And the fact that she stayed in her marriage

would come up

as a reason why people didn't like her.

Or that it proved all she cared about was ambition.

It haunts her in a way

that she can never get out from under.

Please welcome to the stage

Hillary Rodham Clinton.

- After we got through the mess of the impeachment

and this very, terrible personal anguish

I didn't know what was gonna come next for me.

I just wanted a break.

And, um,

yeah, I was tired.

You know I was tired.

But then Daniel Patrick Moynihan

announced that he was not gonna run for reelection in 2000.

And immediately my phone rang

and it was Charlie Rangel

then the congressman from Harlem.

And Charlie said,

"well, you know the Senator is not gonna run.

"A bunch of us were talking.

"We'd like you to run."

I said that is the most ridiculous thing

I've ever heard, Charlie.

I never saw myself as a candidate.

And then it became one of those epiphany moments.

I'm going around telling all these women

to go out there and get in the arena.

Maybe I'm afraid to do it.

Maybe it's not that I don't want to do it.

Maybe it's because I'm afraid to do it.

Wow.

That was like a whole different

level of consideration.

- One of the reporters said,

"you don't want to run for Senate.

"Like it's too small of a stage.

"You have the whole world as your stage."

And you know she talked about how she wanted independence.

Not from Bill or the marriage

but she wanted to I think she said,

you know I want to be judged on my own merits

and I want to make my own decisions.

- We talked about it.

We already knew that we were gonna to New York.

She always wanted to live in New York.

I thought it was a good idea.

I thought she'd be great at it.

- I am honored today

to announce my candidacy for the United States Senate

from New York.

- Hillary Rodham Clinton made history today

becoming the first First Lady

ever to run for public office in this country.

- I was now the principal.

I was not the supporter,

I was not the surrogate.

I was the person whose name would be on the ballot.

I care about the same issues you do.

I understand them and I know I can make progress on them.

That's why, my friends,

I want to be your senator.

It was really a challenge saying "I"

instead of "we" or "him."

I had to say "I."

- There she has got the president of the United States

who happens to be her husband.

But he might be a negative as well as a positive.

He sort of cuts both ways.

That campaign was tough in reaching women.

The question really were the suburbs of Long Island

and Westchester.

- I would often go to sessions

that I called Hillary Hater sessions,

which were literally many women

usually, women who had a lot of privilege

who had affirmatively said

they had either reservations or hated Hillary

and would never vote for her.

And then I would say, well, you know I'm here

'cause I wanted to see if I could answer any questions

with you about Hillary.

And it would just be like

you were watching the Exorcist

and the bile would come spewing up.

I hate her 'cause she's power crazy.

I hate her 'cause she stayed with him.

Why did she stay with him?

- Women who judged Hillary for staying with Bill Clinton

would have voted for Bill Clinton all over again

if they had the chance and kept saying so.

"I wish I could vote for him again."

Like he cheated on her

and yet they took it out on Hillary.

- And I would say you know, well,

I know many people

sometimes have to make hard decisions themselves

but she made one.

She loves her husband.

I know people find it hard to believe

you could love your husband

who did something like that to you

but she loves her husband.

And at that moment some woman always in the room

would say, almost wistfully

and tentatively, "my husband cheated on me

"and I was devastated but

"I decided to stay with him."

And it would open the floodgates.

"My husband did the same thing."

"One of my friends did that."

"My sister's husband did the same thing."

And by the end of what, in my brain,

became a little bit like consciousness raising sessions,

someone would say, I think I've been unfair.

- Wow, thank you.

Sixty-two counties,

16 months and six black pantsuits later

because of you, here we are!

When I got elected,

the first call I got was from Senator Barbara Mikulski.

And she said, "okay, I gotta come over there

"and tell you how to be a senator."

I said you better get over here quick.

Are you excited?

- I think we're all excited.

- There was a question,

was she gonna be a diva?

And she did what a good senator does.

She went to every committee meeting.

She did her homework.

She was prepared.

- You know from January until September

I was learning the ropes.

And then everything changed on September 11th.

You saw a plane?

Yes, I just saw a plane

go into the building.

The building itself came down.

It is a surreal and devastating scene over here.

It's something like I've never seen before.

- I went that day.

It looked like hell.

I mean any depiction of Dante's Inferno

paled in comparison.

It was the most terrible sight

I'd ever personally seen.

I think about it all the time.

The White House

had just sent a request to Congress

for 20 billion dollars but not a penny for New York.

I mean we thought there was something wrong.

I mean it couldn't be true.

Chuck Schumer and I

we were invited to meet with the president.

And we asked him for 20 billion dollars.

And he said you got it.

And for all of my,

you know, disagreements with President Bush

I will forever be grateful to him

for guaranteeing that we got the money we needed

to rebuild New York.

- She reached across the aisle

when she didn't have to.

As majority leader,

I worked with her coauthoring a bill.

It was a hardcore Republican

and a hardcore Democrat working together.

- She developed some really unusual friendships

with some of her husband's chief tormenters.

She works with Newt Gingrich on healthcare.

She and Lindsey Graham and John McCain

traveled the world on congressional delegations.

I mean there are stories about them

doing vodka shots together.

- I mean Lindsey Graham,

it's amazing to me the way he jumps on her now.

You know it's just,

he wrote the tribute to her in Time magazine.

She made one of those lists they do every year

and Time got Lindsey Graham to write the tribute to her.

People who know her like her.

- I appreciate you being here.

Her book is a bestseller in eight countries.

She has also put her name on more legislation

than any other senator in this Congress.

Conservatives believe virtually everything she does

is aimed at an eventual run for president.

- By 2008 we were falling deeper and deeper into debt

and I was worried.

I was worried about the country.

I was about its trajectory under Bush.

And as more and more people started announcing

they were gonna run

I thought, well, you know,

you know why don't I run too?

I mean I have as much experience,

that is relevant.

I've got as many ideas.

Did you think that the country was ready

for the first female president?

- I did not know.

There was a lot of evidence

that had been compiled

that showed people were reluctant

about women in executive positions.

And president was still

seemingly so far off

that the answers were totally hypothetical.

I am ready for that contest.

I always knew that Hillary would run for president

after she was a senator.

If you didn't you were letting,

letting the movement down.

She was someone who was positioned to do it.

And that somehow if you said, listen,

I'd rather just tend to my garden

you were letting the movement down.

Each of us felt the pressure

for being the first.

Hillary Clinton!

- I knew that it would be hard.

I had no idea how hard it would be.

I had no idea, of course, who my opponents would be yet.

- Generations of Americans

have responded with a simple creed

that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

- It was like lightning in a bottle.

Barack Obama suddenly became the hot ticket,

came across as authentic to a lot of Democrats.

- Being a politician is a very visceral thing.

Greatness of spirit is the most important quality

that a president can have.

The successful Democrats Franklin Roosevelt,

Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy,

Bill Clinton, Barack Obama have all had it.

And to have greatness of spirit

you have to be optimistic

and you have to be at least give the appearance of openness.

She was never gonna be that.

She was always gonna be stiff on the stump

and being defensive about being a woman.

In my experience, Hillary Clinton

kind of always over worried about being a woman.

- Men won't vote for Hillary Clinton

because she reminds them of their nagging wives.

- The PMS and the mood swings, right?

- But when she raises her voice

and when a lot of women do

you know it's as I say it's,

it reaches a point where every husband in America

has heard it one time or another.

- A Hillary Clinton nutcracker.

I insert the nut.

- When it came to issues of gender

and blatant bias

most people didn't see.

They could see racial bias in a minute.

They could see it in a minute.

But they could not see the biases that was happening

on gender lines every day in 2008.

We bring about change by--

Iron my shirt, iron my shirt!

- You know when she's out at these rallies

and you hear these young men screaming,

"Hillary, iron my shirts."

I guess that's not sexism.

I don't know what it is.

- If there is anybody still left in the auditorium

who wants to iron his own shirt, I'll talk about that.

- And we'd be like, whoa,

I didn't think we were this archaic.

You know I thought we were a little bit more progressive

than this.

- Let's not forget and I'll be brutal,

the reason she's a U. S. senator,

the reason she's a candidate for president,

the reason she may be a front runner

is her husband messed around.

That's how she got to be senator from New York.

We keep forgetting it.

She didn't win there on her merits.

She won because everybody felt,

"my god, this woman stood up under humiliation."

- The way that the press treated me,

the way a lot of the comments that were made about me

or to me I felt that

I was,

you know,

being appraised and not just like,

"okay do we agree with her or not agree with her."

But really a woman?

Senator Edwards.

- Um, I admire what Senator Clinton has done for America.

I'm not sure about that coat.

- This notion that there was this woman

saying she wants to be the top dog.

And that just feels different

for some people wrong.

For some people it just feels different

so that means you do a different assessment in your head.

Is she qualified enough?

Is she the right person?

Does she have the right personality?

Is she doing this for the right reasons?

What are her reasons?

You know people would always say to me,

"I want to vote for a woman just not that woman."

And it was like, well, did 30 years of sexist attacks

make her that woman?

- It is no surprise to me

that the first break in the barrier of white male presidents

was a black male

because he's still what we're used to seeing.

Men lead,

men are strong and men champion the issues for this country.

- You know people were so swept away

by the prospect of the first African-American president

that they almost don't see

that there is something else historic going on.

And not until oddly enough

when she gives her concession speech

do people suddenly pause and say,

wow, that just happened.

- Now on a personal note.

When I was asked what it means

to be a woman running for president,

I always gave the same answer.

That I was proud to be running as a woman

but I was running because I thought

I'd be the best president.

But, you can be so proud

that from now on it will be unremarkable

for a woman to win primary state victories.

Unremarkable to have a woman in a close race

to be our nominee.

Unremarkable to think that a woman

can be the president of the United States

and that is truly remarkable, my friends.

And although we weren't able to shatter

that highest hardest glass ceiling this time,

thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the President-elect of the United States, Barack H. Obama.

- When he won, I was really happy and relieved.

If I couldn't win then I wanted somebody who,

I knew and respected to win.

- The new president announced some big changes today.

He rolled out his team headed by a former rival,

his new Secretary of State.

- I have known Hillary Clinton as a friend, a colleague,

a source of counsel and a tough campaign opponent.

- Well, I don't exactly know how I went

from being his opponent to being his choice

for Secretary of State.

- Me deciding to ask Hillary

to become my Secretary of State was a no-brainer for me.

I think it surprised some people in my campaign.

It certainly surprised some observers

because we had gone through, one of the toughest,

longest primary fights, in modern political history.

But throughout that process,

I never wavered from my basic view that she was smart,

sophisticated about policy,

cared deeply about the same issues I cared about.

And keep in mind I was coming in at a time when I knew

I was gonna have to devote enormous amount of time

to preventing a great depression.

- Hello.

- From a foreign policy perspective,

we were trying to repair relationships around the world.

I thought she had the gravitas,

the weight and the credibility in foreign capitals

that was gonna be hugely important.

- I think this is a time of such potential and possibility.

So, I take this office with a real sense of joy

and responsibility, commitment and collaboration.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let's get to work.

Thank you and God bless you.

Once I decided I was gonna do it, I was all in.

That's the way I am.

And it was an exciting heady time.

- She felt that in the competitive landscape

of the 21st century American influence,

American leadership was at stake

and that we needed to get to places

that had not seen a Secretary of State

either ever or in 50 years.

- When we came into office,

for maybe the first time in a very, very long time if ever

China and Russia, their approval ratings on the world stage

were sort of on par with ours.

I mean we had dropped precipitously.

And so, when Hillary showed up at these places,

it was a signal to those countries that

we care about you,

we respect you, you matter.

That made it more likely then

that we would be able to get their support

if we needed a vote in the United Nations

or we were trying to resolve a conflict

in the region before it got out of hand.

No Secretary of State has visited more nations.

401 days on the road nearly 957,000 miles.

From Afghanistan to Zambia,

we called her the secretary of schlep.

- I went to 112 countries, which was a lot.

This is my sixth visit to Pakistan.

There are the pants on fire crises happening right now.

The growing crises that are gonna happen soon.

And then there are all the other things

that left untended will turn into crises.

- Yeah, with her sunglasses and her Blackberry,

she looked like she was the boss.

And people liked that.

Texts from Hillary is going viral

and blowing up across Facebook.

It began with a picture of Hillary Clinton

focused on her Blackberry

with spoofed text messages to movers and shakers.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

has been named the most admired woman in America.

Hillary Clinton is topping the list

for the ninth year in a row. -She's the most

popular woman in America for the tenth year in a row.

- I remember one day being on the plane with her

and I said, congratulations

you're the most admired person again.

Only 5% say that they,

that they hate you.

Whoo-hoo, you know this is this great news.

And she said, you realize that's 25 million people?

- Vladimir Putin first developed

a kind of sparring ultimately adversarial relationship

with Hillary Clinton when she was still a senator.

Very famously George W. Bush said of Vladimir Putin,

"I looked into his eyes and I saw his soul."

And Hillary, then Senator Clinton, said--

- I could have told him he was a KBG agent.

By definition he doesn't have a soul.

- Which led Putin to turn around

and say Hillary Clinton has no brain.

And thus, a certain dynamic between them was born.

- Concerning Russia, you know we're watching

the election results with great interest.

When they had parliamentary elections

in the fall of 2011, the elections were fraudulent.

I mean, they were totally rigged.

Didn't count ballots, you know,

stuff ballot boxes, the whole deal.

And I gave a statement.

And Russian voters deserve a full investigation

of electoral fraud and manipulation.

10s of thousands of Russian protesters

gathering in Moscow

raging against suspected election fraud.

- Putin turned his anger on the US,

blaming Hillary Clinton in a cold war of words.

She set the tone

for some of our personalities inside the country

and gave them a signal.

- He blamed me for inciting the riots, as he called them.

- I watched the two of them interact personally

on a couple of different occasions.

And while I think there was a streak to Putin

that didn't really like Hillary Clinton,

part of him also had a deep grudging respect for her.

And I believe that his fear of her winning the presidency

was born, in part, of that grudging respect

of having someone who was his match

on the other side as compared with someone like Donald Trump

who he felt was anything but his match.

- This was Hillary Clinton's last day

on the job as Secretary of State.

- I came out of the State Department

with such high favorability and I thought okay fine.

You know, I have established myself.

I believed that I was in as strong a position

as I could be, to run again.

- Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right.

But we put together a Benghazi special committee,

a select committee.

What are her numbers today?

Her numbers are dropping.

Why?

'Cause she's untrustable.

The Benghazi, Libya attacks

that claimed the lives of a US ambassador

and three other Americans may have happened three years ago

but they could provide some fresh political fodder

on Capitol Hill.

- The American people deserve the truth

about happened, period.

- Benghazi is a very difficult subject for me to speak about

because it involved the personal tragedy

of someone I knew well,

Chris Stevens, who was our ambassador to Libya.

Benghazi was a city in eastern Libya

in which we had a small diplomatic post.

Chris Stevens decided to travel to that post.

He didn't have to call Hillary Clinton to do that.

He made his own decision to go travel there

as ambassadors do.

While he was there, it was attacked by a group of people

who were ultimately revealed to be part of a Libyan militia

that has Islamist ties.

- And frankly, without an adequate warning,

there was not enough time given the speed of the attack

for armed military assets to respond.

- In terms of the aftermath, I was involved in it

and we did our best day by day to give the American people

the best information we could.

And I was watching Secretary Clinton try to do that

while at the same time,

trying to help the State Department grieve

and heal in the aftermath of this attack.

But then some notion, farfetched notion,

of a conspiracy here was cooked up.

I believe fully cooked up by critics of President Obama

and Secretary Clinton

and then pushed relentlessly by Fox News

until finally it ran out of steam

with the eighth committee to look at this

couldn't actually identify anything

that had really been done wrong by the Secretary.

- We have no record that you had any conversations

with the ambassador after you swore him in

and before he died.

And you were his boss.

- I was the boss of ambassadors in 270 countries.

- She sat and took questions for 11 hours.

Congressional hearings are not actually a great way

to get information.

They are great theater.

And there was a lot of theater that happened.

- And here is basically what happened to their requests.

They were torn up.

- Well, that's just not true, Congressman.

- They didn't ultimately,

you know they didn't get the clips

that would make a great attack ad.

And in part, that had to have been the goal.

In the end even committee chair,

Trey Gowdy, struggled to explain what had been gained.

- Mr. Gowdy, what were the most important new things

you learned today?

- I don't know that she testified

that much differently today

than she has previous times she's testified, so.

- You know, there was nothing for them to say

'cause there was nothing there.

And I thought okay, great, we're moving on.

But here is what I want people to understand.

Even when something is disproved

people remember that the allegation was made.

For people who are only intermittently paying attention

in the midst of their very busy lives, my god,

Hillary Clinton had to go talk to the Congress about,

about something she did wrong?

And over year, after year, after year,

you know, that kind of constant character assault

takes a toll.

Even people who are supporters or familiar with you,

friends, they brush it off.

They don't believe it

but it still has a little space in the back of their heads.

So then if something else happens,

well, the space gets a little bigger.

And, that you know that's been the story of my public life.

Only minutes away now from start of the third

and final presidential debate.

Dropped behind in the polls

and needed a game changing moment.

Hillary Clinton has a significant advantage

in our electoral map over 300 electoral votes.

We have her at 307, Donald Trump in the 170s.

Well short of the 270 you need to win.

So you think, okay.

- If Russia and the United States got along well

and went after ISIS that would be good.

Look, Putin, from everything I see,

has no respect for this person.

- Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet

as president of the United States.

- No puppet, no puppet.

- It's pretty clear-- - You're the puppet.

- It's pretty clear, you won't admit--

- No, you're the puppet. - That the Russians

have engaged in cyber attacks

against the United States of America,

that you encouraged espionage against our people.

- Secretary Clinton, Mr. Trump,

I wanna thank you both for participating.

Hillary Clinton just pushed his buttons

and by the end of the debate he just unraveled.

But he wrote.

- Put your hand down and raise your right.

- Okay.

- Just get it over with.

- The idea that she took Trump for granted,

I mean, there was never a single moment

she thought this is gonna be easy.

I mean, she thought he was an idiot.

She couldn't believe what he was getting away with.

But she never thought it was gonna be easy.

And, yeah, we were confident she was gonna win.

We were confident she was gonna win

because she kicked his ass in three debates.

She opened a huge lead.

That's not arrogance.

I mean, did you think she was gonna win?

- Yes. - Are you arrogant?

- We were going to Iowa

and we're all on a 737 with the press

and it was 11 days before the election.

Things were going so well

that we didn't have anything to talk about.

So, I wander back and we're just kibitzing

and this guy from the LA Times turns to me

and he says do you have any comment on,

the FBI reopening the email investigation?

Which he said just like that.

So, of course that has to be a joke.

I literally said something like fuck off.

- We're following breaking news just coming into CNN.

The director of the FBI, James Comey,

now informing congressional lawmakers

that the FBI will review new Hillary Clinton emails.

Director Comey drops the bombshell

in a letter to Congress,

writing, in connection with an unrelated case,

the FBI has learned of the existence of emails

that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.

Back in July, Jim Comey had declared

that the email investigation had come to a conclusion.

There will be no charges in this case.

- We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.

- And then in October Jim Comey

reopens, in effect, the investigation.

- As we were landing, I was in a wonderful mood.

My best friend from sixth grade Betsy Ebling was with me.

- I said I have something to tell you.

And she's like what do you have to tell me?

Just like that.

I was like, it's not good.

- When it was Jim Comey and emails I was like, come on.

What is this about?

Secretary Clinton,

have you been in touch with the FBI?

- Secretary Clinton, any reaction to Director Comey

reopening his investigation into your emails?

So far, no comment from Hillary Clinton or her staff.

- We didn't know what it was about.

We had, it was so bewildering.

I had to get to the event.

- She goes out on stage

and we're all backstage talking to lawyers,

talking to reporters, just trying to get some intel.

The New York Times guy is like,

you know we think it's Anthony Weiner's laptop.

What are you talking about?

How could Anthony Weiner's laptop

have anything to do with this?

And then the second stunner.

The newly discovered emails

were found as part of an ongoing probe

involving sexting allegations

against former New York Congressman, Anthony Weiner.

The emails were discovered

on Anthony Weiner's laptop.

He is Huma Abedin's estranged husband

and she, of course, is Hillary Clinton's longtime aide.

- When that became clear you know Huma burst into tears.

- By the time we got to the plane she was, Huma was,

she was hysterical like I have never seen her before.

It was horrible.

- She just said you know he's gonna kill me.

He's you know, he's just gonna kill me.

- I don't think she meant like,

Anthony would murder her

but he was gonna be the death of her.

And I mean, Hillary never like, if she's wailing.

And Hillary was just, she was her friend.

You know, she wasn't the candidate,

she was just her friend and just calmed her down.

And she looks at me and she's like,

we're getting ice cream sundaes.

I was like yes, we are.

We're getting ice cream sundaes on this plane.

And we had our campaign manager, Robby,

come up to be comic relief 'cause he's amusing.

And we talked about you know shoes and clothes

and shows on HGTV to keep everybody's mind off of it.

But, man, that hurt.

- It is this irony that Hillary Clinton

stayed with Bill Clinton after his infidelity

and the impeachment.

And Huma who is arguably like a daughter to the Clintons

followed the model and stayed with Anthony Weiner.

And then Weiner and his problems end up spilling over

and hurting Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It's remarkable.

- Great.

Good afternoon.

We are 11 days out from perhaps

the most important national election of our lifetimes.

The director himself has said he doesn't know

whether the emails referenced in his letter

are significant or not.

- What would you say to a voter who, right now,

will be seeing you and hearing what you're saying,

saying I didn't trust her before,

I don't trust her anymore right now

and they're heading to the ballot box tomorrow?

- You know I think people, a long time ago,

made up their minds about the emails.

I think that's factored into,

what people think and now they're choosing a president.

- Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale

we have never seen before.

We must not let her take her criminal scheme

into the Oval Office.

- The last days of the campaign,

instead of talking about the Russian interference,

instead of talking about Donald Trump

grabbing women by their private parts,

the conversation is once again

about Hillary Clinton's emails.

The new email probe comes three months after.

They say thousands of emails.

Emails that appear related to the Hillary.

The investigation.

- All you're hearing if you're a voter is emails.

So, there was like conflating of like the Wikileaks emails

and her private emails.

- Bang, emails, emails, emails.

We saw an immediate drop in my polling.

It was devastating.

I had no reason to believe there was anything there.

But I also was in a position where, what was I gonna say?

And then we had a big,

we had a big debate because I was so angry,

I was so mad about this.

And I said, I'm gonna go out and blast the guy.

Everybody was like no, no don't do that.

You don't want to get into a fight with the FBI Director.

I said, he's been fighting me for months.

It was one of the you know things that

I've thought a lot about.

You know, maybe I should have.

I didn't know how I could win against the FBI Director

until the whole thing was resolved.

And they did not resolve it

until the Sunday before the election.

- It's shocking news.

It's from the Director of the FBI.

The headline is we're sticking with our original assessment

from July, the FBI Director says.

- Not criminal.

- Nothing new here has changed our conclusions.

- It turned out those were the same emails

they'd already looked at.

They were copies in effect.

There wasn't anything new there.

And even though a few days before the election Comey says,

no, nothing to see here after all, it's too late.

- Look, I think we still thought we'd win the election

because every, literally every poll in the universe

and the White House's internal polls, our internal polls,

public polls, all said we were gonna win.

- We thought, okay, it happened

and we just kept you know soldiering on.

- The data said she was gonna win

but it didn't feel like a winning campaign

until the last couple of days.

That final whirlwind of campaign events

really felt exciting.

Young women were there and women were crying.

You just felt like, okay,

finally this is feeling like a historic campaign.

- Val, Val, I wish you could be president.

- Me too.

- I was nervous.

But I was, I was hopeful and I actually was confident.

I thought, okay, we've really fought back

from all this stuff.

Every issue you care about is at stake.

I regret deeply how angry the tone of the campaign became.

Years from today when your kids and grandkids

ask what you did in 2016 when everything was on the line.

We had your back!

- I want you to be able to say that you did vote.

You voted for an inclusive, big-hearted, open-minded country

because I do believe we are stronger together.

- I had covered her on and off for 10 years.

I'd never seen her as happy as she looked

that final sprint before election day.

Yay!

- I thought he was--

She and Bill Clinton were like,

cuddling on the plane.

Let them--

- Okay.

You guys look great.

Do your thing.

- Okay.

One more rally.

- I got off the plane you know in the dead of night

and I hugged and shook hands and took pictures.

Everybody was so ready.

- And then like the next thing you know

we were all at the Javits Center like waiting for her

and watching the results come in.

-

Why didn't they film you

the night of the election?

Why didn't the camera--

- I, I don't think we wanted it to be.

You know it was so,

I mean if we'd been winning, they would have.

But I don't think even the staff wanted it.

Anyway.

We've been building towards this moment now

for nearly two years.

That's right Wolf

and there's never been a campaign like this.

And there could be new surprises in final hours.

- We were staying in a hotel in the City.

Bill is, you know, ensconced in front of the TV,

people are walking in and out, sitting with him.

I'm walking in and out of my room.

I'm really nervous.

I'm like pacing around like, my gosh.

And the first news was, you know, not what I'd expected.

- Pennsylvania, Steve?

Yeah, this is a state, I think the last time I

talked about this, Hillary Clinton had a lead.

It seems like a long time ago.

Just in the last few seconds Donald Trump has pulled within

7,000 votes statewide of Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania.

Very tense in the war room right now.

They're looking at Michigan.

It's 51,000 votes ahead in Wisconsin right now,

a state that usually goes Democratic.

- She was somber.

Sort of, I think kind of feeling the weight of it.

I wouldn't,

I at one point said to her, I think we let you down.

- I went in and laid down on the bed in the bedroom

and I was just like bewildered and astonished.

And I was thinking, wait a minute, what is happening?

I mean, I've been in lots of elections

and I didn't see this coming.

- Time went by very quickly and all of a sudden,

it's like one in the morning.

We realize there are all these people at Javits,

somebody has got to tell them to go home.

- Well, folks, it's been a long night.

Several states are too close to call,

so we're not gonna have anything more to say tonight.

- But on our way over, AP called Pennsylvania for Trump

and we're like, that,

and that, you can't come back from that.

Pennsylvania is gone, there is no path.

- You know the television commentators,

the AP and others were calling it for Trump.

And, Obama called me and

he said,

you know, I'm really sorry.

And he said, but you know, you probably should concede.

I said, I'm not gonna concede until the morning.

I said, I can't.

He said, well, then you need to call Trump.

And I thought, brother, wow.

We drove to the site

and there were people crying on the sidewalks,

there were people you know holding their children up.

I mean it, it was just you know like a death.

That's the only way to describe it, I guess.

- This has been a honor.

- Thank you, it's been an honor

for me to have this team with you on it.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you.

- You're such an inspiration.

She's a trouper this one.

Every day.

- So proud of you.

- I was totally emotionally wrecked.

I felt like I'd let everybody down.

I felt like, you know,

I worried that he wouldn't rise to the occasion,

that all the forces he'd unleashed had been rewarded.

It made me sick to my stomach.

It didn't make sense.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

I feel pride and gratitude for this wonderful campaign

that we built together.

Whoo!

- You represent the best of America and being your candidate

has been one of the greatest honors of my life.

And to all the women and especially the young women

who put their faith in this campaign

and in me, I want you to know that nothing

has made me prouder than to be your champion.

It was really, really tough not crying,

not getting a catch in my throat.

I mean, it was one of the hardest public moments

that I've ever had.

And to all the little girls who are watching this,

never doubt that you are valuable and powerful

and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world

to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

Immediately after I got off the stage,

after I hugged people and held people who were crying

and all of the just pent up emotions spilling out,

you know, finally you know Bill and I left.

And I just collapsed in the back of the van.

I was like what just happened?

You know, look, I lost.

I am the one who didn't figure it out.

You know at the end of the day,

it was my campaign, I was the candidate.

I have to take responsibility.

- Look, what I said to people after the election,

like when you lose so narrowly, when it's three states

and you know 60,000 votes, 80,000 votes,

anybody who has a theory about why we lost, they're right.

Like, fine, you know.

You didn't talk enough about the economy.

Okay.

You know, it was Comey.

Okay.

It's so few votes,

that any one of those could have been determinative.

- There were a lot of lessons that,

people can and I hope will learn from, the campaign.

But what I loved was the reaction, to the loss

and the resistance that grew up because of it.

This is what hypocrisy looks like!

The largest demonstration in US history.

Millions of protesters around the globe.

A powerful message

that women's rights are human rights.

- It began to sprout almost immediately.

- People decided to engage

in the most Hillary Clinton way possible.

They're registering voters, they're organizing,

they're starting groups.

- You know groups that were gonna take back the House.

-

A record smashing number of women

ran for office this year.

- We did it.

Resulting in historic wins

for women in a year that galvanized them.

- We're going to Congress.

- Ready or not here we come.

- She inspired a whole generation.

I think her legacy is that the Democratic Party

is going to be different.

That women are not going to stand aside.

There is nothing stopping us now.

- Let's do this.

The 2020 presidential campaign

is turning out to be--

A record six women

seeking the Democratic nomination.

- Thank you.

- There certainly was a very big silver lining.

And that made me feel somewhat better

because you know, looking back maybe,

I don't know 100 years from now,

maybe people will see it

as the really historic turning point that lit the fuse.

So, we just have to keep, keep pushing it forward.

- I think as long as she has been in public life,

there've been these ups and downs.

You know, be our champion, go away.

Be our path breaker, go away.

Change is difficult and change always comes

with steps forward and back and it's polarizing.

And she was different, Hillary was different.

And created backlash and excitement

in kind of equal measure.

- I don't know that we're ever ready for the person

who has to blaze the trail.

We're ready for the people who come after them

because somebody else has created enough space

for them to not have to shrink to fit.

Instead, there is plenty of room now for them to walk

in all their glory.

And for her, she was at the tip of the spear.

- I mean this to me is like the full circle of life.

And, yeah, have there been rough spots and detours

and ups and downs and all the rest of it?

Yes.

But at the end of the day, you know,

I've loved and been loved

and all the rest is background music.

So, I have no regrets.

I am a very grateful person.

Okay, I think we're good.

- Okay, okay.

Thank you so much, that was great.

Can we get a room tone?

Can we get a room tone? - Marker.