Michael: Everyone thinks they know the story of the 2016 election. But what if one of the biggest factors wasn't just the candidate, but the reporters forced to live inside a rolling bubble of paranoia, stale coffee, and meticulously planned 'spontaneity'? Kevin: That sounds less like a political campaign and more like a surreal reality TV show. A very, very long one. Michael: That's the world Amy Chozick plunges us into in her memoir, Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling. Kevin: Right, and Chozick wasn't just any reporter. She was a top political writer for The New York Times, assigned to the Hillary beat for years. She was so embedded that President Trump famously called her a 'third-rate reporter,' which is almost a badge of honor in this context. Michael: Exactly. And her experience was so defining it was even adapted into a TV series. She lived this story. And it starts with this fundamental, almost impossible tension for a journalist.

Michael: Chozick opens a chapter with a killer quote from Janet Malcolm: 'Journalists who swallow the subject’s account whole... are not journalists but publicists.' And her entire book is a tightrope walk over that very line. How do you cover someone who is famously guarded, who has a decades-long distrust of your employer, and still get the story without becoming their mouthpiece or their enemy? Kevin: That’s a tough line to walk. How did that tension play out in reality? Did the campaign try to… manage her? Michael: Oh, 'manage' is a gentle word for it. Chozick describes this one incredible scene. It's May 2014, and she and her editor are summoned to the New York Times' D.C. bureau for a meeting. Who shows up? A delegation of seven of Hillary's top aides. We're talking Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, the whole inner circle. Kevin: Seven of them? For one reporter? That sounds less like a meeting and more like an intervention. Michael: It was. They sit down in this drab conference room with stale coffee and day-old Danish, and for an hour, they complain. Not just about stories they thought were negative, but also stories they thought were neutral, and even some they thought were positive. Their ultimate point was that the entire beat, her job of covering Hillary Clinton, was unnecessary. Kevin: Wait, they called a formal meeting to complain about... the beat itself? That sounds less like feedback and more like an intimidation tactic. Michael: It absolutely was. It was a power play. Chozick writes that she felt like she was being dumped. The meeting ends, and she's essentially been 'iced out' by the main press team. They tell her she now has to go through Cheryl Mills directly, which is a classic political move to control access. Kevin: Wow. So how does a reporter even function after that? What do you do when the campaign officially puts you in the freezer? Michael: Well, it gets even more absurd. This strained relationship escalates into what the media dubbed 'Bathroomgate.' Kevin: Please tell me that's not as weird as it sounds. Michael: It is. Chozick is at a Clinton Global Initiative event, and she's being escorted everywhere by a young press minder, an intern. She goes to the restroom, and the minder follows her in, standing guard outside the stall. Chozick writes a short, lighthearted blog post about it, a little scene-setter about the bubble of security. Kevin: Okay, a bit strange, but seems minor. Michael: The Clinton world explodes. Bill Clinton is reportedly backstage fuming, saying something like, "Goddammit, we’re trying to save the world and all these people can talk about is the goddamn bathroom." Hillary is furious. The campaign sees it as another attack, another sign of a hostile press. It solidifies Chozick's status as an enemy. Kevin: Over a bathroom trip? That level of paranoia is incredible. It speaks volumes about the atmosphere she was working in. It’s not just about access; it's about navigating this hall of mirrors where every reflection is distorted by suspicion. Michael: Exactly. And that paranoia, that need to control every little detail, bleeds directly into our second topic: the campaign's almost farcical quest to manufacture an 'authentic' Hillary.

Kevin: Right, because nothing says 'authentic' like a team of strategists in a room with a whiteboard trying to script spontaneity. Michael: You've nailed it. After a rough summer in 2015, the campaign decides Hillary needs to show more 'humor and heart.' They actually tell this to Chozick. The headline of her story becomes, 'Hillary to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say.' Kevin: Oh no. That's like putting out a press release that says, 'Starting Monday, I will be 20% more fun.' It’s the least authentic thing you can possibly do. Michael: It backfired spectacularly. The campaign was mocked for it. It led to what Chozick calls the 'Spontaneity is EMBARGOED until 4:00 p.m.' phase. Everything became even more calculated. And you see this in their attempts to create viral, relatable moments. Kevin: Oh man, I remember that Vine. The 'Chillin' in Cedar Rapids' one. It was so awkward! It's like watching your CEO try to do a TikTok dance. Michael: It was peak cringe. Hillary is in a terrible mood, but the digital team convinces her to do it. She just glares at the camera and deadpans, "I'm just chillin' in Cedar Rapids." The campaign staff thought it was hilarious because they knew how much she hated it. But it just broadcast this sense of forced relatability. Kevin: And this was all part of the 'Everyday Americans' messaging, right? The slogan they tried to build the whole campaign on. Michael: It was. And Chozick gives us the inside story on why that failed so badly. It wasn't just a clunky phrase. The book reveals that Hillary herself grew to hate it. Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, told the speechwriting team, "I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans." Kevin: Wow. But why did it fail? Was the slogan bad, or was it just that she couldn't sell it? Michael: It's a bit of both. The book shows that the campaign tested 84 potential replacement slogans. Eighty-four! They tried 'Fighter,' 'Strength,' 'In It Together.' Nothing stuck. Chozick argues the problem wasn't just the slogan; it was that Hillary struggled to articulate a simple, core reason for why she was running. She would tell this story about her father's drapery business and his 'squeegee' over and over, but it never connected to a larger vision. Kevin: That makes sense. A slogan is just an empty container. If you can't fill it with a genuine, compelling story, it just sounds like corporate branding. Michael: And the ultimate irony, which Chozick points out, is that the campaign was so obsessed with appealing to 'Everyday Americans' that they seemed to lose touch with what actual everyday Americans were feeling. They were polling and focus-grouping the idea of economic anxiety instead of just listening to it. Kevin: It seems like they were so focused on crafting this perfect, focus-grouped image that they missed what was actually happening on the ground. Michael: They missed a lot. Which brings us to the unseen battlefield.

Michael: The campaign's focus on image management left them blind to some very real dynamics. And Chozick gives this perfect, infuriating example she calls 'The Tale of Two Choppers.' Kevin: Okay, I'm intrigued. What are the two choppers? Michael: In 2008, during her first run, Hillary chartered a helicopter in Iowa to get to multiple events in one day. The media narrative was immediate and brutal: she was the 'Hill-A-Copter,' an out-of-touch elitist flying over the heads of hardworking Iowans. A former congressman even snipped that a pickup truck would have been more effective. Kevin: I remember that. It fed right into the narrative that she was aloof. So what's the second chopper? Michael: Fast forward to 2015. Donald Trump flies his personal, gold-plated 'Trump' helicopter to the Iowa State Fair and gives kids free rides. He tells one little boy, "I am Batman." The media coverage? It's about his populist genius, his marketing savvy, how he's connecting with the people. Kevin: You're kidding me. It's the same action—using a helicopter—with completely opposite interpretations. Does Chozick chalk that up to sexism, or just Trump's unique ability to bend reality? Michael: She suggests it's a potent mix of both. There was a clear double standard. But it was also part of a much bigger, and far more disastrous, strategic miscalculation by the Clinton campaign. They didn't just misread Trump's appeal; in some ways, they actively cultivated it. Kevin: Wait, what? They cultivated it? Michael: Yes. Chozick uncovers internal strategy memos from the DNC and the campaign. They had a 'Pied Piper' strategy. The idea was to elevate what they saw as the most 'extreme' Republican candidates—Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson—believing they would be easier to beat in a general election. Robby Mook, her campaign manager, literally had an agenda item for a meeting that asked, "How do we maximize Trump?" Kevin: You're telling me they helped him? That's Chekhov's gun right there. If you introduce a villain in act one, you can't be surprised when he's still on stage in act three. That is political malpractice on a historic scale. Michael: They were convinced he was a 'summer fling,' that his sheen would wear off. They saw him as a tool to expose the Republican party's radicalism, not as a viable candidate. They were so busy fighting the ghosts of 2008, trying not to make the same mistakes, that they completely misjudged the new war they were in. Kevin: And Trump, meanwhile, was fighting a totally different kind of war. He went after Bill Clinton's past, using Roger Stone's playbook. Chozick mentions Trump's 'schlonged' comment and how it was a calculated move to bait Hillary into a fight about sexism, so he could then pivot to Bill's scandals. Michael: Exactly. And it worked. Hillary went silent. The campaign knew that was their biggest vulnerability, and Trump exploited it perfectly. He knew she couldn't respond without making it a bigger story. It was a brutal, effective strategy that the Clinton campaign, with all its data and poll-tested slogans, had no answer for.

Michael: And that's the tragedy Chozick captures so vividly. It's a story of a campaign so haunted by the ghosts of the past—the media wars, the 2008 loss, the scandals—that they became blind to the very real, very different threat right in front of them. They were fighting the last war. Kevin: It makes you wonder. The book is called Chasing Hillary, but after reading it, you feel like everyone—the press, the campaign, even Hillary herself—was chasing a ghost. They were chasing an idea of what a campaign should be, while Trump was just... running one. He was rewriting the rules in real-time, and they were still playing by a book that was already out of date. Michael: It's a powerful and often uncomfortable look in the mirror for both politics and journalism. The book got polarizing reviews; some critics said it didn't have enough bombshells, but its value isn't in new scandals. It’s in the texture, the feeling of being inside that bubble as it was about to burst. Kevin: Absolutely. It’s a human story about a political machine, and that’s what makes it so compelling. Michael: We'd love to hear what you think. What was the most surprising part of the 2016 campaign for you? Find us on our socials and let us know. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.