About theeines talks 2016 president ial campaign, the Trump Presidency and 2018 elections. He spoke at the Washington Center for internships and academic seminars. Center for san bernardinoships and academic seminars. We are reconvening. We have a speaker. Get going. We are going to be on television. When you have a question, go up to the mike, say your name and school and keep your question concise. Its my distinct pleasure to get to introduce philippe reines, who is an american political consultant, a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton when she became secretary of state in 2010. In 2010 promoted to secretary of state for strategic communications. Hes worked for a number of political campaigns and holds a bachelor of arts degree in Political Science from Columbia University school of general studies. Here we have an example of what you have you can do with a Political Science bachelors grieve degree. Im going to hand over the mike phone to him and im looking forward too a great presentation. Good morning, thank you for having me. Thank you julia and ann and kevin. I didnt know this was on tv any more than you did until a few minutes ago so hello out there. I want to say a few things up front quickly and then get right if earing from you guys and thats anything i want to add at the end, maybe well save a couple of minutes. First off, some context of who youre hearing from and give you a few warnings. Up until 8 00 p. M. On Election Night last november 8, i could not fathom the idea of Hillary Clinton not being president of the United States so i was as wrong as anyone. Now, come 8 01 things started in hindsight making a little bit of sense so im going to try to speak from that perspective of complete having 2020 hindsight. Two is im going to reference just by habit, history and polling a lot. The problem with doing that in this day and age is people can say polling was wrong. Hell history was upended last year but history was upedged in 2008. It doesnt mean that it has no bearing. Part of that is ill probably be a little annoying and do that, can you imagine if this happened when Hillary Clinton was president or can you imagine if this happened when president obama was president . I know that grates and i try to do it less and less but i think its important because to me the greatest threat right now is the normalization of whats happening. Theres a term they read. I dont know who to credit it too to malignant normalcy. Thats a big part of whats happened and thats the scourge i think that needs to be stopped. I would say the greatest perpetrator of that in my mind is donald trump and ill just end by saying i think theres no more important thing to do right now than get donald trump out of office as fast as possible. Thats where im coming from. Please dont hesitate to challenge me. Because if i dont like it, ill snap back at you or something and most importantly, im going to be negative about things when its negative but dont leave here dissuaded or demoralized. I ive worked for Hillary Clinton since july 2002. 15 1 2 years and shes one of he most beloved, less beloved, polarizing people in america and i think people automatically assume that because i worked for her and im a at the that my views are lefty liberal and theyre often not. Ive actually give felt as michigan of a democrat or an american as i have since last november and a lot of what i believe and what i believe has to happen is coming from that perspective, of the damage thats being done to our country, not just whats evident short term but whats probably going to laster for decades. So with that uplifting opening, kevin, did you want to or just open it up . Yes, if youd like to start with a comment or question, please come to the mike. Remember how julia asked to say where youre from. And school too. Someone told me theres harvard extension students here . I did a couple of semesters there. Hi. Yeah. Njcu, o, im andy from from jersey city, new jersey. My question is look back on the 2016 election, do you think that Hillary Clinton did an adequate job at properly campaigning herself and at getting herself out to the large majority of americans . There was a lot of criticism on how she faltered or department campaign hes enough . Good question. I assume thats often asked in the form of not going enough to wisconsin, not going enough to blue states. I understand why people say that but i think a couple of things. Wisconsin is a package with michigan and pennsylvania. And while everyone obsesses about wisconsin. If only shed go to wisconsin. She didnt go to wisconsin. I hate to say it, not to talk down to the cheese states or whatever its called because she lost by more than the margin of wisconsin. Thats not an excuse but you cant make that argument about pennsylvania. The lady practically moved to pennsylvania. No one didnt take pennsylvania seriously, including theo arms of the Democratic Party. If you look back to, i think, april, may, maybe a little later of 2016. You had, i think priorities u. S. A. , one of the pacts spending a great deal and working towards electing a democrat, they immediately identified pennsylvania as a key state, a must win. They poured tens of millions of dollars in. The campaign itself poured in tens of millions of dollars. The campaign polled regular little. Pennsylvania papers and economic institutions polled regularly so its hard to i understand gain, the wisconsin penny. And i dont know. Maybe if shed spent as much time in wisconsin as she did pennsylvania and won wisconsin, i wouldnt be standing here because donald trump wouldnt be prosecute pennsylvania president. One thing that well hopefully get to it if someone asks me about conspiracy theories but one of the most ridiculous things is painting Hillary Clinton as anything other than energetic and spry. It is hard keeping up with her. She campaigned her tail off. She won in places like nevada, they were not gem mess so in hindsight thats to me if you dont solve pennsylvania, you dont solve the whole thing. Ok, thank you very much. Hi, my name is Rachel Ackerman and im with the Harvard Extension School so speaking from your now 2020 hindsight that began at 8 01 p. M. , would you do differently in campaigning . Can i give you one piece of advice . Dont forget they give you four credits per course. So when you frever somewhere else, make sure they give you four. I dont plan on treffing. Good. I had to remember that. You have to break it down to the larger strategic question of going back to early 2015 when she decided to run and what that would look like and tactical decisions in 2016. And then this probably third bucket of external factors so in no particular order, the theres something i could do differently, i would have waited outside jim comeys car on july 5 before his Infamous Press conference and tackled him until someone with some sense could say this is very inappropriate what youre about to do. Strategically, i dont know. I think in hindsight there were some very big problems that would have affected any democrat. Im also going to be let me say it up front i dont think any democrat would have beaten donald trump aside from president obama and i think that because and ill come back to that. I think that because if you look at polling, i think one out of every five voters came out and said they voted for donald trump. They had voted for barack obama in 2012 and they continued to approve of the job barack obama was doing last year. And thats pretty interesting. I think its been hard for people to kind of grasp that but the reason that thats important is if you had replaced Hillary Clinton with joe biden, joe en, who i love, and i hope if he runs, i hope the best of luck to knocking donald trump out, melt forically. Although i think they did challenge each other to a he would have been bogged down by obamacare. He would have been bogged down by trailed. He would have been bogged down by being in washington if decades. And those things alone were probably dispositive. And i think the other point is everyone assumes, you know, when they say x would have won, they assume x would have gotten what hilly clinton got and added some. I think thats a really silly way to look at it. O people would not have gotten what she got, either with specific demographics or sub groups so the strategic question i think is pretty hard to answer. It was just such lunacy. And i think if anyone had said, if i had a time capsule and went back and met with her Senior Campaign team and her and i said youre going to be facing donald trump. Hes going to be accused of, you know, Sexual Assault and harassment. No one is going to care that he went bankrupt blue six times. Hes going to say he could shoot people on fifth avenue, no one cares. Id be laughed out of the room. Obviously what she did worked in the primaries. She became the first woman candidate in a mainly political party. On the tactical side, we had some unforced errors. She writes about in her book, which, by the way is great, called what happened. Despite people saying we want her to go away, although ive nevada actually seen anyone say that or have the guts to say that if in their own valleys. Shes not going anywhere. People have wanted her to leave for decades and thankfully she never listened. Ether it was running for congresswoman of new york, running for secretary of state. She calmed a big basket of trump voters deplorable not the greatest idea, although i think she was plenty accurate at the time and especially in hind sight. There were comments she made about coal workers that were taken differently than she meant and, you know, when you lose a by 70,000 votes, you could sit here and list 10 things that made the difference. If i could snap my fingers, it would be july 5 when jim comey went to the podium like this and told the word world that she was innocent or he was not pursuing anything, that no reasonable prosecutor would but added 15 minutes of commentary that made you think she was al capone. That was inappropriate. It was out of line. People who hate Hillary Clinton have said that. Os stensbli he was fired by donald trump because of that. Obviously thats not have believable but we had to live with that and obviously what he did in october kind of doubled down on that. Im not sure if that covers id probably answered someo questions so thank you. Im not used to having an hour. I go on fox on msnbc and you have two minutes. Hello. Im abby chase from Quinnipiac University in hamdan, connecticut, and you were obviously tasked with portraying donald trump in the mock debates with hillary to practice for the televised debate. Yes. In what ways have you seen the change between the candidate donald trump and the President Donald Trump and what are the implication of any changes youve seen, if any . Ive seen none. I think the only changes have been the effect. I did play donald trump you know, there were three general election debates between the candidates and its a big deal. Its really one of the few times you see candidates together. Secretary clinton took him very seriously and someone had said i had been training my whole life to be donald trump, just didnt know it. Window into real things. Probably first and foremost, it go through life nevada suffering consequences. Nevada. Nevada once. Goes out of business, declares bankruptcy. More people come along and lend to him. No organization has declared more disrupt si more often than the trump casinos. Offend literally every group. Theres not a demographic in this room that wasnt offended by donald trump. Ow, that worked really well and couple that with lying like no ones lied before and not getting called out on it or people not caring or just getting desensitized to it. It worked. You know, whenve people say how did she lose to him i say remember that 17 republicans lost to him and these were ostensibly i didnt care if a bunch of them but a lot of them were seasoned politicians who served in Public Office who had a lot of money, who were not idiots and he steamrolled them. The primaries were not close. He barely lost iowa and then never looked back. And i think a hospital of why election day was a shock was because people thought that routine wouldnt work to a broader all of a sudden. You could dominate the Republican Party with 50 of whoever these people are but it would, when the lever hit the road, but he isnt. There was there were no consequences to anything he said or tilled. Now there are still no consequences but hes not succeeding. If you define success simply as did you win the presidency, he was extremely successful. I mean, what he did was shocking , its understandable in hindsight but it was remarkable. What hes done since, which is basically nothing different, has not worked out. It just hasnt. Tax reform was their first win and its because its the thing that the Republican Party, you know, joins hands about most. So his style is not its not translating, or it is and well find out the hard way but hes not for someone who wants to be loved, i dont know how he looks at a piece of paper i dont know if quib pack has his approval but if i looked down and said 32 of america aprust of me and 70 thinks i should be investigated for this or 60 cant think of a single nice thing to say about me, i would maybe do something a little bit different. He doesnt have to become a nice guy. He could just dial some stuff down, but he has no plan. Hes nevada had a plan. The analogy they used once was a pin ball machine and hes not the guy standing here doing this. Hes the im sorry to the mike guy for that. Hes the ball. I mean, hes just hitting random bumpers and lights and sounds are going off. He has no plan and if you think hes got a plan and you say it out loud, his new plan is to thwart you by doing the opposite. So his biggest problem now is that he hasnt changed be you he is not going to change. He is incapable of changing. Why would he change . Things have nevada gone wo for him. He is the president of the yimente. He is one of 44 teamle people to hold that office . Why would you change anything . Thats what he yells at his staff all the time about you told me to drop out after access hollywood. You dont know what youre talking about. Somebody might be standing in his party 10 years from now saying thats how we won two terms. I hope not but hes not going to change and its folly for the real people who are, i think, naive or overly hopeful is to always wait for when is the pivot coming . When is he going to stop tweeting like a crazy person, this is that . I dont know how much time has to go by before you accept the fact that hes not going to change. In is where we are. This is whats going to continue. I mean, hes the most one while i was ed studying my own prep for debate prep was he he just hes the most predictable unpredictable person of all time. And thats why i dont understand why people are surprised and thats why the overly long answer to your question is no. Thank you. Hi. My name is sienna and im from the university of massachusetts, lowell and something you mentioned in uniform introduction is that after the election something inside you changed. I was what is something you would do differently . Act, which istax wrong. Passed tax cuts at a time of economic growth. He is running around saying it is the best economy ever. My head is not exploding. To me, the worst moment of this year. It okhanged, he had made to say whatever you wanted. With him, we knew what he was saying. Most of the time, it is flat out dom. He was unleashing a hate that was not going to dissipate. Moment wasspiriting his speech to the boy scouts. I looked at president s all the way back. At least to nixon, addressing the jamboree. What he said is crazy. It is crazy. I think what he is doing with fake news, i do not have kids. There are times when i wish i did. Right now, i am glad i do not. What he is doing to entire horrific. S is you hear stories about kids coming home and their parents saying, what is with ec . It is a fake report card. , we are goingent to see over time, these numbers have exploded. He could leave office tomorrow, we are going to be dealing with this for a generation. In terms of that kinds of thing. That is what kills me. If he wants to wake up every day cuts ors on tax infrastructure i would disagree but i would not be screaming from the rooftops. It is this constant attacking. Every single part of society. It, the term, bend it until it breaks. He doesnt care about breaking it. He is just swamping the system. He has got to be stopped. Good morning. I am in Miamidade College. I am interested in the direction of the democratic already. It lost a huge base with the whethern, im wondering the Democratic Party will revisit the message they are trying to communicate during the 2016 election . Will they try other strategies to get the base they lost. That is a great question. I dont know the answer. You have the 2018 midterms. The if you can flip the house, that is going to make a difference in terms of slowing him down. Depending on what the investigation finds. The second, 2020. I think you have many people saying, impeach. Like tomorrow or the minute we get control. Ands committing high crimes misdemeanors. He has met the threshold for being impeached. The 25th amendment. People who lose their minds should not be the president. I dont know the answer. Here is a good example. 28 teen isls us, going to be ugly for him. Obama. Ugly for barack i will throw in 2006 was ugly for george bush. Each of those things to me had a reason. Bill clinton, it was failure of health care. And the budget deal. With barack obama, it was obamacare. George bush, it was iraq. I dont know, this is the question you are asking, whether sheer hatred in the Democratic Party for this man is the equivalent of republicans getting worked up about obamacare or bill clinton or democrats in iraq. I think it is. But on the flipside you have people saying, including the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, thats not our message. Stop saying impeach. You literally have people like tom stier who is very wealthy.