After every presidential election since 1972, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government has sponsored a two-day forum where the key players from all sides come together to dissect and discuss their campaigns for the historical record. The tone is usually civil, but like everything else that happened in 2016, this year's event was different.
As top strategists and aides to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump sat down next to each other on Thursday to go over the past 18 months, pent-up rage bubbled over, The Washington Post reports. Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director, spoke out against Trump's campaign chief executive, Steve Bannon, running the hard-right website Breitbart. "If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost," she said. "I would rather lose than win the way you guys did." Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, responded by asking, "Do you think I ran a campaign where supremacists had a platform?" Palmieri quickly shot back, "You did, Kellyanne. You did."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In the night's most jaw-dropping moment, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager and CNN contributor, proclaimed that the "problem with the media" was they "took everything that Donald Trump said so literally. The American people didn't. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it's around the dinner table or at a bar — you're going to say things, and sometimes you don't have all the facts to back it up."
You can listen to the discussion below. Catherine Garcia
-
USDA orders states to ‘undo’ full SNAP paymentsSpeed Read The Trump administration is telling states not to pay full November food stamp benefits
-
Senate takes first step to end record shutdownSpeed Read Eight senators in the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans to advance legislation to reopen the government
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
