>> at evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to

barnes & noble upper west side. jennifer palmieri was the director to medications for hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. prior to that position, she served as the white house communications director for president barack obama. she was also the national press secretary for the 2004 john edwards campaign and for the democratic party in 2002. she is currently president of the center for american progress action fund. she will be in conversation with nicole wallace, and nbc news political analyst and host of msnbc deadline white house. ms. wallace contributed regularly to special reports and major events for both nbc news and msnbc during the 2016 presidential election including the republican and democratic national convention. president donald trump's address to a joint session of congress and other major national stories.

previously she was white house medications director to george w. bush. dear madam president and empowering letter to the first woman president and by extension to all women working to succeed in any field. through each chapter she creates a forward thinking framework of inspirational and practical advice for all women everywhere were determined to seize control of their lives, their workplaces in the country. hillary rodham clinton writes my book explained what happened and where we need to go from here. jennifer palmieri picks up the ball and runs with it in this book. it's about being a woman, working for a woman, and telling the stories of the personal and professional ups and downs that all women need to hear as we chart our individual and collective

futures. without further do, please join me in welcoming nicole wallace and jennifer. [applause] [applause] >> i don't know why i feel like i'm about to cry. but i am. we've been friends for a long time. we've been through a lot of shit together. today on my show we talked about the commander-in-chief debate and.

>> i purchased 3 pints of ice cream that night for myself. i was reading to do brian williams 11:00 o'clock show and we talked at least one night and afterward i said do you think i went too far in revealing how much i talked for they said is it inappropriate and i said it depends on your brand. i said don't ever say that's me again. i'm not a brand. the pages of this tiny beautiful little book makes me cry because it cuts right to the bone. it is the no bullshit state of where we are not just as women but as a country. i'm in a start reading from it because nothing i can say and no cover station can do it justice i'm just going to start. when the unimaginable happens, imagine what else might be possible. i want to tell you what that

day after felt like. it felt like a movie scene you would never see. the scene where you don't defuse the bomb just in time. the scene where the world explodes. it's 7:00 a.m. wednesday november 9. i wake up in my room at the peninsula and the new york hotel. having gone to sleep two hours before. silence, a suffocating silence like i had been hurled into a black hole, disconnected from the rest of the world. it doesn't even seem possible to me that i could still speak with other campaign staff. i imagine if i picked up the phone to call one of them it wouldn't work. i imagine each one of them also tumbling in space and isolation and gravity, no orientation. this much i can process. i feel fear, free-floating fear. it's not attached to anything specific, just fear. also this, a yearning. not a hope because i can feel no hope on this day. but a yearning that this new

world america is entering won't be as bad as we predicted. and failure. we failed. it was on us to save america and we let her blowup. >> these are all my colleagues from the campaign, i can't look at that because we all start crying. i wanted people, and i know some people have said that chapter is so painful to read, but i want people, i want people, what i have found is that people say that is exactly how i felt like he said. i wanted for those who live through it to feel like our story was heard and appreciated, not unlike anthony michael hall in the breakfast club, for those of us a certain age, and also, because it was so profound what we lived through but i

also realized it wasn't just the clinton campaign staff, it was millions of people, men and women both but particularly women and that chapter progressive and to realize that at some point we all felt like we had a make a decision, particularly women, how are you going to feel about this. he won. back i want and what does that mean? does that mean that's who wins in america? does that mean women are only meant to go so far? raven had moments before the election rice said to hillary, do you think it's scary on the campaign trail, you felt like there were primal forces swirling. maybe there's a reason men are bigger and stronger than

women. maybe we are trying to upset the patriarch and we shouldn't do it. that's how powerful and scary it felt. i think what we were building two wasn't a victory, but it was in some way overthrowing the patriarchy. busting open the glass bubble you're living in. it wasn't a glass ceiling but some bubble shattered that night and we realize we have a lot more to go to reach quality in the country, but it sure is inspiring to see the ways we are doing it and women just decided we will be empowered in this moment. my college roommates little brother is here. this is very exciting. and, that's remarkable. i started talking to my girlfriends about it and she said i like myself better now, i like the person i am, i feel like it's more real.

it's hard to combat what were combating but now i feel like were getting to some truth. i wanted to share the experience at all of us had and have our story be heard but also tried to get the essence of why women chose to feel empowered. >> this is sort of a stripped-down version, walking back here there are shelves now. trump the dictator, trump begin, it's there somewhere. i'm sure someone at ms wrote it. this is so efficient and profound. what is the efficient and profound explanation about where we have been put i still feel like we are in the black hole that you describe on the day off. where do you think we are. >> i really didn't have a good long cry about the election until november 7, 2017 so that

was the day of virginia and new jersey and i met one of my colleagues and they said i think they're going to be fine and win by like five points. i was sobbing and he said let it out sister, let it out. i thought, i was so worried that if we had lost the virginia governor's race for the republican candidate was kind of like trump like where you could do things that he did but not be quite as of noxious and win, he wasn't the greatest candidate we've ever had but nobody cared. he won by eight points. i was just so relieved.

we are not going to dissolve into the fiery pit of racial hatred. the bat is not what this country is going to do. we won new jersey. it was like we americans that don't want the country to get divided like this. i feel, that was my first, the women's march, that was my first bit of hope when we walked out of our headquarters the day after the election in brooklyn. there were little kids would come from the neighborhood school and they had two blocks worth of chalk messages. said we all belong here, rise up, do the most good and i thought wow, these kids, first of all i thought i looked at the parents and i said i see what you did. these kids are freaking out. it was a thing. what was i going to tell my kids about donald trump.

but i thought these kids are going to remember that for the rest of their lives. they are going to remember that they went to hillary clinton's headquarters american to be proud of it and tell their kids that and they were like oh, right, this is not just can be a normal reaction. i feel like were still in it and he still the president, he doesn't interest me at all. the only thing i'm interested in, he just does not interest me. he is boring. he is not intellectually interesting, it's all a question of what are we going to do about it, and i don't take it for granted that the country is going to be okay. i used to say i thought there was a 38% or 52% chance that the day was behind us and were going to die in a fiery pit of racial hatred and 50% chance that were not. : : :

i don't know emma gonzalez but i love her. spin if i could tell her anything i would tell her everything i've ever known. she has the skills. we went through several campaigns to learn and they are just bored with them. i want you to talk about it.

seeing see if they are so articulate because they are used to having a platform to tell their own stories. thinking that their opinion matters and people would be interested in it. i have a few thoughts about yolanda king who is so amazing. nine years old and emma gonzalez. there's nothing more in the world than a little girl. just fearless and a little girls are like that and at some point they learn to fear. that behavior is learned. that is not you. don't learn it and women have to unlearn the doubts that they have. and emma gonzalez that there and

cried with tears coming down her face for six naff minutes and i'm a big crier and i'm easily moved to tears. you know i don't want 10 years from now people be like emma gonzalez she seems smart but there's something about her just don't like. there's something about her i just don't like and that really is what i hope we caught her and the next generation. and they don't encounter that. this idea of nodding less than crying more. we were still the generation that could try and i worked for crybabies. i know this isn't big bush

country whatever you think of then those men weep. >> if you listen to bush he's a big crier. >> he's not even the worst of them. all of them cry like newborns. bush 43 and jab. i mean they all cry and we would write speeches and they would be beautiful speeches. speechwriters for gifted and they write for the post now. we would read them and say oh this is the most beautiful story i know he will cry. we would go through a pullout all the moving stuff because he would cry. my point is it's not just women who cry. it is men but we were never

worried about him being seen as weak. we were more worried about him not getting through it but i remember when john mccain was diagnosed to have a backup plan. i mean like you said you have a plan. you have a backup plan if you cry. >> i think with women it's not that they aren't strong, they don't have it together. like she can't get it together because she's crying and i'm a big crier. i have friends here back there. a big crier from way back at the clinton white house. [laughter] and we called my office the

crying room because some days he would be christine and sometimes it would be me and it's just like where you let off steam. but it's not just when you are angry or frustrated. sometimes for me it's one i really care about something i will get emotional work.that i have this experience at harvard right after the campaign. it was three weeks after the campaign. >> have you done it before? >> i have. from the winning into the losing end. >> you lost tube barack obama, right, right. [laughter] >> yours is different. >> it was then i remember saying i don't know if it's a good

idea. this train wreck of the a campaign just came screeching into cambridge. welcome to 2013, harvard. but i promised myself that at that time there was like this be like maybe he will be normal. it was like maybe he didn't really mean it when his campaign was -- white supremacists and maybe he will get the country to have less division. we were not hysterical when he was using race to divide people for political purposes. i promised myself i had an imaginary moment an imaginary conversation and i was super eloquent when i did it and

really poised. i'm not going to sail that but i will say one thing just until i put a marker down. the moment came and he totally knew it because he knew how i felt about all of this. it was like so, tell us what it was like on the campaign when steve cannon duquesne the ceo and i was like all right. and you know so i said you use a white platform and kellyanne said you were going to say that i did that. yes, you did, you ran the campaign and did that. thank you. [applause] and then but as i heard when i got home later there was audio of it which i hadn't really realized.

i was load -- like who do this audio of this thing? and the "washington post" said that i was in tears. i heard the audience and i was shouting. i was shouting everything i intended in everything i imagined i would say that i could never say. all the good things flying out of my mouth. i was crying and i was a mess. people were in gracious and i cried and i was like i don't care, i just don't care. i woke up the next morning and i said i still don't care. [applause] i'm not kidding when i say you should cry. i cried in the really public way with a really difficult subject in the next week i had a meeting with a lawyer in town and he said i saw what happened.

that kind of thing isn't good for anyone. i was glad i said that. sometimes you can't get through things without crying. sometimes you will say i was going to say that but i couldn't get through without crying. it's probably the most important thing you could have set in the moment and we spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of a year making the workplace a comfortable place for men suited for them. >> it's my favorite thing to do. >> did hillary cried?

did you have a conversation with her? >> about crying? she loves the book. i'm a bigger crier than her. >> i feel like she had no -- i feel like she could win on the crying question. >> i feel like she can win on any question. if she did cry it's like what is this? order the steak tears? and it's like crushing to see it but she had to go through this in my experience to show me all the things that were broken. >> let me read something else from this book. her book is selling out so obviously people are buying it.

embrace your battle scars. show us what you have been through. tells us what we can survive. all presidents age in office. it's practically a pastime on the case of our presidents in hair. president obama second term or member being stunned by seeing him in the 2008 campaign so young. raqqa palma 2008 looked like he could be the son of the man who was president now. i know all this wear and tear in your face will pose a special challenge for you. you more than all the men who preceded you will be judged on your appearance at how attractive you are. don't expect you'll ever -- to our more required for hair and makeup. those days are not behind us. no matter your age will be judged on your face, weight,

clothing and hair and how long your face is a will age with the job. will acquire battle scars. i think your battle scars are a comfort to the rest of us. they will show us what we have endured and show us we can survive. i hope you'll let them show. i do. >> now i can never not do that. but i think i have lived a very eventful life and i want you to look at my face and cno that. i hope that it shows. i remember during the clinton white house it was the first time i started getting lines between my eyebrows and i thought it was really cool. it makes you look like you have dealt with a a lot of stress in

your serious person you have matured. i really thought it was cool. my wrinkles have a name. what is this? >> i mean even the political women on television and i wrote on novel about a 60-year-old woman. people would, to me at events and ask are they fiction and i was like yes. [laughter] yes. they are. i am so cheered by some of the depictions of women in fictional television. they are all beautiful.

they do not show. >> they don't but i have always found older women to be a comfort to me. it is like it is a connection to a time that i didn't know and i feel like we are looking for a little more connection amongst ourselves. i like to look an older woman's face or an older man's face face and imagine the life they have lived in what they might have looked like when they were younger and i want people to look at my own face in seattle was a child of the 70s. i can tell you what the country felt like then. i can tell you the kind of close that we wore and it was a different time. i remember being with my mother. would she really understand america and he really understand

yourself. that person has a lot of balance. they know how to handle anything because of what they have been through and they squeeze their eyes together a lot. that is the chapter. actually it's my favorite chapter. it's sad with my sister and her daughter rebecca is here but i want rebecca to see that i don't look like my sister. those are the kinds of connections that you give up if you are always trying to look like you always do now. >> when i was reading that chapter my assistant came in when i was reading this and i was choking back tears.

i don't want to shy away from what i think is the most powerful part of the book so i'm just going to read another section . you talk about it as much as you want. so this is in the chapter called even when you lose refused to be defeated. that woman ain't defeated. that was hillary. where are all going to end up in the woods with her. it's an empowering and liberating lesson and i hope it's one that you take the hard madam president. there will be many times in your career where you will be told you have been beaten. when it happens think of the stories i'm about to tell you. they refuse to be defeated. they mourn their losses and they figure out a way to keep going and do what they can do to make their lives matter. you write about elizabeth

edwards a woman that we talked about on the show today. their scandal and campaign violations which is how she came out on our program. she was one of the few people that talked about her is a human being and only talk about women being gutted in our politics. >> do you want to talk a little bit about her? >> will elizabeth worked for her husband together and she was very cool because she had lost a son the most horrible thing that can happen to a person and managed to find a way to bring joy back into her life. that's how she thought about it. she was brilliant and ambitious in an unusual way.

she cared about the policy world around her but where she really got the real ambition was than they small-scale universe of our family and friends. that's where her transmission lives. she wants to own an 18 course golf course for her son in 17 of his friends. she put laid them over side and sprinkled them with grass seed and put them in dry cleaning bags so like a terrarium and it worked. she grew grass to be a walking human golf course. that is real ambition.

and she thought she had all the answers to life's problems. but it was good for the people that were in her life. she managed, she was very deliberate about how she went about her life. she said she tried to bring joy back into it as if it were a great concept. and she said that, she saw her life before wade died with a big chalkboard and every inch of it was filled with everything that was on her mind of everything she needed to do. and when he died it all got wiped clean. and then she just let it sit for a long time.

i saw, i understood that. life should be about things that are reporting and she decided to have more children after that. that's about making sure your life is rewarding. after the election i felt like it's about making sure your life matters and they are so not a lot eat you can control. my family has had some hard stuff. everybody's family has tragedy but what you do want to do is make your life matter. elizabeth did that and my sister figure out a way. she had alzheimer's and her universe got smaller but very

meaningful and the most meaningful moments i spent with her with anyone anywhere was in her hospice room. a new town pier and found a way to make his life better and to make daniel's life matter by continuing to fight for gun control. elizabeth mcfadden lost her son jordan, the boy that was killed because her friends were playing -- she is running for congress now. she found a way to make her life matter. all these people refuse to be defeated. what you can do can control is the essence and what i've learned first through elizabeth. there was something about her that male journalist didn't like she was not an easy personality by any means. she could beef unfair times and

she could be short at times but there was not someone who is smarter or bigger heart that i learned more from and i'm really led. i want my family to like this book and i want elizabeth family to like this book. and the people who read it too. [applause] >> with me ask you a last question. so much of it is about how women persevere differently than men. we sort of hang onto each other and got it out together. how do we turn that into a strategic advantage? i would say it's more far bad than our --. >> i feel, i hadn't thought about it.

i hadn't thought about that at that level. i have certainly experienced women having -- in a way that's remarkable. we used to say oh women that the bleep code grabber. [laughter] >> when president obama had to go back into iraq she reached down and she was like hey let me explain to you such and such is crazy in the hallway. when she checks in with him as in with the missus stand up. nicole could have said oh really? wow, just be careful. that's weird.

she sure talks about it a lot. that is what i love about women and what i find now ended my book every sentence is can you help me, guess what can we do? we are so excited. you see wendy davis who ran for senate and governor. she is my time doing this. can you help me? yes i can help you. can you be this person and that person. she was recruiting millennials to run for office. amanda is doing it. help amanda. women are all in it in a way and there is no this is mine and don't touch it. what can we deduce to support each other and what can we do to fight back?

it's remarkable. you have the sense that the workplace is competitive because it's been dominated by men and women are more collaborative and we are so globally connected and collaboration is more and more important. i feel like it's different. i feel like it's happening with women. >> i think that men are on board too and you don't exclude them from your story of success. i think they are more afraid of us because well we are women. do you feel and i want to see what we can hang onto. >> i did feel that my own life i had amazing mailboxes in mail

mentors and male friends and at the white house i was younger and the guys that were in charge or older than me and really helped me a lot. i just feel, i thought we had quality and i thought we were good. i'm disappointed that we have more work to do but it's so inspiring to see it he not just what we hoped women could achieve. it's actually something more interesting because we are doing it in a different way and we are doing it way. so that means you know politics is going to be different and how we engage in the community is different. it's not anything expected so might take a little longer and ultimately for men and women both.

>> folks i do have a q&a mike here. please keep your questions as questions. raise your hand zoom we will get to as many people as we can. >> i want to address something that's been making me crazy even during the primaries. i was on the tail end of 1970s feminism and one of the things women did was the idea was we had to confront the sexism. we grew up in a society as much as men did and what i'm seeing more and more is that we have this endemic sexism towards powerful women. when you look at the only two women who are powerful in this country are hillary clinton and nancy pelosi and they are both subjected to that same dynamic of looking more at their negatives than their positives.

i can give a million examples with one of the things that i think is really important is figuring out some way -- the #me too movement was a window and the ways we internalized sexism in terms of being able to say no and just to be able to carry that forward and say how do we internalized sexism in terms of how we view ourselves another powerful women and even the way hillary clinton was talked about and is still talked about. the idea that she's a flawed candidate and if there's ever a candidate who wasn't flawed and does that open a window into the mentality of fertile ground. so with republicans and the russians and bernie sanders came and everybody was ready. they were ready, right, right. the ride in the left of the same

thing. the question is. [laughter] sorry. this has been just every day screaming at the television because i feel like it's an unresolved issue. >> oh it is. i do think it's unresolved. i spend a lot of time. hillary chapter is called move forward -- which is what i think that's what i just don't like. she is somebody who is ali's challenging the way that we thought about women and always stepping outside of that role. she was on the cover of "time" magazine because she was the baby boomer woman that challenged the senator. she was the wife he didn't stay home and bake cookies. i watched her in the ninth to campaign before any of this.

you know there's just something about her i just don't like. i was like oh i was totally liberated. this is not on the level. this has nothing to do -- is not going to magically find it on e-mail and everybody's going to trust her. this is about people having uneasy feelings with women who step out of the box. it doesn't mean that men are other women are trying to hold them back. we just don't have a way of speaking about it. so what do we do about it packs the only thing to do is to shine a light on it. when you hear people say i don't know kirsten gillibrand there's just something about her, there's just something about her in kamala harris, there's something about her i don't like i just don't trust her for whatever reason. and it's the ambition. well you have a job, right?

kamala harris. that's a think with women to be aware of it. the only thing i think is to understand it. >> before i ask my question the only thing that she and nancy pelosi have in common is they are white women and i think there's a dais in the media but that's another story. a site you on morning joe and you really aggravated me when he joined in the fight on the attack on hillary clinton for what she said, the truthful thing she said. it's true. i just want to say why is she being attacked when it's true

the people want to go back to a time when we were lily white society and we were not on the verge of becoming a minority majority country. let's get it over with. the people who voted for tom van trump himself are white supremacists bigots and they are up basket full of deplorables. we don't want them in the democratic party because they don't represent our values. do you agree? >> i don't think that everybody voted for topics that way. it's always a mistake to characterize your opponents supporters. we also need, like i really think we have to figure out a way. this is true of hillary you have to have a person for everybody in america with you voted for them or not.

she did. you need to listen to everybody in america and let everyone am a america feel like they have a place here. >> other countries do and have had -- my question was what do you think that they have that we don't have that allows other countries to. [inaudible. >> hillary is going to be about this. in most of the countries it's a parliamentary system and hillary was a popular senator with her colleagues. even senators today have nice things to say about her and they really enjoyed working with her. the situation where the women

leaders were being selected by a relatively small group of colleagues, you can have that kind of relationship one-on-one. it's an easier situation for a woman when you have a mass election. i find it intriguing and she could have also very easily won. it could have very easily gone the other way. she won more votes in presidential history than any white man. i didn't quite say that right but you know what i meant. even if she had one would still be dealing with all of this.

>> hello. my name is bonnie barrett and thank you both for your work. it's nice to see you both. now that it's abundantly clear with all the reports coming out about russian interference in the 2016 election if you had to write one more chapter about the truth what would it be? >> about russia? >> about the fact that she was robbed. we were brought and she is illegitimate. >> i feel like that's playing out in real time and i thought it was really bad. i thought we ran around during the campaign saying this is a

really serious thing. russia is doing this. wow that's really weird. i thought i understood the depth of the involvement and it was far worse than we expected. that is playing out in real time. that ain't the book. that's life and the administration has no -- but what i want is i wanted something else to come out of this. i want people to look at what happened and examine it as we should understand it and try to take lessons going forward that understanding those are the obstacles that we are going to try to make progress with. you should always speak up and

understand if your woman and you don't look like anybody else in the room your perspective is probably more valuable than other men who may speak of. if you have an inkling that you could run for office you are correct. go and do it. if you are moved to cry because something moves you then you should do that too but you should not restrain yourself. that's probably something you are putting on yourself because you are not a man and that's what i wanted to say. [applause] >> thank you. lots of pressure. nicole, you said that you didn't think emma gonzález need any advice -- advice but if she has the cool about it dies from going from a private figure to a

public figure overnight, young woman who we hope will stay in the sights what advice would you give her? >> i think she is perfect. i think she is perfect right now. my advice would be to stay that way. i think whatever made her what she is at the moment she's going to have two now put it forward and especially after saturday. you know more about this than i do. when your world changes and you want to stay the same that's the most impossible challenge. her question about hillary as a senator this is something i said over and over again on television as someone who worked in the bush administration

during the iraq war david petraeus and the senator from new york hillary clinton. she just knew the most and she took the most trips so maybe one of the answers there is if she had been able to stay the way she was in that moment and it's impossible. it's going to be impossible for emma to stay the same. when you have it right how do you keep those in place? for emma i think she said there was a teacher that helped her write. she should keep the teacher and her life forever whether she's an anchor or president. whoever that person was channel

what was in her heart that i think whoever that person was he probably sees in her what we are seeing her now -- his stay in her inner circle. her parents have obviously raised her to be proud of who she is. i don't know her parents but whoever raised her and whoever she surrounded herself with to have that presence she should keep those people around. i think the model for people like that, she's going to have to -- she's going to have to find some sort of mixture of people who became famous for other talents in other gifts like a famous singer or a famous act just. there really aren't a lot of them in our generation. i don't know how much this is

related to her as a young woman. i think that will be a herculean effort. >> it's just like we are in and chartered territory. she seems to be managing and understanding, i mean the decisions i make i'm just doing things that i really believe in and i really believe it. i'm able to get through it. i did a relatively important interview. what if it doesn't look professional. i say it is. i say it is. i don't care what you think. and that generation just use it

differently. [applause] >> a big round of applause for jennifer palmieri and nicolle wallace. [applause] >> it's time for her to sign a copy of the book. grab a copy of the book of you don't have one and you will lineup against this wall. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]