You could’ve gone your entire life without witnessing this and you probably would be better off too. On Wednesday’s CBS Mornings, co-anchor Gayle King sat down with former first lady, Secretary of State, and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for part two of a gushy softball interview about her new fiction political thriller called State of Terror. At one moment in the interview, most sane viewers were probably driven to a state of terror and revulsion when King read aloud from a sex scene in the book which Clinton and co-author Louise Penny wrote.
“Turning now to our conversation with the authors of a bestselling political thriller that’s getting some great, great reviews. That would be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny, the very famous author,” King gushed before revealing how the two met.
“The women met through Clinton’s childhood best friend, her name is Betsy Ebeling, and Betsy is no longer with us, but she brought these two together.” King then added that, “while their book is about a Secretary of State named 'Ellen,' who’s got blue eyes, who wore Spanx, working to stop terrorists, they told us it’s also a tribute to women’s friendship, including their own.”
Because the book is about a woman Secretary of State, King worried for Clinton that she might reveal too much information about the real-life State Department.
Clinton explained that “because when you’re in these very high-stakes situations, and where it’s so hard to know what to do because the facts are uncertain or even in conflict, and the characters you know, they are -- they hold these positions, but they also bring all their baggage, their personalities, their temperaments, their backgrounds, and so we wanted that tension.”
King then turned to the chapter in the book about a sex scene, and sought to find out whether Clinton or Penny wrote it (click expand):
KING: There’s a love story in the middle of that, too. And I’m curious about who wrote this line. Do you know which one I’m going to read?
‘Felt his naked white skin as it slid against her dark, moist body, luminous in the afternoon sun, she could feel the weight of him on top of her lying heavy on her heart.’ Was that to Hillary Rodham Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I think it was --
KING: A --
CLINTON: Out of our fertile imagination.
PENNY: Right. Before sexting, I haven’t been through -- that’s as far as we were willing to go. Pathetic. Now, Harlequin Romance is not getting in touch with us.
CLINTON: Yes. We said like well, what happens next?
PENNY: Yes.
KING: No, but I got such a kick out of it because I’m thinking, part of me went, ‘Oh, my.’ Well, there was also --
CLINTON: Well with Penny, it was moving.
While King seemed to be having a blast laughing while Hillary cackled and screeched with her friend Louise, it’s safe to say that even the CBS audience was repulsed over the thought of a sex scene written by Hillary Clinton.
Yet, the band of leftists at CBS Mornings loved it, and even after the interview was over, couldn’t stop swooning over Clinton and Penny like a group of preteens at a Justin Bieber concert.
Turning to co-host Nate Burleson, King heaped praise on the two, claiming, “you can clearly tell they have a great rapport.”
King sympathetically told the story about how Clinton and Penny met, “They had met even before they wrote this book. In 2016, Louise lost her husband, and Hillary Clinton who didn’t even know her wrote her a note of condolence about her husband. And Louise was very touched by that and she said they were both mourning. Hillary is mourning the loss of the election. She was mourning the loss of her husband and their best friend, her best friend brought them together.”
Burleson responded that he could tell “she was tickled when you started talking about the steamy part of that book.”
As NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham pointed out, the media was appalled when then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wrote a “steamy” novel back in 1995, but they are all over it when Hillary Clinton published one.
This pathetic display of Hillary Clinton worship was made possible by Progressive. Their information is linked.
To read the transcript of this segment click “expand”:
CBS Mornings
6/29/2022
8:35:32 a.m. EasternGAYLE KING: Turning now to our conversation with the authors of a bestselling political thriller that’s getting some great, great reviews. That would be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny, the very famous author.
So their book is called "State of Terror." It’s co-published by Simon & Schuster, which like CBS is a division of Paramount Global.
The women met through Clinton’s childhood best friend, her name is Betsy Ebeling, and Betsy is no longer with us, but she brought these two together. And while their book is about a Secretary of State named "Ellen," who’s got blue eyes, who wore Spanx, working to stop terrorists, they told us it’s also a tribute to women’s friendship, including their own.
(Begin VT)
KING: Number one, this book the whole time, I’m reading it, Secretary Clinton, I’m going, "Did that happen to her? Who sat in that meeting? Where was she? Who said what?" So first, let’s get back to where it started.
HILLARY CLINTON (Former US Secretary of State): Well, when I was first approached, I did not think it was a good idea, Gayle.
KING: You didn’t.
CLINTON: No. I didn’t.
KING: Why?
CLINTON: Well, number one, because she is a bestselling author of fiction. I’ve written nonfiction, never written fiction. I didn’t want to lose her friendship, you know, if we were not compatible.
LOUISE PENNY (Author): I was -- I was worried I because I had never written with someone else. I’ve never written a political thriller. But if you’re going to do it, this is the one you want to do it with.
CLINTON: And once we decided, okay, we’re going to stick a toe in the water, then we got to work on the outline, and what’s it going to be about? And who are the characters? And what is it that drives the plot?
And that was really one of my favorite parts of the whole process.
PENNY: Me, too.
CLINTON: Because we spent a lot of time FaceTiming and talking through and then Louise asked the critical question.
KING: What was the critical question?
PENNY: The critical question was, finally, I asked, "Hillary, what kept you awake when you were Secretary of State? What woke you up at two in the morning? What were the nightmares?"
KING: Because the book opens, there is a terrorist bombing in different -- in major cities -- Frankfurt, in London, in Paris. And I thought, that’s a good way to start. And then the book is, it’s who is responsible for this.
So it takes us on a very wild journey. But I did think though, Hillary, you took us behind the scenes as to how government works.
CLINTON: Yes.
KING: You know, and I wondered, were you worried about revealing too much or worried about how you felt about certain people? Because there seemed to be a lot of where take it -- lifting off the layers and letting us see how it worked. Did you do that?
CLINTON: That’s really what I wanted to do, Gayle.
KING: Yeah. I felt that.
CLINTON: Yes. Because when you’re in these very high-stakes situations, and where it’s so hard to know what to do, because the facts are uncertain or even in conflict, and the characters you know, they are -- they hold these positions, but they also bring all their baggage, their personalities, their temperaments, their backgrounds, and so we wanted that tension.
PENNY: One of the things that I really appreciate that you described so brilliantly was the stress of having to make life and death decisions when you don’t -- when you have very little time, and you know, you don’t have all the information.
CLINTON: Right.
KING: There’s a love story in the middle of that, too. And I’m curious about who wrote this line. Do you know which one I’m going to read?
"Felt his naked white skin as it slid against her dark, moist body, luminous in the afternoon sun, she could feel the weight of him on top of her lying heavy on her heart." Was that to Hillary Rodham Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I think it was --
KING: A --
CLINTON: Out of our fertile imagination.
PENNY: Right. Before sexting, I haven’t been through -- that’s as far as we were willing to go. Pathetic. Now, Harlequin Romance is not getting in touch with us.
CLINTON: Yes. We said like well, what happens next?
PENNY: Yes.
KING: No, but I got such a kick out of it, because I’m thinking, part of me went, "Oh, my." Well, there was also --
CLINTON: Well with Penny, it was moving.
KING: Her character was fun, too, for me because she was not a mouse burglar. But there was time she accepted stuff and had to suck it up a little bit.
PENNY: This is Ellen, the Secretary.
KING: Ellen, the Secretary of State that she had to suck it up a little bit to play her card later.
CLINTON: Yes.
KING: And I wondered how many times A., if that happened to you, or had that happened to you?
CLINTON: Oh, yes. Yes.
KING: Be underestimated and over-delivered, but also very firm about who she was and what she was going to do.
CLINTON: I think it happens to every woman, Gayle. I really do. I don’t think it’s in any way unique to Secretaries of State or women in government and politics. I think, it’s whether it’s the media, academia, professions, literature, whatever it might be, we’re always being underestimated. And it is a very difficult balancing act sometimes to not allow anyone to underestimate you, but to know the timing that is appropriate for responding.
So that was one of the best parts of writing the book because Louise and I talked a lot about that experience.
PENNY: And what’s interesting is that we had the same experience with the books. We were -- it was -- it was underestimated because it was written by two women of a certain age.
KING: These women of a certain age actually saved the day.
PENNY: Right. And then they don’t do it by putting on Lycra and kicking down doors and picking up, you know, grenade launchers.
KING: Yes.
PENNY: They do it with their brains.
CLINTON: Brains.
PENNY: I mean, there’s a certain amount of the other stuff happening, too, but they don’t need to resort to that. They do because they’re smart, and they’re thoughtful.
(End VT)
KING: Smart and they’re thoughtful. We like that. "State of Terror" is out in paperback now wherever you like to buy your books.
Nate, you can clearly tell they have a great rapport. They had met even before they wrote this book. In 2016, Louise lost her husband and Hillary Clinton who didn’t even know her wrote her a note of condolence about her husband.
NATE BURLESON: Yes.
KING: And Louise was very touched by that and she said they were both mourning. Hillary is mourning the loss of the election. She was mourning the loss of her husband and their best friend, her best friend brought them together.
Now those two are very tight. You can see they have a lot of fun together.
BURLESON: Yes, she was tickled when you started talking about the steamy part of that book.
KING: Yes.
BURLESON: That’s for sure. Okay.
KING: They still didn’t tell me who wrote that line.
BURLESON: Right, right.
