Obama believes Clinton–Lewinsky scandal permanently damaged reputation of Democratic Party, claims new book
Former President Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama are reportedly not close with the Clintons because they feel that former President Bill Clinton damaged the Democratic Party permanently with the Monica Lewinsky affair, a new book claims.
The book 'Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump' also claimed that Obama was put off by Bill Clinton's tendency to have long rambling conversations and felt that he took all the oxygen in the room. Clinton reportedly "desperately wanted to be useful to Obama - but he wasn't interested in his advice," author Kate Andersen Brower wrote in her book obtained by the Daily Mail. The upcoming book also predicts that Obama is on his way to becoming the first former president to make $1 billion after leaving the White House. Clinton's post-presidential life is also discussed in the book, which claims that the former president has been "obsessed" with winning over his former enemies like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, according to reports.
Clinton, according to a friend of his, likes to stay in the limelight "because he cannot stand to be away from the center of power." The book states that on Clinton's last night in the White House, he stayed awake till 3:30 am and created eight national monuments and nominated nine federal judges and told friends he was worried about fading "into oblivion." The former president appeared to be "in a state of denial" when it was time for him to leave the White House and in the weeks following that he "watched TV obsessively and worried about what people were saying about him."
Bill and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have together made $240 million since leaving the White House. The couple have made their money largely from speeches, enriching themselves on a scale never witnessed before when it comes to presidents. However, Brower in her book says that it appears Obama couple soon surpass them considering he and Michelle Obama are being paid $65 million for their memoirs and an unspecified deal with Netflix. The author added that Obama generally spends much of his time talking to wealthy donors to raise funds for his Presidential library, which is expected to cost $500 million. The former president, while speaking in 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa, to mark the 100th anniversary of former South African President Nelson Mandela's birth, had acknowledged that even he was "surprised" at how wealthy he has become after the presidency.
"There's only so much you can eat. There's only so big a house you can have. There's only so many nice trips you can take," he had said at the event. The book also stated that President Donald Trump will be banished from the club of living former Presidents when he leaves the White House as he shattered all unspoken conventions and slandered nearly all of them. Trump burned his bridges and did not show respect to his predecessors, which is considered a "cardinal sin" in the former leaders' club.
The author notes that it is "extraordinary" that Trump has not sought advice from his predecessors and "even the worst, most strained relationship of previous presidents was not like this." The Republican's "scorched earth path he's chosen has made it impossible to maintain friendships, or even civility with the men who once occupied the Oval Office," the book stated.