Bill Clinton shares gift he got (and still has) after his 100th run

USA Today

02-06-2025

Bill Clinton shares gift he got (and still has) after his 100th run
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Bill Clinton and James Patterson talk new political thriller book
Bill Clinton and James Patterson release "The First Gentleman," using Clinton's White House experience to shape their third political thriller.
Like any author, former President Bill Clinton is putting a little bit of himself in his latest novel.
Clinton and bestselling author James Patterson have a new crime thriller out, their third together. "The First Gentleman" follows a president's husband on trial and two journalists determined to find the truth. The first gentleman and former Patriots player being accused of murder also threatens to upend the carefully crafted economic "Grand Bargain" his commander-in-chief wife is nearly ready to announce. It's a twisty thriller with plenty of inside jobs, political sabotage and many, many deaths.
In an interview with USA TODAY, the former president shared the signature Clinton White House details that made it into the book.
Bill Clinton reveals what White House security gifted him on his 100th run
Though there's murder at the heart of this thriller novel, a key theme important to the former president is this: "The president and her husband are people."
"People (in the White House) struggle to maintain some measure of normalcy, however they define it," Clinton says. "Even though you have to be ambitious to be elected president and disciplined to execute the job, you're still a person. We all react differently to different things that happen. So we try to capture that."
Before he's dealing with the trial of the century, the fictional first gentleman just wants to go on his morning run without anyone bothering him. Instead, they have to assign him a Secret Service running partner.
Clinton himself was a morning runner during his eight years as president. On his 100th run, he said his security detail gave him a box of M&M's.
"I went running every morning for years. I still have the M&M's box that I was given by the head of my security detail on my 100th run when I was president," Clinton says. "I loved it."
"Once M&M's get 20 years old, you don't eat them anymore," Patterson joked.
Clinton's running habit was reportedly a headache for the Secret Service, according his former agent Dan Emmett. In his memoir, Emmett writes that Clinton insisted on running outside of the White House for both the mental escape and to connect with the public.
"Secret Service agents are generally fit, but we had to come up with a group of agents who were capable of running with the president. You couldn't just run and look at the ground. We needed people with reserve energy to be able to fight if need be," Emmett said in U.S. News & World Report in 2012.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at [e-mail].