Hilary Clinton will Lecture at Your University for $300,000 and a Plate of Hummus
UCLA wanted to give former Secretary of State and possible 2016 Presidential Candidate Hilary Rodham Clinton a medal. In order to give her that medal, UCLA had to pay her $300,000 to show up. To get her to show up, UCLA had to provide Clinton with crudité, hummus, specific furniture and a custom podium.
And that’s just the beginning of the list of demands Clinton made before she would accept the UCLA medal and deliver her Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership speech on March 5, 2014. So says The Washington Post, which employed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the information.
“After a lengthy call with a Clinton representative, UCLA administrator Patricia Lippert reported to campus colleagues, ‘She uses a lavalier [microphone] and will both speak from the audience and walk around stage, TED talk style. We need a teleprompter and 2-3 downstage scrolling monitors [for] her to read from,’’’ wrote The Post.
Clinton also demanded lemon wedges, room temperature water, a carafe of warm/hot water, coffee cup and saucer for her on stage. Room temperature sparkling and still water also made the list, as did diet ginger ale, and a computer, printer and scanner.
Clinton seems to always be in a hurry, as she requested “prestaged’’ group photos so she wouldn’t have to wait “for these folks to get their act together.’’ The former first lady “doesn’t like to stand around waiting for people,’’ UCLA was told.
When UCLA asked for a reduced rate because of their status as a public university, they were told $300,000 was the “special university rate.’’ Looks like Clinton’s husband never got that memo.
Again, The Post:
“In 2012, former president Bill Clinton delivered the inaugural Luskin lecture at UCLA for $250,000. Upon learning that Hillary Clinton’s fee would be $300,000, Guy Wheatley, a UCLA development official, wrote in an e-mail: ‘Wow! She get’s $50K more than hubby!’’’
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