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Speaking at Wellesley College's commencement on May 26, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton alluded to similarities between President Trump and former president Richard Nixon. (Reuters)

In thelatest feature by Clinton-chronicler Rebecca Traister, we get a further glimpse of whatHillary Clinton has been up to since Nov. 8. The most fascinating tidbits cast light on events that happened in the immediate aftermath of the election.

In the highlight of the profile, Clinton reveals what it was like to attend President Trumps Inauguration alongside her husband, former president Bill Clinton. To the surprise of some political watchers, the two participated in the ceremony in support of a peaceful transfer of power. Though Clinton put on a stoic facade, she now reveals the event was really...difficult for her:

Oh, says Clinton, it was hard. It was really difficult. But at the time, we hoped that there would be a different agenda for governing than there had been for running.

Of course, it quickly became clear from Trumps speech that there would be no change in strategy. A look of disgust crosses Clintons face as she recalls it. It was a really painful cry to his hard-core supporters that he wasnt changing, she says. The carnage in our country? It was a very disturbing moment. I caught Michelle Obamas eye, like, 'What is going on here?' I was sitting next to George and Laura Bush, and we have our political differences, but this was beyond any experience any of us had ever had.

Clinton also appeared to corroborate reports that former president George W. Bush had also had some thoughts on Trumps speech:

I ask her about the report that Bush had said of the speech, That was some weird shit, and her eyes light up. Put it in your article, she says. They tried to walk back from it, but Did she hear it herself? I ask. She raises her eyebrows and grins.

This is an incredibly dishy anecdote, and a real treat for Trump opponents. But this story, and the possible motives for sharing it, are part of the larger trend of Clintons post-election behavior.

Unlike past failed presidential candidates (think: Mitt Romney) Clinton has been strategically returning to the spotlight rather hastily after her rivals victory. From initial photos of makeup-free Clinton hiking in the woods after the election, to surprise appearances for supporter Katy Perry, to a confessional panel with Christiane Amanpour in which she took absolute personal responsibility for her campaigns loss but also said that she would be your president if not for the actions of former FBI director James Comey Clinton hasbeen far from absent from our political consciousness. And she has been far from silent about the man she conceded to on Nov. 9.

This doesnt seem like Clinton dipping her toe back into public life. At this point, shes essentially wading back into the political fray and taking direct shots at the sitting president.

The Inauguration anecdote isnt just amusing: it conveys that despite her public, bipartisan facade, she wasnt okay with what was happening in front of her.Unlike former president Barack Obama, she no longer feels obligated to remain silent about the course the country has taken.

As President Trumps administration is roiled by controversy over Russias role in the election and the firing of Comey, and as New York magazine unfurled its feature, Clinton gave a commencement speech at her alma mater, Wellesley College, that took direct aim at Trump and his administration.

So the question is, as it always has been, what is she going to do next?

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Now we know how Hillary Clinton felt watching Trump's inauguration speech - Washington Post

President Donald Trump's inauguration may not have been easy for Clinton to sit through, but she had others sitting by her side to help.

"It was a really painful cry to his hard-core supporters that he wasn't changing," she said. "The 'carnage' in our country? It was a very disturbing moment. I caught Michelle Obama's eye, like, What is going on here? I was sitting next to George and Laura Bush, and we have our political differences, but this was beyond any experience any of us had ever had."

When asked by Traister if she overheard Bush say that, Clinton only "raise(d) her eyebrows and grin(ned)."

2. She's not really into therapy

"That's not how I roll," she said. "I'm all for it for anybody who's at all interested in it. It's just not how I deal with stuff."

However, she said she and former President Bill Clinton "had some marital counseling in the late '90s, around our very difficult time."

3. She struggles with layering clothing

Traister describes following Clinton at an event in mid-April, during which Clinton "was fretting about everyone's wardrobe -- she said she'd just moved her winter clothes out of her closets but was still struggling with layering."

4. She spends her free time doing a lot of normal, everyday activities

"She speaks often these days of the benefits of rest and good food and being outdoors," Traister wrote. "She answered mail and had scores of off-the-record exit-interview meetings, and she and Bill saw most of the shows currently on Broadway. They have dinners together and spend time with their grandchildren."

5. She has strong views on Easter candy

When chatting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo at an event, Clinton and the New York politician exchanged opinions on Easter candy.

"They talked about Easter, about how she'd like to fill some of those plastic eggs for the kids but Chelsea told her that Charlotte can't yet eat jelly beans," Traister wrote. "Cuomo suggested doing 'those marshmallow things instead.' It was all very ordinary and small-talk-y until you remembered that Donald Trump is President and Hillary Clinton is discussing the merits of Peeps versus jelly beans."

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5 things we learned about Hillary Clinton from the New York magazine profile - CNN

Former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonGraham: Comey should be held accountable for acting on bad intel Hillary Clinton condemns 'racist abuse' in Portland attack Clinton returns to election night convention hall to talk about her new book MORE called a racism-motivated incident in Portland on Saturday "heartbreaking."

Clinton tweeted her condolences after two men were stabbed to death by a white supremacist in Portland, Oregon, when they tried to stop the man's racist tirade.

"Heartbreaking. No one should have to endure this racist abuse," Clinton tweeted Saturday night. "No one should have to give their life to stop it."

Heartbreaking. No one should have to endure this racist abuse. No one should have to give their life to stop it.https://t.co/CpmQcHI8gi

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Police arrested 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian early Saturday morning after he allegedly stabbed three men who tried to stop him from berating two Muslim women on a Portland MAX train. Two of the men died, while a third received injuries that were not life-threatening.

"In the midst of his ranting and raving, some people approached him and appeared to try to intervene with his behavior and some of the people that he was yelling at," Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said. "They were attacked viciously."

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began on Friday at sundown.

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Hillary Clinton condemns 'racist abuse' in Portland attack - The Hill (blog)

Forty-eight years after she gave her first commencement address at Wellesley College, Hillary Clinton returns on Friday to offer another and once again, she's at a crossroads in her life.

The first time, she was 21 years old and eager to take on life's adventures, a graduating senior whose bold speech delighted her classmates, dismayed the school's president, and made it into Life magazine. The Hillary who will speak this year on Severance Green Lawn is the battle-scarred politician who came agonizingly close to becoming the first female president of the United States.

Half a year after her stunning loss to Donald Trump in November a loss that left her devastated and heartbroken, those close to her say Clinton has professed herself "ready to come out of the woods," a winking reference to the viral photo of her in the woods near her home days after the election.

But what will coming out of the woods look like? And how will Clinton, long seen as a master at redefining herself over three decades in the limelight define her role in the Trump era? Some have even speculated she might run for elected office again a possibility she hasn't flat-out denied, but has said she doesn't expect to happen. Friends say it's unlikely.

"I think she's basically closed the door on ever running again," says Melanne Verveer, Clinton's longtime friend and chief of staff from her first lady years who also worked with her at the State Department. But she adds emphatically: "She's not going to recede. You're going to continue to see her engaged on issues that she is passionate about and has played a leadership role in. She will be out there ... but not as that public candidate. So it's a new place."

After remaining largely out of public view for a few months after the election, Clinton has stepped up the pace of her public appearances. On May 15, she announced the formation of Onward Together, a political group designed to aid progressive causes and oppose the Trump agenda. Its website bears the slogan Clinton has called her new mantra: "Resist, insist, persist and enlist."

She's also working on a book of personal essays, announced with fanfare in February. And she's writing the forward for a book by her friend and Methodist pastor, the Rev. Bill Shillady, that will contain 365 of the devotionals he wrote for Clinton during the campaign, sending them by email early each morning to bolster her on the trail.

The former secretary of state is also speaking at events like this week's Children's Health Fund benefit, where she lashed out at Trump's spending plan, saying it showed an "unimaginable level of cruelty."

She's addressed gatherings for Planned Parenthood, for an LGBT group in New York, for the Society of Irish Women in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She presented awards to Colombian peacemakers at Georgetown, and made a surprise appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival to discuss saving endangered elephants from poachers in Africa.

At such events, Clinton has been treated more like a conquering heroine than the loser of an election certainly with more affection and enthusiasm than during the campaign. At the Tribeca event, surprised attendees called out, "Love you, Hillary!" At an event for the Center, an LGBT group, she received repeated standing ovations. At the Women in the World conference, host Samantha Bee introduced her as "Hillary Rodham Beyonce Clinton" and told her: "It should have been you!"

The reception was even more striking at the final performance of "The Color Purple" in January, one of her first public sightings after the election (and one of several Broadway shows she's turned up at.) The audience broke out into sustained cheers, with theatergoers leaning precariously over railings and shouting, "We love you!" At the curtain call, actors pointed to her and touched their hearts.

Of course, these events were in Clinton territory, and at organizations that strongly supported her. Still, many note she seems in loss to have touched a chord with her base particularly younger women that she hadn't before.

"There was such an expectation that she would win," says Debbie Walsh, of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, "that people never envisioned a world where the alternative was true and didn't appreciate what the world would be like. I don't want to call it buyer's remorse because I don't think these people voted for Trump, but maybe they weren't the enthusiastic supporters that they could have been."

Shillady, the Methodist pastor, says that when he had Christmas Eve dinner with Clinton, the crowd in the restaurant stood up and cheered. "People came over to the table in tears," he says. "It's almost as if people were feeling like they personally had let her down."

"I think she finds comfort in it, and it's energized her to come out of the woods," he adds. "She's coming out to speak more fully and with more freedom. She doesn't have to be politically correct."

Of course, not all the feedback has been flattering not with one of the most polarizing figures in American political history.

"I never thought she was a great candidate," Joe Biden was recently quoted as saying. "I thought I was a great candidate."

And former Clinton campaign officials took to Twitter to push back against a portrayal, in the book "Shattered" by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, of a dysfunctional campaign beset by infighting and an out-of-touch candidate.

Clinton also got flak for saying, in an interview with Christiane Amanpour, that she'd be president now if not for the late-October announcement by FBI head James Comey that the agency was again reviewing her emails. Critics among them David Axelrod, chief strategist for the Barack Obama campaigns suggested she wasn't taking enough responsibility for her loss.

Rutgers' Walsh feels that Clinton could play a crucial role in getting a new generation of women, who are responding to her now as they perhaps never did, to enter politics.

"Hillary Clinton has put gender front and center more than anyone," Walsh says. "She's the one who can say, 'I pushed the boundaries, and now we need you.'"

Not everyone feels that Clinton needs to do anything at all.

"Hillary Clinton should be free to do anything she wants," feminist author and leader Gloria Steinem wrote in an email, including "walking in the woods with her grandchildren."

"I think she owes us nothing and we owe her everything especially gratitude, respect and the right to be free."

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As Clinton emerges from the woods, what will her role be? - ABC News

Hillary Clinton delivered a subtle dig at President Trump on Friday, offering some parallels between his presidency and that of former President Nixon.

While delivering a commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, a private womens liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Clinton, without naming Trump, recalled how many youngpeople in the 1970s reacted to Nixon's reelection and later battles with the Justice Department.

We were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice," she said, pausing to note she was referring to Nixon.

Actually, Nixon was not impeached, though many in Congress, including members of his own party, called for it. Clintonsaid Nixon's resignation came after he fired the person heading the investigation into him at the Department of Justice.

In 1973, Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire a special prosecutor who was looking into taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office as part of the Watergate investigation. A year later, in August 1974, Nixon resigned.

Some political observers mostly Democrats -- have compared Trumps recent firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, who was overseeing an investigation of possible collusion between Russians and Trumps campaign, to Nixons actions. Last week, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) called for Trump to be impeached.

Clinton, who has made few public appearances since Trump defeated her in last years presidential election, also assailed the Republicans new budget proposal.

She called the budget, which proposescuts to education and Medicaid, "an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us the youngest, the oldest, the poorestand hard-working people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent, middle-class life."

In a statement, the Republican National Committee said Clinton was lashing out after her election loss.

Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969 and last delivered a commencement address at the school in 1992.

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In commencement address, Hillary Clinton remembers fallout from Nixon, makes subtle jab at President Trump - Los Angeles Times