*Video shows the Secret Service providing a look inside its ink lab.
(The Hill) — Former President Bill Clinton says the Secret Service helped him mark a fitness milestone when he was at the White House with a candy-coated memento that he’s held onto.
“I went running every morning for years,” the ex-commander in chief said in an interview with USA Today published Monday, while promoting the political thriller he co-authored with James Patterson, “The First Gentleman.”
“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 said.
“I loved it,” he told the newspaper.
“Once M&M’s get 20 years old, you don’t eat them anymore,” Patterson quipped.
Retired Secret Service agent Nick Trotta recalled in a 2012 interview how Clinton’s security detail developed a system that would give them a heads-up when the 42nd president was ready to go for a jog.
“One of the valets would leak President Clinton’s attire running clothes or suit to the nearest agent. That’s how we knew he wanted to run,” Trotta said.
While Clinton said he’s cherished the box of M&M’s since exiting the White House in 2001, the milk chocolate candies are unlikely to conform to his dietary lifestyle in recent years. Seventy-eight-year-old Clinton has credited a vegan diet with preserving his health.
“[It] changed my life,” he said in 2016.
