*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.