Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: thing from iHeart Radio. The saying used to be behind
Speaker 1: every great man is a great woman. But considering my
Speaker 1: guest today, perhaps that should read behind every great woman
Speaker 1: is a great woman. Huma Aberdeen is someone who has
Speaker 1: spent her entire career in public service. Her work with
Speaker 1: Hillary Rodham Clinton began as a young aide in the
Speaker 1: First Lady's office, then as a senior advisor to the Senator,
Speaker 1: deputy chief of staff to the Secretary of State, and
Speaker 1: now as her chief of staff. Abdeen's decades of collaboration
Speaker 1: with Clinton bring to mind Richard Nixon's farewell speech to
Speaker 1: his White House staff, who noted, quote, this house has
Speaker 1: a great heart, and that heart comes from those who
Speaker 1: serve now. Huma Aberdeen has written an intimate and revealing
Speaker 1: best selling memoir on her life, entitled Both And. The
Speaker 1: book covers her time working in government as well as
Speaker 1: her personal struggles, including a very public divorce from former
Speaker 1: Congressman Anthony Weener. With such a substantial career in politics,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know if Aberdeen's upbringing is what set
Speaker 1: her on the path to where she is today.
Speaker 2: My mother is a sociologist. My father studied American civilization,
Speaker 2: which that's one of the reasons he ended up in
Speaker 2: Penn They don't really teach it or have that course
Speaker 2: in many universities now. Yeah, and then they they are
Speaker 2: from two countries that were at war, and so they
Speaker 2: decided they got asylum here and moved to Michigan and
Speaker 2: they My dad taught at Western Michigan. My mom taught
Speaker 2: at Kalamazoo College.
Speaker 1: How long were they living here before you were born
Speaker 1: or had you been born? I was you were born here.
Speaker 2: I was born here and when I was two, and
Speaker 2: we thought we were going to say here forever. I
Speaker 2: Actually I have this whole thing in my life about
Speaker 2: sliding doors. It's not maybe very healthy, but like what if,
Speaker 2: what if? What if? And I've often thought about what
Speaker 2: my life would have been like if I had lived
Speaker 2: that Midwestern life, which I almost did. But when I
Speaker 2: was too my dad was diagnosed with basically you know,
Speaker 2: terminal illness. He was renal failure and his doctor said,
Speaker 2: you know, you have five to ten years and get
Speaker 2: your affairs in order. How long did he live after
Speaker 2: the diagnosed, Well, it's amazing that doctor was exactly right.
Speaker 2: His kidneys survived ten years to the day they failed.
Speaker 2: And it's one of the first lines I wrote in
Speaker 2: my book. My dad was told he was dying.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I ever want to see
Speaker 1: that doctor.
Speaker 2: It was amazing, I mean amaze. But the difference between
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven in Kalamazoo, Michigan and thankfully nine years later,
Speaker 2: the possibility of getting on the transplant list became, you know,
Speaker 2: something real, which only happened because my mother was so tenacious.
Speaker 2: So he then went on dialysis. So he lived till
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: Seventeen, and when did you go over there?
Speaker 2: So two months after his diagnosis, my parents had an
Speaker 2: option to take a sabbatical and their choice was either
Speaker 2: Italy or Saudi Arabia. And then well, interestingly, they had
Speaker 2: always decided. They had always thought they would go to Italy.
Speaker 2: They thought it would be this great adventure, they'd go
Speaker 2: to Italy. And then my father gets this diagnosis and
Speaker 2: he thought, you know, I want to teach my children
Speaker 2: about their culture, about their faith. We're a Muslim family.
Speaker 2: It seemed like more of an interesting and it was,
Speaker 2: you know, just a year. So they said, why don't
Speaker 2: we do Saudi. It was definitely the hardest choice. My
Speaker 2: mother actually said, when you know, my father said let's
Speaker 2: go to Saudi, She's like, and I was too. She says,
Speaker 2: they even have diapers in that country. And I think
Speaker 2: about how intrepid they were. They landed, they didn't speak
Speaker 2: the language. My mother all of a sudden had to
Speaker 2: veil herself actually.
Speaker 1: Italy, Saudi Arabia, Italy.
Speaker 2: I think they decided that, you know, there they could.
Speaker 2: It was more of a challenge, and I think they
Speaker 2: liked that. My mother taught herself Arabic to teach her students,
Speaker 2: and then after a year they actually decided to come
Speaker 2: back and then come back, and that was, you know,
Speaker 2: forty four years ago. They kept going to teach. My
Speaker 2: mother taught sociology, and my dad, you know, he arted
Speaker 2: very early on. He he taught a few years been
Speaker 2: very early on. He opened a foundation. And that's actually
Speaker 2: one of the reasons. Even though the foundation was based
Speaker 2: in London, but it was a foundation that produced an
Speaker 2: academic journal that studied the condition of Muslims who lived
Speaker 2: as minorities around the world. And my dad's expertise was
Speaker 2: actually in Russia. Well, back then it was the USSR,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, and it was his You know, I
Speaker 2: often say this, You know, my father was really prescient
Speaker 2: about a lot of these issues. He basically said, look,
Speaker 2: if we don't figure out as Muslims how to live
Speaker 2: in the world with the rise of the West, we're
Speaker 2: going to have problems. And sure enough he predicted Bosni
Speaker 2: I predicted so much of what we're now, this these
Speaker 2: convulsions that we have. And in part his theory was, look,
Speaker 2: if you are practicing Muslim wherever you come from in
Speaker 2: the Arab world or you know, through the Muslim world,
Speaker 2: and you choose to live in the West, you cannot
Speaker 2: go there and live in your own little bubble. That's
Speaker 2: just not You're not. You have to You're going to
Speaker 2: go and live in France. You need to become French.
Speaker 2: And also you.
Speaker 1: Can do as the Romans do exactly.
Speaker 2: And then and that was the way he thought that
Speaker 2: we could succeed in this world. And I think he
Speaker 2: was right, seeing certainly what's happened.
Speaker 1: So he was working specifically in what during those ten
Speaker 1: years when he was over there, just a multitude of.
Speaker 2: Things, a multitude of things. A lot of his conversations
Speaker 2: were about interfaith dialogue. So we would like we spend
Speaker 2: one summer in Greece, living in a monastery, at a
Speaker 2: conference about you know, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, you know dialogue,
Speaker 2: and we'd sit at the table and people, a lot
Speaker 2: of Muslims and certainly Arabs and people who lived in
Speaker 2: our world said why why do you do this? Why
Speaker 2: do you go and you know? And they say, you know,
Speaker 2: they would tease him and say, why do you go
Speaker 2: have conversations these provocative conversations where even the angels fear
Speaker 2: to tread. Why do you go have these? You know,
Speaker 2: very contentious? And he says, because I want to understand
Speaker 2: and I want to know more about these other faiths
Speaker 2: and beliefs and you know kind of cis political systems.
Speaker 2: And I don't have any doubt in my own butlo,
Speaker 2: but I want to learn more. And I think we
Speaker 2: probably have more in common than we realized now.
Speaker 1: For you, other than when you were maybe moving about
Speaker 1: and you mentioned Greece, for one, did you go to
Speaker 1: one school or did you concentrate on just a handful
Speaker 1: of schools when you were there? Where'd you go to school?
Speaker 1: Of high school?
Speaker 2: I went to an international school based on a British
Speaker 2: curriculum that my father and a few of the other
Speaker 2: professors of the university. Because this was all brand new
Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy seven when we moved there. And
Speaker 2: you mentioned the oil money. Sure there was all of
Speaker 2: this new wealth, all these amazing.
Speaker 1: Just figuring out how much wealth.
Speaker 2: They were just figuring out how much wealth. And they
Speaker 2: were building universities and building hospitals. But they didn't have
Speaker 2: the talent. That's why so much of this talent was
Speaker 2: imported at the time. And my parents came in as
Speaker 2: part of that imported talent exactly right, And so they
Speaker 2: helped start the school. And so I was a British
Speaker 2: school and it was international. It was actually one of
Speaker 2: the best things ALEC that I think, to be exposed
Speaker 2: to so many different cultures and languages and people from
Speaker 2: all over the world. It made me comfortable everywhere, and
Speaker 2: I think that was a big part of it, was,
Speaker 2: you know, being surrounded by people who weren't like me.
Speaker 1: So when you I mean for Americans today, you know,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia is now a concentration of pilots who flew
Speaker 1: for nine to eleven. It's opek and a manipulation of
Speaker 1: oil prices. It's koshoji. I'm talking about the contemporary American
Speaker 1: view of that country. I mean, the United States certainly
Speaker 1: has a lot of blood on its hands for things
Speaker 1: that it's done. I'm not mentioning that to condemn the Saudis.
Speaker 1: The United States is guilty of the exact same things
Speaker 1: during its history as well. But set aside that. Back
Speaker 1: when you were there, what was your Saudi Arabia? What
Speaker 1: was your experience of the culture and the people. How
Speaker 1: do they strike you?
Speaker 2: You know? One of the very first things that really
Speaker 2: hit home when I moved to the United States in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, so I didn't come back. So I
Speaker 2: grew up in Saudi Arabia and I didn't live in
Speaker 2: the United States until I came to university in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three. One of the things I missed immediately is
Speaker 2: this sense of community. And we call it, you know,
Speaker 2: in the Muslim world, we call it the oma, and
Speaker 2: the omah is the ever present community, which is you're
Speaker 2: never alone. So I tell stories in the book about
Speaker 2: how you know, you go to a party and you say,
Speaker 2: I like your shirt, and you know, the next thing
Speaker 2: you know, that shirt is sent to your house the
Speaker 2: next day. This notion of there's always, you know, a
Speaker 2: seat at the table for more people, there's always food
Speaker 2: to share. You're always in a very kind of secure environment,
Speaker 2: and that is something I kind of took for granted
Speaker 2: when I was growing up there. In fact, I tell
Speaker 2: the story about when my father finally got his transplant
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six and he had to leave immediately
Speaker 2: to go to the United States, to New York for
Speaker 2: his transplant operation, and one of our very very close
Speaker 2: Saudi friends called my mother and said, should we take
Speaker 2: the girls and me and my siblings? You know, I was,
Speaker 2: you know, nine, My sister was eleven, My younger sister
Speaker 2: was four. For three of you, I'm my brother, so
Speaker 2: four of us total and I and my mother, and
Speaker 2: we were all already scared of all this change. So
Speaker 2: that our friends call and said, why don't the girls
Speaker 2: move in with us, you know, while you guys are
Speaker 2: in the midst of this transplant operation. And I remember
Speaker 2: we were also scared. We said to my mom, no, no,
Speaker 2: we I want to go. So on the phone, she
Speaker 2: makes up this excuse and she says, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: the kids have their exams, and their desks and their
Speaker 2: bookcases are here, so we're okay. The next morning there's
Speaker 2: a knock on our door and it's a moving company
Speaker 2: and my mother's like, what are you doing here? And
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, we're here to something about books and
Speaker 2: bookshelves and desks. We're moving, And sure enough they moved
Speaker 2: the furniture into this family friend's home. We lived with
Speaker 2: them while my parents were in the United States. How
Speaker 2: long it was probably about six weeks if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe two months. But this idea again of feeling
Speaker 2: ohm the omah.
Speaker 1: So when you leave and you come to the United States,
Speaker 1: and if you had a British centric or British fabric
Speaker 1: in the educational thing over there, but why did you
Speaker 1: come back to the US? Could you say, I'm an
Speaker 1: American and I want to be educated, why don't you
Speaker 1: go to England to go to school?
Speaker 2: Well I had that choice. Actually, my older brother and
Speaker 2: sister chose England, and I always wanted to come to
Speaker 2: the United States. You know, back when I was growing
Speaker 2: up in Saudi, everything that was sort of aspiration, everything
Speaker 2: that was considered the best was American. You know, that
Speaker 2: is you know, back then, America did seem like it
Speaker 2: and it was the sole super power in the world.
Speaker 2: Absolutely felt like it was a paradise. And so we'd
Speaker 2: come here for the summers. We would stock up on
Speaker 2: all the latest magazines. We would have these bootleg movies
Speaker 2: that we would take back, all the Tom Cruise movies
Speaker 2: and you know, like Beverly Hill's Night on number one everywhere.
Speaker 2: He was certainly number one, you know back then, and
Speaker 2: Ralph Macchio and the Karate Kid. I'm thinking of like
Speaker 2: all of these, you know, and everything and I and
Speaker 2: I write about this. You know, my parents always raised
Speaker 2: and said, look, you're an American and you're Muslim, and in
Speaker 2: part because they came from two countries that were at war,
Speaker 2: so they didn't try to put the burden of that
Speaker 2: identity that you have to choose whether you're Indian or
Speaker 2: Pakistani or even Saudi. You know, given the fact that
Speaker 2: we lived there and you know, felt a deep connection
Speaker 2: to it. You're an American and you're in a Muslim
Speaker 2: And so I remember we would go all over the world,
Speaker 2: and that was one of the great beauties of having
Speaker 2: parents who were academics. They had summers off was one
Speaker 2: of also the great advantages of being a university professor there.
Speaker 2: Because my parents, in the early years, in fact, I
Speaker 2: don't think I've ever shared this, they would get four
Speaker 2: first class tickets every summer to go wherever, and so
Speaker 2: we would, you know, take these tickets and we would
Speaker 2: go to Europe and Asia, and in part because my
Speaker 2: father was sick and he wanted to explore the world.
Speaker 2: He and he didn't know how much time had there's
Speaker 2: benefits to have been. So, I mean, these were secrets
Speaker 2: from us. We did not know how ill he was.
Speaker 2: And I tell this story about you know, my father
Speaker 2: was barely one hundred pounds, and to me, he was
Speaker 2: a superhero. You know, he was the greatest, strongest man
Speaker 2: on the planet. But he would every spring, you would say, okay,
Speaker 2: where do you want to go this year? And we'd say, okay,
Speaker 2: let's do Asia, and he said, okay. We'd pull out
Speaker 2: a map and we'd have to call the airlines back
Speaker 2: then well wherever, wherever, you know, wherever, and we would
Speaker 2: have you voted on whoever we voted on, and then
Speaker 2: we'd have to help plan it. And my mom did
Speaker 2: all the schlepping and all the lifting, and you know,
Speaker 2: my father would be wheeled around in a wheelchair. But
Speaker 2: it was having Number one, it was a way for
Speaker 2: us to spend time together, and number two, it was
Speaker 2: a way to explore the world. And I remember my
Speaker 2: mother tells the story of how we would land in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere sometimes in Shannon, Ireland, you know,
Speaker 2: on our way to you know, refeel somewhere. And I
Speaker 2: would get up and turn to my mother and say,
Speaker 2: is it America yet? And I have a whole chapter
Speaker 2: in my book. I mean that is what, you know,
Speaker 2: the excitement, the feeling that you know, ice cream running
Speaker 2: down my hands. You know, when we visited our family
Speaker 2: in Elmhurst, Queens, it was paradise. It was heaven. You
Speaker 2: could go anywhere in the world and landing in JFK
Speaker 2: was the highlight.
Speaker 1: So when you came to the US to when you
Speaker 1: return to the US to go to college, you go
Speaker 1: and you go into politics, but you study journalism as
Speaker 1: a major and poly size is the minor? Did you
Speaker 1: most people? I know? My point is that they go
Speaker 1: to GW for one thing.
Speaker 3: Only.
Speaker 1: They don't go there to play the violin. They don't
Speaker 1: go there to get a scholarship. For some sports they play.
Speaker 1: They go there because they got politics in their blood.
Speaker 2: Was that you No, I was I want to gw
Speaker 2: to become Christian.
Speaker 1: I'm on poor.
Speaker 2: Journalism was the goal. It was. And you know, I
Speaker 2: say this all the time now when I especially when
Speaker 2: I meet younger women. I was sitting on the floor
Speaker 2: of our house and watch this brand new thing in
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia and then this is the you know, Operation
Speaker 2: Desert Storm, Persian Gulf War, and turn on this brand
Speaker 2: new thing called CNN International, and I see this woman
Speaker 2: and she was brilliant and she was fearless. I mean
Speaker 2: it was I looked at her and she looked like me.
Speaker 2: She looked like she came from my part of the world,
Speaker 2: and she gave this morphous you know, I went from
Speaker 2: everything I think when I was younger. You know, my dad,
Speaker 2: I think always thought I was going to be a writer.
Speaker 2: He would we you know, say that to me, right
Speaker 2: right right. I was a voracious reader. I went through
Speaker 2: a period where I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I was really very dramatic. People would come to our
Speaker 2: house and I would say, do you want to listen
Speaker 2: to my new poem? And my siblings would roll their eyes.
Speaker 2: Like I was a performer growing up. I had a
Speaker 2: lot of sort of confidence. I loved to perform. So
Speaker 2: I think I went through the period of like, I
Speaker 2: want to be an actor, I want to be a singer,
Speaker 2: I want to be out there. I wanted to be a.
Speaker 1: Balleries how you ended up, but we're going to get that.
Speaker 2: I went through all these different phases. But then, and
Speaker 2: I must have been no. I was fifteen. I saw
Speaker 2: her and I said, that's it. That is who I
Speaker 2: want to be. And I was singularly focused on being her.
Speaker 2: And that is why I applied to g W and
Speaker 2: I went to journalism and I got my degree in journalism,
Speaker 2: so graduate degree. I did not get a graduates of
Speaker 2: one of my regrets, but I did not get a graduate.
Speaker 1: When you end, when you do the four years at
Speaker 1: GW and you get a degree in journalism, is journalism
Speaker 1: still the goal is.
Speaker 2: Because my junior year, my friend Ronnie Hibbert came to
Speaker 2: me and said, listen, I've got this great internship at
Speaker 2: the White House. I'm interning for Mike McCurry, who was
Speaker 2: then the White House Press secretary. And she actually said
Speaker 2: to me, she says, you know, when you watch anybody
Speaker 2: giving a you know, a statement from that podium in
Speaker 2: the in the press room, our office is right behind.
Speaker 2: And I thought, oh my god, how better to become
Speaker 2: press than being behind that wall. But you know, chance,
Speaker 2: you know, fate, luck, whatever it was, I got accepted.
Speaker 2: So my friend Ronnie picks up the internship application for me.
Speaker 2: I think basically filled it out for me. I gave
Speaker 2: them my you know, the essays that I used to
Speaker 2: apply to GW sent it in. Was accepted, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't put in the press office. I was put in
Speaker 2: the first Lady's policy office.
Speaker 1: Where did you first lay eyes on Hillarby Clinton? And
Speaker 1: you actually talked to her and shook her hand?
Speaker 2: So she doesn't remember this, there's no reason she'd remember this.
Speaker 2: But the first time I laid eyes on her and
Speaker 2: shook her hand was the night of Bill Clinton's re
Speaker 2: election nineteen ninety six. So I was a White House
Speaker 2: intern and they, you know, the DNC had made accommodations
Speaker 2: that if interns wanted to go on this charter plane
Speaker 2: at the last minute too Little Rock, Arkansas for election
Speaker 2: night talk about politics on steroids. I had now alec
Speaker 2: I wasn't registered to vote. I had never I mean,
Speaker 2: I grew up in a country that was a monarchy.
Speaker 2: Obviously there was no so you know, I went from
Speaker 2: zero to a thousand, and so I get on this
Speaker 2: plane with a bunch of interns. We had to pay,
Speaker 2: you know, write a check for I think two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars for our ticket. Land and Little Rock
Speaker 2: were wandering around outside, and I'm just kind of just
Speaker 2: in awe. I look up and there's Wolf Blitzer.
Speaker 1: I look up.
Speaker 2: There's intoxicating me. So I, you know, played a little Rock.
Speaker 2: The elections called for Bill Clinton and the Energy and
Speaker 2: the Electricity, and they come out on stage and then
Speaker 2: they come down to work a rope line, and I
Speaker 2: was four or five people deep in and I remember
Speaker 2: leaning forward through the crowd and shaking her hand, and
Speaker 2: she looked right at me and she said thank you.
Speaker 2: And I and I have to tell you, I can't
Speaker 2: even count the number of ropelines I had walked with
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton since then, But I remember that moment. I
Speaker 2: remember how it felt, I remember how important it felt.
Speaker 2: I remember that I felt like I made this connection.
Speaker 2: And so every time somebody would say to me, I
Speaker 2: just want to say a lord, I want to shake
Speaker 2: her hand. I got it because I remember that first
Speaker 2: moment and for some people it's it really is a
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime to meet a president or a
Speaker 2: first lady. It was really exciting.
Speaker 1: Huma Aberdeen. If you enjoy conversations with accomplished women in politics,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with United States Congresswoman Katie Porter.
Speaker 3: You know, I think there is an attitude that you know,
Speaker 3: sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation. Here.
Speaker 3: What they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who
Speaker 3: listen to them, people who fight for them, people who
Speaker 3: are not corrupt, and that can come in your Democratic
Speaker 3: or Republican forms.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Katie Porter, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Huma
Speaker 1: Abdeen shares the tremendous impact of Hillary Clinton's twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: election loss. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Huma Abodeen is fiercely in intelligent, warm and
Speaker 1: impeccably credentialed. Will Surely anyone would be lucky to employ her.
Speaker 1: I was curious why she stayed in the Clinton camp
Speaker 1: for twenty six years.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm getting emotional because I'm sitting at this table.
Speaker 2: She sat where you're sitting right now to do my
Speaker 2: first podcast interview after the book came out, and she's
Speaker 2: one of the people who really encouraged me to write
Speaker 2: my story. That wound, to some degree does not go away.
Speaker 2: I think it is such a travesty and a loss
Speaker 2: for this country tragedy. I agree with you that she
Speaker 2: was not president in twenty sixteen and how different our
Speaker 2: country and the world would have been, and it is
Speaker 2: their loss. And to see how politics has descended into
Speaker 2: this sort of really a cult of personality. I was
Speaker 2: having this conversation with a friend the other day and
Speaker 2: he was like, it's almost like you need to be
Speaker 2: a celebrity, to even a rich celebrity, to even you know,
Speaker 2: run for office and take all that apart. You know,
Speaker 2: you actually have asked me something no one's ever asked me.
Speaker 2: I kind of fell into politics, You're right, I mean
Speaker 2: I wanted to oviginalist fell into politics. But why. It's
Speaker 2: because when I started being in the orbit of Bill
Speaker 2: and Hillary Clinton, forget who they were, that he was
Speaker 2: the most you know, the leader of the free world.
Speaker 2: She was the most powerful woman in the world. For them,
Speaker 2: it was all about the mission and the service and
Speaker 2: how do I make I know it sounds cliche and
Speaker 2: it sounds cheesy, but there are people who get up
Speaker 2: every single day and say, how do I make other
Speaker 2: people's lives better? And I think of all the things
Speaker 2: that I have done. There's not a space I have been,
Speaker 2: a place I have been. There isn't a person I
Speaker 2: haven't met that I want to meet. And it still
Speaker 2: does not feel the way it feels when you're out
Speaker 2: on a campaign, when you're in government and feel and
Speaker 2: know that you can make somebody's life better than you
Speaker 2: can do something doing the right thing. And that is
Speaker 2: something I learned from her, and to see her do
Speaker 2: it part of her thing. As you well know, She's
Speaker 2: never really thought it was about her. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of politicians and maybe even people in your
Speaker 2: line of work, they get into it. There's some degree
Speaker 2: of whether it's narcissism or some degree of you know,
Speaker 2: trying to prove one his own value. But she just
Speaker 2: she just wants to do the work. And I always said,
Speaker 2: the day I got up and she wasn't doing something
Speaker 2: interesting or I didn't want to go to work, or
Speaker 2: I didn't want to talk to her, I would quit.
Speaker 2: And the thing that is so insane to me is
Speaker 2: that after that election which broke us. I mean, I
Speaker 2: write about it in twenty sixty and there are days
Speaker 2: that it comes back, and you know, it haunts me.
Speaker 2: It hurts like it hurts like physically.
Speaker 1: I was around her this summer, Liz Robbins, we went
Speaker 1: to that dinner. This is my friend for our listeners
Speaker 1: who she has at dinner and Bill is there a
Speaker 1: couple summers ago. Bill is lecturing us on North Korea,
Speaker 1: and he's talking about now now when the president of
Speaker 1: the United States is telling you what he wants you
Speaker 1: to know, a little digest, a little synopsis about North
Speaker 1: Korean policy, you are well, I don't need to eat,
Speaker 1: forget about dinner, and Liz Robbins is behind his back.
Speaker 1: She's behind Bill's back going like this and cutting her
Speaker 1: throat like this, going you got it, dumb to stop.
Speaker 1: Dinner is ready, and I'm looking at her like, h yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell Bill to stop talking about North Korea.
Speaker 1: And when you're with him, you get a civics lesson.
Speaker 1: He had a political history lesson, and we did with
Speaker 1: her the same thing. But she's just I don't know
Speaker 1: what this inefvitable thing in my business where she just
Speaker 1: she's like Spencer Tracy. Yes, she's just so decent.
Speaker 2: She has a few radical empathy number one, number two,
Speaker 2: she has this she has like she says, this problem
Speaker 2: solving gene. You know, I think so much of it,
Speaker 2: and you know, people, and she's motivated really by not
Speaker 2: anything else. I don't think she cares about being rich
Speaker 2: and famous. I don't think she's ever cared about that.
Speaker 2: But I think knowing about her own mother, her own
Speaker 2: mother had a very very difficult childhood, was basically abandoned
Speaker 2: by her parents. And you know, her victory speech in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, she was going to end with this story
Speaker 2: about she tells a story about her mother who is
Speaker 2: put on a train cross country. Her parents didn't want
Speaker 2: her and her little sister. So these two little girls
Speaker 2: under ten put on a train to go cross country
Speaker 2: to move in with her their grandparents, who also didn't
Speaker 2: really want them. And she said, you know, she imagined
Speaker 2: being on that train, sitting next to her mother and
Speaker 2: saying it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay,
Speaker 2: and you're going to grow up and you're going to
Speaker 2: have a daughter, and she will be the first woman
Speaker 2: president of the United States. And in the end, she was,
Speaker 2: and she was, and I know that she waits to
Speaker 2: remind people. I also like to remind people when people say, well,
Speaker 2: why couldn't you guys, Why didn't you guys have the
Speaker 2: energy and sort of why didn't you have all this
Speaker 2: energy behind you? And he said, I'd like to remind
Speaker 2: people that three million people more than her opponent voted
Speaker 2: for her, that she did have the energy and enthusiasm
Speaker 2: and you know the forces. I do believe she ran
Speaker 2: won in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And she did win in twenty sixteen. You know one
Speaker 1: other things that you and she have in common. You
Speaker 1: were both people who your husbands let you down. That's
Speaker 1: my way of putting it. Your husband's let you down.
Speaker 1: And in your case, you will overcome that. You deal
Speaker 1: with that in your way, and you're very honest about
Speaker 1: it in the book, and you keep going. Crisis management
Speaker 1: has been a fundamental pillar of your career. You've worked
Speaker 1: with people who've been in crisis, and Hilary Clinton is
Speaker 1: someone who's been attacked in a way that is as
Speaker 1: ugly and so with you professionally, with the Clintons for
Speaker 1: many years in your personal life, a lot of crisis
Speaker 1: management for you. What prepared you for that?
Speaker 2: I think my childhood. I think the way I was raised,
Speaker 2: the people who raised me, the you know, whether it
Speaker 2: was conscious or subconscious. I mean this idea that I
Speaker 2: had a mother who is a superhero, you know who
Speaker 2: My father was throwing up after his dialysis sessions and
Speaker 2: she was in the bathroom cleaning him up, and you know,
Speaker 2: propping him up and putting him at them.
Speaker 1: Very very real.
Speaker 2: I mean these were very and you know, living in
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, living in a different cultures, living you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes in very frustrating moments, and always thinking all right,
Speaker 2: tomorrow is going to better, Tomorrow is going to be better.
Speaker 2: And then obviously dealing with my father's death I was hard.
Speaker 2: You know, I was in denial for a while. It
Speaker 2: took two years for me to actually say out loud
Speaker 2: to people my father's dead. I was basically just you know,
Speaker 2: So I think that to some extent there was crisis
Speaker 2: all around me kind of growing up, and I figured
Speaker 2: out how to live and dance and not only live
Speaker 2: through it. My mother tells, move on. I mean, my
Speaker 2: mother says, my father's favorite memory from my childhood is
Speaker 2: when I would come out of school. I would skip
Speaker 2: out of school and he would call me his gazelle.
Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons I share in the book,
Speaker 2: this story about the first time I staff Hillary and
Speaker 2: her speech is forgotten in the car and she calls
Speaker 2: me on to stage and I'm this kid, I'm barely
Speaker 2: twenty one, don't have the speech. And that was the moment,
Speaker 2: the moment where you basically either fall apart or say
Speaker 2: I got it. I can fix this. And I fixed
Speaker 2: it in that moment. That was twenty six years ago,
Speaker 2: and I have always figured it out, and I actually
Speaker 2: think I have figured out that I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that's like a marketable skill
Speaker 2: and he were outside of politics. I'm working on that
Speaker 2: right now. But it's experience.
Speaker 1: Which idea was the book?
Speaker 2: The book was Anna Winter's idea. No, yes, yes. It
Speaker 2: was ten days after the election. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: get out of bed, and she says, let's go to dinner,
Speaker 2: and we go to the theater and then go to
Speaker 2: dinner and I was it was at the public and
Speaker 2: it was Cheryl Strad's Tiny Beautiful Things, and cried and
Speaker 2: cried and cried. And then we go to dinner and
Speaker 2: she says, I know what you should do. You should
Speaker 2: write your story. It's a great story. And I said, no,
Speaker 2: it's not I'm not going to do it. And the
Speaker 2: next day I go to Hillary and tell Hillary and
Speaker 2: I said, She's like, brilliant idea. You should do. It's
Speaker 2: a good story. I was really in denial. It was
Speaker 2: only when I went to lunch with a man getting
Speaker 2: advice on what to do next in my life and
Speaker 2: told them most and people think I should write my book.
Speaker 2: And he was like, why would you do that? And
Speaker 2: I said, well, people have suggested the.
Speaker 1: Man robis here shielding what does he do for a
Speaker 1: living career to say?
Speaker 2: He's also a crisis management consultant to an extent. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, he's in sort of the business of, you know,
Speaker 2: politics and communications. And he says, listen, I just don't
Speaker 2: think you could ever fully explain why Hillary lost. And
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone wants to read any more about
Speaker 2: all that scandal. And it was when you use that
Speaker 2: word scandal. I walked out of that restaurant and I
Speaker 2: was writing the book. It was somebody telling me the
Speaker 2: story was unworthy. That made me write. And when I
Speaker 2: when I started writing, it just poured, it poured out
Speaker 2: of me. I loved, loved, loved the writing process. And
Speaker 2: you know, and look, because you asked about Anthony and
Speaker 2: my ex husband letting me down, which he did.
Speaker 1: He was on this podcast.
Speaker 2: He was on this podcast. Yeah, that's right, he was.
Speaker 1: And you know, I my first usband and wife a
Speaker 1: couple of.
Speaker 2: I should have brought him along. We're we're not talking
Speaker 2: about doing some interviews together because people cannot. Are still
Speaker 2: in shock. And I get stopped on the street all
Speaker 2: the time saying, oh, I'm sure you threw the day
Speaker 2: that you met that man. In fact, somebody said that
Speaker 2: to me. You know, when I launched the paperback to
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, I was like, I'm sure you
Speaker 2: rew the day you met that man. And I stopped
Speaker 2: this person and I said, you know, actually, this man
Speaker 2: gave me the greatest gift in my life. And that
Speaker 2: is my son. My opinion, and so no, and I
Speaker 2: and I think part of it is people didn't understand
Speaker 2: what was happening. And you know, I only now, you're
Speaker 2: years later, we have a much greater appreciation for mental
Speaker 2: health and addiction and and I you know, back then,
Speaker 2: only certain like I felt like our friends kind of
Speaker 2: in the creative world and Hollywood really understood what was happening.
Speaker 2: And you know, but in politics, I mean, to have
Speaker 2: the first what I argue was sort of Twitter sex scandal.
Speaker 2: It was unheard of back then. People don't know what
Speaker 2: to do, and so we would.
Speaker 1: Sacho also with him, if I may just interject you
Speaker 1: with it with him, that the thing is that we
Speaker 1: have so few people now in my estimation, who are
Speaker 1: really really special in politics, and your former husband was
Speaker 1: somebody who people had a lot of belief in him.
Speaker 2: He was you know, at one point, the chapter about
Speaker 2: Anthony was called Icarus because he was I mean, he
Speaker 2: really was Markt really smart, really and as you said,
Speaker 2: you know, he was unique. He was a unicorn in
Speaker 2: a way that he was progressive, he was feisty, he
Speaker 2: was smart, he understood the policy. But more than that,
Speaker 2: he had solutions. And you know, until he ran for
Speaker 2: mayor in twenty thirteen and obviously lost, he'd never lost
Speaker 2: an election before too to that point, and so so
Speaker 2: to not then understand the behavior, which I did not,
Speaker 2: Alec I'm being very on. I did not as somebody
Speaker 2: who grew up so disciplined and with such moderation, you know,
Speaker 2: so you know, I'd just knock off this behavior and
Speaker 2: not understanding that he'd really fallen into and you know,
Speaker 2: his all of this compulsiveness was really kind of triggered
Speaker 2: by Facebook and Twitter, that all had just started in
Speaker 2: the last couple of years and then just just fall it. Really, it's,
Speaker 2: you know, talk about another tragic I think he.
Speaker 1: Let down a lot of people, not just you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had people who really believed in him because in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party we just sort of have enough tough people. Now,
Speaker 1: you've been dealing with the political press your entire professional career,
Speaker 1: and some of them have been, you know, remarkably brutal
Speaker 1: and unfair. Who in your life from the conservative media
Speaker 1: when you dealt with them, did you respect and you
Speaker 1: liking that they covered her fairly? Wow?
Speaker 2: That is a question, is as sad, I will say
Speaker 2: that I don't know the answer to. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: I could give you a name off the top of
Speaker 2: my head.
Speaker 1: Isn't that hard coming from you, That's pretty damn it.
Speaker 2: But we lived, I mean when we lived in a
Speaker 2: different You know, you've stumped me. I mean, honestly, I can't.
Speaker 2: I think we were always on guard. And to the
Speaker 2: point that you just made about fake news versus you know,
Speaker 2: this notion of you're entitled to your you know, your
Speaker 2: own opinion, but now your own facts. That's out the door. Now.
Speaker 2: Now it's sort of you know, what is fact? What
Speaker 2: is fiction? And I struggle to come up with a
Speaker 2: single name of somebody who I thought was Look, we
Speaker 2: had challenges with the New York Times, where there were
Speaker 2: stories that were just filled with inaccuracies.
Speaker 1: Huma Aberdeen, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
Speaker 1: we come back, Huma Aberdeen ponders whether a political candidacy
Speaker 1: is in her future. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. Whoma Abadeen was vice chair of
Speaker 1: the Hillary Clinton's twenty sixteen presidential campaign. After such an
Speaker 1: unexpected and painful loss, I was curious what she thought
Speaker 1: it would take for the United States to finally elect
Speaker 1: a female president.
Speaker 2: I think this is a generational thing. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: raising a son, and I am raising my son not
Speaker 2: just to respect women, but not fear their power. And
Speaker 2: I think it's conscious and subconscious, this notion of when
Speaker 2: you close your eyes and you see somebody who's in charge,
Speaker 2: do you ever see it as a woman, know, you
Speaker 2: see it as a man. And how do we change that?
Speaker 2: And I think you and I are of a generation
Speaker 2: that that's it's going to be very hard to change.
Speaker 2: And it's proven an election over and over again. I mean,
Speaker 2: look at this battle of Kathy Hochles going through right
Speaker 2: now in New York. I mean it is I guarantee
Speaker 2: you if she was not a woman, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: she would it would be as back and neck. But
Speaker 2: it's women, and it's and this notion of ambition, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea that people always look at us whenever we
Speaker 2: are the victim, when we were in service of I
Speaker 2: mean Hillary was always most popular when you know, during
Speaker 2: impeachment in her husband's administration, and then when she served
Speaker 2: Obama and the minute she says I'm in her approval
Speaker 2: numbers just go down significantly. And that why why it
Speaker 2: is the minute a woman as seen as being ambitious
Speaker 2: for power or being in charge, that all of a
Speaker 2: sudden something subconsciously and this is not just men, this
Speaker 2: is men and women subconsciously. It's like off in our
Speaker 2: head saying no, no, no, no, that can't happen.
Speaker 1: Women who still support the patriarchy. I find that mesmerizing.
Speaker 1: Women who are enemies of candidacies like hell.
Speaker 2: And we would knock on doors early on the primary
Speaker 2: and women you know in Iowa would say, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: caucus for Hillary. I'm gonna caucus for Hillary. Wink wink,
Speaker 2: but you know, make sure their husband's in here. And
Speaker 2: then sure enough, on caucus day they just said what
Speaker 2: their husbands were doing or told them to do. Whatever
Speaker 2: it is. It's just it is. It is a generational
Speaker 2: thing that we have to change.
Speaker 1: Are you going to run?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Part of.
Speaker 2: About it, well, I haven't really what I that's your demographic?
Speaker 2: I well, I so this is my year of saying yes,
Speaker 2: I'm doing all kinds of crazy things this year that
Speaker 2: I would have never said yes to two years ago.
Speaker 2: For example, I mean this I'm doing interviews, I'm giving speeches,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm just exploring the world. I'm seeing
Speaker 2: things and meeting people. I'm just doing things I would
Speaker 2: have in the olden days. I don't have time for this.
Speaker 2: I don't have time for social life. I don't have time.
Speaker 2: You know. It's always about work, and now I'm just
Speaker 2: you know, finding more time to do all those things.
Speaker 2: So I hate when I say, Okay, I'm definitely not
Speaker 2: running for office. I don't see a path. I don't
Speaker 2: see that I would. But I'm in this never say never,
Speaker 2: but I don't. I don't see it. I'm also agnostic
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: You've never seen the path? Have you? The woman that
Speaker 1: wanted to be Christian?
Speaker 2: And I'm on poor one.
Speaker 1: That's right in the Sliding Doors biography of hom you've
Speaker 1: never seen the path. You're like me in the sense
Speaker 1: of my whole life has been People would go A
Speaker 1: B or C, and I go, which do I really
Speaker 1: want A B or C? And the answer is D
Speaker 1: something that wasn't even on the table eighteen months. If
Speaker 1: that's the train I got.
Speaker 2: On, well that's the cliff. You know. The book was
Speaker 2: originally the prolog was originally called the cliff. I was
Speaker 2: kind of standing on the precipice of that cliff and
Speaker 2: I chose to jump. And I always envisioned that it
Speaker 2: was going to be really bad. Jumping just meant hitting
Speaker 2: the ground, and how much pain was that going to be?
Speaker 1: And it's an opportunity as well. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: just my opinion. I mean, I'm not trying to give
Speaker 1: you advice here. I'm not trying to encourage you to
Speaker 1: run for office. But the point is is that it's
Speaker 1: an opportunity. Even if you lose, you don't go into
Speaker 1: the thing. It's a chance for you to put on
Speaker 1: the record what you believe about this kind and this government.
Speaker 1: So two more quick things. One is you're developing a
Speaker 1: television series based on your memoir and you went ahead,
Speaker 1: And I can't believe you wouldn't cast the unspeakably unattractive
Speaker 1: and untalented Freeda Pinto to play you. I mean, what
Speaker 1: the hell are you thinking? Freeda Pinto is going to
Speaker 1: play you in the TV show.
Speaker 2: I was stunned that she wanted to do it. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a big admirer of hers, But more than that,
Speaker 2: I was and I met I met with a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and I didn't know where. I'd never met
Speaker 2: her in all these years. But she got the book,
Speaker 2: she got the story, she got the character. And I think,
Speaker 2: while I'm gratified a lot of people have read the book,
Speaker 2: I think a lot more people will watch it on
Speaker 2: screen and this if there is some sort of service
Speaker 2: or interest in the book. I mean, I I'm just
Speaker 2: beyond thrill that she's doing and I can't wait for
Speaker 2: so lucky son act.
Speaker 1: Now, if we're going to end, I want you to
Speaker 1: read that first. This is a letter. Tell us about
Speaker 1: this letter? Where is this from?
Speaker 2: This is a note I found just buried in my
Speaker 2: dad's papers years after he died, and I thought it
Speaker 2: was a message, you know, from being and I think
Speaker 2: it was just something you know, you would scribble these
Speaker 2: notes down. And he had a folder called Random Reflections
Speaker 2: and this was from his random reflections folder and it's
Speaker 2: titled thought for the Day. As an American, a Muslim,
Speaker 2: and as a member of a fairly decent family, a
Speaker 2: commitment should be a commitment. Whatever the provocation. It should
Speaker 2: not influence you to act in an unbecoming manner. You
Speaker 2: have to be fair, honest, and direct. If you can't
Speaker 2: stand the heat, then, as Truman said, get out of
Speaker 2: the kitchen. But your exit should be graceful, decent, and
Speaker 2: above board. Let others do what they will. You are
Speaker 2: responsible in the first instance, to yourself, your principles and values,
Speaker 2: and ultimately to God yahweh Allah, your loving Father. And
Speaker 2: I feel as though this was a note that he
Speaker 2: left for a to remind us what's important about how
Speaker 2: to walk through this earth.
Speaker 1: And you've lived that.
Speaker 2: I've tried to You've lived that, and.
Speaker 1: I want you to know. See, the thing about you
Speaker 1: is I'm going to end with the blessing and the curse,
Speaker 1: the sweet and the sour, and that is you are
Speaker 1: a very special and gifted person. But of course with
Speaker 1: that comes tremendous burdens as well, and tremendous demands. It's
Speaker 1: a blessing and a curse. You have a lot of
Speaker 1: burdens on you. This is choking me up here. It's
Speaker 1: so kind, and you have, when it comes, a burden,
Speaker 1: a burden. But we hope we're going to see no
Speaker 1: more of this woman that's in this book. I want
Speaker 1: to see. I can't wait to see what she's going
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Well, from your lips to God's ears, I just I'm
Speaker 2: so I'm excited, thrilled, terrified all those things, but I'm
Speaker 2: continuing my year of saying.
Speaker 1: Yes, Huma Aberdeen. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios
Speaker 1: in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen so Zach
Speaker 1: MacNeice and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
Speaker 1: social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio