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Speaker 1: Hello. My name is David Blight. I teach American history

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Speaker 1: at Yale University, and welcome to a special episode of

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Speaker 1: Why Am I Telling You This? The Clinton Foundation Podcast.

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Speaker 1: As a historian, I've spent much of my career studying

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Speaker 1: the ever evolving ways that Americans and groups of Americans

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Speaker 1: have told the story of who we are and how

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Speaker 1: we got here. For generations, there has been a hunger

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Speaker 1: for a unifying narrative that answers those questions. But history

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Speaker 1: is not so simple. Since our founding America has been

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Speaker 1: shaped by triumphs and tragedies, progress and reaction, inclusion and exclusion.

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Speaker 1: Our history is complicated, in contradictory because it was made

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Speaker 1: by real human beings who, by our very nature, are contradictory.

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Speaker 1: As frustrating as that may be when we want quick

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Speaker 1: and easy answers from the past, it gives us all

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Speaker 1: a great deal to think about, debate, interpret, and reinterpret,

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Speaker 1: which is what history does. And in a time when

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Speaker 1: the dangers of historical ignorance are all too evident, it

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Speaker 1: is an investment that's worth the effort. So why am

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Speaker 1: I telling you this? Well, a few weeks ago I

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Speaker 1: listened to President Bill Clinton's keynote speech from the Presidential

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Speaker 1: Ideas Festival hosted by the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

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Speaker 1: I found the speech remarkable for the president's serious engagement

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Speaker 1: with the text of the Constitution, but even more so

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Speaker 1: for his historical grasp of this institution of the presidency

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Speaker 1: over time. President Clinton traces the evolution of the presidency

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Speaker 1: from our founding through the present day, and explores how

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Speaker 1: different presidents at key moments used the office and its

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Speaker 1: powers to build an America that more closely resembled our

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Speaker 1: highest aspirations, as well as how some presidents may have

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Speaker 1: misused or stretched their powers. Early in the speech, President

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Speaker 1: Clinton argues that every president has consciously or not made

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Speaker 1: two essential decisions that shaped the direction of his presidency.

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Speaker 1: One who constitutes we the People? And two what does

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Speaker 1: a more perfect union look like? Much like American history

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Speaker 1: has been marked by alternating periods of progress and reaction,

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Speaker 1: President Clinton argues that some presidents have governed with broad

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Speaker 1: definitions of who is included in We the People and

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Speaker 1: others with much narrower ones. Indeed, it is worth our

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Speaker 1: remembering the two thirds of our presidents before Abraham Lincoln

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Speaker 1: were either slaveholders or sympathizers with slavery, and worked to

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Speaker 1: preserve that institution. He covers a vast subject with impressive nuance,

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Speaker 1: and having seen some of the handwritten notes he prepared,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot more he hoped to address in

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Speaker 1: just an hour long speech, from the role of the

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Speaker 1: civil rights movement and other citizen led crusades as drivers

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Speaker 1: of change, to the many achievements of President Carter and

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Speaker 1: President Obama in expanding the definition of we the people.

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Speaker 1: President Clinton's speech is unique because it is a rare

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Speaker 1: blend of learned history and lived experience. Only forty five

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Speaker 1: people have ever been President of the United States, and

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Speaker 1: only five of them are alive today. To hear one

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Speaker 1: of them reflects so thoughtfully on the institution is a

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Speaker 1: treasure and a bracing reminder of why history matters. As

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Speaker 1: the Great James Baldwin wrote in the nineteen essay, history

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Speaker 1: is not merely something to be read, and it does

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Speaker 1: not refer merely or even principally to the past. On

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Speaker 1: the contrary, the great force of history comes from the

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Speaker 1: fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled

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Speaker 1: by it in many ways. And his three is literally

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Speaker 1: present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise,

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Speaker 1: concluded Baldwin. Since it is to history that we owe

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Speaker 1: our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspiration. That passage,

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Speaker 1: perhaps as much as any, captures the value of studying history. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: President Clinton's speech is not a retelling of the past,

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Speaker 1: but a challenge to meet the demands of the president.

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Speaker 1: Past and present are always mingled. This speech is a

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Speaker 1: reminder of what the future of the institution of the

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Speaker 1: presidency can still be, especially as we celebrate Independence Day.

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Speaker 1: I hope you'll enjoy listening as much as I did.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I think it's really important you're having this

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Speaker 1: presidential ideas, is really important for you to decide what

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Speaker 1: is the job, what do you expect of the president,

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Speaker 1: what the president is supposed to do. I want to

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Speaker 1: start by saying this, I'm I'm very proud of the

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Speaker 1: job that Governor mc collo did as governor, but I

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Speaker 1: was never more proud of him and then at Charlottesville,

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Speaker 1: because one of the jobs that we need, when our

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Speaker 1: conflicts are laid bare and our future is uncertain, is

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Speaker 1: for somebody to just stand up and say, look, we

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Speaker 1: do or don't favor division and by race, by religion,

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Speaker 1: by politics, by gender, bisexual identity, but you name it

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Speaker 1: and we do, or we don't favor bullying, beating, and

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Speaker 1: in one sad case, here killing people who don't see

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Speaker 1: things the way we do. Sadly, the response that we

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Speaker 1: got at that time from the White House was, well,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of nice people on both sides,

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Speaker 1: But the governor of Virginia on that day was my

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Speaker 1: president when he said there was no place in this

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Speaker 1: commonwealth for racism, for anti semitism, for any form of

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Speaker 1: religious bigotry, for bullying, and for violence. Get out of

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Speaker 1: here and do not come back. So I did. Ok Now,

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Speaker 1: let's try to put this that into the context of

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Speaker 1: the whole sweep of American history. I hope when I've finished,

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Speaker 1: you will be more optimistic than you might be after

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Speaker 1: the news of the last couple of days. Uh. I

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Speaker 1: want to thank Bill Antholis in the Middle Center for

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Speaker 1: open organizing the session and for a really truly serious

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Speaker 1: and devoted study of the presidency. For all the hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of pages that have been written about the

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Speaker 1: presidency and specific presidents, there's still a quite amount of

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Speaker 1: mystery about it. It remains an intensely debated institution and

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Speaker 1: it's always evolving. And that's the one thing I want

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Speaker 1: you to focus on today, that it's the Constitution talks

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Speaker 1: about the presidency. But we know that what people thought

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Speaker 1: that was two hundred years ago was not what they

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Speaker 1: think it is today. We know that many of our

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Speaker 1: early press and thought that they should have a restrained

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Speaker 1: view of the office. John Kennedy saw it as the

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Speaker 1: vital center of action. We know that we feel close

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Speaker 1: to some presidents alienated from others, and that the further

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Speaker 1: they get away from us, the more we see them

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Speaker 1: through a filter that somebody else built for us. So

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Speaker 1: I want you to just think tonight today, I mean

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Speaker 1: about the institution, the job. When I was in the

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Speaker 1: White House, I had there's a little room off the

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Speaker 1: White House, off the Oval Office that presidents have used

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Speaker 1: for various things. But I put an old fashioned bookshelf

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Speaker 1: up and I filled it with biographies and histories featuring

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Speaker 1: my predecessors, mostly my left well known predecessors. I made,

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Speaker 1: over the course of eight years, a genuine effort to

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Speaker 1: understand what their strengths and weaknesses were, and how they

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Speaker 1: did or did not fit with the time and have

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Speaker 1: define what it meant to be the president. One thing

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Speaker 1: about the University of Virginia. I talked with some of

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Speaker 1: you about it already today. Thirty years ago this year,

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Speaker 1: I was here at one of the most rewarding endeavors

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Speaker 1: of my public life, the National Education Summit, called by

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Speaker 1: President George H. W. Bush, with prior agreement of all

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Speaker 1: the governors, to bring the governors here with the charge

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Speaker 1: of spending an elevated couple of days in the physical

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Speaker 1: and psychic shadow of Thomas Jefferson, to develop national education

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Speaker 1: goals for the country. I'm telling you this, and I

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Speaker 1: think you know I am becoming a traga ut. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've lived in a time no longer relevant for the

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Speaker 1: current circumstances, and I know there's just a big tendency

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Speaker 1: for people that used to be something or another two

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Speaker 1: spend too much time I'm reminiscing thinking about how well

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Speaker 1: they did. I I have really tried hard not to

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Speaker 1: do this. I try every day to live in the

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Speaker 1: present and live for the future. But I do think

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Speaker 1: history is important in trying to get to where we

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Speaker 1: understand what is the potential of the presidency, what are

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Speaker 1: the obligations of the presidency, What are the choices before

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Speaker 1: us today? So the first interesting thing about the presidency

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Speaker 1: is that the Famers created what was at the time

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Speaker 1: a fairly unique position, a democratically elected title that is

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Speaker 1: both a job chief executive and the position head of state,

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Speaker 1: the voice of the nation. Now we all know that

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Speaker 1: when we started, the Framers were obsessed with preventing abuses

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Speaker 1: of power that they found inherent and monarchies, whether they

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Speaker 1: were hereditary or host So they tried to give us

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Speaker 1: a government that was strong enough to do important things,

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Speaker 1: flexible enough to adapt to change the circumstances, but full

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Speaker 1: enough of checks and balances to prevent a slide into tyranny.

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Speaker 1: I think, and I hope they did a good job

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Speaker 1: of all three. They were sobered by the French Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and so they distrusted unrestrained popular opinion and provided instead

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Speaker 1: for the selection of a president through electors selected by

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Speaker 1: state legislatures, with the right to vote just being advisory anyway,

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Speaker 1: and still confined to white male property owners. And if

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Speaker 1: God forbid. After all, these barriers were unsuccessful in giving

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Speaker 1: us unappropriate selection, and there was a tie in the

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Speaker 1: electoral college as Thomas Efferson and arin Burg discovered the

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Speaker 1: decision was deferred to the House of Representative Imagine what

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Speaker 1: would happen today there where we have a margin of

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Speaker 1: forty and we would still lose because every state only

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Speaker 1: gets one vote, no matter how big it is. It's

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Speaker 1: even more unequal than the electoral college. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: my party. But they were trying to limit abuses of

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Speaker 1: power and to slowly make the country ready for democracy. Well, thankfully,

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Speaker 1: as we all know the franchise that's gone away beyond

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Speaker 1: the quite male property owners. The voices of the electors

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Speaker 1: at least now have to reflect a popular vote in

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Speaker 1: their states. But the electoral college does make us less democratic.

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Speaker 1: Small D Article two states the basic powers and responsive

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Speaker 1: always the Presidency, commander in chief. The armed forces can

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Speaker 1: call Congress into special session, as the ability to enter

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Speaker 1: treaties and nominate judicial and executive officials with the advice

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Speaker 1: and consent of the Senate, and can issue pardons from

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Speaker 1: time to time. The President is required to give information

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Speaker 1: to Congress on the state of the Union and must

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Speaker 1: faithfully execute the law. Beyond that position is the head

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Speaker 1: of State, which in effect requires every president in some

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Speaker 1: form of fashion to align all the policies, appointments, and

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Speaker 1: initiatives into a larger mission being the voice of the nation,

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Speaker 1: a role most important in dealing with other countries and

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Speaker 1: in speaking to and for all Americans and trying times,

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Speaker 1: I think the best guide for what the mission of

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Speaker 1: the head of state is is found not an article too,

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Speaker 1: but in the simple one sentence preamble to the entire document.

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Speaker 1: Since every new president, let's wear an oath to uphold

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Speaker 1: the whole shebang, We the people of the United States,

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Speaker 1: in order to form a more perfect union, established justice,

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Speaker 1: insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the

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Speaker 1: general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves

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Speaker 1: and our prosperity. Do ordain and established this constitution for

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Speaker 1: the United States, we the people. That becomes the responsibility

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Speaker 1: of the president to work for read the people in

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Speaker 1: forming a more perfect union. So to do that, every

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Speaker 1: single president from George Washington's Donald Trump, consciously or not,

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Speaker 1: has had to define what more per for union means.

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Speaker 1: And in order to do that must first decide who,

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Speaker 1: according to the preamble, constitutes we the people. And I'm

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Speaker 1: telling you you can analyze every president from George Washington

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Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. If you can answer, who did they

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Speaker 1: think constitutes we the people that they work for? An

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Speaker 1: answer to? And what do they believe or did they

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Speaker 1: believe if they passed on constituted a more perfect union? Now?

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Speaker 1: Who is we the people? Suggest the people who supported

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Speaker 1: and voted for you? Is it all the people who

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Speaker 1: are eligible to vote but otherwise can't do anything for you?

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Speaker 1: Is it just people who look like you, pray like you,

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Speaker 1: love like you, speak the same other tongue as you do?

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Speaker 1: And do you really believe that's the declaration of independence

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Speaker 1: is right and that we are all created equal, entitled

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Speaker 1: to the same rights and freedoms, worthy of every opportunity

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Speaker 1: to freely make our own future and the life of

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Speaker 1: our country, or instead, do you think the most important

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Speaker 1: thing is the current dominant position of your crowd, however

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Speaker 1: you define that? And do you think it's okay to

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Speaker 1: have one set of rules for you in your crowd

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Speaker 1: and a different set for everybody else? Now, this question

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Speaker 1: has been answered vastly differently over two hundred years, some

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Speaker 1: more than two hundred, and sometimes even differently within a

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Speaker 1: single presidency, depending on what the question is it's best

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Speaker 1: not to be too sanctimonious about this, but it's still important.

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Speaker 1: It's very hard for democracy and doer if you really

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Speaker 1: believe you can institutionalize one set of rules for your

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Speaker 1: crowd and another for everybody else. So at best, when

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Speaker 1: you have a presidential election anyway, it's it's a vast

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Speaker 1: job interview, the greatest job interview in the world. And

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Speaker 1: all the people who vote are your employers. They get

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Speaker 1: to hire you or somebody. And the greatest thing is

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Speaker 1: every four years, beyond the bare words of the Constitution,

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Speaker 1: you get hired to do a job that they define

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Speaker 1: every four years. So you got to keep on your toes.

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Speaker 1: If you run more than once, because you're not, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't work what you did before. You got to keep

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Speaker 1: up with the changes in effect. The American people say,

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Speaker 1: at this moment in history, here are problems, solve them.

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Speaker 1: Here are opportunities, seize them. Here are fears, ease them,

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Speaker 1: Here are our dreams, make them come true. And then

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Speaker 1: we have an election to argue about what all that means.

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Speaker 1: Today's complex national elections, with the rides of social media

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Speaker 1: and the difficulties of cybersecurity and all this stuff. You know,

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Speaker 1: a lot about are still largely determined by the culture

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Speaker 1: and the predisposition. Members of a given culture have to

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Speaker 1: vote in a certain way by the conditions extent at

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Speaker 1: the time of the election, which includes not just the

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Speaker 1: condition of the economy, but the condition of the election apparatus.

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Speaker 1: What are you the clean air is good, whether in

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Speaker 1: flint they could get water for their kids, conditions, then

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Speaker 1: the candidates and their campaigns, and finally the coverage of

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Speaker 1: them and both traditional and social media, because the more

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Speaker 1: people who are in the electorate, the further away you are,

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Speaker 1: the more dependent you are on someone else's filter. Then, still,

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Speaker 1: through a institution that I lived, it's usefulness a long

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Speaker 1: long time ago, the electoral college. We figure out who's

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Speaker 1: going to be president, and then you know how the

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Speaker 1: leader defines with the people and how to find form

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Speaker 1: a more perfect union. Will the new president take us

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Speaker 1: forward or backward? Will the new president make us more united?

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Speaker 1: Are more divided? We all feel heard valued seeing no

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Speaker 1: matter who we voted for. Oh, we just sit around

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Speaker 1: and mope till the next election. I think the best

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Speaker 1: presidents have sought to define we two people in a

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Speaker 1: way that broadens both the idea and the reality of

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Speaker 1: who counts in this country. They have basically committed, each

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Speaker 1: in their own way, given the options before them, given

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Speaker 1: the constraints they faced, to see we the people expand

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Speaker 1: from the few to the many. So far, all of

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Speaker 1: our presidents having acknowledged an opplcation not to block off

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Speaker 1: entire parts of the nation who didn't vote for them,

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Speaker 1: not to deprive people in those places of their rights,

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Speaker 1: or restrict their participation in the life of the nation.

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Speaker 1: So far, they've had enough humility to know that no

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Speaker 1: one is right all the time, and power must be

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Speaker 1: exercised with some care. And they've had enough confidence to

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Speaker 1: accept Benjamin franklin Dry observation that our enemies are our

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Speaker 1: friends where they sow us our faults. As President, my

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Speaker 1: often stated definition of making our union more perfect was this.

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Speaker 1: I thought my job was to widen the circle of opportunity,

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Speaker 1: to deepen the meaning of freedom, and to strengthen the

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Speaker 1: bonds of our community. I believe cooperation works better than conflict.

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Speaker 1: I'd be diverse groups make better decisions, and homogeneous ones

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Speaker 1: and loan geniuses. I believe, over the long run, in

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Speaker 1: an interdependent world full of vast opportunities and profound challenges,

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Speaker 1: including not just climate change, but the fastest way of

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Speaker 1: species destruction, destruction and ten thousand years. I think we

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Speaker 1: need all hands on deck, and we need a climate

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Speaker 1: in which we are looking for anybody that knows anything

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Speaker 1: with any kind of new idea. So let's just think

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Speaker 1: a real quick walk through history and look at a

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Speaker 1: few of our presidents and see whether, by any reasonable definition,

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Speaker 1: but take mind, they succeeded in forming a more perfect union.

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Speaker 1: George Washington started with a blank slate and the big agenda,

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Speaker 1: and he was wildly popular. He won. He gave life

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Speaker 1: to the constitution, definition of the union, building in their

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Speaker 1: national capital, establishing the first Executive office and cabinet, appointing

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Speaker 1: the first Supreme Court, supporting the creation of a national economy,

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Speaker 1: and with special attention to the symbolic power of being

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Speaker 1: head of state, voluntarily leaving office after two terms. I

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Speaker 1: think he did a pretty good job of making our

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Speaker 1: union more perfect. Thomas Jefferson began slowly to expand the

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Speaker 1: idea of the we the people, to go beyond just land,

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Speaker 1: honored owners and the financial elite to include more of

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Speaker 1: the ordinary farmers and small business people of our then

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Speaker 1: growing country, and then he vastly expanded the size of

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Speaker 1: America by buying Louisiana from Napoleon for fifteen million bucks.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm pretty indebted to him because if he

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Speaker 1: hadn't done that, I could have never become president. But

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Speaker 1: he also expanded our imagination of what the country could

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Speaker 1: become through the Lewis and Clark expedition. It is very

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Speaker 1: interesting that in spite of the fact that he created

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Speaker 1: the first political party and was a good politician subject

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Speaker 1: to significant personal attacktion rumormongering, he was pretty tough, and

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Speaker 1: he created a prey to essentially destroyed the Federalist Party

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Speaker 1: that grew up around George Washington and included Alexander Hamilton

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Speaker 1: and Chief Justice Marshall. Nevertheless, he wanted on his tombstone

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Speaker 1: none of the stunning array of federal positions he held,

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Speaker 1: think about it, Thomas Jefferson, President, Vice President, Secretary of State,

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Speaker 1: Envoy de France. Instead, he wanted it knowing that he

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Speaker 1: wrote the Declaration of independence in the Statute of Virginia

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Speaker 1: for religious freedom, and that he was the father of

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Speaker 1: the Streat University. He left this simple idea that the

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Speaker 1: life of the mind was important. What you thought and

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Speaker 1: what your values were mattered, and that public service was

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Speaker 1: not necessarily of greater value than a life well lived

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Speaker 1: in another arena. We had a lot of stability given

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Speaker 1: the electorate. We should have, I guess, But in our

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Speaker 1: first forty years we had six presidents for from Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Three were strong times of this university, good thing for you.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have an anty trust law back then, so

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Speaker 1: they built the initial institutions required by Article two, beginning

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Speaker 1: the with the inclusion of the common man with we

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Speaker 1: the people. But they still debated just about everything else,

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Speaker 1: and it was still the common man, not men and women,

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Speaker 1: and the common men were all white, not black or

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Speaker 1: Native Americans. In the mid nineteenth century, at the anti

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Speaker 1: slavery movement really rose to gain traction, and massive waves

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Speaker 1: of immigrants flocked to the United States from our London, Germany. Principally,

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Speaker 1: some presidents and would be presidents insisted on for the

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Speaker 1: first time narrowing the idea of the people that we

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Speaker 1: should right into law explicit exclusions of foreigners and African Americans.

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Speaker 1: But the opening shots at Fort Sumter, ironically, many of

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Speaker 1: the formerly disparaged immigrants who had been dissed themselves, found

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Speaker 1: themselves in places like New York City promoting sedition against

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Speaker 1: the national government because they were terrified at having finally

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Speaker 1: found a tiny foothold in New York and a job

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Speaker 1: with a steady rage that if Lincoln won the war,

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Speaker 1: he'd free the slaves and they would all come to

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Speaker 1: New York and throw them out of work. Sound fromilire.

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Speaker 1: So presidents had to deal with it. There were real

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Speaker 1: questions about not only the current carbronation, but the role

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Speaker 1: of the national government and dealing with all this. They

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Speaker 1: came to the head in the Civil War, and thank god,

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Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln won. He ended slavery, preserved a union, vindicated

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Speaker 1: government of by and for the people with the dramatically

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Speaker 1: enlarged conception of who the people were. After issuing the

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Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation, he gathered the votes the fast the thirteenth Amendment,

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Speaker 1: and in his last speech, just three days before he

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Speaker 1: was assassinated, he became the first president to raise the

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Speaker 1: idea of full citizenship for African Americans. A last John

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Speaker 1: Wilkes Smooth was in the audience for the speech. Lincoln's

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Speaker 1: remarkable legacy expended actually well beyond the minor matters of

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Speaker 1: saving the Union and freeing the slaves, and included a

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Speaker 1: vision of post war America. In America, he hoped to

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Speaker 1: lead to a broader future, to heal the wounds of

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Speaker 1: war and ease the anxieties that had driven it. He

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Speaker 1: signed the Homestead Act, supported the Transcontinental Realms System, and

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Speaker 1: established land grant universities. The one in my home state

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Speaker 1: was the first one established west of the Mississippi. At

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Speaker 1: the cost of his life, he didn't make our union

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Speaker 1: more perfect. After Lincoln's death, the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendment

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Speaker 1: granted newly freed slaves full set of jeb equal protection

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Speaker 1: of the laws, and the right to vote unlesses grant.

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Speaker 1: A deeply underrated general and I think often underrated president

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Speaker 1: faithfully tried to implement Lincoln's vision of reconstruction. He went

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Speaker 1: after the Clue Klux Klan and defeated him soundly. He

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Speaker 1: protected the right of to vote, and there was a

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Speaker 1: very large number A lot of Americans today still don't

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Speaker 1: know that there are really a very large number of

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Speaker 1: African Americans elected to state and federal office in the period.

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Speaker 1: Whether reconstruction was being properly in force, then, as always

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Speaker 1: came their reaction, and in eighteen seventy six the government

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Speaker 1: New York, Samuel Tilden, a Democrat, was reported as winning

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Speaker 1: the popular vote by two hundred people. There was to

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Speaker 1: be fair a lot of dispute about whether the goats

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Speaker 1: in the South were fully counted in where African Americans

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Speaker 1: were legitimately able to vote, but in the beginning the

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Speaker 1: votes of Florida and two other southern states were hotly contested,

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Speaker 1: and Congress agreed to set up a special amission to

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Speaker 1: look into it and then to decide that whatever the

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Speaker 1: commission rules would be, how the votes would be counted.

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Speaker 1: There were to be seven Republicans, seven republic Democrats, and

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Speaker 1: a judge on the Supreme Court. They had a rotation

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Speaker 1: system for such things, so the first judge was a

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Speaker 1: had been with the Democrat from Illinois who was a

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Speaker 1: friend of Abraham Lincoln's in pro Union. So the people

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Speaker 1: who were trying to make this happen actually got him off,

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Speaker 1: and he gave with an appointment to the Senate, and

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Speaker 1: they appointed someone who would certainly vote to see the

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Speaker 1: Republican president. Rutherford Hayes So, a man who lost the

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Speaker 1: popular vote by quarter of a million in a country

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Speaker 1: which was about five as populist as it is today,

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Speaker 1: so the margin was quite a bit bigger than it was.

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Speaker 1: Even got to be president, and there was quite an

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Speaker 1: outrage about it. So Rutherford Face, who was a pretty

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Speaker 1: distinguished union officer, made a reasonably good president. Some ways.

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Speaker 1: He started civil service from him, and he promised to

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Speaker 1: leave after four years. But the main thing he did

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Speaker 1: was to keep the burden of the deal that removed

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Speaker 1: the judge from the rotation by giving him a U. S. Senatecy,

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Speaker 1: and he got to the Union troops out of the South.

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Speaker 1: The minute that happened, reconstruction was over, and all these

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Speaker 1: laws began to be clawed back in factor in practice.

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Speaker 1: In the case of Pussy D. Ferguson in the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court finally legitimized a ruling. When you worry about the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court going hayward, if you are like me, it's

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Speaker 1: not like it's the first time it's happen. We've always

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Speaker 1: fought over these things. Who is meet that people anyway?

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Speaker 1: So Pussy says, you can absolutely practice legal segregation as

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Speaker 1: long as it's separate and equal. But everybody knew it

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Speaker 1: was definitely separate and most definitely unequal. So there we

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Speaker 1: were reconstructions over the lost caused rears its ugly head.

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Speaker 1: In the South again Jim Crow becomes the order of

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Speaker 1: the day. Meanwhile, we've still got the emigrants coming in.

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Speaker 1: Now they're from southern Europe and China and Eastern Europe,

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Speaker 1: reshaping our demographics. Just as we were entering the Industrial

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Speaker 1: Revolution in response to the concentration of big business and

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Speaker 1: the migration to the cities. And there are factories of

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Speaker 1: working people who used to be on the farm, the

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Speaker 1: long hours, low pay, and dangerous condition men and women

434
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: and child workers faced. The progressive movement emerged. Eddy Roosevelt

435
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: used his bullet pulpit to expand the government's power to

436
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: preserve competition and not to become a monopoly control of country,

437
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: to promote basic safeguards for labor, especially women and children,

438
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: to provide for the poor, and protect our natural resources

439
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: from plunder. Roosevelt and others they made our union more

440
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: perfect in their time, even as gem Crow persisted in

441
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: the South and segregation was far from unknown and the

442
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: rest of the country, and still in half our country

443
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: women we're not part of the people. For decades, the

444
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: suffrage movement work to secure the right to vote without

445
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: a genuine champion in the White House. Finally, one hundred

446
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: years ago this year, and the last great act of

447
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: the progressive era, the Nineteenth Amendment, was ratified. Then came

448
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 1: the reaction. It was like a bad movie. It's like

449
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: groundhog Day. Immigration from parts of the world deemed undesirable

450
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: was sharply curtailed of a surgeant KKK. You couldn't keep

451
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,720
Speaker 1: him down to save your life. Came back to life.

452
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: Its peak membership was three million, and then John. After

453
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: World War One, we had our very first red scare.

454
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: Populist movements to unite poor sharecroppers and laborers foundered on

455
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:50,320
Speaker 1: the rocks of division over race and pressure of lost jobs.

456
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: Then we've got another chance. The depression came along. It's terrible.

457
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,360
Speaker 1: That's something terrible has to happen for us to expand

458
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: the definition of we the people. But the depression came along.

459
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: Frank and Roosevelt moved to the White House. His Need

460
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: New Deal expanded the definition of we the people and

461
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: included a vast diverse urban working class with poor farmers.

462
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: They had all been depressed and crushed from the dust

463
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 1: bowl to the Tennessee Valley up and down the East Coast.

464
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,800
Speaker 1: Roosevelt used the power of the presidency to do something

465
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 1: never before dawn on this scale. He put many of

466
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: them back to work. Through the Works Progress Administration and

467
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: the Civilian Conservation Corps, the elderly were given a basis

468
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: for dignity during Social Security. He encouraged the rise of

469
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: industrial unions to protect the rights of workers, and like

470
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, he became what one author is

471
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: called a wilderness warrior to protect our natural resources. And

472
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,479
Speaker 1: after Pearl Harbor, he led us into and through World

473
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: War Two and envisioned the worldwide Organization of Nations committed

474
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: to avoiding another World war and another depression. By then,

475
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: it became obvious that we were the most important big

476
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 1: country in the world. So being president and defining we

477
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: the people both required us to acknowledge the unavoidable responsibility

478
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: of the United States in the larger world. After President

479
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: Roosevelt did his part to make our union more perfect,

480
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: he died shortly after his fourth and auguration, and Harry

481
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: Truman led our transition into a peacetime economy, defended the

482
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: labor movement, made a serious attempt to get health care

483
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: for all, shouldered the burden of building the United Nations

484
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: and the multinational organizations designed to restore our prosperity, rebuild

485
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: a bettered Europe, and contained the aggression of the Soviet Union.

486
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,800
Speaker 1: President Eisenhower into the Korean conflict, protected South Korea, supported

487
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court important to me in ordering Federal truth

488
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: to enforce Brown versus Board of Education and Little Rock,

489
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: Arkansas byte integrating Little Rock Central High School. Shortly before

490
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: he was killed, President Kennedy asked Congress to pass the

491
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: sweeping civil rights bill, and Leonard Johnson did it when

492
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: some of his advisers urged him to go slow, fearing

493
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 1: that if he pushed civil rights, he would anger the

494
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: Southern leaders in Congress. Derail is the entire legislative agenda

495
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: and cause God only knows what other kinds of crisis,

496
00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 1: and Johnson reportedly snapped back at them, well, what the

497
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: hell is the presidency for that question? Is what this

498
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: confidence is all about. He knew the National Unity sponsor

499
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: sparked by Kennedy's assassination, his big re election victory, his

500
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 1: big margin in Congress, him a lot of power, and

501
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 1: as he famously said, I intend to use it, and

502
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: use it he did for the Civil Rights Act, of

503
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, that open housing law, any poverty legislation, Medicare, Medicaid,

504
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,439
Speaker 1: head Start, and more, including an increase in the number

505
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: of immigrants coming to this country. He knew he had

506
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: made our union more perfect. But LBJ was no dummy.

507
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:28,399
Speaker 1: He also knew that he had destroyed his party's hold

508
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 1: in the South. He said, for at least a generation,

509
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: he was being conservative. Post LBJA, years passed proved that

510
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 1: he was right. Beginning in nine eight with the election

511
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: of Richard Nixon and the strong showing of George Wallace

512
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: as white working class voters south and north, the Light

513
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: began to make their way into a party that previously

514
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:54,840
Speaker 1: had not shown much interest in their economic well being,

515
00:38:55,520 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 1: but was eager to validate their of cultural promises and

516
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: reinforced their opposition to what was going on in the

517
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: other party. Thanks to that, the problems of Vietnam, the

518
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:18,399
Speaker 1: riots in the street, the increasing radicalism and of then

519
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: the left not the right, and sanctioning violence, we had

520
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: a big shift in America. For most of the twentieth century,

521
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:32,400
Speaker 1: each party had a political basis about the other twenty

522
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: would decide who our president was, and usually they reflected

523
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: about how the people felt, even though they may or

524
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: made out of voted that way. All of a sudden,

525
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: one party had at base the other had of forty.

526
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: I know because I was in the forty. So between

527
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: sixty eight and ninety three we had twenty years of

528
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: more conservative presidents than one four year term for President Carter.

529
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: Then by two thousand, when the when the political basis

530
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 1: were basically even, we had what was essentially an even

531
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: election decided by the Supreme Court in an opinion that

532
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: you can decide whe do you think. I think it

533
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 1: clearly restricted with the people, and I don't want to

534
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: take any time talking about it. You should go back

535
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 1: and read it and ask yourself. How could we have

536
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: such a momentous opinion and be told by the Supreme

537
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: Court this is a one off. You can never cite

538
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: this again. This has no presidential value. It basically said,

539
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 1: we have to stop a recount. We need a recount

540
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: by a uniform standard, but we can't do it because

541
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: day after tomorrow the electors have to be named according

542
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: to a statute in response to a natural disaster. That

543
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:52,839
Speaker 1: statute had already by court order been ignored because who

544
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: cared about it? I mean lots of time to name electors.

545
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: It was a deliberate attempt to restrict the definition of

546
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: we the people. So where does all that leave us?

547
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: We have to decide now some fundamental things. We are

548
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: living the most independent time in history, and we are

549
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: still the best position country in the world for the

550
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: twenty century. But we are not as big as China,

551
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:24,439
Speaker 1: and we are not going to be able to keep

552
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: them down. But we should be able to keep them

553
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: honest in trade deals and in matters the national security

554
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: involving particularly cybersecurity. So what's the best way to do that?

555
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,919
Speaker 1: How can we make our Chinese American friends and other

556
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: Ethian emigrants feel that they have a place here that

557
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: we How can we convince the Chinese that we have

558
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: no interest in embarrassing them, but we would like it

559
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: now that they have risen so far so fast, if

560
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 1: we could protect intellectual property and not be forced to

561
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: share our technology, and we don't like being interfered with

562
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: cuber attacks. Can we cut a deal or not? Is

563
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: there any way we'll ever be able to have what

564
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: happened when I represented the Republicans that the Education Conference

565
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: here will there ever be enough either verification or trust

566
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: or both for us to solve this problem. These are

567
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:34,320
Speaker 1: serious problems. We do need an infrastructure program. It shouldn't

568
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 1: be a partisan issue. If we're going to be competitive.

569
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: There are all these things that we should be talking

570
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: about that could benefit everybody. We have not had anything

571
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 1: but increasing intensity of partisan discord by and large since

572
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: the eighties. But until now, even in the toughest times,

573
00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: there were always manifestations of expanding are more perfect union.

574
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform in George Bush signed a

575
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: bill strengthening the Clean Air Act amendments. He signed the

576
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act. He did a good job bringing

577
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: an end of the Cold War and trying to support

578
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: democracy in Russia, and he didn't do anything that hastened

579
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: the result we're a little with today. Richard Nixon signed

580
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:36,560
Speaker 1: a bill creating the Environmental Protection Agency. Even presidence you

581
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: might not think of as being making our union more perfect.

582
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: They did things, every one of them. George W. Bush

583
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: passed PEP far, something I've done a lot of work

584
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: with because of my foundation, and it's safe. Lord knows

585
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: how many lives around the world and made people think

586
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: differently of the United States, and who also tried to

587
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 1: get immigration reform. We are unlikely friends. I made friends

588
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 1: with his dad and I called them after you got Alexa.

589
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: I said, I know you don't like me because I

590
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: beat your father. It's okay, I said, but I love

591
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: him too, and I'll make you a deal. I will

592
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: never talk about you the way you're guys talk about me. Never.

593
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: My wife's in the Senate, she's on the Armed Services Committee.

594
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: I may disagree with you, but I will always treat

595
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: you with respect and just simply say why I disagree.

596
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: If I can ever help you, I'd like to. We

597
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,879
Speaker 1: then commenced a period of two conversations a year, last

598
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: thing thirty or forty five minutes, which lasted the remainder

599
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: of verse presidency. I did to a three errands for him.

600
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 1: And now my favorite project and my foundation, is the

601
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: leadership program we run together where we take people from

602
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: both parties that have or in mid career have important

603
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: projects and we bring them together at all these presidential

604
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,839
Speaker 1: libraries and make them work together for six months and

605
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: then we there's moltentions. He links. When it's over, we

606
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: have a commencement, so he meets with him once. I

607
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 1: meet with him once than we did the commencement together

608
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 1: after the commencement. So far there has been no exception

609
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: of this. We've done it four or five times. The

610
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: Republicans come up to me, and the Democrats go up

611
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: to him and thank us, because they didn't know anybody

612
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 1: like the people they've been working with existed. Because for

613
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: all of our interdependence and all of our growing diversity,

614
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: we've been raising walls in our minds, partly because of

615
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: the curious information ecostructure in which we live, and for

616
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: all kinds of other reasons. I don't want to get

617
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: into that. All I want to say is that it

618
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:55,439
Speaker 1: is my experience that it is almost impossible to extinguish

619
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: the urge to make our union more perfect. But there

620
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: are forces us who would by making sure that it

621
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: becomes more ideological, more racially homogeneous, let's engage with the

622
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: rest of the world, and more dedicated to having one

623
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,399
Speaker 1: set of rules for them and another set for us.

624
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 1: There are lots and lots and lots of members of

625
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 1: the other party they don't agree with that they're lying.

626
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: There now some people in our party who thinks we

627
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 1: should be. We should take a page out of that book.

628
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: Here's what I know. I'm seventy two and I'm not

629
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: running for anything. Zero sum solutions in an independent world

630
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 1: do not work as well as positive solutions. Diverse groups,

631
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 1: committed to the rule of law and believing in growing

632
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,720
Speaker 1: we the people will make better decisions over any relevant

633
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: amount of time than homogeneous groups or even longeniuses. We

634
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: can build a future together. A lot of the differences

635
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 1: of opinion could be resolved easily. What you worry about

636
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: today is the product of demographics in politics. Look, we

637
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: can all piss, you know when pest actually when we're

638
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: not running for anything. But everybody's ever been in politics

639
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: who wanted to make change has had to feed the

640
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: beast a little bit. Do you know how much do

641
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,800
Speaker 1: you have to do to keep the power of reaction

642
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: at bay while you're trying to make politics do something good?

643
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: Don't forget Fdr, whom I admired very much, turned back

644
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: to St. Louis, full of desperate Jews trying to find

645
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,720
Speaker 1: a place to live. Before he thought America was ready

646
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: to go into World War Two, he imprisoned Japanese citizens,

647
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: including a two camps in my home state. And he

648
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,839
Speaker 1: waited quite a long while mh to get into the

649
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 1: war and made it look like Pearl Harbor required that.

650
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:13,320
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt did a lot and progressive movement, but basically

651
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: and he was pretty good on race at home. He

652
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,280
Speaker 1: had Booker T. Rock Washington come to the White House,

653
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: but he didn't think much of four people around the world,

654
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: and he was kind of an imperialist. Lincoln even bless

655
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 1: his soul in his first inauguration, and a desperate attempt

656
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: to save the Union, actually promised never to free the slaves.

657
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: Jefferson was a smart fellow, and he said and notes

658
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: on the State of Virginia, of which I have two

659
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:50,399
Speaker 1: first editions, and they have read very carefully, that when

660
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: he thought of slavery, he trembled to think that God

661
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:57,959
Speaker 1: is just, but he didn't tremble enough to go sign

662
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: the paper free in all his slaves. Then, people that

663
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: at least for me, weren't interested in broadening read of

664
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: people enough would sometimes do something that would just floor you,

665
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: Like I was glad President Reagan signed that immigration reform.

666
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: I was glad George W. Bush wanted to have immigration reform,

667
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: and he knew darnwell. The reason we weren't getting it

668
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: was because his political base didn't have the same level

669
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 1: of confidence that he did that he could go with

670
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: me to South Texas and have any kind of community

671
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: meeting and he could walk out of there with enough

672
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: boats to beat me. That's what he believed. In other words,

673
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: he wasn't afraid to treat people like they had half

674
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: good sense, like you could make arguments and and we

675
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: could do this together. We should celebrate this. This is

676
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: an old documentary's constitution, it's an old office of presidency,

677
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: yet it's still knew every day because it's just carrying

678
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: your hopes for a more perfect union. When I served,

679
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: that's what I try to do. I tried to work

680
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: with everybody. So I think we need to think about

681
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: taking another bite at this inclusion apple. This is a

682
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:23,879
Speaker 1: war in America between inclusive tribalism and devisive tribalism. Y'all

683
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: clapped when I said it was great, U V A

684
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: one n C double A. But you didn't want to

685
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: go of duct the teams that it had to be

686
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: to get to the championship, right. I hope that's right,

687
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: but you get the point. I'm trying to make we there.

688
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: We're all tribal. Heck that we do identity. We have identities.

689
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: That's fine, and there are good reasons why some people

690
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: have resentment. But I'm just telling you we need the

691
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: president to speak for a bigger we two people, not

692
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: a smaller one. So I want you to think about

693
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: all that. I also want you to know that no

694
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: president ever can win them all. And I kept score

695
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: when I served. I kept score in a very deliberate

696
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 1: way about my progress for meeting those things. I know

697
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: what I didn't do. I wish I'd been able to

698
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: pass universal health care. I wish I had clothed the

699
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 1: whole door on the Middle East tea steel. I wish

700
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: we'd gone into Rwanda earlier. I wish you know a

701
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 1: lot of things like that. I have very specific ideas

702
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: I wish I'd been able to do, And because when

703
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: I kept score, I know how much we did get done.

704
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: It's good to keep score, but it's also important to

705
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: know that if you try and fail, if you keep

706
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: on trying, things will be better than the otherwise would.

707
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 1: In the first four years after I left office, for example,

708
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 1: there were three times as many violent related deaths among

709
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: the Israelis, and the palace then ends. And in the

710
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,840
Speaker 1: previous eight years when I was there, why because they

711
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: all gave up on the peace process. They stopped trying

712
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: for four years. And I could give you a billion

713
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: other examples of this. That's the last thing I want

714
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: to say. We had this year, twenty years ago, we

715
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: had I think it was the twenty years ago. The

716
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: thirtieth anniversary of the moonwalk would be fifty years ago,

717
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: like nineteen nine, isn't that right? So NASA brings me

718
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 1: a moon rock in a vacuumpact deal and it's carbon

719
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: dated thirty years old, and we're all sitting nerve appropriately

720
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:40,399
Speaker 1: odd and taking pictures, and the surviving astronauts were there,

721
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: and I said, how is that thing? And they said, well,

722
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: I've been carbon dated at three point six billion years.

723
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: I said, may I borrow it? We can't just go

724
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: pick up a moon rock, you know. And I said, now,

725
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: I'll give it back to you, and I've got it

726
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 1: well guarded as you can see. I said I really

727
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: need this rock, and they looked at me like, oh

728
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: my god. The presidents lost his mind. I said, I

729
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: really need this rock. So the next day I had

730
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: a delegation from Congress come to see me. This is

731
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 1: after the whole one impeachment deal was done, and the

732
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 1: Republicans were sitting here and the Democrats was sitting here,

733
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they started fighting. And I

734
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:27,560
Speaker 1: listened to him, talked to three minutes. I said, wait

735
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: a minute, everybody, take a deep breath. Look at that rock. Yeah,

736
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: and look, I said, at rock. I just got it.

737
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: It came off the moon and at three point six

738
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 1: billion years old. I said, now we are all just

739
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: passing through. What do you say was settled down and

740
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:55,439
Speaker 1: get something done? And I said, be so. I think

741
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: the job of the president to help make our union

742
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 1: more perfect. I think the position of head of state

743
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: on some rare but significant days is even more important

744
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: than the job of chief executive. That's when I started

745
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: with what Governor mccaullull said, Petrew Charlottesville. I think life

746
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:21,280
Speaker 1: is short and that should make you feel bigger, not smaller.

747
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: And if you have a period of time when you're

748
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 1: not sure you believe that we can make our union

749
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: more perfect, when you're not sure that you can find

750
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 1: somebody to be president who will lift this up instead

751
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: of tear us apart. When you're not sure where you

752
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 1: should keep knocking on the door of the current administration,

753
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 1: think about this. We just got to see a picture,

754
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:46,319
Speaker 1: every one of us, not that everybody in this audience did,

755
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: in the newspaper, the first photograph ever made available to

756
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 1: Earthlings at least, of the black hole in the universe,

757
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: fifty five million light years away, in one of the

758
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: one billion plus not planets galaxies in our universe. We're

759
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 1: on this little piece of there are the third rock

760
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: from the Sun, in one tiny little solar system, in

761
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 1: one galaxy of a billion. A couple years ago, Hillary

762
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: and I went to Hawaii to the see the Keck

763
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: telescope for the biggest one in the world. And we

764
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: were up there talking to the scientists, and I never forget.

765
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 1: It was January. It was eighty nine degrees on the

766
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: ground and eighteen to the time we got up there,

767
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: and I'm looking into Andromeda in the telescope. And then

768
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: we go back and we start, you know, we had

769
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee with torn I said, you guys

770
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:46,439
Speaker 1: ever argue about where there's life on other planets? He said,

771
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:49,200
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I said, is there are a difference of opinion?

772
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,799
Speaker 1: They said huge. I said how much? He said, oh,

773
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:55,840
Speaker 1: there are those of us who think it's eighty five likely,

774
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: and those of us who think it's ninety five percent,

775
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: like m H. And he said, if you look at it,

776
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:06,239
Speaker 1: that's quite a large range, because there's a lot of

777
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: stuff out there now. While I trying to say that,

778
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: when I get really discouraged, I try to think of

779
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: something big like that that puts our little fastened lives,

780
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 1: and that the black hole has such a powerful it's

781
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 1: so big, and its magnetic pool is so great that

782
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: if fire entire solar system went by close enough, it

783
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 1: would be sucked in and disintegrated immediately into a pile

784
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: of dirt that could fit in a thumble. I think

785
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: of that. If that's true, not so important to be

786
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: on Mount Rushmore? Is it so? When? Really, it does

787
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 1: not make the life of any public service less significant.

788
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: It makes the trappings, the image the bs less significant.

789
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: You've just got a little bit of time. I got

790
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: through a lot of taking pictures with all your undergraduates here.

791
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: Then I thought, man, I remember this like it was yesterday,

792
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: But it wasn't yesterday. It was more than fifty years ago.

793
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: It does not take long to live a life, and

794
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 1: we are so blessed to be here. We're blessed. You

795
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: were blessed that Thomas Jefferson thought this was important that

796
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: to put on his tombstone we are blessed to be

797
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 1: born in America. When we did, we should not be

798
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 1: despairing if we're worried about America being divided. There have

799
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: never been permanent gains, are permanent losses and human affairs,

800
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: and we got a lot of hay in the barn.

801
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 1: We just need to saddle up. I mean they so

802
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,920
Speaker 1: I asked you to think of this. Do not return

803
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 1: the meaning rhetoric with de meaning rhetoric. Gove's people nice crazy,

804
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: just start raving crazy when you're not to him and

805
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: they show out. Did you know that? But that's not

806
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 1: what we shouldn't do it. He shouldn't do it. Because

807
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:24,680
Speaker 1: here we are on this little planet, leading a miraculous

808
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 1: life in a time of discovery, given the responsibility to

809
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:36,440
Speaker 1: keep expanding with the people and keep making our union

810
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: more perfect. If we do our part, chances are we'll

811
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 1: get a president he and I hope to God someday

812
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: she who certainly will do the same. Thank you, Thanks

813
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: for listening. For more, listen on Apple Podcasts, or wherever

814
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts in the meantime. Learn more about

815
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 1: our work to improve lives across the country and around

816
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: the world at Clinton Foundation dot org.