Speaker 1: Two of the best known individuals in the United States
Speaker 1: over the last forty years have been Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1: Bill served as President of the United States for eight years.
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton served as First Lady for eight years, but
Speaker 1: also as a United States Senator and Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: I had a rare chance to interview both of them
Speaker 1: together at the ninety second Street Why and I think
Speaker 1: their insights are quite interesting for current affairs, not only
Speaker 1: about what they've done before, but what they're working on now. So,
Speaker 1: President Clinton, let's talk about some current affairs for a moment.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the likely outcome of Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Do you see any resolution of that in the near term?
Speaker 1: And obviously, Secretary Clinton, what your views are as well.
Speaker 2: I don't expect it to be resolved in the near
Speaker 2: term unless Putin had some sort of change of heart,
Speaker 2: or unless the United States and others walk away from
Speaker 2: Ukraine and they can't get enough arms nomination to continue.
Speaker 2: I mean, they've been amazing, you know, they fought and
Speaker 2: fought and fought. They haven't asked any Americans to come
Speaker 2: and fight with them. But I think we I think
Speaker 2: they have a chance to win. I think they will
Speaker 2: win if we stay with them.
Speaker 1: What do you think is there any way out of
Speaker 1: this that a face saving way out of this that
Speaker 1: you can think of, or what is your view on
Speaker 1: how this might be resolved?
Speaker 3: Well, David, first, I think it's imperative that we continue,
Speaker 3: and I would even argue increase our support for Ukraine because,
Speaker 3: as Bill just said, the Russians are back to indiscriminate
Speaker 3: bombing in cities, aiming at apartment buildings, hospitals, other civilian sites.
Speaker 3: They have committed war crimes, they are in the midst
Speaker 3: of committing genocide, particularly with respect of how they're kidnapping
Speaker 3: children and forcing Ukrainians into Russia. So the bottom line
Speaker 3: for me is the only potential possible end to the
Speaker 3: hostilities is either a victory by Ukraine, including them being
Speaker 3: able to take back the property the territory seized in
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, or pushing Russia out of what they have
Speaker 3: seized since February of last year, and so that could
Speaker 3: give give us a breathing space to perhaps have some
Speaker 3: kind of opportunity to protect Ukraine's legitimate borders with the
Speaker 3: exception of what they didn't get back from twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: and to move them forward in reconstruction and rebuilding in
Speaker 3: the face of such devastation.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that the US China relationship now is
Speaker 1: as bad as it's been since Tieneman Square, it seems,
Speaker 1: And what do you think could be done about that
Speaker 1: to improve it?
Speaker 4: I think it's difficult, and.
Speaker 2: I think it'll get harder if we walk away from Ukraine,
Speaker 2: because I think it will increase the willingness of Russia
Speaker 2: of China to attack Taiwan. It's a real dilemma for
Speaker 2: me because I worked hard with China and I tried
Speaker 2: to build a relationship, and we desperately need a cooperative
Speaker 2: relationship with them to deal with things like COVID, climate change,
Speaker 2: North Korea. There's a whole lot of things that we
Speaker 2: ought to be doing together, but they make it virtually impossible.
Speaker 2: Because again, if you decide to stay for life, whether
Speaker 2: your name is putin she or Smith, your number one
Speaker 2: priority has got to be crushing all the scent, eliminating
Speaker 2: any source of alternative power in your country, and then
Speaker 2: keeping people lathered up by being angry.
Speaker 4: At somebody somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And so I believe the best thing to do is
Speaker 2: to keep talking to them, even while we have to
Speaker 2: disagree with them publicly.
Speaker 1: Secretary Clinton, are you worried about a possible invasion by
Speaker 1: China Taiwan?
Speaker 3: When she saw that Putin's invasion number one didn't work
Speaker 3: as fast and smoothly as Putin apparently thought it would,
Speaker 3: and that the world literally united, with a few exceptions
Speaker 3: to impose sanctions that are taking a toll on the
Speaker 3: Russian economy, not as fast as I would like, because
Speaker 3: I think that could change the power dynamic inside. But
Speaker 3: she saw that, and I think before the Russian invasion
Speaker 3: there was a good chance he would have moved on
Speaker 3: Taiwan within two to three years.
Speaker 5: I think that timetable has been pushed back.
Speaker 1: So since you've left Washington, there's been an increase in
Speaker 1: what i'll call the divisiveness in Washington. I'm sure you've noticed.
Speaker 1: And what do you think accounts for this? It's much
Speaker 1: worse than it was even when you were there, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't great then, but now the Democrats Republicans don't
Speaker 1: even want to talk to each other, let alone think
Speaker 1: about bipartisan legislation. What do you think causes this and
Speaker 1: you see any solution in the near term.
Speaker 4: Well, if I say it.
Speaker 2: You'll say I'm being a partisan Democrat, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to say it anyway. It's because the Republicans have been
Speaker 2: rewarded for being divisive, and it's it, and it's it's
Speaker 2: great for them because they're great branders, they're really good
Speaker 2: at they're better at than we are, and they convince
Speaker 2: people that are most left wing members about ten percent
Speaker 2: of our caucus represent one hundred percent of us, and
Speaker 2: cause people that get scared in the middle who are
Speaker 2: swing voters, to forget that their most right wing members
Speaker 2: represent over ninety percent of them in the House and
Speaker 2: about sixty percent in the Senate. I have a lot
Speaker 2: of Republican friends still who just pretend it's not going on,
Speaker 2: or who don't like it and don't support it. But
Speaker 2: you can't blame people in politics who covert power for
Speaker 2: doing what works, and it's been working for them.
Speaker 1: So, President Clinton today, if you were to say we
Speaker 1: should change the way the presidents are elected, obviously you
Speaker 1: were elected twice, you probably are reasonably happy with the method.
Speaker 1: But do you think direct election of the president popular
Speaker 1: vote would be preferable to the electoral college method?
Speaker 4: I do. I think.
Speaker 2: First of all, we adopted the electoral college when we
Speaker 2: were thirteen states, and we had a couple of.
Speaker 4: Really big states and.
Speaker 2: Some really really small states that had distinct differences. But
Speaker 2: it also helped to load up the electoral votes of
Speaker 2: the southern states that had slaves. And now we know
Speaker 2: that the effect of the electoral college is to give
Speaker 2: about thirty six extra votes to the most culturally conservative
Speaker 2: and furthest right American states. And I have no objection
Speaker 2: to them voting. I want them all to vote. I
Speaker 2: would not unlike some of them. I'd never try to
Speaker 2: make it harder for him to vote. I'd make it
Speaker 2: easier for him to vote. I want the votes counted,
Speaker 2: and I want them all to count. But I just
Speaker 2: don't think you can justify that today. Now, if you
Speaker 2: did it, the first question you got to ask yourself
Speaker 2: is would we have more or a three party or
Speaker 2: fourth party national elections? And if so, would we have
Speaker 2: to have a runoff? That is, should you at least
Speaker 2: require a president to have I don't know, forty percent
Speaker 2: of the vote, forty five percent of the vote. Lincoln
Speaker 2: got elected with like thirty nine percent. A lot of
Speaker 2: countries have this, by the way, they have you know,
Speaker 2: you have to get a majority, or you have to
Speaker 2: get something over a minimal amount to be president. If
Speaker 2: you're not going to go to a parliamentary system which
Speaker 2: has a lot of coalition governments, you have to have
Speaker 2: I think at least some sort of threshold.
Speaker 1: I assume you prefer direct election as well.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 5: I definitely prefer direct election.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you. There's a famous passage in
Speaker 1: your life where you are at Yale Law School library
Speaker 1: and you're seeing Bill Clinton looking at you, and you're
Speaker 1: looking at him, and finally you go over to him
Speaker 1: and say, well, stop looking at me, let's have a
Speaker 1: conversation or something like that. So, had you not been
Speaker 1: in the same yet law school class or there at
Speaker 1: the same time, how do you think your life would
Speaker 1: be different? You think you would have been president of
Speaker 1: United States sooner? Or would you have gone in the
Speaker 1: public service, or how do you think your life would
Speaker 1: be different if the two of you had not married?
Speaker 5: Wow, I think it would have been more boring.
Speaker 1: When you told your parents you're moving to Arkansas, what
Speaker 1: did they say, Well.
Speaker 3: You know my father, You know, when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: my father was a very big supporter of Republicans, He
Speaker 3: loved Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 5: You know, he was you know, World War two vet.
Speaker 5: He really loved that.
Speaker 3: And so when I brought Bill home the first time,
Speaker 3: it wasn't so much that he was from Arkansas, was
Speaker 3: that he was a Democrat.
Speaker 2: So Hillary came from the town Park Ridge, Illinois where
Speaker 2: Goldwater beat Johnson eighty to twenty and the other twenty
Speaker 2: percent Goldwater to Liberal. But I loved her father and
Speaker 2: her mother, who was a liberal Democrat. She was more
Speaker 2: liberal and iller than I were. And it was interesting
Speaker 2: how they're listened to their marriage unfold in terms of
Speaker 2: raising their children and advice and everything was different. But
Speaker 2: he was a really good guy and smart, and he
Speaker 2: wound up, you know, working as a volunteer in my
Speaker 2: campaign for Congress in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 4: I ruined him.
Speaker 1: President Clinton, when you were president three times, we had
Speaker 1: a budget surplus. A surplus is when you have more
Speaker 1: money than you spend. And at one point it was
Speaker 1: thought that maybe we would run out of having any
Speaker 1: federal treasury bills because we weren't going to have any debt.
Speaker 1: Any ideas about how we can get back to that
Speaker 1: kind of situation.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I did have a big argument
Speaker 4: with Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan was to my left.
Speaker 2: He said, we're not going to be able to have
Speaker 2: interest we can how do we set interest rates on
Speaker 2: federal securities if we have no debt? I said, Alan,
Speaker 2: that's a high class problem. Let's deal with that. We
Speaker 2: get to it.
Speaker 4: But let me say I also supported.
Speaker 2: President obama stimulus program, and I supported the build President
Speaker 2: Trump passed, and I supported the bill President Obama path.
Speaker 2: When you have zero to negative interest rates, you can't
Speaker 2: run a balance budget and you can't start cutting spending
Speaker 2: without making the economy worse. But when you do have
Speaker 2: interest rates, then you have to deal with your debt issue,
Speaker 2: or otherwise you spend more and more of your money
Speaker 2: pay an interest on the debt, and you don't have
Speaker 2: anything left for education and health and all the science research.
Speaker 2: So I think, first, here's what I think. First of all,
Speaker 2: I think it's nuts to make a big issue of
Speaker 2: this debt limit thing. And because that's simply it's a
Speaker 2: stupid rule we have in America that that Congress has
Speaker 2: to approve twice paying for something they've already voted to
Speaker 2: spend on. I mean a lot of these people who
Speaker 2: were opposing raising the debt ceiling.
Speaker 4: Voted for most of the debt that is embedded there.
Speaker 2: So bottom line, we should bring the depth sit down
Speaker 2: as much as we can, but we ought to pay
Speaker 2: our debts. You can't spend money, borrow it, and then
Speaker 2: refuse to pay the people that loan it to you,
Speaker 2: not if you want to be a great country.
Speaker 1: So you ran for the presidential nomination. Barack Obama became
Speaker 1: the nominee, and to your surprise, he offered you the
Speaker 1: position of secretaries and you turned that down initially. Why
Speaker 1: did you turn it down?
Speaker 2: She turns everything down. She turned me down three times
Speaker 2: when I asked her to marry it.
Speaker 4: Hard. The false answer is no.
Speaker 3: Well there is some truth to that, but eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: I do say yes to these charming men like Bill
Speaker 3: Clinton and Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: For Parry Clinton, there's a very famous photo of you
Speaker 1: sitting in the situation room looking at the Osama bin
Speaker 1: laden effort to capture him. What were you all looking at?
Speaker 1: And everybody's mouth is open. What were you afraid it
Speaker 1: wasn't going to work? And when did you realize it
Speaker 1: actually did work?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were all afraid something would go wrong. You know,
Speaker 3: I was part of the small group that studied all
Speaker 3: of the intelligence that had been gathered to make recommendations
Speaker 3: to the president about whether to do something and if so,
Speaker 3: what And it was a It was the most intense
Speaker 3: public deliberation, public service deliberation I've ever been part of.
Speaker 5: And it was also you know, it was secret.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell Bill, I couldn't talk to anybody because
Speaker 3: how closely held it was. But we were in that
Speaker 3: small situation room off the big one, and we were
Speaker 3: watching a screen because we had video from a drone above.
Speaker 3: We had video of what was happening as the helicopters
Speaker 3: came into land and one of the helicopters, its tail
Speaker 3: clipped the wire on the wall surrounding a little area
Speaker 3: where animals were kept. And so once the helicopter tail
Speaker 3: hit we knew it was disabled. And that was the
Speaker 3: moment I think that the picture was taken because we
Speaker 3: all had flashbacks to what happened when you know, President
Speaker 3: Carter tried to rescue the hostages in Iran. It also
Speaker 3: meant that we'd have to send in another helicopter that
Speaker 3: was in waiting in hiding to get it in there
Speaker 3: quickly enough.
Speaker 5: We had to do all of this literally.
Speaker 3: You know, within twenty thirty minutes, because when people were
Speaker 3: starting to wake up, I mean, we had helicopters landing.
Speaker 3: You know, there was obviously noise. People were living in
Speaker 3: homes around the compound. It was a hot night, people
Speaker 3: were sleeping out on their roofs, and we were you
Speaker 3: aware that people were waking up and starting.
Speaker 5: To wonder what the heck was going on.
Speaker 3: So when the helicopters landed and the Navy Seals Seal
Speaker 3: Team six got out to go into the compound, we
Speaker 3: couldn't see that there was there was no video of that,
Speaker 3: so we were all holding our breasts. So then we
Speaker 3: had to wait till we got news from inside the compound.
Speaker 3: And there was a you know, there was a firefight.
Speaker 3: The guards and one of bin Laden's adult sons were
Speaker 3: you know, you know, shooting, and then eventually bin Laden
Speaker 3: was shot, and then his body had to be taken
Speaker 3: out of the compound loaded onto one of the helicopters
Speaker 3: because we had to be sure about identification to have
Speaker 3: credibility with the world, and we had to blow up
Speaker 3: the helicopter because it was an advanced helicopter with a
Speaker 3: lot of advanced electronics that we didn't want the Pakistanis
Speaker 3: to get because we thought the Pakistanis might very well
Speaker 3: give it to either of the Russians, most likely the Chinese.
Speaker 5: So all this was going on, and so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we were all holding our breath for you,
Speaker 3: like twenty minutes. It was just so intense, and thankfully,
Speaker 3: you know, President Obama made the right decision and it worked.
Speaker 1: When something like that's happening, you can't and you know
Speaker 1: about this, you can't say to your husband, Bill, I
Speaker 1: have a secret. I just can't tell you. You can't do that.
Speaker 2: So he called me as soon as it was over,
Speaker 2: and he said, Bill, we got him.
Speaker 4: And I said who? Because he knew how hard I.
Speaker 2: Tried to get him when I was president and nearly
Speaker 2: did once, so he's been lauden. Hillary didn't tell you,
Speaker 2: I said, now, mister President, didn't you tell her not
Speaker 2: to tell anybody?
Speaker 4: He said sure, But I said she didn't tell anybody.
Speaker 1: Final question for both of you were just about out
Speaker 1: of time. So Secretary Clinton, in your long distinguished career,
Speaker 1: what would you say you're most proud of having accomplished you.
Speaker 3: Know, I'd been Senator from New York for you know,
Speaker 3: about eight months when nine to eleven happened, and it
Speaker 3: was the most devastating, horrible experience for our city and
Speaker 3: our country.
Speaker 5: But it was also.
Speaker 3: A absolute mandate to act to help people who'd been
Speaker 3: directly affected, to help victims' families, to help rebuild New York,
Speaker 3: and it was so bipartisan. David, you started with a
Speaker 3: question about that at the very beginning. You know, I
Speaker 3: just want to tell a little story here, because you know,
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer and I literally were the only plane in
Speaker 3: the sky on September twelfth, because we were flown down
Speaker 3: to New York to meet with then Governor Pataki and
Speaker 3: Mayor Giuliani to survey what had happened. And it was
Speaker 3: just overwhelming to have seen it firsthand like that that
Speaker 3: television could not capture it. And we spent the day
Speaker 3: in meetings talking.
Speaker 5: About what we were going to do.
Speaker 3: And that night, around eight nine o'clock, Schumer and I were,
Speaker 3: you know, we're Chuck and I were in a meeting
Speaker 3: with everybody, all these state, local, federal officials, and we
Speaker 3: were each handed a note from our staffs who were
Speaker 3: with us, and the note said, the White House has
Speaker 3: just sent a budget request to deal with nine eleven
Speaker 3: for twenty billion dollars and there's not a penny for
Speaker 3: New York in it. So I took the last train
Speaker 3: out of Grand Central back to Washington.
Speaker 5: Then that afternoon we go to the White House.
Speaker 3: And so it's the two senators from Virginia, Senator Allen
Speaker 3: and Senator John Warner, and Chuck and I were in
Speaker 3: with the President, and you know, I could see on
Speaker 3: his face. I mean, this was you know, a devastating,
Speaker 3: obviously you know, crisis that had to be dealt with.
Speaker 3: And he says, he says to us, so, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm with you, what do you need? And I said,
Speaker 3: we need twenty billion dollars, mister President, and he said,
Speaker 3: you got it, and his staff nearly fell off their chairs.
Speaker 3: And so then we were going into the Cabinet room,
Speaker 3: which is next to the Oval Office, and we got
Speaker 3: up to leaving. John Warner, who was one of my
Speaker 3: favorite colleagues of all time. He stopped me and he goes, Hillary,
Speaker 3: have him make that commitment in public in this meeting.
Speaker 5: I said, okay, John.
Speaker 3: So we go in all the members of Congress from
Speaker 3: New York, canad Get New Jersey, a couple of them,
Speaker 3: but mostly New York and Virginia. And the President's talking
Speaker 3: about how, you know, we're going to you know, protect
Speaker 3: the country and we're going to do this and all that.
Speaker 3: So he finishes talking and then I say, and I
Speaker 3: just want to thank you, mister President, for committing twenty
Speaker 3: billion dollars to New York. And literally, by the time
Speaker 3: Chuck and I got back to the Senate, his staff
Speaker 3: was trying to undo that and telling, you know, the
Speaker 3: Republican leaders, you know, don't don't put it in the
Speaker 3: appropriations bill, don't do it. And so we just kept
Speaker 3: calling the White House and Bush that I gave my
Speaker 3: word and you know I'm going to follow through.
Speaker 5: That was an amazing moment for me.
Speaker 1: So wow. So President Clinton, you look back on your
Speaker 1: distinguished and long service to our country. What are you
Speaker 1: most proud of having achieved?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: Can I just add one thing to earn what he said?
Speaker 2: One thing I like.
Speaker 4: About George W. Bush.
Speaker 2: We have fought, we had disagreed. He started out more
Speaker 2: conservative than his father. We do speeches together that are
Speaker 2: really funny now because we bad mouthed each other in
Speaker 2: a funny way.
Speaker 4: But he will listen.
Speaker 2: And if he will listen, and if he thinks you're right,
Speaker 2: he'll switch. And if he thinks you're wrong, he'll argue.
Speaker 2: That's all you can ever ask. And I think that's
Speaker 2: what you should remember. And that's when you asked me
Speaker 2: in the beginning, and I said that the polarization was
Speaker 2: partly because the right had been rewarded. It's also caused
Speaker 2: the left too easily gives.
Speaker 4: Up on people.
Speaker 2: We should We shouldn't talk down about people.
Speaker 4: We shouldn't.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: The one thing I loved about Elijah Cummings and John
Speaker 2: Lewis was they treated people respectfully and they just kept trying.
Speaker 2: They kept knocking on the door. There's some other people
Speaker 2: out there that you can knock on the door.
Speaker 1: No regrets about not having going into the higher calling
Speaker 1: of private equity, right, neither of you don't regret that.
Speaker 1: So on, behalf of everybody at the ninety second Street.
Speaker 2: Why oh, that's cause you take care of all the
Speaker 2: stuff that requires real money to do you.
Speaker 4: He gives a lot of that money away. Don't don't
Speaker 4: let him play the rosko on.
Speaker 1: Behalf of the ninety second Street why. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for coming here again. You've been here before
Speaker 1: and you're always welcome back. And thank you for a
Speaker 1: great evening.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gavin.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen.