Transcripts For CSPAN3 First Ladies Influence Image - Hillary Clinton 20240712

Make. I have said, and i believe that there is a good possibility that sometime in the next 20 years we will have a woman president. Hillary clinton locked many firsts in her role as first lady, Political Partners since law school, the clintons survived scandals and even the impeachment of president bill clinton. And as she considers a another bid for the white house herself, Hillary Clintons story is being written still. Welcome to cspans yearlong series, first ladies influence and damage. Tonight, we will tell you the story of the space of our 42nd president , Hillary Clinton. Here to tell us of the story are too journalist to know the clintons well. Gayle from vanity fair is a biographer of Hillary Clinton. Her 2000 book was called hillarys choice. David is from the Washington Post, author of two books about the clinton including a 1995 biography of bill clinton. Welcome to both of you. As we start, here i want to play a bit of a video from 1992. It is one of five or six Hillary Clinton clips that has become emblematic of her. This is one of them. This historian, when she talked about how she might approach the role of first lady and how involved she would be, lets listen. Those of us who have tried to have a career and an independent life, certainly someone like myself will provide that with full public involvement. Children, but also other issues. I have done the best i can and i suppose we will be subject to that kind of thing. I dont know what to say other than that. It is sad. This is still my profession which i entered before my husband. As they campaigned in 1992, they were promoting the idea of two for one. This should be a very involved first lady. As the administration unfolded, how did this work out for them . They made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. The public was not prepared for the two for one presidency. I dont know if they ever will be. But i think that it was stunning to suddenly see this really intelligent, outspoken, totally confident woman who had been given the role of coal president. If we had a copresidency, that might be a really cool thing, because partners in power i think are more and more happening. But at that time, hillary had gone from the fifties to the seventies in the four years at wellesley. She was suddenly plunged into the new womens movement. It took an ability to raise a president. He was brilliant but all over the place. To swallow a pandemic is really an overkill for the american public, and it took her i think almost six years to really figure out how to do it. I had an occasion to meet her once in the ladiesroom and she kind of let down her hair and said the society said i dont know what to do anymore. Nothing i do works. I understand i am really threatening to man, the velocity of change between men and women and the way the country is going from one generation to the boomers is overwhelming, especially to men. I am threatening to them and i dont know what to do about that. You was she a transitional figure or oneofakind . I would say she was almost one of a kind. The role model that she modeled herself after was eleanor roosevelt, but there was a great difference between the two. Bill clinton and Hillary Clinton from the very beginning saw that they could get places together that they couldnt do apart. Eleanor was very active as a first lady, but she was really on her own track, separate from president roosevelt, whereas bill clinton relied on hillary for much of his policy from the very beginning, going all the way back to arkansas. That two for one comment he made was a reality to them, and throughout his presidency, it helped and hurt at various times. We saw that the outset that Hillary Clinton was a first lady with quite a few first. Lets show some of those to you. She was the first first lady to have a post graduate degree, a law degree. She was the first to have an office in the west wing, where the policy is made. She was later on the first to testify before a grand jury as the investigations were ramping up. After office, she was the first to be elected and service and United States senator, the first to run for president herself, and the first to serve as secretary of state. We will be talking about all of that with our two or guests, but, first we have to go back to the beginning. Hillary clinton was born in chicago as Hillary Diana ross autumn to parents and dorothy roth him. Tell me about her childhood and what was significant about it . The most significant thing was the way she saw herself, which was from the age of eight or ten, as a star. One of her fantasies was, and she wrote about this, she would get out on her lawn and dance in the sun and spin under the sun and imagine that god was beating the sundown on her, only her, and that heavenly cameras were filming her every move. She made that a reality. For many years now, maybe not heavenly, maybe say tan occult powers, but the cameras nonetheless or following her every move. She made it happen. But she came from parents, her father had worked and was born in scratch, and pennsylvania working in factories and mines as he made his way to chicago. Where did this come from . I wouldnt quite call her a traditional housewife. She was a housewife, but she was very strong and independent and infused that into hillary. Her father was a republican. It was 99. 5 white in the town, it was the deep part of the midwest middle class. It was very sheltered in that sense. Children were the chosen ones and hillary found herself as the chosen of the chosen ones. She had her fathers politics, but as gayle, said the politics were sort of incidental. She was very strongly methodist throughout her life, but it started in her early teenage years. He was challenging hillary to think about the rules outside of park ridge. That was going on even before she had blossomed or changed her politics. We talk about this minister who would take these white suburban kids and take them to chicago to see how other people live. He was enormously affected by that. She knew then that park ridge was a bubble and they want to know more about how the real world worked. When they move to park ridge, that vicious social hierarchy of fouryearolds who didnt admit her and a little girl named sues a used to beat her up every day. She came back crying and one day her mother said this house is no place for cowards. The boys were watching. Their mouths were agape and hillary came back home and said, now i can play with the boys. And she has been doing that ever since. She was also a preteen, if i have the age right, she was reading Barry Goldwaters conscious of the conservative. She was a teenager biden. Still, very young to be reading that. I was reading those books, but not as a teenager. She also had a High School Teacher who was very conservative, influencing her in the other direction. Do you know about the role he played in her life . She had conservative teachers in that period, but so did all of us. I dont think that teacher had a profound influence, no more so than her father. But it was enough to have her thinking in those directions politically, but not internally. You i think those were the two key influences, and as i say, it transcended politics. Two other ways from other had an important influence on her. She wanted her to have equal liberty, and so she used a carpenters level as a visual to say keep the bubble in the middle. And they want to warn her to never get divorced because dorothy rodhams parents had been divorced and it hurt her. So hillary never agreed to give bill clinton a divorce, even though at one point he wanted it. So she had a powerful influence. But the other amazing thing about hillary was when she met Martin Luther king, introduced by don jones, the methodist minister . He introduced her to Martin Luther king, who she heard in chicago. And she realized that there were no black people that she saw in her class or in park ridge and she read up on it and realized that the emancipation proclamation had not really been carried out and she wanted to do something about it. Her omaha moment at wellesley, the day martin little king was shot, she came and screaming and sobbing and saying this cannot go on. And that was when she really turned off from being a goldwater girl to being a real progressive marcher, a real liberty. That was 1968. And she would graduate the next year. I think that was a moment where she turned into an activist, but you can see her politics changing since she got to wellesley. As did hundreds of thousands of people of that generation of kids when they got to college. As the war was going on and civil unrest. All of that. And how did she get to wellesley . As a midwestern girl . She was a very smart student. She was the president of her High School Class and it was an all girls school in suburban boston. And her parents drove her out in the canada lack, the rodhams catalog. But it made him furious that it was a liberal girls school and he never visited her there until her graduation. But the fascinating thing about hillary that you also here is that she wrote a number of letters to a high school friend, which she gave me. She had a four year identity crisis. She had to select her identity and she laid them out like a smorgasbord. She said shall i be a pseudohippie . No, that was okay because she didnt care about her appearance, but she was a methodist. She read catcher into ryan hated it. She said maybe im a missing throw, and then she wrote to a friend and said can you be a compassionate missing throughout . And she sort of was. Could she be an alienated academic . She finally came to a decision. She decided that she hated looking inward. She couldnt stand introspection. Her father had taught her that any expression of emotionality was a sense of weakness. She wrote about. That noah motion shown. She decided she would help other people live their best lives and help to save the world. She became president of the student body at wellesley . Is that correct . Yes. She was selected to give a speech that thrust her on to the national spotlight. What was not all about . She had a speech written because her generation did not want to hear from a moderate republican, even though he was a black man, about entering the workforce and going on to be competitive and so on. So she got up and said, we dont believe in just materialism and competitiveness. We are looking for ecstatic experiences. Her student body just got up in uproar of applause. The faculty was mortified. He rodham got out of town as fast as he could. But she was already a star in life magazine. I asked her what was the most exciting experience of your twenties and she said falling in love with bill clinton. I said what attracted you to him and she said he wasnt afraid. The African American senator was from massachusetts. This was the essence of hillarys speech. We are all exploring a world that none of us understand. Including tragically, universities. Thats not the way of life for us. We are searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrative modes of lifting. That was the speech that hugh roth im did not want to hear. As you know if you have been following, the thing that makes this Program Different and interesting for us at the table or your questions and we welcome them three different ways. You can call. As we will put the phone numbers on the screen and get your calls. You can post a comment on the cspan facebook page. Its a lively discussion going on about Hillary Clinton on our facebook page. And you can tweet us and you can use at cspan and let me ask a question on twitter. A viewer wants to know whether or not hillary wanted to drop out of college, but her mother encouraged her to stay. Is that part of her biography . Did she ever consider dropping at a college . I dont remember reading that. She did go through a year of depression. There were a number of high borne Society Girls at wellesley and that was not her bag at all. She wasnt sure she was smart enough at the beginning. And she was depressed. She was in her sophomore year. She may have considered. It i think it was more like taking a year off instead of dropping out. How did she get to Yale Law School . What was the decision to study law . That is what someone who wanted to have an active life and affecting change would do in that era. She got to yell law school in 1969, actually the year before bill clinton. I think she, not so much that she wanted, she may have wanted it more than he did, but they both sought as a way to get the life they wanted. Both in politics and in affecting social change. Yale law school was a very socially active place during that period. Classes were the opposite of harvard law. I was not like everything was different. What was the environment for women studying at Yellow School . There werent very. Many i think there is Something Like five in the class. So she was quite unique, there and she has been an every venue. And i dont know, she didnt speak an awful lot about sexism or prejudice. She was just too darn smart. And when she and bill decided to enter a contest with the Barristers Union and presenting the case before a live jury, she got the work and build the presenting. He was brilliant at presenting but he goofed off during the preparation and it was hillary who made a real impression on one of the judges, john door, who later hired her for the Impeachment Committee on richard nixon. They are working together in that prize trial, capturing everything that is to come. One of the fellow law students described it as bill clinton was all to kill a mockingbird and hillary was all chicago lawyer. We have a clip from 1994 where Hillary Clinton talks about how she and bill clinton met. Lets watch. He was standing out in the hallway, and i just, i dont know. Do you know those moments that just click . I was sitting there and i just started staring at him and i began to look at him and i thought i really like the way he looks and i need to get to know him. Then he caught my eye and began staring back at me and so here i am in the library not reading and he is surrounded by people talking at him, not talking back. Finally, i thought this is ridiculous. Im in this class with this person. I put my books down and i went up and said, if you are going to keep looking at me, and im going to keep looking at you, we ought to at least know each others names. I am Hillary Rodham who are you. He said he couldnt remember his name. That makes me feel so good. But anyway, he stumbled out on bill clinton. Do you really want me to go on about this . laughs it was the last day of class. A class we hardly ever went to. But occasionally we saw them. I was walking out the door and he kind of got to the door and said where are you going. He said he needed to register for classes for the next year. We stood in this endless line to register, and we talked and talked, and i finally got up to the line. The registrar, a wonderful woman i have kept in touch with said hillary, what are you going to take. I started to fill it out and she said bill, why are you here. You registered yesterday. People always want to know, and you both of explored this. What is at the heart of this relationship . What attracted these two people so strongly to one another . They seem so different in many ways. I think in the case of hillary, she had me not as popular with boys. And she liked big handsome honks. Here is a big, handsome, red haired guy with elvis sideburns and rougher round the edges. And he was just walking after her go like a love sick hound dog panting behind her and it really made her feel like a woman. That was a new experience for her. But then she realized how good hillary was and how they clicked. She could really do something with this guy. You . No she could really bring him up. And when she left the watergate, the Impeachment Committee to go out to little rock, arkansas, fayetteville actually, her best friends would say you are crazy. You are leaving a fabulous career in washington where you are in line to be in political life. She, said bill clinton will be president someday. And im going to marry him. David . From bill clintons perspective, theres a lot of people interested but hillary is different. During that period, his roommates at yale would say that he would prepare four times when hillary was coming over because he wanted to impress her so much. The reason was that he wouldnt put up with what she called his arkansas nonsense. She had the guts to say come off it, bill. Beyond that, they also did have a lot in common. They were different personalities but they had the same ambitions and saw they could do more together than they could apart. They shared a level politics, movies, books, intellectual things, and there was a spark there i think that hillary from the very beginning was head over heels for him. I think that bill just saw her as someone different. How long did it take from that first meeting to marriage . How did the relationship progress . It was several years, but what happened in between was quite fascinating. When bill was running for his first congressional race and his campaign was chaotic, and he was losing, hillary dropped everything and flew out there and came into the Little Campaign area and they issued the college girl that he was having a romance without the side door. She said what is going on this is a mess. That, night the night before the, vote they knew they were going to lose, the Campaign Manager and his wife all got locked in a room together to find out what was really going wrong here. Hillary was giving the third degree. The wife said i had to take bill clintons girlfriend as a babysitter to get her out of the way. She said youve got bill clinton a girl . And she started swearing and cursing. It was a melee. And through the whole thing, no one ever mentioned, with the passively of a buddha, bill clinton. And that set the mold for the way she dealt with all of those interruptions. It was never his fault. There was always someone elses fault. Did in 1970 got married in 1975. When she came to arkansas, they were law professors together at the university of arkansas. And that, setting it set the tone for the differences between them. Bill clinton was an easy professor who give everybody the plus at the worst and mostly as. The feeling was because they would all be voters in arkansas sunday and he didnt want to upset them. He was also known for losing tests. Hillary was completely organized, tough classes, and the dean of the law school said if you would hire one of the clintons to be a law professor, it would be hillary. One of the few women, one of the youngest lawyers on a staff of about 44 lawyers altogether. She described it as one of the most important formative experiences of her life. What was important about . It how did it shape or . It was a historic moment in american history. She was hired by john door who around the house Impeachment Committee staff, because she had met him at a trial. He brought her down. Her job was not the most exciting. A lot of these staffers that went over the nixon tapes and were getting into the grit of the scandal itself, her job was to look at the constitution and impeachment. But she learned a lot from watching john door and one of her bosses was a council in the white house when the clintons got there. It was an examination up close of power and the manipulation of power and the use of power. It couldnt work in that Office Without learning about. That that would have a significant effect of course. We will next take you to fayetteville and the house that bill clinton bought for hillary roth him as he proposed and where they got married. Lets watch. This is where the clintons lived when they were professors it fayetteville. Bill was driving her down the road to take her to the airport and they saw the house for sale. Hillary pointed at it and said thats a cute house. Bill took her to the airports and about about the later hes that i bought your dream house. I cant live there alone. That was the fourth time he had proposed and they were married right there. There were nine people at the wedding. It was a very small, intimate ceremony. The wedding a mans bill didnt seem to be bothered by this. However, when they told virginia, she gasps. And when they told hillarys mother, she cried. We have a replica of hillarys Wedding Dress here at the museum. She got of the night before the wedding on a shopping trip with her mother. It was a very humble beginning for the clintons here in fayetteville. They were both making 14,000 dollars a year as law professors. This was a screened in porch where they used to sleep in the summer because they didnt have air conditioning. This was the clinton kitchen. Hillary refer to it in her book as the room that desperately needed to be remodelled. This is what the home looked like when they lived here. We have taken it back to how it looked when they were here. Hillary never cooked though. In her first visit back to the house in 2007 while running for president they called this the war room. They used it as Campaign Head porters which was the First Successful political campaign. There is a desk in this room that had a map of arkansas. Hillary wanted to visit each county three times to get an idea of the politics that would get them elected then and in the future. Fayetteville is a place where they really settled in. They thought they had arrived. They got married. They bought a house. They had successful jobs as law professors and finished law school. They reached a plateau where they achieved a lot of the things they had set goals for in life. Mindful of the time, i want to get first callers in. Lets begin with james in oakland, california. Hi, james. You are on. I am loving the series. I have one question. You referred to earlier time where a bill clinton agree to a divorce. Im curious about where hillary had major policy differences with bill clinton during his presidency. Thanks, bill. It was 1989 when bill clinton had been, he got caught with a bimbo and he caught back from running for governor again. And hillary had explored whether or not she should run for governor, but a poll showed that she really wasnt going to be getting many votes at all. And bill clinton fell in love with another woman. He really did, this was not a bimbo, a black lounge singer, this was a woman of quality, a professional whose family was in arkansas and in politics. He asked hillary for a divorce, and he consulted with her minister and herself and she came back and said nothing to it. That wont happen. This affair is going to end. And that was the end of it. He never brought that up again. And they found their own arrangement much later, which we can talk about later. A brief comment on major policy differences . There was some nuance. Early in his second term, bill clinton declared that the era of Big Government was over and then proceeded to reform welfare in that period. Hillary clintons mentor, her husband was opposed to what they were trying to do in terms of welfare reform and quit the administration. There was a tense period between them for that reason and others, but that was a major difference. The next caller is in brooklyn. You are on the air. Hi. I didnt understand your question. Can you ask again . What drove Hillary Clinton to be the first lady . Is that something she aspired to . You said in the beginning she knew bill would be president. She wanted to be a star, and in that era, she felt that hitching her way into his star was a way to become a star herself. Thank you for that question. We have had quite a few young collars page. Chad crab tree is on twitter and he wants to know how influential religion and faith are. Hillary does not seem as visible or as vocal with it as president clinton. Yeah i think that is more important to her. She was a very moral methodist. A very buttoned up, approved in many ways, socially conservative in behavior, and fate got her through some of the worst times. She really relied on it. And also, the inspiration of eleanor roosevelt. Bill clinton was a baptist. Hillary was a methodist. Bill clinton is a baptist that wakes up every morning and forgives himself, and the rest of the world. Hillary used her religion more in a sort of explanation of her active life. Her motto was do the best you can the most you can as often as you can. That was sort of her methodist motto. Thats a line we will quote after this program is over. Next is kippah in atlanta. Keep, you are on. Good evening. I have not talked to you in a while. I have read both of your works. I really enjoyed your work on character back in 1988. My question was in response to the caller last week about mrs. Bush. The question was what was the relationship between the two first ladies during the transition. I would like to get both of your comments on this quote from mrs. Bush. After the informal tour of the white house, mrs. Bush in response to reporters questions, reporters said do you have any advice for mrs. Clinton . And mrs. Bush said, avoid the reporters like the plague. And if they quote you, make darn sure they courtesy. I would like to find out from both of you in terms of what Hillary Clinton, i dont remember her having much of a but i would like to get your take on the transition. Thank you so much for your work. She certainly didnt avoid reporters like sometimes she maybe wanted to. Its interesting that barbara bush on your program talked about how much she liked bill clinton now. I dont think that was true then. It was a tough campaign in 92. But overtime, they became quite good friends, as she told us. I had an experience with hillary visavis the president and other things. The day after she and bill had appeared on 60 minutes to address the jennifer flowers issue, i flew with hillary in a tiny little plane to pierre, south dakota, where she was going to appear before the pork rib feeders roast. As soon as we landed, we got into jennifer flowers was playing the tapes with governor clinton. I was right next to hillary and watched her. Not an iota of surprise. Just deny point and then directing the secretary to get bill on the phone. Get stephanopoulos on the phone. Right into battle mode. She was swept into the pork rib feeders roast. She charmed the whiskers off the farmers, and then went to the phone and came back boiling mad. We got on the plane and for the next half hour, she staked out what would be their battle plan for the rest of their time in the white house, she said we have to run against the republican attack machine because they are now doing paid character assassination, and run against the press. The second one was a really big mistake. She did shut the access to reporters off, which really alienated a great deal of them. And she stonewalled all the time. And she lied much of the time. And the press, very early on, they stopped giving them Glass Half Full and started giving them glass f empty. She didnt seem as though she was angry at bill clintons transgression. Exactly. She had decided that she had made a choice. My book was hillarys choice. She would be the rise with him or fall with him. They were symbiotic. They were joined at the. Hip and she knew what she was getting. She knew what she was getting and they had an unspoken agreement. She didnt ask for any details about the women and he didnt ask her about whitewater or her cattle futures or her investments. She wasnt angry at him, but i would say she was someone who could plow forward. We have got to spend a little bit of time talking about the arkansas years. We will not do it, justice. Let me use this as a jumping off point. After the successful attorney general bed, bill clinton wanted to be elected to five non consecutive terms as governor of the state of arkansas. What is important about Hillary Clintons time during that period . How did she serve his first lady in the state . In some ways similar to the first lady of the United States. Thats when bill clinton was relying on her to help with his most important policy issues and so the precursor to health care in the white house was education reform in arkansas. It afforded hillary to reform the Arkansas School system, which was so bad that the motto was thank god for mississippi. Arkansas was 49th instead of 50th among test scores. There was a reliance there in her ability to deal with policy that was very important. She came into it as hillary rockbottom. Two years into the governorship, she was rendered the youngest governor in american history. Part of the campaign against bill was this woman who would not take her husbands last name and that was very not arkansas. It was always cold the character that could adapt to any setting. Hillary was also adaptable but she was the one that came from illinois and the east coast to arkansas. And after those first two years i think she really figured out how to work in arkansas and over the rest of this governorships she was very much a part of that whole social and political and cultural mill you. And a lot of it had to do with image because she had not given any thought for her appearance, buying address off. Iraqi dressed kind of like a heavy. She didnt wear makeup. Her hair was not fixed. And she really spruce up. She pulled herself together and began to look more like unacceptable southern lady. She would give tease and do more of the sort of first lady duties. But she was also supporting them. A big thing she gave bill clinton was money. She was the breadwinner while he was making a very paltry salary for many years. And she was made partner at Rose Law Firm the few years after she was hired, when she was back in the Governors Office because that was now a connection. A parallel with the obama family. Michelle obama was the lawyer earning more money to allow the husband the difference was that michelle during that period was not happy with her husband being a political guy going off to springfield, illinois. Hillary, from the moment they got together, she knew and supported it. In arkansas, there were the seeds that she would take to arkansas. The whitewater properties, the Rose Law Firm during that time period, investment in futures, those were all things americans across the country began to hear about. Will you talk about Hillary Clintons involvement in these decisions that would become national . I think the real story here is about the decision to allow a federal prosecutor. That was a big debate between bill and hillary. We are advancing the story and i am looking at the arkansas years, to this day, i dont think anyone really knows. She was trying to make money. She was investing. She had a hot shot investor that got her into cattle futures and she made a big splash. They were in fayetteville at the university when the clintons were there. Her husband was very sharp with reading that. The connection to other people in little rock is what she got in trouble with, with the law firm records and actions involving jim mcdougal. That was actually bill clintons friend. It is all in the morass of arkansas politics that they got trapped in. John is calling from grosse pointe, michigan. Good evening, like, everyone i have been following this series of programs and i want to commend you, susan and all of cspan for such wonderful journalism. It has been great. We go to the clintons, i want to go back to 1972. I believe that bill clinton was in charge of the texas Mcgovern Campaign and hillary and Historian Taylor Branch also worked on that Mcgovern Campaign in texas in 1972. That was the first foray i believe that the two of them, bill and, hillary got together. Am i correct in that . And then one other thing connected with that, i think that i heard. This and i am wondering if this is true or hypocritical. I believe bill clinton wrote or said in one of his books that in the course of that, he drove Cokie Roberts father who was then the House Majority leader to the airport and dropped him off because he was a campaign aide, clinton was. And that was the last that he was ever seen. We will get responses to your questions. The Mcgovern Campaign in 1972 and how informative it was. Hugely, because this was a very new kind of politics, which they believed in. I think mcgovern had the kind of platform that they were interested in. And they thought they were going to bring that new politics to a larger america. I think that inspired them. They also met betsy right in that campaign and thats the right was furious with hillary for advancing bill clintons political career instead of striking out. On her own. But hillary was much more interested in making. It betsy wright later became bill clintons chief of staff as governor of arkansas. Taylor branch and bill clinton were very young and they were running texas for George Mcgovern. They had been hired to run the state. He brought them in there because neither of them was from texas. And texas was a political mess. They thought these two kids were the two that could defuse some of that. Hillary was actually stationed in san antonio most of the time. He did drive him to the airport as the caller suggested. He also took George Mcgovern out to meet with lbj in a famous meeting out there. Clinton learned a lot during the campaign. The essential thing him and hillary learned was and from that moment on, bill clintons whole concept of how you can be a progressive, moderate progressive, and still hold on to something in america as it was changing was the first of those many lessons that he followed over the next 20 years. During his, turn the clintons increase their national profile, leading to the 1992 president ial campaign. We mentioned it that was a bruising one. You will remember it well, including the arrival of ross perots candidacy and campaign. Abroad bill clinton and hillary to the white house. Shortly after they arrived, there was the announcement about health care. We have a couple of clips to show you to help demonstrate the intention of the first ladies involved in the health care issue. Lets watch. I am grateful hillary has agreed to chair this task force, and not only because it means she will be sharing some of the, heat i expect to generate. I think in the coming months, the American People will learn, as the people of our stated, that we have a first lady of many talents. Most of all, she can bring people together around complex and difficult issues to hammer out consensus and get things done. As the president said, and as he believes, this is not a partisan issue. It is not an ideological battle. It is a problem to be solved that affects all of us. And im looking forward over the next weeks and months to not only working with you, but to watching you craft the most important social policy that our nation will have confronted in many decades. When i worked on health care, a lot of people thought i shouldnt be making recommendations about legislation or that i shouldnt be involved in working on behalf of what my husband asked me to work on, which was one of his primary objective. They thought that that was somehow inappropriate, that if you exercise influence, do it behind the scenes were no one can see you. I find that curious. To, me i would like to know what goes on in front of the scenes, because i am very much the kind of person who believes that you should say what you mean and mean what you say and take the consequences. Just like anyone else involved in public life. Emily on twitter says, what and why was the difference in Hillary Clintons Health Care Proposal failing compared to obamacare. What was the difference . Why did that not work for the clintons . Its interesting. At the time that they were pushing it, each of the president s had control of congress. I would say one of the contradictions in hillary statement, hes paradoxes, she talked about how she liked to be open and out front. One of the real problems with that effort was that they were so secretive and congress didnt feel they were part of it. Getting any sort of Major Initiative like that through congress is enormously difficult, no matter who is controlling it. And there was so much antipathy and money spent by insurance companies. But president obama was able, with the democratic majority, to barely get it through by working with them. One of the major problems with the clintons was there wasnt a feeling they were actually partners and they were just concocting it in these secret meetings. Strategically, how important was it that the appointment of Hillary Clinton ultimately . I think it had a long hangover for the clintons. You can see that hillary had a beautifully modulated voice. She spoke in notes and paragraphs. These are skills we have seen her practice all along. But she never said i am not an expert, but. She never showed any deference to the people on this committee, one of the oldest and most important in washington, to say i look forward to our expertise, to education. She said i. No i studied. I have talked to thousands of americans and this is what we need to do. I think she got off on the wrong foot, with people saying who is she. As david said, everything was in secret in many meetings and then this giant several thousand page thing was dropped on the table, and the same complaints. The same opposition from republicans then on every single score, including will americans be guaranteed that they can keep their Health Care Plan if they like it. The clintons were way ahead of their time. I dont understand why couldnt make policy like any other public official, she wasnt a public official. In 1994, the gingrich revolution came to the house of representatives and republicans to control for the first time in several decades. I dont want to talk about the clinton presidency. I want to talk about how it affected Hillary Clintons record. Republicans took over and investigations did you talk about that . The key thing to understand about health care is the defeat in 94 was to the clintons, exactly like the defeat in 1980 when they lost the governorship. They had to recover in the same way. Clinton is used to running every two years. Even though they werent on the ballot and 94, that defeat was the same as any other for them. Once they lose control of the house, they lose control of investigations. And everything started to unravel from there. We will talk more about the charges and investigations later on, but i want to make the connection between the decision to put hillary in charge of health care, the uprising against it which then had an effect on the election, which then change the course of their presidency. Theres other reasons the republicans took over a 94. Health care was the top reason. Other causes that she was involved in and continually were children and also womens issues. She published a book during this time period that became another phrase emblematic with her, which is it takes a village. This brought her back. I followed her on that book tour. The public loved it. It was her form of family values. It takes a village to support women that can work and have a family and be productive in the community. It takes pulling together. It is not all just pulling up your boot straps. She was mobbed by the press for it for a while. But she was so popular on the book tour that people had to then acknowledge. And her book became a big bestseller. And then she became a book writer in addition to her many other talents. She continues to use that. One charlie asked is it true Hillary Clinton once won a grammy award . The answer is yes. For a spoken version of this book. Kind of like Barack Obamas nobel peace prize. One wonders what was involved in the decision for a grammy. Hillary clinton held a white house youth summit lobbying for the passage of the foster care independence act. She was involved in the policy side of childrens issues throughout the time in the white house. And she also called out the military on agent orange and made them finally admit that this was a disease as a result of warfare in vietnam and they need to take care of veterans. Lets go to jason next in louisville, kentucky. You are on, jason. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this special and also thanks to cspan. Not really a question but a comment in that around the historical significance of Hillary Clinton and secretary of state. She made the issue of equality for the Gay Community the front of the diplomatic agenda in america. She did that with her historic speech in geneva where she famously said gay rights are human rights. She did that in beijing regarding womens rights. To my knowledge, prior to her, we had not had someone that served at that level taking that stand and really making that push. Thank, you jason. I will let that stand as a comment. Its far ahead in our story. We are talking about the interest in childrens, issues but we havent talked about chelsea. She was born in 1980. A word about their style is parents and how they raised her in a very public life. You could see when they got to the white house they were protecting her. She was not part of the story until there were certain times they needed to present an image of the family. Suddenly, she appeared in people magazine. But there is nothing negative to say about their parenting, and there shouldnt be. They were excellent parents. They showered her with knowledge and books and love and she became very much like parts of both of them, the better parts of each of them. And when you watched how they managed to give her something of a normal life, what were your observations . She was kind of gawky, but she carried herself with confidence. She was devoted to her mother, and then her father used to come home and have dinner with her oftentimes while hillary was traveling. He would have a saturday night date with chelsea, and i was one of the things that was the most heartbreaking for him, when he had really gone over the line with Monica Lewinsky, is that he kind of lost chelsea for a while. There was a time when he was governor of arkansas and Young Chelsea asked what does your follow do. She said he drinks coffee and talks on the phone. For each of the first ladies that we have talked about, we talked about the stewardship of the white house. Hillary actually wrote a book about that while she was in the role. We are showing you a picture of that right now. Can i ask each of you to comment about her stewardship of the white house and how they use the white house politically . Would you talk about her interest in the history of the white house and how she approached . It she started americas preservation and did a lot of research and found a lot of things and put them on display. I think she did restoration with several rooms of the white house. She was not as active as Jacqueline Kennedy was, but she was still pretty active. I dont know much about social entertaining. They had some big lawn parties, but they didnt use the white house nearly as much as they can eighties, for instance, you made it a cultural center. She was very busy doing other policy things. We know about the lincoln bedroom. They did have a lot of social activities there, bill clinton loved music and so much like president obama and michelle bringing in various great musicians, the clintons did as well. But they also turned it into something of a sleep over place. A lot of friends stayed there often. No one lived there, but there were friends constantly coming through and also a lot of big donors getting rewarded with a night in the lincoln bedroom. Lets take a couple of calls and then we need to talk in broad brush strokes about the investigations and legal troubles of the clintons as a Political Partnership. Lets listen to allie in wilmington, north carolina. You are on the air. Thank you so much. You had a funny look on your face. Anyway. Two points. This has to do with something that was brought up last week with barbara bush. They talked about how they wouldnt get called back to the white house if they did something that was not in agreement with for barbara bush. Yet, barbara bush knew that her husband and a number of president s did as well. They would acknowledge that and Hillary Clinton, she said, lied that she why do you suppose the press and public would be so much more willing to accept a grandmotherly barbara bush, instead of Hillary Clinton, who really was quite a bit more vulnerable. We are running out of time. Here we need to run. I dont understand the question. I can Say Something about, hillary was really furious that george bush reputedly had a jennifer as well. When i didnt interview with Hillary Clinton, a very formal one, she interrupted out of nowhere, raising this issue and saying she had been sitting with the head of the atlanta newspaper fortune, and she had brought this up. And this woman said, and cots chambers, why dont the media investigates george bush is jennifer, hillary, said theyre going to circle the wagons on them, because thats what republicans do. And on my tape recorder, barbara bush slammed back and said, you know, how dare ou know, how dare she tal about my husband that way nd hillary had to really ea humble pie. And s e was depicted on the cov ying well s ut my mouth. And wh barbara slammed back and said you know, how did she talk about my husband that way and hillary was ready to eat humble pie. And when she stepped off, it just before the New York Primary when she and bill clinton had arrived in albany for the last day before the primary. Bill clinton had to step in front for a very rare appearance apologizing for hillary. Hillary was just beside herself in the bushes could get away with this kind of thing but she could, not bill couldnt. The sartorial of the clinton two administrations was also the story of investigations and scandals and reactions to those. Im going to show you a clip from 1994, early in their white house years, when hillary, at a news conference, talks about the level of trust that people have with her. Ve with her. In the recent news reports, many of us americans are having a hard time with your credibility. How can you earn our trust back . Is there a fundamental distrust of the clintons in america . Well, i hope not. That would be something that i regret very much. I do think that we are transition, figures if you will. We dont fit easily into a lot of our preexisting categories and i think that having been independent, having made decisions, its a little difficult for us as a country, maybe, to make the transition of having a woman like many of the women in this room, sitting in this house, so, i think that the standards, and some, extent the expectations and the demands have changed and im trying to find my way through it, and trying to figure out how best to be true to myself and how to fulfill my responsibilities to my husband and my daughter and my country. David, what are your thoughts watching that . Well, my thoughts, theres the famous pink suit press conference, where she was embroiled in controversy at that point. I think what she said has a lot of merit to it. She was facing things that no first lady was before. Some of it was just part of the culture of that moment and some of it was self induced and so, you cant really separate the two. They did many things during that period and it is also true that they were being judged in ways different from anybody before, especially. I will show you some more clips and this is from a pivotal year, 1998 where, we see a transition from the beginning of the year to the end of the year in the discussion of these issues, january of 1998, lets watch. The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast, right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. These past months have been torturous process of coming to terms with what i did. I understand that accountability demands consequences, and i am prepared to accept them. Painful though the condemnation of the congress would be, it would pale in comparison to the consequences of the pain i have caused my family. There is no greater agony. So, for both of you, quite a long year. So much to talk about. What is important for people to know about that year, and again, were going to use the framework of Hillary Clinton as first lady. You know, a year elapsed before bill clinton was finally able to come clean to hillary and then to the country and that was a torturous here for both of them, and she, you, know tried to change the story. It is about the right wing conspiracy, and not about my husband, she did not know or did not allow herself to know, that Monica Lewinsky really was a sexual relationship until bill clinton actually had to sit her down and tell her, and then she really threw things at him unexploded, and we saw how the family split apart, and it a very tragic thing to watch but more than most of that year, she was right in there fighting for him and the attorney who is working them on that damage control, i said, well, gosh, you know, the body language must be pretty hostile and they said, no, not at all, they were Holding Hands and their arms were around each other. They were totally affectionate. They were in this together, and what you saw was that one crisis engulfed them, they would be like, it was a war, they were in the foxhole together, bombs exploding all around, it is you too against the world and it made them closer and what would also happen when those things erupted, and it happened all through the relationship, when she would, you know, turn into a lioness and russian to rip the flush off their enemies and sit down and make the battle, bill clinton would suddenly reward her with affection, intimacy, more power, they were closer. That is when she was the closest to him so it was kind of a loop. It was not all bad for hillary when things erupted and she became the crisis manager and bill clinton loved her for. Thats exactly right. There was this cycle through their relationship where when one was up the other was down, and then one would be up any other wouldbe down, and it would go back and forth but and that actually had the effect of keeping them together through all of this and just as gail talked about in 1992 when she saw hillary for the first time with jennifer flowers just steal herself from battle and she did again in 98 and in 99 of course but it fractured but the thing to remember is that they stayed together. One of the great ironies in political politics is that the clintons have stayed together when families like the gores, who everyone thought was perfect, family fell apart. Hi, thank, you ive been watching the series the whole time. I just want to say, i read one time or heard that Hillary Clinton really garnered or earned a lot of loyalty in terms of people over many years that shes been associated with, either as friends or people that worked for her and that is why there has been no tellall story, because she has earned that kind of loyalty, because for genuineness, her character, which i would, think, if that is the case, that would totally be an admirable characteristic for a first lady, but also as a possible president of the United States and when i was fortunate enough to shake hands with them in 1992 when he was running so i was quite thrilled. Thank, you bet of. You. We wanted to show all of you at home an interesting illustration in the New York Times sunday magazine just yesterday, and it really speaks in a graphic sense to these into relationships that Hillary Clinton and bill clinton have throughout their many years of public life. It is called madam secretary of the university. You can see here in the center there as the sun and all the planets around it so, that shows the ports of these relationships and shielding them. Its amazing. I think both hillary and bill kept notes on people, starting in college and law school and they had files so they would always remember, even if they were visiting a military base one year and then coming back to next year, they would go to ask, sergeant, did your wife have a baby laugh yet . How did turn out . And people would melt. And i think even more important for hillary where the women that she brought into, both into her family, they called it a family, she would treat them almost like family members, really Pay Attention to their ups and downs and when they needed help. The loyalty that she showed to whom a biden win she got in trouble with anthony wiener, shaming her it matched with that she had been shamed, that was very enduring, i think, and the woman is still attached to her side so, having hillary and wonderful women, really smart, supporting her and her loyalty to them has been enormously important but there is a downside as well. Her chief of staff for a while, in the 2008 president ial campaign, she kept patty on as the Campaign Director and patty was not ready for primetime and a lot of things went wrong because of her and it was killing the hillary to have to finally fire her. We have 20 minutes left so, let me ask you, we left the store with bill clintons troubles which led to him being the second president in history being impeached and ironically, Hillary Clinton was considering a bid for the United States senate and was successful of that. We talk about the decision to become a candidate herself and how she pulled that off when her husband have been having political problems. Its ironic that gayle and i, the last time we were on tv together, it was meet the press in 1999, and we were asked if we thought hillary would ever run for office and we said yes and the next day, the head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee started talking about hillary running. I think she had her eye on that. And i think because of bill clinton struggles she was frustrated in those last four years in the white house and was looking to go out on her own. They had risen together as far as they could for 25 years, and now it was her turn, and i think that was the way she felt. I heard about the meeting she had with harold if hes on the very day that the Impeachment Vote was taking place in another part of congress and bill clinton stopped him to say hello to her guest, and hillary did not even look up and they did not want to have anything to do with it. She had done everything she could the line of the ducks in a row so the democrats would make sure he would not be thrown out of office. Now, she was moving on and this was the biggest passage in her life. She said to harold ickys, i want independence. I have to have it. I can feel it when i can speak with my own voice. She was 53 years old. I dont think its going to take another, you know, with the current generation is not going to take that long to speak with their own voice but she had to wait that long and still had to wait a little bit longer after that. But she did start her campaign before she left the white house, moved to new york, started a whole new life and begin to move away and develop a separate channel. They never got divorced but they found a way to kind of cohabit in the universe and still help each other. What distinguishes her, to terms in the senate . Well, she was actually very well liked in the senate. I dont know that you can put any specific legislation that came through during that period that she was related to other very early in her first term she was the senator from new york where 9 11 took place and i cant think a key issue and vote that ironically heard her in 2008 was the vote about invading iraq which she supported and one can see that connection between being the senator from new york where the twin towers were, and her vote a couple of years later and one can easily make the case that that vote cost for the democratic nomination because barack obama, who is not the senate, gave a strong speech opposing the iraq war, and took off from there. From the time she had been considering her run for the senate, did she had her eye on the presidency itself . You, know i think she was asked in early 2000 when she thought we would have a woman president and she said, 2008. I heard her say that. Well, we did not have a woman president , but she tried as hard as she could to be one. And she thought she would be the. One and she thought she would be it. Here is 2008 in new hampshire. This is a pretty familiar piece of video for those of you who are following. Its not easy, its not easy, and i couldnt do it if i didnt passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, i have so many opportunities from this country. I just want to see as fall backwards. So. Eo clip susan swain ultim ultimately, why did that Campaign Fail . It was a mess. You know, as tight as her white house operation wasnt what they called hillary land, the campaign itself had all these different factions of hillary people and bill people in a lot of disagreements a tactical errors, so a lot of that had to do with whether they would focus on the caucus states, which the obama people figured out. But in the end, it always comes down to the candidates themselves and the interesting thing about that clip is it Shows Hillary at a point where barack obama is just winning the emotion vote, you know, his speeches, the energy that he had, the youth, and all of that, and hillary is considered too much of a machine and a longtime candidate and so there she is, trying to show, im human to but its a little bit too late. Youre absolutely right, david, and it was mark penn in bill clinton who said you cant run as a woman, you have to run as a man. You have to be the strongest man in the cabinet. And she had just lost, third place in iowa. A terrible shock to her. She comes to new hampshire, just a small group of women and it was an older woman who asked her, how do you do it day after day and it kind of got to her and for once, she actually, you know, you saw a little bit of being a human, and being a woman, and then she got slammed for crying. Shouldnt cry, she is choked up, a little bit. I mean, there are men crying all over the place in that period and getting away with it. Ida is in west palm beach, florida, hi, ida. Hi, susan, thank you for taking my call again. You spoke to me when we had a series on Jackie Kennedy and i thank you so much. I have a question. Does the panel feel that she will run again for the presidency, considering all the scrutiny she went through, her crying at all of that, and if she does not run, is or health care to be a factor. Thank you so much for the series, i really enjoyed it. Thank you for watching. I think she cannot not run unless she has a Serious Health problem. That would be the only reason to hold her back. She now has the former obama machine, project usa, is that what it is called . The primary . Backing her. Which is obamas people, basically. Obamas people, she has ready for hillary which is a grassroots operation that has raised almost a couple of million dollars. And she cant disappoint. Plus the fact is already what shes always wanted it. Plus shes had so much scrutiny, and here we are scrutinizing her all over again and everyone else we do the same i think she is in many ways bulletproof to what has gone on in the past. But i think there are enough people in the primaries who voted for barack obama, who thought maybe hillary wouldve been a good president but everything seems totally greased up and it always sends off alarm bells. You know, everything seems inevitable, history is never inevitable so even though it looks like its going to happen i am counterintuitive enough to think Something Else might. And in Hillary Clinton dropping out of the president ial race in 2018 campaign for barack obama into the two times had tough times on the campaign trail, she agreed to service the secretary of state. Was that a momentous decision for her . It certainly was and i found it more recently is that he came into that discussion with a strong negotiating position. She said, i have my own agenda. I want to bring i vital voices, which is her program in the white house, to empower women and work for gender equality in countries all over the world, and she had a partner in that. She wanted to bring that into the state department as an official u. S. Policy, and you said to barack obama, if you can accept that, fine, and otherwise you can find somebody else and he agreed and she did do that and it might be her greatest legacy, is to have been in congress for women and girls around the world. She became the most traveled secretary of state. 112 countries visited during her trip. We had a caller earlier who commanded her for her work on gay rights, and we just heard gayle shes thought on her promoting the causes of women and in fact this particular clip of her testimony after the attack in benghazi will probably be most remembered. Lets watch. We have no doubt there were terrorists. There are militants. They attacked. Us the killed our people, but what was going on and why theyre doing what they were doing. No, no, no. We were misled that there is supposedly protests, and something spring are, that assaults bring out of that, and that was easily ascertain that that was not the fact. But, you know. The American People should know that within days and i didnt know it. And with all due respect, the fact is we had for debt americans. Was because of a protest or guys out for a walk one night and decided they go kill some americans. What difference, at this point, does it make . It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator, now, i honestly will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in realtime to get the best information. There is a process, i understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out but to be clear, this is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it then to find them and bring them to justice and then maybe well figure out what was going on in the meantime. That also was hillary unplugged in a very different way, different than what a lot of people have seen in Campaign Meetings behind the scenes so, i dont think that is staged at all. I think that is what she was feeling at the time and i think there are some legitimate points she was making. She said today that the fact that four people were killed on her watch and there is still a lot to be determined about benghazi. The reporters that i trust the most whove exported for both the New York Times in the Washington Post say its much more complicated than the public then republicans have tried to portray it but there is some responsibility that the Obama Administration stated hartman has for what happened. I think a lot of it is a money issue. Theyre just cutbacks on providing security for our american outpost around the world, and they did not have enough people. I think hillary was very aware of taking care of people in the state department but obviously, you think of libya as being a place that needed to be fortified in advance, if she couldve done anything really important, that wouldve been it. The larger scheme of things. Yes, that what will be the most remembered in the short term it will be played over and over again if she runs for president but in the course of this term, people could say, well, what did she do a secretary of state . Well, interim international diplomacy, you cant point to many accomplishments but you can point to something that is being part of her, when she spoke about womens rights. So what you said about the right, and womens rights, i think the larger impact Hillary Clinton has had on the world has to do with her speaking out so strongly on this issue. We have about five minutes left in our 90 minutes on first lady Hillary Clinton. Were gonna take a call from springhill, arkansas. Hi, test. Are you there . Yes, im here. Your question . My question is, why did hillary gets a little coverages secretary of state one under the Bush Administration, Condoleezza Rice was in the news every day . Thats a good question. Perhaps you know, david. Do you agree with her preference premise . I dont know what the difference would be in terms of her and Condoleezza Rice. When Condoleezza Rice was dealing with wars in a way that hillary one step removed from dealing with that iraq in afghanistan. He was focusing on some other things. One of the reasons that she did not show any major accomplishments was because Foreign Policy was very much held tight by the white house, heavily wanted Richard Holbrooke as her deputy secretary of state. The Obama Administration would not agree because it would have put too much power in the state department. So he was given afghanistan. They gave dennis ross was given israel. Hillary didnt have a major brief. So what she did mainly was make friends around the country and try to undo some of the damage that had been done by the Bush Administration in alienating both allies and exacerbating enemies. David maraniss the other aspect of that was that when president obama took over it was the economy, stupid, as james carvel commented once said. All of the focus of that presidency was on the economy. And so we had to have somebody running Foreign Policy that he felt was confident or trust to do it. But the press and everybody else was paying to attention to what was going on domestically. Susan swain tom is watching us in philadelphia. Hi tom, youre on. Tom yes, hi how are you doing . My question is will she win the presidency, yes or no . Susan swain well, i think David Maraniss answered that earlier with things that are greased dont always play out the way they should. David maraniss yes, i was hoping the packers would win the super bowl so, you know. Its the same thing as saying that. Im not interested i mean im interested in the results. But for whatever i say i know no more than you or anyone else in this country. Susan swain gail sheehy on twitter, this person has a personal question about hillary. Does hillary have interest or hobbies outside politics . She seems singularly devoted to the political world. Gail sheehy well i think she is primarily, you know, she doesnt really like to exercise. She doesnt play any instruments. She says she can sing. Im not sure what else she likes to do. She doesnt like to do her hair. I can tell you that. She says she cant do it herself and thats why she let it grow long and so she could wear it in a ponytail or a bun. And it took a lot of nudging by her hillary land pals to finally get her to cut her hair and change the style. Susan swain regina krumkie asks on twitter is bill a political ally for hillary or a liability . So lets go back to their relationship. And what is his how is he seeing himself with now that its her turn to seek the white house. How is he approaching this . David maraniss well you can go back to 2008 and how he approached it there. He was both a liability and a help. He loves being a Campaign Manager. For all of his own campaigns he was always both the candidate and the Campaign Manager. He loves breaking down every precinct and county in iowa, in new hampshire. He knows them all. And he also understands and learned some lessons from 2008 that he has to be careful about what he says and how he affects her candidacy. So i think that its both a liability and but he is in my experience of covering politics for several decades the smartest politician ive ever met. Susan swain we are just about out of time. As we close here i wanted to ask you both, this has been a historical series about first ladies. We have at this period of time women who are still very much living and with us and still writing their own life stories. But how should we put a capper on this discussion of Hillary Clinton . What should people think about her from all your reporting and know about her thats significant in the context of history . Gail sheehy i think Hillary Clinton from the very beginning wanted to be helpful in advancing the lives, the security, the opportunity and the impact of women and the protection of girls. And you see that throughline in every, you know, framework that she has operated in right to this day and i think that that has been her greatest impact on the world. She and bill clinton have been in rehab for a long time. But i think she has rehabilitated herself much more than he and he is probably depending on her to make the ultimate rehabilitation even if and when she becomes president. Susan swain we really only skimmed the surface here so much so we didnt about his heart attacks and the effect on the family of that, so much more, but in closing, as much as we can do the story justice, what should people know about this woman . David maraniss well, i think shes the best known woman in the world. I think that shes an incredible story whether you like her or dislike her and everyone has an opinion pretty strongly one way or the other about her. I think that shes a pioneer. She blazed a path for every woman to follow in terms of her political career and activism. And she is a survivor as his her husband and together for all of the incredible ups and downs of their lives together and moving forward, she keeps going. David maraniss you know, she once quoted the woody allen line that, you know, 90 of life is just showing up and she keeps showing up. Susan swain so, David Maraniss and gail sheehy, thanks very much for being here as cspans first ladies series looks at the life of Hillary Clinton. Thanks for your time tonight. Gail sheehy our pleasure. David maraniss thank you