[applause] former president bush i hate these questions. I told dad today that i was going to be on stage with bill and you were the moderator. What did he say . Former president bush he was surprised. [laughter] surprised you cannot do anybody better. Former president bush they are doing well. Thank you very much. I am fortunate to be the only president with both parents alive after the presidency. So, every day is a blessing. To have your mom and dad alive. They are doing well. Thank you for asking. I will tell them you asked. How is hillary doing . Former president clinton good,. If you knew our grandkids, you would know shes good. They are working on a book and we spent every available hour with our grandchildren. My grandson just turned one year old on fathers day. Every seven years, his fathers will celebrate fathers day on his sons birthday. My almost threeyearold granddaughter saying happy ng happy birthday to him at his party. Can your granddaughter sing happy birthing and mandarin . In mandarin . Former president clinton no, but she can sing it in spanish. [laughter] [applause] you both have grandchildren. What do your grandchildren call you . Former president bush i am called jefe. [laughter] former president clinton i am more humble. I am called pop pop. [laughter] former president clinton youre the one that told me that once you become a grandparent europe , youre at the bottom of the family told him pull. Totem pole. We will talk about your presidencies, you are now former president s. What is the difference between being a former president and the president . Former president clinton nobody plays the song when you walk in the room anymore. [laughter] former president clinton for very rarely in 17 years have i been given a thought to, well i wish i was there, or i miss this. You are grateful for the time you have, then realize you should focus on today and the future. I think it is both liberating, and also, to concentrate the memory. You do not know how many years you have left, but you feel the country has given you something priceless and you owe something back. Each in our own way, we try to figure that out. I found it a rewarding part of my life. I have loved it. Former president bush i woke up in crawford. [laughter] former president bush the day after the presidency, expecting someone to bring me the coffee. [laughter] former president bush laura did not bring the coffee. [laughter] former president bush i think the thing that startled me, was, the sense of having no responsibility. In other words, and during the presidency, you become a custom the responsibility you have. Slowly but surely it becomes a natural part of your life. You wake up the next day and you have no responsibility. That was probably the most stunning thing for me. Somebody from the opposite Political Party saying it is a terrible idea, oh it is hard to get is done in washington. When you are a former president , is it easier to get things done . Former president bush it depends on what you are trying to do. Former president clinton you have to realize what you do not have and what you do. It is really true that i love d the job and i loved all those responsibilities. It is amazing how every day is taken up by being president and the incoming fire. At the debates, nobody asked him what are you guys going to do , if al qaeda bombs the World Trade Center . You have seen as an a lot of different ways. If you do not deal with incoming fire, it will undermine your ability to do anything else. If all you deal with is incoming fire, it is a lot of trouble. When you get out, you change out of that power. Whatever influence you have, or whatever your experience permits you to do, and you have to decide what to do. And everybody makes different decisions. President carter collapsed today, but he is fine. He was building habitat houses in canada. That is what he wanted to do. By doing that, he helped habitat grow into one of the biggest operations in the world. We all had to make these decisions. Former president bush i dont think it is that easy, quite frankly, to get things done. One of the great accomplishments in my post presidency was the building of this building and the inspiration of programs that we think make a difference. It was hard to get there. Appropriations bill. [laughter] when former president s get together, which is funerals and when libraries open, it is not common when you get together. What do you say to each other when your former president s get s are getting together. You tell secrets . Former president bush you generally say, when is this Program Going to start and when will it end . [laughter] former president clinton there are shorter answers. [laughter] former president clinton it is unusual with us because we had because when i left office i told them, i said, if i can ever help you, i will do it. If i can in good conscious, i wont, but i will never embarrass you in public. When hillary was a senator, i said there may be some policies i disagree with, but i will always do it respectfully and i want you to succeed. And i tried to be as good as my word. Then he gave me the chance to work with his father after the tsunami in south asia and after katrina. We did a lot of good and not that brought all three of us closer. You ran against president bush 41. It was a bitter campaign. He was defeated for reelection. How did you manage later to develop a close relationship . Wasnt that difficult at times because you had called him names and he called you names . Former president clinton i think it helped that we had some contact before. I represented the democratic governors when he decided to embrace these education goals. We started working together. I tried never to take a cheap shot at the governors association. If we disagreed, we went on and found things we could do together. The other thing is, like i said, he deserves a lot of credit. If he did not asked to do the me to do the tsunami work together, im not sure the relationship would have been the way it was. We just liked being together. Like anything else, sometimes you click with people and sometimes you dont. I always admired him. I completely supported what he did in the aftermath of the collapse of the union. Supporting the european union, supporting the efforts he made and i made, as you see today mixed results to integrate russia and the family of democracy. We just started working together on the synonymy thing. The tsunami thing. It was easy to forget because it was so many thousand people in a matter of minutes. Then president bush said, america has to do our part, most people cannot find those countries on the map, but they were part of the global he was willing to take our share of responsibility for. How did you become close because you have different take . Former president bush i think it starts with bill clinton being a person who refused to laud his victory over dad. He was humble with victory. I think dad was willing to rise above the political contest. It starts with the individuals character. Both men displayed strong character. Therefore, the friendship was able to be formed. Why do i have a friendship with him . Because he is a brother with a different mother. [laughter] when you campaigned, you were campaigning against some of the things the Clinton Administration had done . Former president bush probably. [laughter] former president bush we are both baby boomers and we are both southern governors. We had a lot in common. He got along with people in his legislature and i got along with mine and we had friends in common. There was a natural ability to respect and like each other. If you disagree with someone, it does not mean that you do not like them. Former president clinton i recognized that he was 44 days older than me. [laughter] former president clinton in 44 days i said, i am calling you on bended knee because this begins my 44 days of respect for my elders. Former president bush when i was president , i would call bill, he was very helpful. He knew a lot about a lot of issues, particularly International Affairs that i was interest in. I knew i could count on him for good advice. And he was gracious in receiving my calls. President clinton, you have done something that was very unique. All of us recognize that someone who is a student body president and everyone thinks that person could be president of the United States. None of them have actually made it except for you. You were the only person who was a student leader and made it to president of the United States. What was the fact that drove you to keep being such a leader . Most people burn out and say i do not want to still be a leader. You managed to pull this off. What do you think the qualities were . Former president clinton i also lost two elections along the way , which kind of keeps you humble. I think i got elected because, basically, we are the last generation that was born without a television. I grew up in a conversational culture where people actually talk and listen to each other. I dont know how people make it today. The average president talks eight seconds on television. Snapchat is 10 seconds and twitter is 140 characters. My life revolved around meals. My father died in a car right wreck before i was born. My uncle was the smartest guy in our family. He involved the kids in the conversations. He told me most people have a story and most people cannot tell it. I was taught to listen, to look, and i really think that is what it is. I just thought somebody could have a better life. I got lucky. I dont care what anybody says. All these people who say they were born in a locked cabinet built themselves are full of log cabin they built themselves are full of bull. [laughter] i think i was partially responsible for you being elected because i worked in the white house for president carter. Towards the end of your first term as governor, we put together people in arkansas. It was may be impossible for you to be reelected. I thought by not being reelected you were driven to work harder. Former president clinton i thank you for doing that. [laughter] at the time you were not that happy about it. President bush, i think i am responsible for your being elected. When i got in place, the inflation was at 19 . That enabled your father to be Vice President and leading you to become president. Former president bush i think clinton had a bigger rolled and you did. I never wouldve run for governor had he not defeated at. Defeated dad. It would have been difficult for me to be and richards in 1994 because i spent my time defending george h. W. Bush in the last two years of his presidency. It enabled my brother jeb and me to run on our on. Both of you ran for congress the first time you ran and you both lost. You had that in common, but maybe you lost when you are running against an incoming congressmen. Did you say i am out of politics . Former president clinton i got a break in a way. In the house the democrats did well in 1974. President nixon resigned, but i ran against a congressman he had an 85 Approval Rating and 99 name recognition. I was 00 and he beat me 5148. It is the best thing that ever happened to me and we wound up being friends, too. This district we ran and had the highest amount of gasoline use because it was so rural and you winding roads. People do not do it anymore. You have to do retail campaigning. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped you in that campaign. Did you think that she would stay down in arkansas in marry you because arkansas was not a place that was the center of the universe . Former president clinton no. I asked her twice to marry me and she said no both times. Smart girl. The third time i said just come down here. They liked her so much that they offered her a job teaching. She did not have anything else to do. She was working with the house judiciary committee, when that whole thing was over, she took the job and it worked out pretty well. You decided you were not going to get into politics . Former president bush not true. [laughter] former president bush we got married in november. The next year, i campaigned for congress. I said she would never have to give a political speech and she did. She is a good speaker. When you lost the house seat, did you say i am out of politics . Former president bush for a while, but like bill said, it is the best thing that happened to me. The guy who beat me said, if i beat bush, he would still be on the agricultural committee. Your mother and father said you had no chance of winning. Former president bush the father didnt say that, the mother did. [laughter] what did you say to her when you won . Former president bush are you going to come to the inauguration . [laughter] when both of you became president , your father became president what was the Biggest Surprise the first day youre in the oval office learned all the codes, what was the Biggest Surprise . When does a hit you that you are the most powerful man in the world . Former president clinton harry truman said that the amazing thing about being president is you spend so much of your time trying to talk people into things they should do without you asking them in the first place. What surprised me maybe because i was the governor of a small Southern State you are so far removed from the American People that it is hard for them to see you as a threedimensional person. Even governor of texas, i think you have a much more personal relationship with the people. Bob loved george bush. I think he helped them be a better governor. We were just being people and dealing with people. It really surprised me how easily i could be turned into a two dimensional cartoon instead of a threedimensional human being. You have to discipline yourself about what to talk about, how to talk about it. There are all these layers between you and people that did not used to be there. That surprised me. I thought i was a good communicator. I just fell on my face four or five times until i figured out how to do it. 46 years old. If you were president at 56 or 66, do you think you would have been different or would have had less energy with more experience . Former president clinton i think i would have been better in some ways if i was older. I think i would have been not as good in some ways. Sometimes you are too dumb to know you cannot do it. You show up and you keep trying to do it and something happens. Your father was president so you were in the white house. You saw what he did right and be did wrong. Former president bush i learned a lot from watching him. We have a great fatherson relationship. I learned a lot from watching him. My most startling moment came at the inaugural parade, i decided i would go in the oval office to see what it felt like. Unbeknownst to me, andy called upstairs and asked dad to come in. I was sitting in the oval office at the desk taking it all in. In walks my dad and i said, oh welcome, mr. President and he said, thank you, mr. President. What was it like when your mother walked into the oval office when you were president . Former president clinton she started laughing out loud. [laughter] pres. Clinton on the other hand, when i started running, she was the only one who thought i had a chance to win. It made me feel good because, my mother had a pretty tough life. She was widowed three times. She had a pretty tough life. She got up at 5 00 every morning and got herself ready and was at work by 7 00 and did everything she could to take care of me, so i was proud to be able to show it to her. And she was ill then, but she lived another year. Just a little more than another year, about the time she died the next january 6. Host what is it like to live in the white house . Pres. Bush do you know what my mother said . Get your feet off the jeffersonian table. [laughter] host your mother was proud, of course. The only one woman who ever had a son become president of the United States whose father had also been president , abigail adams, it i dont think she was alive when John Quincy Adams became president. She was the only person to see her husband and her son. When you are living in the white house, some people call it a prison because you cant really get out very much, or you enjoy it and you have all of these service there servants there and you can go to camp david when you want. It is a pleasure or not so much . Pres. Clinton if you live an informal life in the governors mansion, it is very different. I was basically selfsupport ing from the time i was 19. It took some getting used to, but i developed a real respect and affection for the people that worked there and i developed an enormous amount of respect for the secret service and the risks they take, and i adjusted myself accordingly. I love living in the white house. I remember very vividly the last time i got off the helicopter marine one and walked into the white house as president before i would soon be gone and he would be there, and i was consciously aware that i was going in there more optimistic i was about america than i did the first time. I never got tired of it. Host did you like living in the white house . Pres. Bush i did. It was great. They pamper you, and we knew a lot of the staff. Many of the same when bill was there, and when dad was there. It is great. It is a really historic place. It is comfortable. I loved every minute of living there. Host what about camp david . Most people have never been, so tell us, what is it like at camp david . A city great place to have a retreat and relax, or is it overrated . Pres. Clinton it is a great place. I loved it most at thanksgiving, because i would bring all of the family and i liked it when chelsea could bring her friends up there. You have a little more at least are under the illusion you have more freedom to wander around. It is great to just get away. Pres. Bush i went there a lot and we went there a lot. Probably used it more than any president. Maybe Ronald Reagan did more, but the reason we went a lot is, to invite friends we grew up with in midland, for example, show them the oval office at or camp david. The other thing i liked about it a lot was i love exercise and the place is set up for a lot of hiking, running, Mountain Biking, there is a wonderful gym there. I found it liberating. Host Mountain Biking is dangerous and you have fallen a couple of times. But you havent given it up . Pres. Bush no, i still ride. Host you dont worry about breaking things . Pres. Bush no. Pres. Clinton that was jumping his dad was jumping out of planes at 85. Host you play golf, but you obviously lost weight since the presidency with the vegan diet. Isnt that hard to do . Pres. Clinton not when you have a quadruple heart bypass and you want to live to be a grandfather, i didnt give it a second thought. I realized i was highly prone to arterial blockage and i literally wanted to live to be a grandfather. Unlike him who has good genes, i am now the oldest person in my in three generations. I want to be around, i am having a good time being alive. [laughter] host if you could run for president of the United States or former president of the United States, what would you recommend . What is the better job . Only 13 people in our history who served two consecutive terms. You are two of the 13. Would you rather do that or be a former president for 30 or 40 years . What is more enjoyable . Pres. Clinton first of all, it depends on how you keep score, but you have got to live a long time as a former president to have any impact as as many on as many people as you can as president. I have tried to do the best i could on that but if you give me a choice, i would take two terms. Pres. Bush i would too. The reason is you have a monumental effect on a lot of people. It is exciting to be in that kind of environment. It insists that you use all of your skills and energy in order to affect policy in a positive way. The interesting thing about the presidency it is often defined by the unexpected, which makes the job doubly interesting. Pres. Clinton it is interesting though, a lot of the successful former president s are one term. John quincy adams was in congress for 16 years and one of our most important antislavery advocates. Taft became chief justice. Herbert hoover came out of retirement and wrote the Civil Service act. They did a lot of good things and i feel that george and i have been blessed because we are were reasonably young and barack obama is young. You can be double lucky, you can serve eight years president and do other great things. Host i assume you would recommend the job to people if they want to be president of the United States. John kennedy was once asked, what do you think about this job and would you recommend it . He said not to others right now, i guess, because i would wait until i finish my tenure, but would you recommend to young people that want to be the president of the United States, would you say it is work the worth the aggravation and hard work to become president . Pres. Clinton in a heartbeat. Pres. Bush same. There is a good chance we are looking at a future president. Amongst the 60 graduates here. [applause] host the highest calling of mankind i always felt was private equity. [laughter] but you would say being the president of the United States is better than private equity. Pres. Bush i dont know, we make 200,000 a year in pension. What do you make . [laughter] host money isnt everything, but yes. Pres. Clinton if i could say one serious thing. There are a lot of really Big Questions floating around out there. The mexican multibillionaire is a really smart guy, gave a speech during the campaign and the campaign being what it was obviously no one was interested in asking, but he said i believe this will be the first technological revolution that will kill more jobs than it creates and therefore, i believe we will either have to have people with money paying higher taxes to subsidize people living, or the richest countries are going to have to start planning for a fourday and ultimately a threeday work week because of the innovation, robotics and artificial intelligence. Now, no one knows the answer to that. No one knows if he is right or not. But it isnt going to be boring. It is not boring to figure out how to deal with Climate Change in a way that helps the economy. It is not boring figuring out whether we can have shared prosperity and still have growth. These are very significant questions, and it is also not boring figuring out how to navigate a political world in which the nationstates border our poorest, not just in terms of vulnerability in tariffs and tax, it is a fascinating, sobering, but exhilarating time to be alive. Also, i told george once a year or so ago, i hope you are not the last republican president who is not afraid of immigrants. We could go to south texas and have a discussion about what Immigration Reform should look like, but if you look at america, we are only having a 2. 1 replacement of our nativeborn population from natural birth. We cannot continue to grow this economy unless we take in more immigrants, so we have to be comfortable about it. Arent you glad that a cambodian woman found her way to louisiana . [applause] pres. Bush she didnt find her way to texas. [laughter] host you both served eight years and as i tried to say hadier, our country has roughly have 550 Million People in our countrys history over the course of our history. 45 are elected president , but only 13 people have served two consecutive terms. You are two of the 13. What would you say you are the most proud of having done in your eight years . Pres. Clinton i was most proud that when i left office, we had the broadest period of shared prosperity in 50 years. The bottom 20 income in percentage terms increased more than the top 20 and nobody was mad at anybody else over it. It was shared across rachel and thats racial across racial and religious and regional lines. Did i abolish inequality . No. And you cant in a market society, but at least we found a way to have more shared prosperity including three budget surpluses. I think if everyone has a decent job and something to look forward to in the morning, about 90 of the other problems go away. Whatever argument we might have about Health Care Policy or any other social policy, it will all become less significant if people think they can start a business and keep a job and educate their kids. Families are stable, communities are more stable and all of the other problems get smaller. Host what would you say in your eight years . Pres. Bush well, my daughters love me. [laughter] pres. Bush it is a challenge to have teenage daughters when you are the president , a challenge any time to have teenage daughters, and thanks to lauras guidance, our little girls our family unit strengthened. I think that is a great accomplishment. Pres. Clinton me too. This is what i think a lot of people dont believe about people like us. If you take it seriously, your most important job until your kids get out of the house is being a father or mother. Host do you really have a time for being a parent as president . It must be hard. Pres. Bush they were at the university of texas, yeah, it is hard. Thankfully, laura spent a lot of time nurturing them and helping them out. The hardest thing i knew what it was like to be a child of the president and the criticism is harsh, regardless of who is president and it stings for the child. Somebody you love getting criticized. We worried about our girls reacting to the criticism i got an laura was very good at covering them and i tried to do my best. Host what is like when you have a daughter and she goes on a date and the father is greeting the young man and you are president of the United States or governor, it is intimidating for the young man, i assume. Pres. Clinton i certainly hope d so. [laughter] pres. Clinton i liked chelseas boyfriends. She never went out with more than one at a time, but the chapters got longer depending. She had one in high school he i really liked. He wouldnt take his baseball cap off inside. Finally, he sat down at dinner one time and i said, i really like you, you know that . He said yes, i do. I said, you cant wear that cap at dinner. Take the cap off. This guy goes on to be an architect, i ran into him, you was working with three of he was working tryingree of his friends to help people put their lives back together. Friendsred knowing her who dont celebrate thanksgiving or cant go home for thanksgiving. Hillary and i feed them and they go around the table and tell what they are grateful for. You cannot be pessimistic about the future if you hear young people say that. Pres. Bush i told people earlier that came through that, you are not going to believe how tonights event will lift your spirits about the future of this country. [applause] host what makes you most optimistic about the country today . Pres. Bush tonight, you will see why i am optimistic. We have people with good hearts, good skills, wanting to serve others. One of the most unique things about our country are the armies of compassion that exist throughout the United States that exist in spite of the government. These are people who say, i am going to try to improve the community in which i live and tonight, were going to meet leaders who do just that. Any nation with that kind of compassion is a nation where the citizenry ought to be optimistic. Host one of the things you are now famous for doing is taking up painting. People were a little surprised because you werent thought to be an artist before. [laughter] host how did you decide to pick up painting and why does it people go down and look at the paintings in the exhibit after dinner tonight, it is right behind here. The reason i painted was because i was bored. This foundation and institute takes up time, but not enough. My exercise program wasnt taking enough. Winston churchill says painting is a pastime and i basically said if that guy can paint, i can paint. [laughter] host since youve got the leftleft since youve the presidency, you have changed your diet and other things. What have you spent the most time that gives you the greatest pleasure . Pres. Clinton building my foundation and trying to fund. It got so big so fast that it took up all of my time. Im trying to make it more entrepreneurial. That is, when it gets really big we never itself took any american money. Cut the price of medicine everywhere. The clinton initiative, which we dont have any more in its previous incarnation, but i am working on some specific things, we have 400 Million People, it is a lot of trouble. You have to keep at it all the time and at first, i thought i dont want to do this. But i am a workaholic and didnt think i could be a gifted painter. [laughter] pres. Clinton i admire him for doing that and i think he would tell you the best thing that can happen to you when your politics when you are in politics is to be consistently underestimated. Pres. Bush i was pretty good at that. [laughter] [applause] pres. Clinton he made me a genius, i look like a genius because the president ial race in 1999, i turned on tv at the white house and saw him sitting on a bale of hay in a tent in iowa and as far as i know, it was the first time what he said to people who could go either way is ill give you the same thing clinton did but with a Smaller Government and a bigger tax cut, wouldnt you like that . [laughter] pres. Clinton it was brilliant. I thought, they are going to underestimate this guy. A friend of mine for 20 years had a 60 Approval Rating and he won anyway. Because he understood the politics was about candidates, conditions and culture, and not just what position you were taking on the issue. He constructed a campaign that fit with where texas was at that time. He didnt have anything to do you didnt have to dislike ann richards to vote for george bush. He maximized the number of people he could get. Host how did the two of you come together to create the president ial Leadership Program . Pres. Bush one of the problems with these president ial centers is they become irrelevant pretty quickly unless it captures peoples attention. We ought to think about using these platforms that call young people together and encourage them through leadership education program. It makes a lot of sense and he and i talked together. It fit right into our view of how to be useful, and that is how it got started. Of course, inviting dads and lbjs made a lot of sense. Most people focus their attention on these libraries. It is a valuable resource for people in what we call the heartland. Pres. Clinton you just talk to these young people here. Basically, tonight, we give speeches and everything, i would bet you anything the thing they get the most out of his being this is being with each other. One of the things that is wrong with america, that bothers me more than anything else about our future is that we have separated ourselves into likeminded communities. We may be less racist, homophobic and sexist and everything, but we dont want to be around many people who disagree with us normally. We get news in silos. In an interdependent complex world, diverse groups make better decisions than homogenous ones. So, these people would make better decisions. Everybody knows that, but they almost cant help themselves because in a national election, we all vote against the one we hate. Before we came out here, i just came from lake tahoe where i started and he finished, one of a plan to save lake tahoe. It is one of only two Bluewater Lakes in the world. Republicans and democrats on the ground made it possible because they had the end in mind. All we did was say yes. I just came from columbia, where i started but he mostly finished. Columbia, which gave the country back to its people. It was a total bipartisan deal. Weve got to get back to that in america. This is killing us, all this fighting over nothing instead of saying what the heck we are trying to get done. Host we have time for one more question and i would ask finally, both of you can answer this, for those who are president ial scholars or other people watching, if somebody wants to be president , is the quality that is most important hard work, intelligence, optimism, luck . What do you think it takes for someone who says i want to be president , i want to be like you. Pres. Bush humility. I think it is important to know what you dont know and listen to people who do know what you dont know. Pres. Clinton i also think you have to begin with the end in mind. You have to say, you have to win the election but why in the heck are you running . That is another thing i noticed about him. When he ran for governor against ann richards, he didnt say and n richards is a klutz. He said i want to be governor because i want to do 1, 2, 3 things. Some i didnt agree with, but he had an agenda. If you want to be president , realize it is about the people, not about you. When it is over, and this is what a lot of arrogant people in office forget, time passes. It passes more quickly than you know. You want to be able to say, people are better off, kids have a better future, things are coming together. You dont want to say, god, look at all of the people i beat. Or the people i walked over. The most important thing is to be humble, to listen to realize that everyone has a story. Pres. Bush the only thing he disagreed with my platform is that texas ought to take arkansas. [laughter] pres. Clinton what i disagreed with is that he wanted to get all of our water and not pay very much money for it. [laughter] pres. Clinton i would have swapped it out for texas oil. [laughter] host i want to thank you both for your service to our country and thank you for the leadership you have given to so many people and thank you for what you are doing in your post presidency. Thank you very much. [applause] pres. Clinton thank you all. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [applause] live picture from the white house where Sarah Huckabee sanders will come out to brief reporters. It was expected to start at 2 30. Live for youit when it does get underway here on cspan. [indiscernible chatter] the White House Press briefing coming up shortly. While we wait, a portion of this mornings washington journal looking at the removal of confederate monuments