In many aspects and its held on the quad area of the campus in different buildings of surrounding it. There is a wild cat statue in the middle to represent the university of Arizona Wildcats and in just a minutes one of the panelists that you just heard, joe conason will be joining us and he will be taking calls. His book, his most recent book i should say is man of the world the future endeavors ofe bill clinton. We are tight about bill clinton and post presidency. If you have been listening to this panel and joe conason is now with us. T will thank you for being with us . Guest thank you for having a. Host how much money has the Clinton Foundation raise andnd given and spent . Guest i think the estimate is over 2 billion at this point. They have been in operation really says he was in the white house. They opened the foundation to raise money for his president ial library initially in 1998, i think, so its now been operating for about 20 years. It ramped up a lot after he left the white house and started to raise money for other things. Teeleven is now with us. Thank you for being with us. , as many as the Clinton Foundation raised and given away and spent . Of the estimates is over 2 billion at this point. They have been an operation release since he was in the white house. We opened a foundation to raise money for his president ial library initially 1998. And has now been operated almost 20 years in a rain of death after he left the white house and started to raise money to do other things. And in the underdeveloped world the great bulk of the money that was raised and spent by the so over the years that have saved millions of lives. They also have started initiatives against tuberculosis, malaria,ve principally in africa, and hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have been affected by those issues as well. Host so how does an ngo such as the Clinton Foundationd work with a government . Guest so when he left the white house and eventually decided that he is going to take on the aids problem as a principal focus of his post presidency, someone, Nelson Mandela joined with him on this, the first thing he had to confront was that western governments and the globalalia Public Health establishment had decided not to do anything about this. It was considered too expensive. You just could not by enough aids medications of the kind that was available then that was beginning to make a to chronic disease than a fatal disease in the west. You couldnt do that in africa because they didnt have the money to pay for it. And one of the things that had to do was to raise the money to buy cheaper versions of those drugs generically, which is another issue that he confront confronted, and that money came from governments. It came from governments that in begin were headed by friends of his, people that he got to know as president , the Prime Minister of canada, ireland, others, the head of government in norway. These were governments that have the money and you would call t these leaders on the phone or go and see them and say im going to put together a project because its a moral outrage that were going to let tens of millions of people die from this disease that we know how to stop, we know how to keep people alive. Because theyre supposedly isnt enough money. Are you in . Those leaders started to write those checks and the money went to his foundation. T at the same time he was arranging the production of those pharmaceuticals in india, mostly in india, all of it in africa with ingredient from china and arranged a supply chain those make the much cheaper. The way he could do that was to say to the manufacturers, i havr a guaranteed flow of money. I will have a guaranteed flow of money to buy a big volume from you. So youll still make a lot of money producing these drugs at a much lower cost. And that was how it worked. Host does the country have clintons at this point . Guest sumitomo today everyone hello rick clinton co. She gets a standing ovation. They may be fatigued at someone else by now after 50 days, but you know, i dont know thato there is clinton fatigue. I think theres some fatigue with politics in general. I think people are kind of exhausted watching tv. The election left a lot of people depressed and angry in different ways. Certainly she got a share of blame for the way the election turned out from people who wish that she had one and were mystified by the fact that she lost the election even though she won the popular vote. E quic. So certainly with any public figure who was around for as long as they have been around you will go through peaks and troughs. We were probably in a trough right after the election, but as i said, i think people are looking at her a little different now than they found what the alternative is like. Host joe conason you open manneman of the world on the clintons last day in office and you closed the book on their potential first day in the white house. January 21, 2017. Why did you begin to it that way . Guest the book starts with a first data out of the white house. The first night that he spent at chappaqua and wakes up the morning of january 21 in chappaqua at their home, the primidone. It was the first time hed been out of Public Housing so to speak in a really long timegh because he had been governor of arkansas for a long time beforee that. And i i thought that was just an interesting way. If someone had told me an interesting story about what the first it was like when he woke up and there was no coffee, and they hadnt spent enough time in that house to know how to make himself a cup of coffee there. So get to go out to the deli and get coffee. Chelsea was a bear, few other people, just to feed themselves. So i thought that was interesting. Somebody who is that everything provided by, you know, service to them as president and as governor, suddenly has to fend for himself as a private citizen, and that struck me as both sort of funny and touching. So this seemed like a good plae to start the book. When i got to the end, i had t finish the book before the election had happened, otherwise the book wouldve had a different ending. D to go ou and at the time it seemed likely if not certain i guess to most people that she would be the next president , and that a day would come when yo he would wakp in the white house again. And my editor, my book editor prompted that idea. E she thought this was a good idea. I agreed, i thought it was a fun way to end it to say what would it be like if you woke up again in a completely different role, not as the president but as i guess it would have been called the first gentleman. Host have you spoken to the president since the election . Guest i have not really spoken to the president since the election. I spoke to him before my book came out, but i havent had, i am going to be in touch with him because the paperback is going to come out and i have to write an epilogue thats a different ending than the one we just discussed, and i need some insight from him about that. Host joe conason is with the nation institute, editor of the Investigative Fund, founder and editor of the chief of National Memo. The author of many books, his most recent man of the world the future endeavors of bill clinton. An glint in berlin michigan is on the air. Please go ahead. Caller thank you all very much. Youryou are just talking a lite while ago about exactly what i wanted to ask you about, and thats this stuff, lets talk about africa specifically that you were talking about how the money isnt there to fight aids and stuff like that. So people like clinton and western governments have to chip in all this money. I mean, frankly i have a big problem with that because african is actually a very rich continent. The problem i think is mainly corruption in african governments, places like nigeria and places like that, just off the charts. I think actually in the way these charities, its like a white mans will have to prop up these corrupt governments. I mean, why cant this money be used to help our own people . I think thats what of the main reasons why trump was host all right. Lets hear from joe conason. Guest first of all, it seems wrong to me to punish the africans, especially african children for the faults of african governments which i dont disagree with you about any dont think clinton would either. But between now and the time that you have sort of clean african governments, many people would die from hiv aids through no fault of their own. I disagree with that. The second thing that you said that i think is wrong is that somehow this money would go to taking care of americans if clinton wasnt spending it on medicine to combat aids in africa. But it was not all american money. Some of it was. In a program created by president george w. Bush with strong support and the proxy m project of the evangelical committee which thought what was happening in africa was a disgrace for humidity. A lot of money was ireland, norway, Canada Canada and many other countries. I guess they wouldv would spenn their own citizens, but the ethic in those countries was that have responsibility to the rest of the world. They are countries where people have healthcare. They have a decent standard of living and they see whats happening in africa for whatever reason and see themselves as part of a broader humanity that has responsibility to everyone. Host caroline is calling in from coronado colorado. T you are on booktv. Caller thank you for taking my call. You had somebody made a comment regarding the fact that they would rather not have private philanthropy take care of things that the government is now taking care of. I. E. Taxpayers. I did mention why cant have the Michael Bloomberg said the world, george soros of the world totally fun Something Like planned parenthood which is a politically contentious situation. They could take care of a good portion of all the funds that planned parenthood needs andnd never ever miss it. Host coronado california go ahead. Caller good morning. Somebody made a comment that they would rather not have private sector taking care of what the government is taking care of so why can you not have Michael Bloomberg or george soros to Fund Planned Parenthood which is politically contentious than the could take of the care of a good portion of what planned parenthood needs never mess that he put 280 million into years ago blumberg picked up the ahold deficit when susan g. Coleman group pulled out of funding planned parenthood. Guest i do not have a comment except planned parenthood does get a lot of private foundations donations. Host you may comment youll think they should find government responsibilities. Guest and was trying to say i dont think private philanthropy can substitute for Government Action to cover all of the social needs that b. C. Just because it is not a comparable amount of money it is nothing like the government budget government is trillions state local and federal government trillions of dollars so somehow private philanthropy that the math does not work. That is what i was trying to say if you look at health care fall or all for all the stock market is so volatile, goes up and down and seniors need security. They need for their money to be safe because maybe it allows instances thats the only money they have. Its very scary to me that what does your guest think about that and thank you for taking my call. Host mr. Conason . Guest so i think its true that there were people around clinton or in his government who thought that some form ofhe savings that wouldve included investments in equities and other investments by seniors as they prepare to retire with the good thing. Whether that meant trying to take Social Security money and try to put in the stock market is another matter. Clinton rejected that. He never propose anything like that. George w. Bush in the next administration did try to do that. They did try to float a program to direct Social Security contributions into private accounts and that was rejected for the reasons that you articulated so well. I wrote a book about this, a separate book called the rawav deal at the time bush was trying to do that which i argued against that idea from the same perspective that you just expressed. Host the raw deal came out prop in 2005. Do the clintons feel that theyve gotten a fair shake from the media . Guest i would say certainly not. That feeling under part goes back a quarter of a century to the whitewater case, which i talked about a little bit in here and other panels today. My first book was the hunting ot the president was about that and other matters that i think they felt the press was very unfair to them. Whitewater turned out, i would say guesstimate 70 million was spent investigating whitewater as a huge scandal. It was compared to watergate at the time by ken starr and succeeding independent counsels and by congressional committees. There were several committees that investigated as lord spentt millions. What did they come up with quacks nothing because the clintons had lost money on that deal. They lost 45,000. It was a bad real estate deal in which they were swindled the man named jim mcdougal who turned out to be a manic depressive, very mentally ill person. That story was never installed properly. Instead of the huge effort to try to make a seem as if theyve done something wrong, and in the end it was, nobody could showan that after all of that investigation. So i think they felt the treatment of that in the press, that story, whitewater story and the antics really at the independent counsel was not fairly portrayed. I think they felt ever since then that the press has been tougher on them. I know certainly clinton said to me and many other people he felt that in the 2008 primary, barack obama had a much easier time with the press been Hillary Clinton did, and the reporters who admitted that. Who said we were not fair to her. So i think they dont feel theyve been treated fairly by the press. Host one of the narratives in this past campaign was that giving to the Clinton Foundation gig access and there were emails that were exposed that lean that way. Guest not really many. One of, some of this is a matter of interpretation. For instance, one of the biggest scandal stories that was put up a group called judicial watch, which everybody in washington is familiar with, they found some emails that had to do with the crown prince of bahrain, and a contribution yet supposedly made to the Clinton Global Initiative and then got a meeting with Hillary Clinton. The reason they could make a look that way was that they left out a lot of facts. One, it said if you give 34 million to the Clinton Foundation, no. He made a 349 commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative to provide scholarships to bahraini ggudents in his country. The clintons saw not a dying of it. Neither did the Clinton Foundation. The second part that made no sense was that he made that commitment in 2005 when the Clinton Global Initiative began, four years before she became secretary of state. But if you compress it altogether and the specs that looks like he somehow 34 millioy at a clinton event and he got a meeting with her. And if you put together that way it looks like something wrong. 3m if you actually inspect all of the facts, nothing of the kind happened. Host next call for mr. Conason is elizabeth and columbus ohio. Go ahead. Caller i am not hearing elizabeth either so lets try george. And georges in Virginia Beach virginia. George, youre on the air. Ou joe conason is our guest. Caller hey, bill. Help me out with this question please. I felt betrayed by bill clinton over the monicagate but i didnt like ken start either over thegt republicans. This last election i felt kind of betrayed by hillary in the sense that, did she not know that she had a lot of problems and whatever issues quacks given the fact that Bernie Sanders was out there as a progressive, i just dont think she was a progressive. And i think a lot of people want to know, that she still think she should have ran or run for office . Thank you. Host george, are you a progressive . Caller yes. Host thank you, sir. Guest i dont blame you for feeling betrayed over monica lewinsky. I think most people in this country did feel betrayed i what clinton did in that instance, and he has apologized for it. I think he would understand your feelings about that. That was a bad bad episode in his life. As far as Hillary Clinton is concerned and the Campaign Last year, you have to remember, she defeated sanders by millions of votes and she also defeated trump by millions of votes. So to say that she shouldnt have run after she did that i think is, she wouldnt find that persuasive i think, and many of her supporters wouldnt either. I would just leave it at that. Host joe conason guest i should say one more thing. Whatever you think of her career, ive written a fair amount about this, she was the standard bearer for a Democratic Party that was probably the most progressive that theyve ever had, even going back to the 30s under roosevelt which were progressive platforms and then. If you read the democratic platform from last year which he endorsed and ran on, that was a pretty progressive platform. Host what is the National Memo and the Investigative Fund . Guest the National Memo isis a daily newsletter that i edit and sen send out and often writr the 300,000 subscribers. You can subscribe at National Memo. Com. Its free, covering news and politics of the day and comes out seven days a week. The Investigative Fund is an investigative reportingev nonprofit i am one of the editors. Not the editor. We fund and guide investigativee reporting on many, manytopics appearing in all kinds of publications, broadcasts. I would say we want a lot of prizes. If you go to our website, the Investigative Fund. Org you can see the kind of work we do there. Host juanita, houston. Please go ahead. Were listening. Caller yes. I do question for the author. If im not mistaken, most authors like to write books that are objective and outer factual, and directed to most of the population of anyone is interested in reading it. His comment about how Hillary Clinton now gets a lot of Standing Ovations because now the country knows what they got in President Trump because of the last 50 days, and id like to know what he means by that. Because beings that im one of the persons inside the basket of deplorable, i dont see anything wrong with the last 50 days of President Trumps attempt to make america a little bit better as far as for the working person, the urban, the people who live in urban neighborhoods that are crimeridden. His interest in bringing about k jobs to united states. I do see anything wrong with those attempts, so why would you make a comment about that just to lift up Hillary Clinton . Guest well, the standing on ovations was a joke. I mean, ive heard that and it was response to question about clinton fatigue. As far as President Trump is concerned, we will have to disagree about, you know, what hes done and what his prospects are as president. I happen to be, i am an enemy of the people come as you are. We are members of the press and the president to declare that the press are the enemies of the people, i find offensive. Thats one thing is done that i consider extremely misguided, you could say, but you are completely entitled to your view and so am i. Host being part of the nation, the nation has a point of view. Guest it separate from the nation magazine but i have a point of view. If you read my publication or anything ive written you would know that really fast. Host did bill clinton work with you on this book . Guest he allowed me to travel with him. I went to africa and saw the work the Clinton Foundation was doing on three occasions and traveled elsewhere with them in the world. He gave me, im sorry, more than a dozen interviews on the record that were recorded. He agreed at the beginning that he would not have any editorial control over the book, and he didnt bear key didnt get to read until after it was at the printer, and i felt very privileged that he would give me that much cooperation and yet agreed that it would be my book and not his book. Host we will try elizabeth in columbus, ohio, one more time. You were on the air. Go ahead. Caller thank you thank you. This is been so interesting just any interim hearing the questions that people ask you about hillary. I know that you Research Bill clinton at length, but first im struck by the messaging, the idea that for whatever reason Hillary Clinton people and progressives democrats or whomever have not been able to state the truth about whitewater, just as you very clearly did. I ran across an article, maybe it was in atlantic magazine not too long ago and it was written before the primary, so 2015, and it talked about how the republicans were planning tor wv adopt a more gentle approach to hillary, because they had mcconnell and some of the republican establishment felt that maybe some things had gone too far. But in the same article a right wing, i should say alt whatever, newsmen from arkansas was interviewed and he had pictures of clinton, bill clinton, i mean, he was sort of enjoyed the fact that host tell you what, elizabeth, were going to have to wrap it there. We are almost out of time but if you speak to what she was talking about perhaps. Guest i think theres no question that the clintons under a barrage of negative attack havent always responded in the most effective way. At i think they would agree with that. Whether they would or not, its my opinion that certainly in the attacks on the Foundation Last year which begin actually the year before with a lot of dark money that was directed towards a book called clinton cash, with an author who i know is been on cspan. This was a concerted attack on the foundation which i will tell you has done a lot of good work and was portrayed as something very different. I dont believe the response to that was effective, just as back in whitewater days as the caller suggested. You know, it was hard for them to put out a counter narrative to what was being said about them, and yet in the fullness of time we discovered a lot of that stuff was in truth. Host joe conason has been our guest. His most recent book is man of the world the future endeavors of bill clinton. You can go to nationalmemo. Com and you can sign up for his daily political newsletter. Cspan, where history unfold to daily. In 1979 cspan cspan was cratered as a Public Service by americas cabletelevision companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. We are speaking with clottey, the author of andy warhol was a border inside the minds of histories great personalities. Besides andy warhol who else is highlighted in your book and why . 512 individuals in the book, all historical figures from lincoln to einstein, george gershwin, princess diana, betty ford. Each one is a strip of the persons life, a biography as well as the behavioral characteristics that look Like Mental Health conditions today. So depression and abram lincoln. And gershwin, Boundless Energy something todays looked as adhd, Howard Hughes and ocd. Each one really exports the life story, for Mental Health and seen that runs through all of these is that these are people with a wonderful life. They copy so much. They are in many cases geniuses in various fields and yet they have favorite human characteristics. They had struggles just like so many of us and were able to be successful. Its really a journey into the life and into the mind. How did you most of your research for this book traffic i called up studies dating way back to the early 19 hundreds, lots of medical studies, biography, letters left behind by einstein and darwin and then a lot of interviews with Mental Health experts. Whether thats what are theres there is. Each chapter is based on a theory based on a missile expert or the person that something forward. Before talking about addiction and so i look at all of these different sources and weve been together to tell the story. Host so of all the 1 12 you researched, was andy warhol the favorite or was another one that stuck out to you the most . Guest each person has a favorite. He was fantastic in terms of just his life story and the holding, the collecting, what was going on with the. I had an affinity for darwin, the Science Writer. I tried a Science Writer myself. Gershwin i love, and that energy and the music. I asked the question thats been proposed about gershwin. If he did have characteristics of adhd and he were alive today, and he was taking ritalin, what would that affect be on rhapsody in blue . Would we have it . Thats based on expert input, doctor looked at gershwin so its the fastening question to explore. Tv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. 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