zone of privacy around chelsea. hillary had spent a lot of time talking to jackie kennedy onassis about that, about how to raise young children in the white house. and how to raise a teenager. imagine having your date pick you up at the white house and your father is the president. my father would intimidate them, as i think any father, oh, just, you know, kind of quite sternly standing there at the top of the stairs as they had to walk up and say i m here to take your daughter to dinner or a movie or whatever we were doing. i think he loved that intimidation factor. what about your mom? what was she like when you would bring boys home? she already knew them. i m so close to my mom. she had already asked me and grilled me on anything she felt she needed to know. i remember one stage she brought and he was going through that stage where he would wear a baseball cap all the time. i finally said you have to take that baseball cap off. we re in the white house, we re having dinne
we just made it more like a real home and her friends were always welcome, we had lots of kids in the white house all the time. amazing memories of being 12 and 13 and playing hide and seek. it was so much fun. my parents were always just like don t break anything but otherwise go forth and play hide and seek. well, this is the green room, and it s one of my favorites. if something did break or there was a mess, hillary made sure chelsea cleaned it up. the kids were watching a movie and hillary went down when it concluded and discovered there was popcorn all over theater. and she said to them, you are not leaving here till you pick up every kernel of that popcorn. from the beginning the clintons asked the press to steer clear of chelsea. she and president clinton were adamant about maintaining a
her debate performances were more aggressive. we finally did the 3 a.m. spot that would become iconic. it s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep but there s a phone in the white house and it s ringing. and chelsea clinton emerged as a force on the trail. i wound up doing like more than 400 events in less than six months. i think in 40 states. sometimes two people showed up, sometimes 1,200 people showed up. some called it the chelsea effect. whenever she appeared, the gap between her mother and obama seemed to shrink. i need to go tell anyone and everyone who may have an iota of interest in listening to me why i m so passionately supporting my mom as a daughter, as a democrat, as an american. oh, i think she ll be more than the voice of change. the tide slowly started to turn, but there was not enough time to catch up.
my mom put contact paper, like, in every drawer. she kept, like, trying to find things to reorganize and finally my dad was like we need to go. mom was like there has to be something else. my dad was like it s now time. i think if dad hadn t intervened, my mom would have still been there when i graduated four years later. chelsea was an adult now, on her own. shielding her from controversy as hillary had done for 18 years would be much harder. how difficult is it for you to hear so many people harshly criticize your mother? well, it s just been something i ve got i don t know accustomed to over my life. i mean, i don t remember a time when my mom wasn t be attacked. charges of sex, lies and audiotapes. there is not a sexual relationship, that is accurate. january 1998, halfway through
other than to be me. but do you ever see a version and say who is that person? oh, all the time. i read things about me and i say i wouldn t like her either. i mean, really. who is this person? it s so clear to me who my mother is. she s kind, hilarious, compassionate, warm, loving. she does have i think the best laugh. i wish more people could see that. i wish more people on the kind of public advocacy side could recognize her lifelong commitment to children and to families and that really has been the core thread of her life. the core of her life and the core of her mission, to break that final glass ceiling. please welcome chelsea clinton. that moment when your daughter was on stage and introduced you as her mother and the first female presidential nominee of a major party, what was that like for you? oh, my gosh. i was watching backstage and i