♪ ♪ >> i like the music. >> hello, welcome. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> thank you for being here. is a great honor for me to be here and i'm somewhat intimidated even though it's a several years a sense the prime minister and the president were in office. i'm still intimidated when i'm around at them, but i want to point out that our titles start with the same word, former. [laughter] >> so, that makes us sort of equal. [laughter] >> if i heard you speak french before, i might not have made you ambassador. [laughter] >> you would have a lot of reasons to take that back. it's a so bright, can't see, but i know he has here somewhere. is remote over there? went to acknowledge raymond, might partner when i was ambassador. he was the canadian ambassador to the united states and was a remarkable career foreign service officer for canada. we did work very very well together, which i think is a model for how investors should work to president clinton looked to appoint a ambassador to canada, couldn't find one and settled on me. so, let's move along here. these two gentlemen served as g8 leaders together for seven years plus. i can tell you from my experience as an observer, that they developed a remarkable personal chemistry. they were always, of course, taking their responsibilities for their respective countries as their first priority, but they also new is the dynamic in chemistry between them would be of value to both our countries and frankly, i think, to the world. i'm not sure that there have been very many instances, frankly, in history where world leaders were as close as these two german work and i'm not just talking about canada and the united states. i'm talking in general. president clinton to visit canada more than any president in the united states history, and i have to note that he came to ottawa in october of 99 to dedicate the us embassy there. the only time a us president in our history before or since went and dedicated a us embassy outside the country, which was a statement, i believe, about his interest in canada. he later went on to make a speech on federalism, which we will discuss. prime minister jean chretien, we almost had to give him honorary american citizen. he had relatives in new hampshire with a lot of them down there and. >> they became christian. [laughter] >> well, people in new hampshire speak french as well as i do. [laughter] he even came to my alma mater and brought a trade mission to atlanta, where i live. they work together to make north america a remarkable place for all of us, but also as i said to improve the world. i have to say, there were times when there was stress in their relationship. president clinton went to make a speech that-- at chretien's request, but part was inducement to play a great golf course there after the speech and the president and his habit was running late so it started to get dark after nine holes in the premised to look at him and said , though, it's too dark and we will have to call the match and the president looked at him and got a little strapped and said you promised me a golf game. we are going to play a golf game and then he looked at me and i thought i was the us ambassador, but i got in charge of the lights. [laughter] he said my ambassador will fix this. [laughter] >> so, the secret service lands and trucks pulled up to the edge of the golf course and let the fairway and he said, see. they finished the round. my last the net before we get to the business at hand, there's a wonderful picture that i have seen that was in mr. chretien's office. the two of these gentlemen were at a g8 meeting in manchester, england, and alike schoolboys they escaped from the boring meetings and went running across the pasture together to get away from that tedium of it and we had the prime minister of canada who is 12 or 13 years older up on top of a wall helping the president of the united states climb over this wall to get away from the security guards. [laughter] so, i am going to give you a chance to talk. i promise. first, what i would like to ask you gentlemen is that again through my observation, there were two other people in this partnership who are not only extraordinarily supportive, but probably drove that success that each of you realized. mr. chretien, i know a leading into this evening and i wondered if you would tell us how this chretien is doing in mr. president, i just finished hillary clinton's book the other night and it seems likes-- she still has some gas in the tank, so i want-- [laughter] i would like you to give us a sense of how our former first lady and secretary of state is doing. >> she's-- eileen is doing very well. she is here with me tonight. married 65 years. [applause]. we have been married 60 years and she was my rock. [applause]. she will not talk much, but when she has something to tell me it was very straight. you talking too long, you know or shut up-- no, no she never say that. she was very good to keep me in line with my speeches, meeting people and just something-- i would make a speech, but i'm not paying too much attention and she would watch. you know, when you said that, when guided not applaud and not get up. neither the other guy and after that i set the two together after that. watch them, she would tell me. so, you know what can i see. she's the mother of my three kids and we have five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. not too bad. in january, i put my great grandson on skis. 75 feet, went down and so my grandson said, william is his name and your hand is there and write you go along. than about 50 feet, so when i arrived home after that i said don't forget william that you are skiing for the first time with your grand grandfather and he said no, i was skiing alone. [laughter] >> so i say watch him. thank you. [applause]. >> first of all, since you introduced your beautiful wife, one of my lasting memories of being the american president in canada is when she took hillary's-- hillary skating because hillary is from chicago and i'm from arkansas. we didn't do skating when i was a boy. we didn't have a ice anywhere. now, the south thanks to air-conditioning as professional hockey teams, but back then we didn't do skating and hillary went out and i thought she was never going to come back. she just went skating off. she's doing well. it's a good book i didn't think she had time to do the book, but she worked so hard and too young people who worked on her campaign did and i think it was really important to try to explain especially to people who care about our country and were close to what was happening, what in fact happened. so, i'm proud of her and she's doing great and our daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren are doing great. my daughter, when she was in high school thought she knew more than her parents did about everything. alas as i finally admitted last year, it is finally true. so, in the year and a half when her mother was running for president she works full-time for her, fulfilled her responsibilities that our foundation, had her second child , wrote two books and taught her class a public health at columbia. otherwise, she just lays around. so, she has her mother's intelligence and character and discipline, which is a good thing. we are very blessed and very happy and i thank you for asking [applause]. >> so, at the outset i suggested that the two of you developed a remarkable chemistry together and in some ways in my eyes i almost looked at minsk-- mr. mr. chretien as being the older brother in the relationship to both of you grew up in small rural communities. both of you had an affinity for people, enjoy people. of both of you decided at an early age that being involved in public policy was important to you and in order to do that successfully you had to be in the political process, which both of you master, i would suggest. the similarities are remarkable in the language is a little different, but the similarities are remarkable. i remember someone once said, mr. prime minister, that you were difficult to understand in both official languages, but-- [laughter] >> i think i may get fired. [laughter] >> everybody understood me. churn out. >> the thing i would like both of you to help us understand is did that chemistry exist and if it did, did you find that it is this that you working together, not just in canada us relationships, but in global engagements that made a difference be on our shores? >> for me, bill and i we were politicians. we did that as a profession and i'm very proud i was a politician all my life. we can make differences. of course, you are being criticized all the time, but i felt comfortable with the kids-- i'm sorry mr. president, it's because we have been elected and when you are elected you are serving the people and you try to make a better society for everyone. so, we have the same goals. how can we make our people better off, the same value we shared because we believe in equality, the ability to share in society, give opportunity for the young people to make a good life for themselves. is why we are in politics and of course, it is fun. the risk of winning and losing adds to the game. it's why i was so comfortable with him because i felt, like me, that he was a professional politician as a goal to do the job for the people of the united states like i was trying to do for canada. [applause]. >> first of all, when he won and i started studying his career and i realized he had virtually every ministerial post until he got to be prime minister he could it all down job to save his life. he kept changing jobs. i was fascinated for a lot of reasons. we did identify with his background. i was born in a small town, two-family modest means in the state that has the second lowest per capita income on what the american states right after world war ii. but, i was newly child until i was 10 and my mother lost a baby and then had another child when she-- when i was 10. when i learned that he was the youngest of 18,-- that's right s it? >> 19. >> there were 19, but you were the 18th; right? so, i became fascinated. i said i have got to get to know him because it's an unbelievable tributes to his parents and to the culture in which he was born that a person born to a family without a lot of money with 18 or 19 children develop the kind of personality, self-confidence, work habits and just-- i got why he understood people took it was probably a survivor of skill in that family, but you think about it. before i ever met him i said, this might-- guy must be something. 18th kid and he winds up being premised or he's got to have a lot of persistence otherwise, he would have never been fed. [laughter] >> so, i was utterly fascinated by him. then, i found that we basically thought alike. i was a depression era baby even though i was not born until after the war, but i had these kids in my generation in arkansas, we weren't brought up on stories of the depression, people out of work, my grandfather couldn't afford a dollar and a half to buy my mother a new easter dress. so, she made me have a new outfit every easter when i was a kid. i was young and fat and i hated it, but it was a family pride deal because her dad couldn't do it. so, we wound up being basically socio- economic progressive, but fiscal conservatives. we both balanced the books. [applause]. >> you know, i live in a long law of land now down in america where everyone professes to care about sending and as long as they don't have to pay for it. so, it's kind of a crazy time, but we were old fashion and a somewhat say out of date, but it worked out pretty well for you. i came, however, to respect what he knew, what his instincts were , how smart he was, how strong he was. we had a few disagreements and they were enlightening to me and we never became angry at each other when we were doing our job for our respective countries and we became real friends and i think that it's importance, not to forget that one of the reasons the world is so polarized today is that we don't see each other as people. we get off in our own little silos and is start out with the presumption of mistrust, so i didn't feel that with him. i spent 20 minutes with him and realize i could trust him. i never wanted anything written down and i didn't need it. if he said it was going to be x and we shook hands i knew it would be x that's what you want in human relations and what we somehow need to recapture again, even with people with whom we disagree, there needs to be some restoration of basic human decency and mutual respect, so you trust. without trust, things don't work very well. [applause]. >> the first time we are in seattle, you know, i was the new prime minister in the first meeting of aipac was in seattle and i sat next to you and i surprise you a lot. i said, president, i don't want to be too close to you because if i'm too close to you, they will think that i am that 51st state of america, but if i look independent from you i can do things for you that the cia cannot do. [laughter] remember that? >> i do. >> he did not disagree. ), played golf, but you know canada and america were the closest people. you know, you are president when i was prime minister 1 billion-dollar of trade on a daily basis. we have very few problem. we have problems, yes, problems in montréal once in a while. but, we try to solve with them and we talk about it and you have to make concession. i had to make concession, but we had in mind that what is the best for the country and trust is everything and we didn't try to score points. i didn't want to take advantage of my friendship with you, but when we were at the g7 or g8 together we calibrated, we help each other, we tried to convince the others about what is not american because we deal in america who have some problems. we have virtually no problem with immigration in the united states and canada because we understood that we need immigrants in the nation. [applause]. i would say immigrant is a nasa. the first day they arrived they go to the store and buy food, clothing, they buy furniture and car and that's an asset for 10 years as a consumer and someone else pay for the vacation. we understand that type of problem. but, the great difference of bill at the meeting is his knowledge. this guy, you talk about anything with built clinton and he read about-- bill clinton and he read about it long before you it was very fascinating. he was not try this. you is not a bully at all. his great quality is he wanted to convince you. he felt your pain a little bit, you know? he wanted to convince you. take all the time you need. others sometime will decide that it is what i want and that's it. for you, you are not satisfied until you convinced me. i'm grateful for that. [applause]. >> i actually thought the answer to to the question was that it worked so well because of the qualities of the ambassadors that when the two capitals, but we will come back to that. >> yeah, there was that. >> so, you talked about-- thank you for the segway, he talked about trade. trade in the united states has become quite controversy zero. we are now trying to figure out if we can trade between georgia and south carolina because it's a bad word. we are along with our partners in mexico, obviously renegotiating nafta. nafta was negotiated before you became president, but you had to get it passed through the congress and i suspect if it hadn't been a democrat in the white house we probably wouldn't have got it passed and you did a remarkable job. you became prime minister and extracted a few other agreements with respect to nafta and then headed approved. so, that was 25 years ago. i think any objective observer would say is been enormously positive for all three countries , even though there are flaws, it's been enormously popular. 25-year old policy certainly needs to be updated, renewed and made more forward looking, but i would love to hear from you to weather in retrospect you think it was the right thing at that time and if so, what your view is now whether or not we should have a renewed nafta going forward. >> 23 years after we made the deal the two of us the first morning i was prime minister, first phone call was president clinton. after he said congratulation, he said we have a problem with nafta. remember? he said our problem in the congress, so i was not pray mr., an hour later goldenberg ambassador-- your investor jim blanchard were on the phone and we were on the way to a solution. i was not even the prime minister and because for me, trade has increased around the globe. the fact that we have everyone been able to trade, economy is emerging like china for example used to be hundreds of thousands of people dying every year in china. now they are quite prosperous and the globe is a lot more well than it was before free trade became a must. the problem, after 23 years for me and you is perhaps it-- the wealth has not been well distributed and it may be the biggest problem at this moment. the redistribution of wealth. the rich have too much in relation to what the poor have gained during that long period of time, so we have to find a way to remedy that, but freak trade created wealth in the trade between the two of us has been very good for canada. you know, we more prosperous today in canada because of that. the united states come i don't know why they complain at this time when you have the lowest unemployment in a long time. so, we have to look at what is positive in public life. i don't like those who are always negative because our responsibility is to make people feel good. if you feel good you get out, you spend money and if you tell them you are in deep trouble, they do nothing. so, it was very good for canada, good for the united states and we added a big population to our market because mexico has grown a lot and have become buyers of goods from canada and a goods from the united states. of course, we have to take their goods, also, but the three of us have gained a lot of growth through the free trade agreement. nafta was her a good deal. nafta was a very good deal. >> i think it was the right thing to do. from the full point of the united states, consider what would have happened if we had defeated it in terms of the rhetoric today coming out of the national administration. if we had defeated it, we would have had another billion or so undocumented immigrants from mexico. as there is economy took a terrible hit we would have been widely low this throughout latin america the one place where our trade volumes went way up in eight years i was president. we had more games in exports in latin america than any other part of the world. and it left us all stronger with more diversified economies. now, all trade agreements have winners and losers. but, there have been-- i want to make three quick points. number one, there have been lots of independent studies done, which show that the effects of the numbers jobs, not only in the united states, but canada and mexico have been modest. what has changed is the nature of the jobs. jobs tied to exports ironically in all three of our countries for very different reasons tend to pay more than jobs that are solely depended upon the domestic economy. so, with income inequality being what it is, there is no doubt the working people have made more money than if they had not been any trade agreements. the problems in the united states are that once-- and if i had to do again this is what i would deal with. once the republicans who wanted nafta had what they wanted, they didn't want to fund the north american development bank. they didn't want-- they didn't want to find new incentives to invest in areas that have been heard by trade and it took me from 1993 all the way to 2000 and tell we passed the new market tax credit designed to create markets in place that had been left behind. those are the people who are most anti- trade. the people that feel like they have been passed by, even though it may not be due to trade or don't forget this, i don't know what the canadian figures are, but the biggest problem with the job losses has to do with chinese trade. in america, mostly because we didn't after i left office and force our agreements with china much because they were buying $900 billion worth of our debt a year and few people take big fights with their bankers, but if we buy a product in america made in china on average it has 4% american components. from mexico, 40%, from canada 25 , so another words the more we integrate our economies the more likely we are to find mutual benefits. what we all have to do is to get because if we stop trading tomorrow automation and artificial intelligence are going to threaten more jobs and so we all have to recognize that if you are rich country like china and america ironically we should be able to much more manufacturing in the years ahead because labor costs will be a smaller percentage of the total and materials, energy and transportation to market will be a bigger percentage. so, therefore, since our markets are big relatively speaking we will do better and we should get more, but the number of jobs involved in making anything will go down because manufacturing is the most productive part of the economy. so, we can't look at this-- we need to think about how are we all going to be five years from now, 10 years from now and then if i could do it again i would get the money up front for the people that were going to lose so the minute they knew the jobs were leaving we would invest and give them something else to do. a bat i regret. i just assumed anyone that voted for a trade bill do there would be winners and losers and be able to help the losers and i was wrong about that. but, the net effect of nafta was positive. it was positive for economics and for our political relations between ourselves and with mexico. between 2010 and 2014 if you heard the rhetoric in the last campaign you probably find this hard to believe. there was zero net immigration from mexico to the united states. because they had their own economy and because the president-- then president of mexico created 142 positions with universities and 100,000 engineers in your as compared with america three times the size that produces 120,000 engineers a year. we need to grow together. the americans started with us, canada and mexico. if the world goes to hell in terrorism, bombing and everything, we got to hold tight to each other. it's far south as we can get, people who believe in freedom and democracy and markets and if the world gains a good sense again and starts moving away from terror and away from oppression and towards more economic and political immigration, then we need a base from which to fly. this is it. so, i think we did the right thing. it's just that in the last election at home so many people felt left out (and nafta was a convenient targets. that's what i think. [applause]. >> before you leave, it is true that it needs some work. it's an old thing. it's long in the tooth and there are a lot of issues dominate that we didn't deal with then, so i keep believing that if the american administration is willing to work in good faith with the prime minister just justin trudeau negotiators and mexican negotiators we can find win-win solutions here. there are lots of things that could stand fixing in nafta because look how much the economy has changed in the last 25 years, so i hope you have good negotiations and hope they will come out okay. [applause]. >> perhaps, i can tell you an anecdote. bill, when i was sworn in, i received a phone call from texan by the name of ross perot. he said to me, prime minister, if you kill nafta i will erect a big monument for you in texas. but, i said mr. perot a big monument for me in texas is not very useful because none of them would be voting for me. [laughter] because he was against nafta. remember? [inaudible] >> so,-- >> he said nafta would create a giant sucking sound because all the jobs disappeared almost 23 million jobs later i kept listening. [laughter] >> so, i had a great experience of moving to canada when i was three months old. my father moved to montréal, and i went through seventh grade in montréal in high school in toronto, so if you like i grew up in the so-called to solitude in canada and in 1999, when we were getting ready to inaugurate a new us embassy in ottawa, which i built a brick by brick, then president clinton and i mentioned earlier had agreed because the state department stub-- advice to come to ottawa to inaugurate that building because at the time they said we had never done it anywhere else and you're crating a president and his attitude at the time was if not canada, where and mr. chretien, you reach out and asked if he would come to-- there was a form on federalism taking place and we worked out a schedule that permitted him to go there and he ended up being the concluding speaker. i must say that it was-- he had told me before i ever came to canada, and after i had been sworn in the president had it told me that the united states didn't focus enough on the neighborhood and that we were going to focus on the neighborhood and so i knew from that minute forward about his knowledge and interest in canada. but, you invited him to come to québec to make a speech on federalism. at that time the question now québec in canada was still quite active. there was a government in québec at the time that was advocating separation. the president agreed to come under circumstances that developed it that i got quite nervous about because he threw away the speech that he was supposed to make that had been prepared and decided that he would talk from the hearts and the brain and it turned out to be the most remarkable tour de force i think about intellectual underpinning for federalism and how it was to keep the country together. made me nervous, but it worked perfectly. actually, mr. chretien came over to me after the speech of that i would like to have a copy of that speech and i said, so would i. [laughter] >> i'm never seen what he just said, so i want to ask you why you decided to invite him to come and it and i would like to ask you, why you decided to come and what was in your thinking about being here in the promise of québec talking about that question. >> because when we work together , we were dealing with problems like former yugoslavia, the fight between different groups and we had to send armed forces there and discussing we thought the federation well-organized can function well. bill told that to me, when we were to have-- we met in new york with the 50th anniversary of the un and us me a question. how're you doing, i hear you're having problems and you said to me, there would be a tragedy if a country like canada to be broken because you have a very good recipe. how can you work between people of different language, different color, different religion and have everyone equal and to his credit, someone asked him a question and he repeated that to the media. québec was not too happy with that statement, but i was happy. [laughter] >> i think it was very useful, but when he came, he explained that if we were to divide according to the language and the color and the religion, then it would be two or 300 or 400 countries in the world, so he explained federalism was a good mechanism. my minister in charge of the public relation told me, he said prime minister, with the stick international conference and i would like to have an important speaker to open up a close. really, who do you want and he said i would like to have the president of the united states. oh, really. >> and the president of mexico, so i manage with you to get him to come. i thought between you and i the golf game was a big part of it and he came and he made this fabulous speech and after that i had to find him and i said i would liked you to come and make a speech for this important conference. he said i cannot do that because to get out of mexico i need to have permission of my power and i cannot ask permission to make a conference in canada. i said it's too bad because i had organized in such a way that if you were to come to make the speech, diana krall would be there to play the piano for you because i have been in his house in mexico and i heard the music of diana krall and he loves diana krall. [laughter] so he asked permission. [laughter] [applause]. he was there with his wife and eileen and a few friends and i was asking him, what you want to hear, mr. president. he delivered a good speech, but i was not there. i could not compare. out not there for his, but i was there when diana was there and so it is the way i organized that, but the importance of that is how to organize a society. i'm telling you. i said to as the president of the united states and the president of mexico to come, impossible request, but i tried and succeeded. [applause]. but, when we were at the table at the g8 and so on, the problem -- the world has to mesh and audible-- [inaudible] >> if the people can understand that the color of the skin, the religion that you profess come the language you speak, for every human being we have to accept the differences. canada is a good example and you are in the united states. this time you are having some problem about it, but we had to insist about equality of everybody. [applause]. >> and we have these debates in canada, also. some people are afraid that perhaps too many people are coming from the muslim faith. in zero, what is the difference? you know, it's the human being that is important and if we can check of the world that we: together, where they fighting between this tonight and shiite. i don't understand. i try to understand. i don't know. northern ireland were fighting between the protestant and catholic. i was the first to go to their parliaments. first meeting they had to gather the protestant and the catholic it was very tense i said why the hell, you guys? you all christian. [laughter] >> christian, protestant, catholic our christian. just question of forget about the past and a look at the future care problem is we are looking often to the past and don't keep enough time to look for the future in understanding trust, sharing these are the qualities that are needed in the world. [applause]. >> first of all, i agree with what he said, but you know this whole-- every election and every society and a lot of our interactions they all involve questions of identity. and i was fascinated by the canadian in the cold-- québec referendum for the reasons john mentioned that. i was trying to end the conflict in ireland and in the middle east and trying to stop the killing and bosnia and coats of zero later-- coast of zero later i grew up in the american south which succeeded from the union at the civil war and i'm a scotch irish protestants. 25% of all the soldiers-- [inaudible] but, they also are disproportionately if they live in small towns and rural areas likely to support the current administration and their policies as they are highly clannish so the trick in building a diverse world that is interdependent is to convince people that they can keep what is special about their identity without denying the fundamental humanity of others and all federalism devices are designed to set up a system in which people can naturally evolve to greater levels of cooperation without giving up their identity. that's why this whole recent violence in spain where the catalonia's are so sad. but, they had in the northwest of spain and then the catalonia referendum, but you see this all over the world. we had a great presentation when you did this conference from nigeria because they had a third of the country muslim and a third is sort of urban christian and a third in the middle is kind of in the middle and so this identity thing will be with us for a long time to come, but the thing that is most dangerous is to present it in a way that dehumanizes about other and acts like in order for you to win in life-- >> we are going to break away from this program was expected to be a brief pro forma session of u.s. senate. we will return to this program when they gavel out. .. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., october 13, 2017. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i here by appoint the honorable shelley capito, a senator from the state of west virginia, who will perform the duties of the chair. signed: orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate previous order, the senate >> the senate will reconvene on monday at 4 p.m. eastern for legislative work. they will take up the nomination of callista gingrich to the u.s. ambassador to the vatican. a confirmation vote is at 5:30 5:30 p.m. eastern. live coverage here on c-span2. we will return out to former president bill clinton and former canadian prime minister jean chretien. >> you've helped us check yours when we thought it might be terrorist coming over when we celebrated the millennium. we were all naïve and we think we've become suddenly -- on balance it means something that genetically were 99.5% of the same. therefore same. therefore it is to go spend 99.5% of her time thinking about the one half of percent of her. [applause] and by the way, that's not just a political statement, right? if you're a man, how many times have you thought something like if i were seven feet tall i could been a great basketball player? i don't have times i've said to myself watching television if i had a body like lebron james i would have gone into a different line of work. the whole deal between me and him, and he's unbelievable, everything you could see about him is different from the that's not age-related is an have to percent of our genome. we spend all of our time -- that's a stupid way to run a railroad and independent world. that's the bottom line. that's why i i thought he did a great thing having that federalism conference and i think the people of canada did a great thing in the people of québec did a great thing deciding to stay in. you have, i just found, i was in -- [applause] i was in toronto yesterday, but this summer my family and i had our family vacation in eastern québec. we went to the site of -- in her book. i too have come to canada because of diana krall and sarah mclachlan. and today i went to a bookstore and bought a book in honor of his passing with all of the lyrics to the songs. [applause] it's a special place. everybody is looking to you now because they think you're the grown-ups in the house all of the sudden. not because there's no difference between being from québec and ontario or alberta or british columbia, but because you found a way to get the best of both worlds, to treasure your differences. to find something in common more important and to include more diversity without looking in the mirror and screaming i don't exist anymore, because of all this diversity. it is a major question facing the world today, and people would do well to look and see what he did and what you did in this referendum 20 years ago. [applause] >> it is the biggest question facing the world. you will never do anything about economic inequality. you will never overcome the underlying problems of dare, and we will not have enough unity to do what we need to do to stave off the worst of climate change and last, first, we conquer zero-sum tribalism. look, i am oam and i'm damn proud of it, but i don't think that we are always right. and i love being in the world where both most people younger than me and every time i go to a meeting, it's not full of people like us old gray-haired white guys in suits. it makes us stronger. diverse groups make better decisions. and we need to get over it. [applause] >> may be now see why you didn't rely on the speech i gave him about federalism. he does pretty well on his own. i will point out that one of us appear doesn't have gray hair. >> you've got a little. [laughing] >> when you said we need to keep looking towards the future, i have to say that for some reason the thing that kept playing in my head when you said that is the 1992 campaign song for clinton for president was don't stop thinking about tomorrow. i almost got teary-eyed. it's all about -- >> you were right. >> all about the future. so i wanted to ask you a question that in our systems produces a little bit different result that intrigues me. in the united states where this sort of informal thing called the president club. there was actually a pretty good book written on the subject where former presidents, once, when they are former they are clearly out of office, even if they were opponents, become quite close. there is a bond for having served in that office. and not only do they become friends, but the begin to work together on philanthropic and humanitarian projects together. i mean, jimmy carter and gerald ford ran against each other and became dear friends. president clinton ran against george h. w. bush, senior george bush, and in recent years somebody, because of how close they have become, refer to president clinton as george bush is son by another mother. the other day i was watching my television, the president's cup golf tournament, and there is a barack obama, george w. bush and bill clinton sitting there having, almost like they're going to a high school reunion together. i will ask whether not the current incumbent will be invited to join. [laughing] i won't go there, but i'd like to hear your view of that kind of relationship. but my observation, and correct me if i'm wrong, is that kind of chemistry among former prime ministers isn't the same. y'all don't hang out together. you don't go to golf matches together. is it because of the difference in our systems, or why is that bond different? >> because i'm the only one playing golf. [laughing] no, but the reality is we don't have this culture in canada. it's probably because of the party system. the party system is stronger in canada than you have in the united states, because i said sometimes that the democrat of the south is to the right of the republican of the north. you don't have the same institutions as political parties. for me, for example, i'm close to joe clark, for example, because we work together in the house of commons for many, many years. but for harper, you know, i talk with him once in a while. i don't meet mr. maroney because he doesn't, to montréal too often but we have the occasion but we don't have this tradition of being together to do something like they do when there is a disaster, they all appear and so on. it's kind of sad but that does not exist, and perhaps it should be restored, or not restored, to create because i never knew there was friendship of that kind between the predecessor of mine during the time of pearson or someone. we never heard they were gathering together to do good things. that's probably a problem of culture, and perhaps, yes, we don't do that because there's no occasion to do that, and we are not requested very often to do that. so we don't appear together the same way that the president of the united states. >> well, i saw john major yesterday in toronto. he just happened to be, he is coming over here tomorrow i think, and he reminded me that they didn't have much of this tradition either in the uk, but he and tony blair went together to northern ireland. you know, tony blair is a good friend of ours, and we did a lot together. and major was a tory but i think he was underrated and got too little credit for having the courage to risk his job to start the irish peace process. so they went together to try to convince the people in northern ireland to vote against brexit, because they said if it passes it will put the piece at risk in the way people live it. because then you won't have a borderless situation going back and forth, and then the northern irish won't have duty-free access to european market and vice versa, and were trying to get you up, that supports part,, we're trying to lift you up. he was reminded me he and tony blair did this. i think they both enjoyed it. i think he said it's not like we all live together and go play golf once a week. i am unusually close to the first president bush and i become friends with the sun, partly because of the respect he developed for hillary when she was a democrat serving on the armed services committee, and often disagreed with him. and we just started talking together. and i think what you have to do is find something to do. that's what these, you know, when second president bush asked his father in to work on the tsunami 12 years ago and then on katrina, and then president obama asked the second president bush and i to work on haiti after the earthquake, and i was already there for the human so we work together for a couple of years, and i just kind of stayed on. i like katie. i'm like a lot of canadians. it infects you and it drives you stark raving mad but you can't put it down once you pick it up. they are the most abused and neglected country. they've engaged in a lot of self abuse, but they are magnificent, and i keep hoping and praying that someday they will have the government and the systems they deserve because their talents are immense. [applause] but anyway, so in other words, we had a reason to do something together. then if you're working on the tsunami it's a long way from america to indonesia. you're on a long plane flight. you get to know somebody. all of a sudden you remember what it was like before you rant against them, and we had a good relationship. that's what you have to do. it's just personal contact. i am telling you we got to reestablish examples of trust in the world among people who have honest disagreements. if you don't get trust back, the system is not going to work. you're going to have this tribalism run rampant, and there are enormous numbers of people who benefit economically from tribalism. it's good for the media, bad news is it's much easier to get into an eight-second sound bite than good news. it's good for everybody except you. use the people in a larger sense, and our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. i would do any, if you call me tomorrow and he said i know this is crazy but i need you to go to your bank account and get $100,000 and sent to me and i'll tell you next week what it's about, i would do it, because i trust him. because i think he's a good person. because somehow you emerge from the 18th and 19th and became a unique, remarkable, tough but caring person. i would just do it. i wouldn't ask. don't you all have somebody you know that you feel that way about? we need to get to where we feel about more people that way, and this, because this identity politics is going to dog as for a long time because we are being thrown together at a pace and in ways that we've never been thrown together in all of human history, and he's right. think about the future. and see people as people. those are the two keys. [applause] >> so i could do this all night. i'm having about as much fun as i can have, and i think seeing these two gentlemen together this evening gives you a sense of what a remarkably delightful opportunity i was given in life to work with the two of them, and to be a fly on the wall as they worked together. i would've done it for free, and action in the american system you almost do it for free, but i had a nice house. i do on all night. as president clinton would say we did come visit, he would say this is not bad for public housing. [laughing] if it were not for the clock police that better standing bar that are clearing -- clearly telling me to shut up, i would keep going. but if you would join me in thanking these two remarkable gentleman. [applause] >> this weekend on booktv, live coverage of the 2017 southern festival of books in nashville. starting saturday at 11 a.m. eastern with biographer jonathan ike >> watch our live coverage of the 2017 southern festival of books in nashville this weekend on c-span2's booktv. >> sunday night on "after words" come historian craig shirley on the life and political career of newt gingrich with this book citizen, the making of a reagan conservative turkeys interviewed by former virginia congressman tom davis. >> this is an era before cable television. cable television is prominent today. cable news wasn't. >> it was before cnn, before msnbc. little pockets of cable and there but mostly reruns of i love lucy and the andy griffith and stuff like that. there's no talk radio to speak out, that this is the big media, and c-span. and he quickly realizes the potency of giving special orders every afternoon, a five-minute speech because of it being carried over cable and a 100,000 homes around the country. dick armey, former congressman dick armey used to go on and say, gingrich would say, dick, would you go to an audience come to speech to 100,000 people? of course you would. that's what you're doing with c-span's come with special orders every afternoon. so c-span became, he quickly becomes a cold political leader and is getting 700 letters a week from people around the country, to this backbench of junior member from georgia who's a member of a minority party, already achieving national power. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> we are live this morning for the annual values voter summit in washington, d.c. hosted by a number of conservative organizations. we are shortly from some republican lawmakers who were reflect on what's happening on capitol hill include north carolina congressman mark meadows was at the house freedom caucus. president trump expected to speak to the group at about 10:30 a.m. eastern. also counselor to the president kellyanne conway. this afternoon session will get underway about 2 p.m. eastern on c-span with house majority whip steve scalise, alabama republican senate candidate judge roy moore and a panel of religious freedom should take us up to about 5 p.m. today. steve bannon is scheduled to speak to the group tomorrow. this is a live coverage on c-span2 which should start here in just a moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> again where i live in the nation's capital for the annual values voter summit hosted by number of conservative organization. president trump expected to speak to the group at about 10:30 a.m. eastern where we suspect the president could regulate plants did you regarding the iran nuclear deal. the president expected to decertify that agreement which could ultimately mean more sanctions on iran. that announcement will be live at 12:45 p.m. eastern on c-span. again the president speaking here at the values voter summit at 10:30. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> while we wait for the start of the values voter summit here is yesterdays pentagon briefing with an update on canadian american family in pakistan that a been held captive for about five years by the taliban. >> good afternoon, everyone. i have a few items i'd like to update you on. first, today marks the 1020 fifth day the department has been operating under scr. we are looking for to congress getting back into the driver seat and packing a fully funded fy '18 budget before the current cr ends on december 8. secretary mattis is in tampa, florida, for meetings with central command and general thomas a special operations command. you will conclude his trip in miami will meet with the admiral of southern command. the goal is to talk to commanders to about how we're carried out the isis campaign and south asia strategy with our allies and partners. at south, he will discuss opportunities to build and foster greater partnerships with our southern neighbors. on isis, there getting desperate. civilians are running towards the iraqi security forces and syrian democratic forces because they know they are the good guys. thousands of the fighters are surrendering because they know isis can't win. coalition forces support iraqi forces as they liberated and entered the final phase for rocket. more than .4 million iraqis and syrians have been liberated from the grip of isis, territory by the size of california. the coalition will continue to strike isis wherever they are found. local forces in iraq and syria have fought valiantly to liberate cities from isis. it is because of their efforts and their tremendous sacrifices that i can say isis is on the run. so with that we will take your questions. >> a question about the release of the coleman family from captivity in pakistan. did the u.s. military played any role at all in either their release or their transport to islamabad? and will to be transported for any kind of decompression or any medical evaluation? >> when the going to talk with any of those details but we will say we thank the pakistani army for their assistance, and that this definitely represents an opportunity to work more closely with the pakistanis on counterterrorism. >> could you say whether it was any kind of firefight were u.s. forces involved in any way? >> when i going to talk with any more details. >> i know there's limitations to what you can discuss on the raid, more of the operation is there a was one. we are unclear about what happened, what did the pakistan army army do? what did the united states congratulate the pakistan army for having done? >> the president appreciated the help they did get it was in conjunction with the u.s. government and again it represents what we hope is an opportunity to work more closely with the pakistanis on counterterrorism. >> a couple questions. so white house chief of staff john kelly states americans should be concerned that north korea is developed icbm capability. what can you tell americans in order for them to feel safe. >> us we can tell americans they should feel very confident about our ability to protect the homeland and our allies against any threat from north korea. >> one more for you. today as we were getting updates on the dod response relief efforts in puerto rico, the commander in chief is tweeting the military and fema can't stay there forever. does the dod have some sort of timeline to get units out of puerto rico? is the clock ticking? >> i think, i think chief of staff kelly has a great answer. first responders and military, we want to work our way out of a job. we will continue to help and will continue to support fema as long as we requested. >> secretary mattis and general dunford testified on south asia. pakistani intelligence had clear links to terror groups. two groups like the haqqani network have close relations with with elements of the pakistani security services? >> i would say yes, further testimony, yes, i , yes, i thine still believe that our still close ties. >> i would just add to that, the new south asia strategy one of the elements, the regional station that the has been talking about. we would view this actual recovery of the citizens in pakistan by pakistani forces as a very favorable development along that line. we review this as a very positive thing pakistan has done moving forward. .. >> on the presidential podium this morning and those for a good reason. pretty soon we'll have the press joining us and addressing us and we're very excited about that. [cheers and applause] >> you can imagine security is a veryig

Related Keywords

Arkansas , United States , Texas , Washington , China , Indonesia , Togo , Toronto , Ontario , Canada , Ottawa , Mexico , Germany , South Carolina , Ireland , France , Spain , Americans , America , Canadians , Canadian , French , German , Irish , American , Jean Chretien , Jimmy Carter , Diana Krall , Shelley Capito , George W Bush , Ross Perot , Lebron James , Joe Clark , Tony Blair ,