Public service by americas Cable Television companies. It is provided today by your cable or satellite provider. Former president bill clinton spoke about ongoing efforts to combat Childhood Obesity at the annual summit for the partnership for healthier america in washington, d. C. This is 40 minutes. [applause] bill clinton thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, very much. Tardy upze for being here, i didnt get the memo about where i could stand and listen. I am mired the doctor, and wish to talk for another halfhour. Im very grateful to all of you. For the work you do. I want to say that i working on this Childhood Obesity issue for more than a decade. I have listened to remarks, i have been to the middle east and to asia. To put his debate with the efforts against burgeoning Public Health problems there. That therey grateful are companies that, where possible, are trying to work themselves out of a job by giving our children a healthier future. Thank the Schwartz Foundation and the Johnson Foundation for working with us. And i will tell you more about larry soller, the president and friend,ha and my good dr. Howell wechsler. I am very glad that all of you are here. That, in this sort of how do i say it unusual times [laughter] bill clinton you recognize for this is no place alternative facts. [laughter] bill clinton and i dont mean to be funny. This is still a major Public Health crisis. The lives of millions of young people are relying on the decisions we and they make. Commitment to help people live their healthiest and best lives is profoundly important. That tomorrow say , as you all know, youre going to hear from Michelle Obama. For whatt to thank her she has done in that position and what she has done in the white house. I will never forget [applause] when we started the alliance for the healthy after myn in 2005 heart surgery, there were not that many groups working on the Childhood Obesity issue. There werent that many people saying you know, we are about to have academic levels tied to diabetes. Consequence and heart troubles, stroke, some and premature, among other things, blindness and and that human heartbreak is going to be staggering. Say, i was amazed that we couldnt generate more interest for it. And she she got in spoke to a whole younger , i am justof people an old white guy in a suit. Im boring. And she asked our group, the healthieror the america and the food campaign, you could see the landscape open up. And more people were being willing to write about this or talk about it or educate people about it. So i am very grateful. Im glad that when to left the white house, she didnt leave the cause. I will never forget when the American Heart Association asked after i had my quadruple bypass surgery in 2004, to get involved in helping them. And i wanted to do it. Givene i felt i had been a incredible gift by dodging massive bullet, which i continued to bob and weave around for a while. I had two more procedures. I was 1 of the people who had that surgery with the fluid buildup on the lungs. 10 of them but only 10 of that 10 , the fluid buildup doesnt go away on its own. It is liketo peeling an orange off of your lungs. Vein, whichlost the happens to a lot of people who have quadruple bypass surgeries. And tookent back in out one of my arteries. Dead because it had a double curve in it. And they put two stents in. I got to watch that on television. That was a real hoot. The doctor said, are you going to watch this . And i asked if i was going to live through it and he said yes. And i said, i want to. [laughter] bill clinton the good news is that i was saved by modern medicine but the bad news was that i had no business being on that operating table. Right diet and lifestyle over my life, i wouldnt have been. And not everybody can be as to get to the table on time and have no damage. And a lot of people dont have the annual checkups. Accessrybody should have to a decent healthy diet and reasonable exercise programs. Checkups. Damental so when they asked me to help, i said look, i will be happy to help but i dont want to just do Public Service announcements. Lets do something to try to come to grips with this Childhood Obesity problem. Because otherwise, we are going to have terrible problems. And you can already see it in parts of the population, when the heartbreaking stories came about middleaged, noneducated middleclass people being the first group of americans where the Life Expectancy was going down, we learned a lot. That even then, the economic circumstances where objectively better than that of africanamericans, hispanic americans and native americans. Deep,t there was a emotional and psychological component. To what was going on. And the Life Expectancy was going down. I have been doing a lot of work in another part of my life with our Health Management initiatives to try to help communities deal with the opioid crisis. Thathere is no question there is a convergence between all of these things and the rising rates of type two diabetes and all of the consequences that are going to float. Lets try to get these people through their lives in better shape. You know theres something to be said for Second Chances. Health is about giving people Second Chances with their lives. So we did it. , when i of this year was 70 years, six months and one day old, i became the oldest person in my family for three generations. I come from a family where the men dont live long. And where the women havent , until you go back to my maternal greatgrandparents who lived into their mid70s. They looks like something straight out of american gothic. [laughter] bill clinton they lived in the country. They got out of the sunshine, they went to bed with the sunshine. They ate little. They had no vices. They were wonderful but weve got to do better. For theso grateful opportunity we have had to do this work. To we tried very hard actually stop and revert the tide of Childhood Obesity. And the first time i started talking about this, there were two groups of people. Those who didnt realize it was a big problem, so they had no clue what i was talking about, and those who knew it was the biggest unrevealed Public Health crisis in america, who thought it was tipsy for thinking that we could actually stop it and reverse it. Like, lets stop and reverse Childhood Obesity for all of you who work in this area know that it is easy to state but hard to do. It is like changing a culture. Ad this is about not just dietary thing, but it is the way i was Society Works with economics and Food Consumption and other things. It is like trying to turn the titanic around before it hit the iceberg. Is, every person you deal with is a potential titanics a you have to do it over and over and over again. And some things work in some areas and dont in others. So when we started, we started with a school. Because children spend most of their time outside their home there. Our Healthy School program in 2006 it seems like a lifetime 13 it was launched in states. It has since grown to become the largest effort to prevent Childhood Obesity in schools and now, it has helped to build Better School environments for more than 20 Million Students in more than 35,000 schools. And now we have 2600 out of School Fights in every state. The district of columbia and puerto rico. Then, we started worrying about the food itself. The new food guidelines came at a place, we unhealthyreplacing foods brought by contractors with different kinds of food that would be healthier. With thed this work Beverage Industry, which is now fairly wellknown, that we met with the american beverage association, coke, pepsi and snapple and some other people who just joined us. 120 ofe now more than the nations leading food and Beverage Health care and Technology Companies in some form or fashion. So. What youre doing here is really important to me. Is never as knockdown, as a blood on the floor fight. But the truth is, in the world we live in, creative cooperation involving diverse partnerships of people who live different lives and to know Different Things are the best mechanisms for solving complex social problems. Everybody who works for me they are all starting to laugh now because they know exactly iim going to say a good, that oldfashioned, knockdown fight much more emotionally satisfying. Im the first person in my family to go to college. I guess what is going on out there. All of this is troubling but it is a dumb way to run a railroad. Be emotionally satisfying in the way that eating bad food gives you a sugar high and leaves you hungry shortly afterwards. It doesnt work. What works is what you are doing here. And the reason the people who are here with me are rolling their eyes is because they know what im about to tell you. Do you know what the exhibit is at the clinton president ial center right now . Extreme bugs. [laughter] bill clinton do you know what my staff gave me for christmas last year . Not one, but two and farms. Farms. Why . Because i am telling them that the most important political book written in the last 10 years that would have made as ish healthier as citizens the social conquest of earth. It is less than 250 pages long and he is a double Pulitzer Prize winning microbiologist who taught me that the combined ts ont of all of the an earth is greater than the combined weight of the number of people. That is a lot of ants. [laughter] bill clinton why my telling you this . [laughter] sol clinton i will tell you you can save the purchase price. That there are hundreds and thousands of species on earth. They are sadly disappearing at the most rapid rate in 10,000 years but he says the most successful species that ever ased, if you define success we had repeated chances to be wiped out but they failed and here we are. We are still around. Aremost successful species ants, termites, bees and people. Not the biggest and not the strongest. And he says, what do we have in common . These are all of the species that are known as the greatest cooperators. They found ways to Work Together to solve common problems and build stronger futures. He says that people at the greatest cooperators but their great strength is our great terse. We have a conscience and consciousness. And we know it. And weakes us arrogant think we are. To slice and dice ourselves in ways that, in the end, threaten our ability to existence more threatening challenge. The Climate Change thing gives me a kick. No one is out. Is notstion that numerically verifiable says that this is an existential threat to the planet. So now, the new position is saying im not saying theyre wrong, but they might be wrong. We just have the coldest march in new york in 100 something years. I was pleading for Global Warming to come back. [laughter] bill clinton i get it. We can name all of these jokes. You name me one other threat that all of these parents maybe one threat that he wouldnt take seriously if you thought the odds of doing this were more than 90 better of doing that . Putting a child in a safe seat in the backseat, there is a chance your child will crash a collapse unless the car completely collapses. People say that is crazy. Odds are great. Throw the kid in the back seat and let them roll around. Nobody would do that, right . But that is what we are doing on Climate Change. There throwing the kid in backseat and letting them roll around. And that is what i want to say about this Public Health issue. The reason this is working is cooperation of complex groups of people who are different. It is an inclusive, cooperative network. Collects their i remember admitted after he came to work at the alliance for a healthier generation that he rolled his eyes when he heard. Bout the soda pop agreement it is like, im in Public Health and you expect me to believe that coke and pepsi and dr pepper and snapple and all of these actually agreed to cut the sugar out of their drinks in schools . It is an unsanitary as of the message look, i know you dont want to give these people diabetes because you dont want all of these people sitting in wheelchairs in invitations they are not going to buy soft recs. I know you dont want that. That is the necessary conclusion of when a kid goes to school and gets 50 of their calories from heavily sugared drinks. We do something about that. Surely there is a way you can make money in a different way. Anybody. Sk we cut the price of the eight strokes around the world and i never ask people to lose money. I say it is not sustainable. Can they find a way to make money in different way . And they did. They got sugared drinks out of the schools. They went to fruit flavored water and smaller portions of milk and juice. Havewo independent surveys concluded in the last few years that the alliance for healthy generation brokered agreement has reduce calories from drinks in schools by 90 . Mean, that is a bigtime number, right . Why . Because it turns out, if you really have people working in good faith and they share the same goals would like our children to live as long as possible and if youre totally cynical, we would like them to buy soda pop in their 30s and 40s as well as today, when presumably they will have more money, and by then we will have solved this problem and we cant let them die or be maimed, it just makes sense. So the larger point or want to we can do this in a big way. We are now working with the Beverage Industry to reduce total consumption of beverage calories, nationally. By people of all ages, everywhere, by 20 . By 2025. We have, as i said, we have negotiated an agreement with food manufacturers and purchase organizations. Seen total sales of healthier products. Increased 130 million. 70 increase over restarted. We actually got involved in Health Insurance and got employers and insurers. , at no extra cost, the coverage of trips to the doctor children ofn by covered workers who had obesity problems. They were almost 3 million kids now who are covered by more networks that are actually able to go to the doctor and to a dietitian and become part of an organized group and it is part of the Health Insurance model so that there is a cash flow reimbursement scheme. Agreement with mcdonalds to serve healthier food. Morehere were 21 million lowfat milk jugs and an increase in apple juice boxes. But the most important thing was, all of the other fast food people started improving their health care, too. We should do this, together. This work and that of the partnership for a healthier america. Most of will say them show that networks of cooperation undertaken in good faith by people who share the same goals will if you have to regulate, you can and figure the end out the most efficient way to reach the goal, faster and better. In coming up to the 10th year of the hunting Global Initiative clinton Global Initiative, we got independent fake data firm to review everything mating kept over 10 years. Two thirds of them involve partnerships. One third were going it alone. By the end, well over 90 of events involve multiple partners. Only, onthey not average, met their goals, they exceeded their goals. I will give you two examples because they kind of relate to what we are talking about with children. President obama gave a speech inside the country needed 100,000 more trained stem teachers. It was obvious given the politics of washington that he was not going to get a federal appropriation the paper it. Twocarnegie corporation got dozen partners and said we will do 20 . We will train, fund in place the teachers. Right after the president asked for it, about 2011 or 2012. Newek in the work york, i went to the latest meeting. Partners and280 they will have more than 100,000 stem teachers they train and place in our schools and did not cost the taxpayers anything. [applause] when the clinton ebola epidemic broke out, we got some touristed and getting adequate medical supplies there because all of you who remember changeit know yet to your clothing constantly and burn it and do all that. At cgi we had a dozen partners send 100 tons of medical equipment. Did not cost any taxpayers anything. Within a couple of months, they sent 500 tons. 24 to 30 partners who got together and said i can do this, i can do the other thing. All committed to the same goal. We should not have to have a calamity to do the right thing. Those of you trying to avoid calamity and create happiness an opportunity and success should be able to get more partners to do more positive things. I want to thank all the companies that are doing this. Knowing full well that a better job they do depending on the business they are in, they may cost themselves some business, and meanwhile they will meet nothing but skeptics he will try to find some example of where they did not achieve what they said they were going to. And they are doing the right thing anyway. But this is really important. This is a Major Economic issue for america. Works, if we keep doing it and making more and more progress, we will have a healthier workforce. We will have Lower Health Care costs than would otherwise be the case. We will have higher productivity than would otherwise be the case. That will generate more profits, higher incomes, more new businesses, more hiring, more everything by taking what is arguably from an economic point of view the biggest Public Health problem out. If we dont get a hold of the epidemicof the opioid and heroine and fentanyl and all that, it will be bigger. But right now have a long way to go to catch up to the aggregate impact of this. The concentrated impact of the Opioid Epidemic is worse because more people die quicker. But this is still a Public Health problem that affects largest number of people and impairs a learning capacity. For example, the growth capacity of the largest number of our children. I came here more than anything else to say thanks. And to say i believe more strongly than i did 10 years ago that partnerships between diverse partners are still the best problem solvers. Several years ago a distinguished journalist wrote a book called the wisdom of crowds he said you could fill this room with social science studies proving divers groups make better decisions than homogenous ones, for lone geniuses. If i could snap my fingers and instantaneously a person in this room with the highest iq would appear and we took this person off to a cushy little suite and give them what they wanted for two days and baby them and made them happy, and the rest of us were stuck your drinking stale coffee and eating cold rolls, and you felt the same 10 questions to the genius, we would make better decisions. It is proven over and over and over again. I want to encourage you to continue. Develop more examples of corporate engagement. Both the alliance for health and the partnership for Healthy America are trying to do that. Two organizations have involved 400 plus companies in making some sort of commitment to childrens health. Foundation,johnson and i want to thank them, has supported our work. They asked us and give us a little money to figure out how we could deepen our cooperation. Idea ofame up with this a Business Fund which would give every company a chance to provide all children and families with whom they are in contact, either as employees or customers, the chance to make choices that lead to the healthy as possible lives. Fund, whichusiness they the robert wood Johnson Foundation are going to f und quite generously to start out, these two organizations will develop new and Innovative Solutions to get even more kinds of partnerships with companies. And to involve nongovernmental organizations. We will have better coordination across the field. One of the things i learned, for alliance withr communities all across america through the help Medicine Initiative is there are a lot of things that peripherally affect Childhood Obesity. Places have no out of school play places. Like idealhat looks is jacksonville, florida, because its a citycounty government. Is the third biggest open space in america geographically, but the problem is you are walking downtown one minute, and one minute you are out in the country. Somebody they should be driving 35 is all of a sudden driving 70 and have the second or third highest industry and death rate in the country. If Everybody Knows that in jacksonville, that will impede people walking. That will have an impact on this. This idea of having communitybased Diverse Solutions is really important. That is what we are going to do, and thank you to the robert wood Johnson Foundation for writing the money for them to do it providing the money for them to do it. I would ask the ceo of our alliance for healthy generation and the ceo of the partnership for a Healthy America, who just told me he was a much younger brother of a guy who was my friend in law school [laughter] to be you are too young the brother of anybody im at a law school with. [laughter] he said they have a prolific family and a strong it out. Strung it out. I would like to ask them to come here so we can celebrate this. Starting to get with 1. 5 million and see what we can do. Thank you to the foundation. Thank you to the companys that will work with us companies that will work with us. I was glad to listen to the previous speaker. I really like what they do because every person who does not get diabetes is one less customer for them. There will be plenty of people with type one diabetes and other conditions. They will be just fine. They are out there trying to save these kids lives. That means a lot to me. I haveddle east been to the middle east and shanghai with the company thisse they know globally threatens to gobble up the future of children by the millions. We are all going to do this together. We now have a new mission actually. And larry and our groups are going to involve the private sector more. We will come up with more projects. We are going to do more to empower all of you, and we are going to be able to do it and afford to bring in more businesses and more ngos thanks to the robert wood Johnson Foundation without him we would never have done any of the things we have done in americas schools. Thank you very much and i would like to ask you to give hal and larry at hand. [applause] president clinton thank you. Thank you. Let me just say one final thing. Im in washington, d. C. There is still massive disparities, massive in the impact of Childhood Obesity, type two diabetes, and you know it. You dont get discouraged. The good news is in their heart of hearts nobody wants to see any child die. Or be maimed or have their future rob. Robbed. I think it is so easy to get caught up in all this stuff. It is easy to get caught up around here. Over our long married life, one of the greatest little adages hillary has burned in my brain is that life is not a dress reversal. And so we dont have a day to waste. Dont give somebody else a day on some unproductive thing when you can take this day. You came to washington. Dont leave without renewed energy. One Michelle Obama when Michelle Obama asked our foundation to help with what she was doing, and i realized they were calling the campaign lets away, it move thought maybe we should make that the National Motto and put it on the capital and the white house. Do something. [laughter] do it. I can make 50 jumps out of this but i wont. [laughter] this is a big deal. Dont ever devalue your potential to make a difference. Dont ever assume someone will not help you. Forget we now diversityinclusion, and creative cooperation lead to better results. That would be you. Make sure they know. Thank you. [applause] the New York Times reports President Trump offered a new version of his decision to fire fbi director james comey, saying he would have done this and regardless of whether the attorney general and his deputy recommended it. In an interview with nbcs lester holt, he called the fbi director a showboat and a grandstander. The chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, republican richard burr, and vice chair, democrat mark warner responded to a reporters question about the president s comments. The president just told lester holt he was going to fire director comey whether or not he had a recommendation or not. He called director commie a showboat and a grandstander. Do you agree with that assessment . Have you heard Something Different i will not speak for senator warner. I put out a statement tonight of the directors firing. I find him to be one of the most ethical, upright, straightforward individuals ive had the opportunity to work with. Committee more access to information in any director of the fbi. Sure, they were employees of disagreed with how he handled the clinton email announcements in his interaction or lack thereof with the attorney general at the time. The lions share of fbi employees respect the former director. It shows the professionalism he brought to the role he was in. Point,e he will, at some have an opportunity to share if he wants to his side of the story. I am confident the vice chair and i look forward to working with acting director mccabe in the interim, or whoever the president chooses because at the end of the day mark and i realize whoever is president has the authority to pick their director of the fbi. We do not fault that. I trusted jim comey. I echo with the chairman said in terms of his willingness to work with our committee. I thought he had made some mistakes last fall, but i never call for his resignation. I thought he was a straight shooter, and frankly im offended at the president s comments. This is a continuing pattern of disrespecting the men and women who serve in our intelligence community. I think the president will be better served regardless of what is use of supporting the Intelligence Committee is a questioning and candidly repeatedly calling into question the leaders integrity. Thank you, we have a busy day. You can watch the Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing today at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Here is the white house briefing. Most of the reporters questions run the firing of james comey. [indiscernible crowd noise]
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