Transcripts For CSPAN First Ladies Influence Image 20140128

I have said and i believe that there is a good possibility that sometime in the next 20 years, we will have a woman president. Hillary clinton locked many first in her rule her role as first lady. As she considers another bid for the white house herself, Hillary Clinton story. Here to tell us the story for the next 90 minutes are to journalist who know the clintons well by covering them for many years. A biographer of Hillary Clinton, her book in 2000 was called hillarys choice or e. Welcome to both of you. Here, i want to play a bit of video from 1992. Is 105 or six Hillary Clinton clips that has become implemented of her. This is where she talked about how she might approach the role of first lady. Lets listen. [video clip] primarily children but other issues. It is not true and i dont know what else to say. I suppose i could have stayed home and baked cookies, but i decided to fulfill my profession. They really were promoting that she would be a very involved first lady. How did that work out for her . They made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. The public was not prepared for the twoforone presidency and i dont know if they ever will be, but i think it was stunning to suddenly see this really intelligent, outspoken, totally confident woman who had been given the role of copresident. If we had a copresident , that might be a cool thing because partners in power are more and more happening. The 50sad gone from to the 70s in her four years and was suddenly plunged into a new womens movement. It actually took a hillary to raise the president. She did have to keep them in the channel because he was brilliant but all over the place, and reckless. To swallow all of that was an overkill for the american public. It took her almost six years to really figure out how to do it. Inad an occasion to meet her the ladies room and she kind of let down her hair and said i just dont know what to do, nothing i do works. She said i understand that im really threatening to man. The velocity of change between men and women and the way the country is going from one generation to the boomers is overwhelming, especially to men. Im threatening to them, and i dont know what to do about it. Was she a transitional figure . I would say she was almost oneofakind. The road will role model she modeled herself after was eleanor roosevelt, but there was a great difference between the two. Hillary clinton saw from the beginning that they could get to further places together than they could apart. Whereas elinor was active as a first lady, she was really on her own track him a different whereresident roosevelt. Bill clinton relied on hillary for much of his policy from the very beginning, going back to arkansas. It was a reality to them, and his presidency we said at the outset that Hillary Clinton wasnt first lady who was quite diverse. She was the first first lady to have a law degree. She was first to have an office in the west wing, where policy is made. She was later the first to testify before a grand jury in the investigations that were ramping up. She was the first first lady elected United States senator, the first to run for president , and the first to serve as secretary of state. To theou have to go back beginning. Hillary clinton was born in chicago as Hillary Diane rodham. Tell me about her childhood and what was significant about it. The most significant thing was the way she saw herself, which was from the age of eight star. As a her fantasy was, and she wrote this, was to dance in the sun and spend under the sun and imagine that god was beaming the sundown only on her and that heavenly cameras were following and filming her every move. She made that a reality. For many years now, maybe not cameras, but nonetheless are following her every move. She made it happen. Inher father had worked scranton, pennsylvania in the factories and this, mines in the neighborhood of chicago. Her mother was a traditional housewife. Where does this come from in hillary . Her mother at call traditional housewife. She was very strong and independent. Republican, and 99. 5 right. He was in the deep heart of the midwest middleclass. He was very sheltered in that sense. She had her fathers politics but it was sort of incidental to knew she thought she was. She was very strongly a methodist in that sense throughout her life, but it started in her early teenage years. Very progressive person to challenge hillary to think about the world outside. That was when she blossomed and changed her politics. You told a story about a minister who would take his wife and kids to chicago to see how other people lived. She was enormously affected by that. She knew then that park ridge was a bubble and she wanted to know more about how the real world work. I have to say that her mother told me a significant story about her childhood. When they moved to park ridge that vicious social hierarchy of fouryearolds did not admit her, and a little girl named susie used to be her up every day. She came back crying, and one day her mother said, this house is no place for cowards. You go back out there and not that girl out. Hillary came back home and said now i get to play with the boys. And she has been doing it ever since. As a preteen she was reading barry goldwater. Jill very young to be reading that. I did not read those books as a teenager. She had a High School Teacher who was very conservative who is influencing her in the other direction. She did have some conservative teachers, but so did all of us. I dont think that teacher had a profound influence, no more so than her father. But it was enough to have her looking in those directions lyrically, but not so much internally. I wouldnt say the teachers had more influence on her than the useminiatures at the ministers at the methodist church, or her mother. She wanted to have equilibrium. She used a carpenters level as a visual to say keep the bubble in the middle. She also wanted to warn her,ever get divorced, because she dorothy rodham, her parents had been divorced and they abandoned her. Givellary never agreed to the president of divorce, even though at one point he wanted it. The other amazing thing about hillary was when she met Martin Luther king, introduced by don minister. Methodist she heard him in chicago and that there were no black people that she saw in her class in part ridge. She read up on it and realized that the emancipation proclamation had not really been carried out, and she wanted to do something. On hot moment was at wellesley when she heard about Martin Luther king being shot. Moment. Aha that is when she turned off from being a little goldwater girl to a a real progressive real liberal. She would graduate the next year. I think that is the moment she turned into an activist. Hundreds of thousands of people of that generation, when they invested in all of that. How did she get to wellesley, this midwest girl . She was very smart. She was president of her high school class. It was an all girls school in. Uburban boston her parents drove her out in the cadillac. It made her father furious when he realized it was a snobby Eastern Liberal girls school, and he never visited her there until her graduation. To me whatting thing she wrote a number of letters to a High School Friend that she gave me. She had a fouryear identity crisis. She thought she had to select her identity and she laid them out like a smorgasbord. She said should i be a pseudo hippie . That was ok, because she didnt care about her appearance. That she was a moral methodist. She read catcher in the right and hated it. She said maybe i am a misanthrope. Can you be a compassionate misanthrope . Of. She was, sort should she be an alienated academic . She finally came to a decision. She chose her identity, which she hated looking inward. She couldnt stand introspection and her father had taught her that any expression of emotionality was a sense of weakness. She wrote about that, no emotion. She decided she would help other people lead their best lives and help to save the world. She became president of the student body, is that correct . Quick she did. Quick she gave a speech at wellesley that actually thrust her into the national spotlight. What was that all about . Did not didon not want to veer from a moderate saidlican he got up and we dont believe in just materialism and competitiveness. We are looking for ecstatic experiences. Body just gave an uproar of applause, and the faculty was mortified. It got her into life magazine and she was already a star. Then i asked, what was the most ecstatic experience of your 20s . She said falling in love with bill clinton. She said, he wasnt afraid of me. This was the essence of hillary, all of us exploring a world that none of us understand. ,here are some things we feel competitive corporate life, is not the way of life for us. Are searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living. So as you know if you have been watching us along the way, the thing that makes this Program Different and interesting for us at the table are your questions, and we welcome them three different ways. You can call us, the phone numbers are on the screen. You can post a comment on our facebook page. There is already quite a lively discussion going on about Hillary Clinton on our facebook. Ge, and you can tweet us whether wants to know or not hillary wanted to drop out of college but her mother encouraged her to stay. Did she ever consider dropping out of college . Thatdont remember reading in her biography. She did go through a year of depression. There were a lot of highborn Society Girls at wellesley and that was not her bag at all. She wast sure that smart enough at the beginning, so she was depressed. I think it was in her sophomore year, so she may have considered it. How did she get to Yale Law School . What was the decision to study law . Somebody who wanted to have an active life effecting change, that is what they would do. 1969,t to law school in actually a year before bill clinton did. She took a fiveyear program to get through yell law school. She wanted to be a lawyer more than he ever did. It was the way to the life that , effecting social change. School was a very socially active place during that time. It was like everything was rigid. Which you have considered harvard law as well . Yes. What was the environment for women studying law at yell law school when she arrived . There were not very many. She was quite unique there as she has been at every venue. She didnt speak an awful lot prejudice. She was just too darn smart. When she and bill decided to enter a contest with the Barristers Union present their case for a live jury, she did all the work and all the writing and bill did the presenting. He was good at the presenting, but he goofed off during the preparation. When hillary, who made a real impression on one of the judges, for the hired her Impeachment Committee on richard nixon. It sort of captured everything that was to come in a way. A fellow Law School Student described it as to kill a mockingbird and hillary was the logger. Hillary clinton talks about how she and bill clinton met. Lets watch. [video clip] standing out in the hallway and it was one of those moments that just clicks. I was sitting there and i just started staring at him. I thought, i really like the way he looks. I need to get to know him. Then he caught my eye and begin staring back at me. Here i am in the library, not reading. He is actually surrounded by people who are talking at him, not talking back. Finally i thought this is ridiculous. I am in this class with this person, so i put my books down and i went up and said if im going to keep looking at you in your going to keep looking at me, we ought to at least know each others name. He says he could not remember his name. That makes me feel so good when he said that. Sort of stumble out, im bill clinton. Do you want me to go on about this . Then it was the last day of class and we both showed up for the last day. I was walking out the door any kind of got to the door at the same time and said where are you going . I said im going to go register for my classes next year. So we walked together and stood in this in less line and we talked and talked. I finally got up to the line and the registrar, this wonderful woman who i have kept in touch with said hillary, what are you going to take . And i started to fill it out and she said bill, why are you here . You registered yesterday. Know,ple always want to what was it that attracted these two people so strongly to one another . They seem so different in many ways. Hillary had not been popular with boys in a boygirl since. ,he liked big, handsome hunks and here was this big, handsome redhaired guy with elvis sideburns, and he had this southern charm. Looking after her after class like a lovesick hound dog panting behind her. It really made her feel like a woman. Then she realized how brilliant ,e was, and how they clicked and how she could really do something with this type. She could really bring him out. When she left the watergate Impeachment Committee to go out to little rock, fayetteville, her best friend was saying you are crazy, you are leaving this fabulous career in washington where you are in line to be in a political life. She said, bill clinton is going to be president some day, and im going to marry him. From bill clintons perspective, obviously there were a lot of women who were interested in him. During that time, his roommate he wouldould say prepare and prep them for times when hillary was coming over because he wanted to impress her so much. Not put up with what she called his arkansas palaver. She was the one who had the guts to say come off it, bill. They actually did have a lot in common. They had the same ambitions. They thought they could get places together that they could not get to a park. They share a love of politics and movies and books and intellectual things. There was a spark there, that i think hillary from the beginning was head over heels for bill. I think he just saw her as someone different and someone who could really help him and be a partner. How long did it take from that first meeting to marriage, and how does the relationship progressed . It took several years. What happened in between was quite fascinating. When bill was running for his first congressional race, the campaign was chaotic, and he was losing. Hillary dropped everything and flew out there and came into the Little Campaign area. She was a college girl that he was having a romance with out the side door. She came in and said what is going on . , the night before the vote, they knew there were going to lose. She and the Campaign Manager and his wife all got locked in a room together to find out what was really going wrong here. Hillary was giving them the iird degree and the wife said even had to take bill clintons girlfriend as my babysitter to get him out of the way. She started swearing and cursing and throwing things. The next thing you know, the window was broken. Sat through the whole thing, nobody ever mentioned him . With capacity of a buddha bill clinton. That set the tone for the way , itdealt with all of those was never his fault, it was always somebody elses fault. When she came out to arkansas he was running for the senate. It set the tone for the differences between them. Easyclinton was the professor that gave everyone a b plus at the worst. That is because they were all going to be voters in arkansas sunday, he didnt want to upset them. Hillary was completely organized. Her classes were tough. The dean of the law school said if he was going to hire one of the clintons to be a law professor, it would have been hillary. Talk about her experience on the Impeachment Panel after watergate. One of the few women, one of the law youngest lawyers. Defined it as one of the most important or formative experiences of her life. How did it shake her . It was a historic moment in american history. For it may him and sheen he was a judge had met him at yale. The Congressional Hotel is where the staff was working. Her job was not the most exciting. Were notthe staffers getting into the grid of the scandal itself. Her job was to look at the constitutionality of impeachment. One of her bosses was ernie nussbaum. An examination of close of power and the manipulation of power and the abuse of power. You could not work in that Office Without learning a lot about that. Were going to take you next to fayetteville and the house that bill clinton bought for proposed, ande where they got married. Lets watch. This is where the clintons lived when they were professors in fayetteville. Bill was driving her down this road to go to the airport and they saw the house and it was for sale. Hillary pointed at the house and said that is a cute house. Bill took her to the airport and picked her up from the airport about a month later and said i bought your dream house, you have to marry me and live there with me. That was the fourth time he had proposed. And they were married right there. There were nine people at the wedding. It was a very small, intimate ceremony. Announcement made no mention of the fact that hillary was retaining her own name. Bill did not seem to be bothered by this. When they told hillarys mother, she cried. We have a replica of her Wedding Dress here at the museum. It was 53 off the rack and it was made by jessica mcclintock, a popular designer at the time. It was a very humble beginning for the clintons here in fayetteville. They were both making 14,000 a year as law professors. Out here in sleep the summers because they did not have air conditioning. This is the clinton kitchen. She referred to it as the room in the house that desperately needed to be remodeled. This is what it looked like when the clintons were here. They had the harvest gold appliances. Of course hillary never cooked. She said bill would occasionally fry anes. Fry things. The formal dining room the clintons called the war room. They used it as Campaign Headquarters for the attorney general campaign, which was the First Successful Political Campaign in 1976. Ande was a map of arkansas