Hillary Rodham Clinton in Conversation with David Remnick

[0:04] i am so tired of getting standing ovations every time i walk in a room it's really tiresome oh hi [0:15] thank you for doing this oh thank you so much david secretary clinton in your book something [0:20] lost something gained you write about your state of mind after the re-election of donald trump [0:27] you describe yourself as someone who remains an optimist that worries a lot now now we all worry [0:36] but i want to grasp the extent of your agony um and i want to begin with a big question does donald trump [0:45] and trumpism represent a real and sustained era of authoritarianism in this country well first david [0:54] thank you for doing this with me and it's always great to be here at the 92nd street y so thanks [1:00] everybody for gathering and i i really believe that um he does represent the threat of authoritarianism [1:09] and the people who um enable him who support him who follow him uh have clearly decided that his kind of [1:23] performance politics his uh deliberate uh cruelty and uh behavior that has never been seen by [1:35] any of us in uh an american president before uh is exactly what they want to see for the country [1:42] now the good news is his favorability is in you know the mid-30s uh people who had supported him [1:50] not because he was a want to be authoritarian but because he promised to lower prices and you know [1:58] create uh a better future for people and their families they've seen the reality it doesn't match [2:05] the rhetoric and so they have moved away from him but he is doubling down he's doubling down on his [2:15] impulsiveness and it's very worrisome to me uh because i'll end with this you know i teach at [2:21] columbia university now of course with the dean there she and i have been on this stage uh together [2:28] it's called inside the situation room and we talk about the traits of leaders their behavior their [2:34] psychology and there is a uh a view uh that is rooted in how people make decisions all of us not just [2:45] leaders uh about what happens when someone finds themselves in what's called the domain of loss [2:54] it's a psychological concept and almost counter intuitively when people feel they are losing [3:02] they very frequently take greater risks they double down on their behavior and that's what i'm now [3:10] worried about because he's lashing out he's demanding that we accept his version of reality which is [3:17] unhinged from the actual uh world that we live in and the actual uh consequences of his actions [3:24] so i think we have to be extremely vigilant and just you know ready to push back every chance we get [3:31] you've been a new yorker for for a long time you were around when donald trump was not a politician [3:39] you would see him here and there in the in new york city at what point did you begin to see him [3:47] as something other than a kind of figure on in the joker sphere the spy magazine uh aspect of new york city and [3:56] sense him as a political danger probably when he began to lead a movement uh questioning uh barack obama's [4:09] birth uh right citizenship and before then i was not aware i hadn't read art of the deal i hadn't followed [4:18] uh some of his uh public utterances you know he allegedly uh told the uh man who helped him or [4:28] wrote the art of the deal the only book he had on his bedside was mein kampf i did not know that big [4:34] seller that's right and and he also um he he ran full page ads accusing ronald reagan of weakness so [4:43] there had been a few eruptions that i was unaware of i kind of viewed him as you know exactly the [4:50] sort of figure you described but when he began to do the big lie about uh first senator obama then [4:58] president obama that's when i began to pay attention and wondering what's really behind this why is he [5:05] doing this and so relentlessly it didn't matter and i you know i remember talking uh to president obama about [5:13] it and you know president obama like so many of us it's like ah who cares you know just i'm not going [5:18] to respond to that and and what we have learned is how important it is to respond it used to be you [5:24] could ignore that kind of you know outlandish claim and it wouldn't uh you know last for long [5:32] but with the internet it lives forever and so he began to demonstrate his understanding of the new [5:41] uh information ecosystem that we're in how is your understanding of his support evolved you were [5:48] criticized a lot like probably rightly for using the word deplorables for many of his followers [5:55] um but how do you view the the evolution of his followers and what it is that they want most of all [6:04] from him well first of all i said only about half um were so to be fair um well are you doubling down [6:16] on deplorables yeah but you know i have to say i i was you know i gave a speech for example about [6:22] something called the alt-right which you know the press had no idea what i was talking about certainly [6:27] the public had no idea what i was talking about but you know i was beginning to see this really [6:32] disturbing rhetoric uh racist rhetoric sexist rhetoric you know the kind of authoritarian demagogic [6:42] claims about um our politics and it it worried me so you know i i tried to kind of put that into the [6:50] political debate but i also did try to you know draw a line between those who were following him because [6:58] of that it wasn't a bug it was the feature they wanted to follow someone who uh was you know demeaning [7:05] president obama was you know making claims about me saying things like you know the second amendment [7:12] people will take care of her i mean terrible things that were in that campaign against me and people [7:19] didn't take it seriously people were like oh that's just donald he's just spouting off don't worry about [7:24] it i saw something darker but you know i was in not the strongest position since i was running against [7:30] him to make that case so i was trying to say look i understand there are people who believe that kind of [7:36] stuff but most of the people uh at least half uh who are um you know following him they want change [7:44] they are not satisfied with where we are in the country they want you know a different economic reality [7:49] he's promising all of this you know promising that we're going to you know have an economy that is [7:55] just going to be the greatest in the world and we're going to bring back you know jobs that were [7:59] lost to globalization and all the rest of it so i i really did understand the appeal to that and as i [8:07] campaigned uh throughout that uh you know year and a half or so against him uh it was something that you [8:15] know i i was aware of and i respected because people were feeling that you know it's hard to [8:21] succeed a two-term president of your own party i knew that going into it and you know people liked [8:28] and respected president obama but you know they wanted something that might be a little different [8:34] and a little different what a little different yeah a little different but they didn't know how [8:38] different at the time and so i really think that his followers the the ones i would put into the [8:45] category of you know believing his promises thinking he could number one thinking he could help them but [8:52] number two that he cared about them uh neither of which i think uh was really true but you know [8:58] people wanted to hang on to that and i i believe that that kind of continued um into his first term [9:08] the way he handled covid is the reason i believe he lost i actually think if he had done a better job [9:16] handling covid because remember he got more votes the second time when he was running against joe biden [9:22] and biden of course got the most votes anybody's ever gotten i think uh still for president but the [9:29] people who were following him covet scared them put them off they might have you know thought wait a [9:37] minute i don't i can't vote for that um you know joe biden in that first 20 uh 20 campaign ran on [9:44] uh you know restoring the soul of the nation and all i don't know how how effective that was but it [9:51] had a theme that he uh you know certainly uh used effectively and then when trump ran again there [9:59] was such a set of circumstances that led to him being elected in 2024 that were you know pretty [10:04] unprecedented but again people voted for him believing that he would get inflation down and believing that he [10:10] would you know give them a a better deal economically i don't want to jump too far ahead but i i think [10:16] it's fair to say that so far jd vance has not covered himself in glory and marco rubio probably doesn't [10:23] appeal to the base with quite the same um you know stick-to-itiveness of of of trump himself and i i wonder [10:34] if you think it's possible and i think maybe this has run through your head that the trump family has dynastic [10:43] ambitions whether it's donald jr or someone in the family um who might pretend to succeed him [10:52] well david you and i think alike i think number one if he could figure out a way to stay he would [11:07] my husband likes to say if he tries to stay i'm running again [11:20] but if that's unlikely which we have to hope it is [11:25] i don't get the feeling he's all warm and fuzzy about jd vance um i don't think he is warm and [11:32] fuzzy about nearly anybody other than himself and who is closest enough to him and that is possibly a [11:39] son or a daughter a son or a daughter a son or a daughter and the daughter is thought to be cleverer [11:47] than the son well i i'm not going to characterize them it's the blood relationship that matters [11:56] understood so look i mean we're speculating like you know we know something which we don't i'm not [12:03] hanging out mar-a-lago and sort of picking up the you know breadcrumbs of gossip but i think that i think [12:10] you'd like it yeah but give it given his psychology given you know trump's psychology um he definitely if [12:18] he can't do it himself he wants somebody he can control uh and preferably somebody related to him [12:24] and that would be uh i i think his uh you know his hope you've watched trump over a long period of time [12:34] uh you've debated him three times um you've observed him very carefully obviously is he disintegrating [12:42] i just turned 80. i think he is um certainly uh not uh what he was he doesn't he doesn't come across [12:55] at least in the way that he presents himself uh with as much energy you know falls asleep and lots [13:02] of public meetings i mean poor joe biden i mean shut his eyes you know once or twice but donald trump [13:08] is like falling asleep all the time these days um but part of that is he stays up all night posting on [13:14] true social so he's you know he's not he's not getting enough sleep uh anyway um which is pretty [13:22] disturbing because i don't think people who are sleep deprived make good decisions on top of everything [13:28] else but i really think he has um a a number of um traits that have gotten you know more obvious um [13:43] he doesn't even try to hide them you know his impulsivity his immaturity um his lack of curiosity [13:51] about anything going on uh around him uh that you know like when when you know he launched the war [13:58] against iran and then you know out of the white house you hear that nobody told me about the strait of [14:06] hormuz i mean nobody told me they could close the strait of hormuz where is the strait of hormuz um [14:13] you know you can't make it up it's like it's it's like you know some movie that you yeah walk out of [14:20] because it's so outlandish doctor strange love yeah exactly um we're talking on a day where the united [14:28] states and iran seem to have signed an agreement to end at least for now this this um war did the united [14:36] states lose this war yes yes the united states has come out weaker iran has come out stronger it's [14:45] not even an agreement it's a memorandum of understanding uh which we haven't even seen the [14:51] details of the little bit we know is that the strait which was open without either tolls or fees [15:00] um was closed and under this memorandum it will be reopened although there may still be a [15:07] desire by iran to charge quote fees which will have to be uh dealt with uh the ballistic missile [15:15] uh system uh seems to be uh at least uh if not totally intact because of a a bombardment during [15:24] the course of this uh certainly still operative um there is no nuclear deal there is no agreement on [15:35] controlling proxies and what i've read is that there may be a huge transfer of uh money for reconstruction [15:46] to iran now i started the negotiations that led to the jcpoa the agreement that president obama [15:55] eventually signed it was an intensive diplomatic effort we started by getting the un security council to [16:04] impose sanctions global sanctions on iran in june of 2010 we then you know worked to get secret [16:11] negotiations started through oman um and those began with several meetings and with a uh you know a plan [16:20] about going forward and which i handed off to my successor uh john kerry but these were serious [16:27] negotiations with high level people so when we sat across a table from iranians we had our own nuclear [16:35] physicists there as did they we had experienced diplomats people who had negotiated on many different [16:44] fronts for many years that's not the way this administration does its business and so [16:50] uh i think we have come out weaker um we've caused a lot of both confusion and uh i think some distrust [17:01] uh in the larger region about what our goals were uh and what our staying power is so i i believe until we [17:10] see the agreement which allegedly will be signed uh on friday in geneva uh we don't know what's in it and we [17:19] don't know what's left out of it and we don't know you know how it's going to be spun but it doesn't [17:25] seem to me that it's going to uh be an effective maneuver by trump to claim some kind of victory you [17:33] know the united states doesn't send bombers to iran uh because anybody else commands it to but it's very [17:39] clear that bibi netanyahu prime minister of israel pushed and pushed donald trump to do this we have an [17:48] account by maggie haberman in the times about meetings in the situation room in which i think [17:56] quite unusual a foreign head of state urged the president united states to go to war with it against [18:03] a third party against iran um it's my understanding that when you were secretary of state um bibi netanyahu [18:13] made the same case tell me about that well you're absolutely right when i [18:18] was secretary it was a constant uh you know theme by uh netanyahu and his then government the then [18:29] defense uh minister ehud barak the former prime minister it was relentless it was a constant push [18:37] you know i remember um what would he say to you what what would he say to you he would basically say [18:45] um we need we need to uh you need to support us in attacking iran and back then this was you know [18:53] 2009 to the end of uh 2012 we had more capacity than israel did on several fronts uh to uh do that um [19:06] and so there was a a constant argument uh that we would have and and you know i remember one day [19:13] um i was on the phone for hours with a hood with bb with others you know and they would say things [19:21] like you know our planes are on the tarmac and i'd say well good luck i mean great um why are you doing [19:28] this where else would planes be other than in the air but on the tarmac ready to take off yes um although [19:35] they'd be in the hangar but they were on the tarmac um and you know you would you would say things you [19:41] you're saying you were there were you were you were being played all the time all the time i mean [19:48] by an ally that receives an enormous amount of aid well of course and look bb's been obsessed [19:58] as long as i've dealt with him uh with with two things iran as you know and his desire to normalize [20:06] relations with saudi arabia the first formal meeting i had with him in 2009 probably march [20:14] at the state department it was absolutely you know how can we get normalization with saudi arabia [20:21] and how do we uh totally decapitate iran and he had this view um that i think has become very clear [20:31] uh in his you know dealings with with trump number one decapitate the regime it will fall number two [20:42] uh do enough bombing against enough critical infrastructure try to you know disable uh [20:52] the uh military in so far as possible the people will rise up and that was just never [21:02] our read about what was going to happen in part because this is a ruthless theocratic regime [21:10] that at least at the top levels the clerical level has a kind of apocalyptic view of their own [21:21] uh importance in the struggle against israel the united states the west their uh sunni neighbors you know [21:33] the whole map that they look at and they are also a regime that learned sadly a lesson from the overthrow [21:41] of the shah there's a lot of you know analysis about why the shah was uh finally deposed but one of the [21:51] arguments is at the end he would not murder his people he would not order the mass murder of the [21:58] demonstrators in the street this regime has no such compunction so if you have a regime that is already [22:05] proven as it did last year they were willing to kill 35 40 000 uh iranians over the protests that were [22:15] going on if you have this alliance between the clerics and the military they have enough folks in their ranks [22:23] to keep moving up and taking over our take on iran was absent an effective armed opposition which we've [22:30] never seen and absent some kind of internal uh dissent whether like a general who would say i'm not going [22:42] to tolerate you know this any longer and not the shah's son sitting in virginia or paris i give i give [22:49] i give him credit for being a voice a voice for the aspirations of some of the iranian people i do [22:56] give him credit he's you know he's tried to fill a role that you cannot fill from sitting in virginia [23:03] or wherever but he he at least tried to voice the legitimate discontent of the iranian people [23:10] but this regime is not you know they're not going to be toppled by uh you know appeals to their humanity [23:19] uh to their uh you know better the angels of their you know better nature no i mean they are there to [23:27] stay in power and to promote a you know very clear political religious agenda so if i hear what you're [23:35] saying correctly is number one bibi netanyahu bamboozled donald trump and number two um i don't imagine [23:46] the intelligence changed radically about the state of play in iran that the president ignored [23:53] not only the advice of his vice president and secretary of state but the intelligence community [24:00] to telling him on the ground this would be a terrible idea well i can't speak to that i don't [24:05] know what was presented to him you know i also think coming off the attacks of last june which i [24:11] support it i supported the very specific surgical attacks on the known nuclear weapons sites i believed [24:23] that that was a clear mission with very uh achievable goals i didn't know whether you could eliminate the [24:33] program but i thought you could certainly set it back so i think coming off that which was you know [24:40] from their perspective successful not it wouldn't it better wouldn't it have been better to stick [24:45] with the jcpoa and renegotiate an extension well a thousand percent david and and if you suppose [24:53] trump had said the following you know because when you are negotiating you are your strongest [24:59] threatening military action not actually uh taking it and suppose you know trump back in his first [25:07] term had said i'm not satisfied with this agreement there were you know it wasn't perfect and you [25:13] know i'm sure there are people in this audience that didn't support it but it was the best deal we [25:18] could get to put a lid on the nuclear program it didn't deal with the ballistic missiles it didn't [25:25] deal with the proxies so if trump had said there are things about it i i i don't like and i i am going [25:31] to walk away from it unless we open up uh negotiations and i believe that we need to open up [25:37] negotiations because otherwise you know i might be forced to take action that then gives you the [25:43] pressure and the room to try to do something that's not what he did he said you know barack obama did [25:49] it i'm out we're we're withdrawing let's stay in the same region for a moment i know that you're for a [25:54] two-state solution and see it as the only outcome that any kind of peace can exist for for the but if i look [26:03] at the israeli polity they don't want a two-state solution certainly not now and if you look at the [26:10] palestinian polity which is it is an even more complicated um set of geographies and and and and [26:18] population two-state solution is not uh anywhere near the offing there so other than you know some [26:26] constituents now it's diminishing uh in the west and elsewhere um a two-state solution which was fought [26:35] for so hard um but began going out the window many years ago um seems impossible am i wrong you [26:46] might be but you might not be and here's why i'm going to say something positive about trump so hold on [26:55] okay i've got a grip on my chair right now trump's 20 point plan for gaza is actually a pathway to [27:13] security for israel reconstruction for gaza and the possibility of self-determination however defined [27:26] for the palestinians there are a lot of people who uh you know reject it because trump did it [27:34] but it's the only game in town there's nothing else and i've engaged in some you know kind of track [27:42] to diplomacy with israelis not not in the current government former governments uh military [27:48] intelligence political officials palestinians arabs so it's a very you know it's a very painful [27:58] discussion uh because you know these are experienced people with lots of scars to show for [28:05] um their efforts over many years not just on peace but on security particularly uh for israel [28:15] but i really believe if we took this 20 point plan which starts with you know the disarmament of hamas a [28:26] huge important uh step yet to be accomplished um but took all of the 20 points so that it wasn't just [28:35] disarm hamas and you know maybe do some reconstruction and you know build some hotels resorts on on uh the coast [28:43] but if it you really took the whole approach that is embodied in that 20 point plan and i know there are [28:50] people uh who are working to try to move forward on that there is a glimmer of a possible uh path forward [29:01] now having said that you are dealing with um two peoples that are even more traumatized than perhaps [29:12] that's happened in the past um i i think you had uh rachel goldberg poland on your uh podcast uh last week [29:21] and you know i i met her during the time when i was trying to help and support uh families who were [29:29] advocating to get the hostages back and it's you know she writes this very moving uh profoundly sad [29:37] book about her son hirsch and and we've had mohammed mawish and mosab abutoh who lost multiple members of [29:43] their multa and i've met with them as well and and seven did the biden administration fail to push [29:52] hard against the netanyahu uh government did did it give too free a reign um to the israeli government [30:01] during you know i i think it's a very very hard question to answer for this reason as i as i said [30:10] october 7th was a mass trauma event clearly the people who were murdered the families who lost loved [30:19] ones the hostages 250 plus were who were taken uh into gaza it was a long terrible trauma and what i [30:32] said to my class uh at colombia after october 7th is you have to keep competing thoughts in your head [30:39] a hundred percent but biden came to israel and the wisest thing it seems to me that he said was [30:46] i feel your pain i understand how horrible this is uh we support you but at the same time do not [30:55] repeat our mistakes and act out of prolonged vengeance he was obviously referring to afghanistan [31:02] and even more so to iraq the misadventures there to say the least and the damage they did and the lives [31:08] lost there and it i think a lot of people would say that is exactly what israel went ahead and did by [31:14] such a prolonged war and that the united states and the biden administration and later the trump [31:21] administration did very little to put a put a pause to it you know i i i think that and i again i'm i [31:30] wasn't there i don't know what the um internal discussions were um but every time i what i would [31:37] hear every time uh especially while the hostages were still being held every time there was a push [31:46] against israel to change tactics to avoid certain targets you know the response would be we we know [31:55] that there are tunnels we know there are something like 350 miles of tunnels we know that they can be [32:04] entered through a lot of these sites and you know it's very difficult to refute that because we know [32:12] that there were tunnels and we know that numbers of them entered into hospitals and schools and all kinds [32:19] of uh civilian uh places could and should the israelis have been uh more careful with civilian casualties [32:28] absolutely there's no doubt about that but did they have a response to you know what they were trying [32:36] to accomplish rescuing hostages you know getting access to uh hamas leadership and fighters in these [32:45] tunnels they did and and trying to walk that line in the middle of a war is very hard so i try to imagine [32:53] myself i'm sitting you know in centcom uh and talking to the israeli military i'm sitting uh you [33:00] know at the cia and talking to mosad and they are coming back not with you know totally unbelievable [33:08] claims they're coming back with here's what our intelligence tells us here's you know we think if [33:13] we can get there get there uh maybe we can you know get sinwar maybe we can you know rescue hostages [33:19] and the fog of war was like totally uh overwhelming so in retrospect could they should they have done [33:28] more you can always say yes and you can always hope so um but when you hear ehud olmer referred to war [33:36] crimes committed by the united states when you hear a scholar like an israeli scholar like omer bartoff [33:41] referred to genocide or even david grossman a novelist you know well do you agree with them again i am [33:49] i am looking at facts i'm trying to figure out and i have not reached my own conclusions because [33:56] i don't have a you know oftentimes there's after action reports and the thing i am most uh critical [34:03] of is there has been no after action report about what happened leading up to october 7th on october 7th [34:13] and post october 7th so we don't have all the information i personally would like to see and [34:20] know about so let me just say let me just say for you know because we you know it's something you know [34:25] we teach these examples in this class so prior to the yom kippur war intelligence went to golda meir [34:36] and said we have a source inside sadat's cabinet sure in his office he is telling us that [34:45] the egyptians are going to attack and the response from you know diane and my you know obviously all [34:52] of golda meir's war cabinet was that's ridiculous they can't do that and look what they did the [34:58] original sin is why did october 7th happen what were the signals that were missed what could have been [35:07] done differently what did bb netanyahu think he was doing having qatar pay hamas millions and millions [35:15] of dollars a month in order in his thinking to weaken the palestinian authority what did he [35:20] think was going to happen so i guess my point david is i want to know everything i can know i want to [35:27] know everything i can about the intelligence failures the military decisions before i'm willing to say [35:34] you could have done this or you should have done that or pass judgment i received i received a text [35:41] today i received a text today from the the best journalist i know in israel a very keen defense [35:51] analyst and he said this memo of understanding is the end of bb in other words that after the failures [36:01] of october 7th he had decided that his political future would rest on his revival of israeli strength [36:09] the reassertion of israeli strength he'd never apologized for october 7th never took responsibility for it [36:16] but that this would be his path forward and then he would he would keep at bay all comers whether [36:22] it's gadi eisenkott or whoever it might be but that this memo of understanding is understood in israel [36:30] as a defeat and a defeat of bb and that this is the likely political end of him i think a lot of people [36:37] have gone broke predicting the political end of bb netanyahu are you willing to go broke you know he has [36:45] certainly more than nine lives um politically um but i think this is a real uh defeat for him [36:56] uh because as you say and i agree uh he did push trump into the war against iran trump was ill prepared [37:08] the strategy was incoherent we didn't gain anything of real importance and we may and we may have lost a [37:16] lost a lot but that means bb also lost because to go into that kind of alliance and to push trump to [37:25] do something that trump i'm not sure even understood the implications of and then for trump wanting to [37:32] get out of it because what did he say a few weeks ago i'm bored this is boring trying to make pieces boring [37:38] um so bb's left out there by himself and there are several really serious questions you know what [37:48] he's doing in lebanon now is to me counterproductive he has never had israel has never had um in as long [38:00] as i can remember a government that started out more open to working with israel to try to disarm [38:09] hezbollah now could the lebanese army have done it on their own no but could the lebanese army with [38:15] support from israeli intelligence and maybe even israeli uh military support in some forms have gotten [38:23] closer to it the lebanese people were turning against hezbollah turning against their military [38:33] activities turning against their political uh project which as you know their political arm is [38:38] represented in the lebanese government sure and rather than trying to be you know in my view kind [38:45] of smart about how to build up a lebanese government for the purpose of disarming and neutering hezbollah [38:56] which is definitely in israel's interest israel has been engaged in this bombardment uh of lebanon and [39:04] you know so they're fighting on that front i think they're turning a blind eye to the settler violence [39:12] in the west bank is extremely dangerous you look at the training of the palestinian defense forces which [39:21] started under george w bush continued under obama continued on probably to this day where palestinians [39:31] under an agreement between jordan and the united states uh were trained in jordan to provide security [39:40] and they were a partner to the idf you know when what happened in gaza hamas kept expecting to see [39:47] uprisings in the west bank uprising by hezbollah you know surrounding israel on all sides that didn't [39:54] happen at that time hezbollah started doing some rockets and other stuff but i think mostly under iranian [40:00] pressure to step up and do that and so to be creating a tinder box of potential uprising in [40:11] the west bank while you're fighting hezbollah while hamas still controls 40 of gaza and they control it [40:19] militarily and civilly and that has not been uprooted yet so i think you know netanyahu believes that [40:29] war is his friend because his political um standing is under attack from a lot of different directions [40:39] and he wants to contain the opposition by creating conflict so that he tries to rally the country [40:47] behind him i think this iran deal may be you know the the straw that finally breaks that and creates a [40:56] an opening for you know his uh departure in the upcoming elections and you know a government that [41:04] is certainly going to be very concerned about israel's security but might be somewhat more you [41:10] know adept at dealing with these problems in a way that enhances israel's security and you know there's [41:16] a great line somebody said the other to me the other day you know israel was the startup nation i mean [41:22] the amount of economic activity technology obviously defense um businesses that sprang up but i'm worried [41:32] that if you don't see a government that understands the importance of tending to israel's economy and [41:42] future you're going to see a big exit by particularly young israelis and there is some evidence of that an [41:48] exit of young israelis and an exit of of many democrats from from reflexive support of israel as [41:54] well let's talk let's turn to some domestic concerns a few weeks ago the democratic national [41:59] committee released an autopsy report on the 2024 election it satisfied nobody not one person did it [42:10] satisfy except for maybe the biden's because it didn't mention joe biden's decision to run when you [42:19] look back on this episode and it's obviously we're not we don't have the distance of historians but [42:24] some time has elapsed how do you analyze it i know you you you had a long political alliance together [42:31] complicated relationship and so on and so forth but when you look back on his decision to run did he [42:38] make a terrible mistake he made a terrible mistake he made a terrible mistake for himself his legacy and for [42:44] the country um he had said that he would not run again and you know counterfactual narratives are [42:53] always a bit tricky but i believe if he had kept to that plan and said in say the late summer of 23 [43:04] that he wasn't going to run that he was going to pass you know the torch to the next generation [43:10] we would have had a real contest and very sadly i believe whoever emerged from that contest whether [43:18] it was the vice president or a governor or a senator or anybody else would have beaten donald trump so i [43:25] think it was a terrible miscalculation uh on the part uh of president biden but once he didn't move [43:36] uh and and did not you know admit that uh he had said he was going to step aside and then decided not [43:46] to and held on for as long as he did we were in a terrible dilemma why didn't anybody say so you're [43:54] you're a powerful figure still a powerful voice and that and the democratic party there are a lot of [43:59] people that are powerful not a lot of a select group of people with powerful voices whether nancy pelosi [44:04] barack obama etc etc nobody said this everybody and i you know the press was was no more vocal [44:13] about it in many corners either why was it so difficult to speak about this i think there were [44:20] a lot of conversations going on behind the scenes i certainly am you know aware of that participated [44:26] in a number of them but there was there was no way to convince him by going public and eventually [44:37] what convinced him was you know polling polling information but after a horrendous public disaster [44:45] well but were there private discussions were there people on your level of your eminence that went to [44:50] joe biden and said look joe we love you you did the service a great service to this country after [44:56] trump for four years you there were a lot of great dare i say liberal initiatives put into place [45:03] a great deal of healing in some ways other mistakes that we've just we are we just had a conversation [45:10] about but it's time you're not the guy you were 15 years ago enough already i know of a few people [45:20] who tried that and they were met with total denial and not just from him but from the people around him [45:31] joe joe joe biden in particular before the debate before what happened at the debate there was a belief [45:39] and it was strongly held inside the white house uh that he would win again and they and at that point [45:47] before the debate there was polling there were endorsements there was a glide path to winning after [45:57] the debate i think they were in a state of sort of disbelief about what happened um and kept trying [46:04] to explain it rationalize it justify it and there were a lot of people who publicly and privately then [46:12] said you know that's not recoverable initially that was denied that they thought it would be [46:18] to such eventually you know he made the decision to such a degree that that night jill biden said you [46:25] you did great you answered all the questions a weird thing to say and then after writing a book [46:33] said she thought that her husband had possibly had a stroke right there on the stage i wasn't there [46:41] i don't know i have no i have no way of commenting on that where were you when you watched that debate [46:46] tell me how you how you experienced that debate it was shocking you're sitting at home watching tv yeah [46:52] well i mean it was um a moment of disbelief i i i thought you know maybe he had taken um you know [47:02] medication for a cold or for you know some kind of virus or something that it had affected his ability [47:11] to respond in a you know quick and and expected way because i'd seen joe biden debate a lot i was on [47:19] the debate stage with him in 2008 right um and so i i thought there had to be something that happened [47:28] uh to him i didn't think of a stroke i didn't think it was that serious um but you know look it it happened [47:36] it's it's over it's behind us i don't think it's useful to keep beating that horse one one other [47:43] retrospective question beat one more horse okay no different horse poor horse a different horse it's a [47:52] donkey i know that joke it's a good joke and you come to the why they all know the joke um did kamala [48:03] harris lose solely because she only had 100 days to run oh i think that was definitely a factor i think [48:13] she also found herself really uh in a difficult position trying to run as the sitting vice president [48:24] but separate herself from the sitting president that's really hard you know when i ran i'd been [48:30] secretary of state for uh president obama and you know there was part of the democratic uh party and [48:39] certainly republicans independents who you know were you know they were favorable toward a lot that [48:47] president obama had done but not everything and yet i was part of that administration trying to [48:53] you know separate myself trying to you know chart my own course well she was doing it in real time [48:59] i mean it there was no uh gap between her service as there was with mine uh and uh you know her [49:07] campaign so i think that was a a real problem she seemed terrified to speak her mind i think i don't [49:15] i can't tell you i think what she was worried about first of all there is still to this day but back then [49:23] even more intensely people who really uh were grateful to joe biden he defeated uh donald trump he [49:33] did do a lot uh in the legislative arena that we are benefiting from whether it's infrastructure the [49:40] chips fill to you know be competitive worldwide etc some people you know didn't want to hear anything [49:49] from any candidate especially somebody that he picked to be the vice president criticizing him i mean [49:55] if it had been a governor or somebody else would emerge from a different process you know they could [50:00] have done a lot more you know separating themselves from him and then there's the other thing i i can't [50:06] tell you how many people people on the left people who consider themselves good feminists enlightened [50:16] about identity in all senses will say to me next time in 28 we cannot take the risk we can't be a woman [50:27] it can't be african-american etc etc and i i find this shocking and it's now we're a quarter [50:35] of the way through the 21st century and we're still having this conversation is you you've lifted the [50:44] microphone and you're ready to go i don't need to continue well first of all there is a global [50:52] pushback on women's rights and part of that is being led by this administration the first person [51:03] that trump fired was the woman commandant of the coast guard the second person was the black combat [51:10] veteran air force general who is the chair of the joint chiefs and the third person was the first woman [51:16] to be chief of naval operations and we've seen what just happened last week with hegseth you know [51:24] removing women and uh you know black military officers from promotion we've seen them taking [51:31] down pictures of the first woman who flew with the thunderbird uh you know uh formation the first [51:39] the black general chaffee james who was a incredibly effective fighter pilot there is an unabashed campaign [51:51] to undermine both minority leadership and women's leadership in public spaces there's no doubt about [52:00] that and not only is it happening in so-called irl real life it's happening online to just a an [52:10] extraordinary extent where the threats against women the attacks on women so this is a moment uh where we [52:19] are seeing uh the firing of women not men i mean for heaven's sakes i'm not going to make any brief for [52:27] you know the women that he had fired from his cabinet i didn't agree with any of them but hegseth is still [52:32] there um and so you think about the way that this man is treating women the way he talks to women journalists [52:41] uh his whole behavior toward women uh is so uh disdainful so i think that's in the culture it's not made up when [52:51] people say well i don't know i don't know if we could vote for a black candidate or a woman candidate [52:57] but my ultimate answer to that is it depends upon the candidate well let me ask you about one the [53:02] candidate that's polling now the highest among women certainly is alexandria ocasio cortez [53:10] how would you feel about her as a standard bearer for the democratic party nationally well those [53:16] are not the same polls that i've seen um i think look she she is a very talented politician and she [53:27] is like in the top five but so is kamala harris and depending upon the polls sometimes gavin newsom [53:34] i mean so it's a i mean among women i'm talking gavin newsom is not that i'm talking about what i consider [53:42] to be reliable polls of voter sentiment which is both men and women because you're not going to [53:47] win with just women i wish uh that would be you know someday possible but not um so i don't know [53:57] it's way too soon but here's what i i really think number one stay focused on the midterm elections we [54:03] have to win the house and hopefully the senate okay and we we have some you know really good chances of [54:14] doing that in the house and i think we have a 50 50 chance you know in the senate to win the senate [54:21] one of the one of the one of the seats that the democrats have to win is in maine how do you feel [54:26] about him i feel about him the way i feel about any candidate i want to see what kind of candidate [54:32] he actually turns out to be the bumps on the road that he has experienced and some of the things he has [54:39] said bumps on the road yeah i mean clearly bumps on the road in terms of some of his prior behavior [54:46] some of his prior statements and i will tell you i served with susan collins she is going to be very [54:54] hard to beat and it it's going to be a tough election so i'm i'm reserving but if you were a [55:01] mainer would you pull the where would you pull the lever but i'm not a mainer i'm a new yorker [55:06] no but but seriously i mean you're going to let that pitch go by yeah yeah but but david look i i [55:15] think we can get actually to what we need in the majority um in the house which will give us a check [55:24] on him i think this election has to be about affordability and accountability and we need to [55:30] start holding the people around trump accountable and we're going to see whether we can you know take [55:36] the senate but i think the house has to be the primary objective and then once that election is [55:41] behind us you're going to have 10 or 12 pretty good candidates in my view uh running uh in 2028 and i [55:49] you know i don't know who's going to emerge because i don't know who's going to catch the moment i don't [55:54] know you know who's going to be able to convince the various uh factions of the democratic party to [56:02] you know support him or her but i wouldn't rule out any woman who wants to run or any african american [56:09] or any latino or anybody else if they want to get into the arena get in the arena show us what you can [56:14] do and see whether people will vote for you do you think the democratic party has an elites problem has [56:22] an elites problem you know i think some people believe it does and that i think is somewhat amusing [56:34] because our elites are not stealing money from the treasury to pay off the insurrectionists to attack [56:41] the capital and our elites are not going around the world making business deals for their children [56:48] at least so far as i know um and so when people say that you know they're really saying well you know [56:55] you guys you're in blue cities and blue states and you don't relate to us and so i think that's the [57:02] problem i think it's more of a a political identification problem but then the republicans [57:08] have a problem because you know look i mean donald trump was from new york city i beat him uh biden beat [57:15] him harris beat him so you just have to take what people say about your candidates and you know be ready [57:24] to fight back and the final thing i'd say about that is it's really frustrating to me because literally [57:31] if a democrat mispronounces a word it's as big a deal as a republican you know who is supporting ice [57:43] agents on the street you know with masks i mean they're just it's it's not equivalent it's a false [57:50] equivalence a lot of time secretary clinton i want to get to some questions from the audience but i want [57:54] to ask you the last one of my own i i lived in moscow for four years during the collapse of the soviet union [58:00] and then thereafter and i would often think to myself what would it be like to actually live in [58:07] a society like this where i loathe my government and would i be someone who in order to keep my family [58:15] together or to preserve my bank account would i collaborate and it i have to say i hope not with [58:23] a minimum of righteousness it has shocked me shocked me to see the level of acquiescence in our society [58:31] among elites who have turned on a dime on a dime in order to preserve their immense fortunes and to [58:40] make them greater we saw this at the inauguration we see it in my world of the press day after day in [58:47] in ownership situations we saw it we see it with 60 minutes and and and and so much else and i wonder [58:55] if you share this with me do you we we we have such a sense of ourselves as americans as freedom [59:01] loving people and we would defend it to the last i don't see that that's a universal well i'm afraid [59:09] you're right in terms of the acquiescence and you know i was in the senate very proudly representing new [59:19] york for eight years there are still people on the republican side i served with there i don't talk to [59:25] them but my former democratic colleagues report to me they go into the cloak room they're in the [59:31] hallway but aren't you sick about hearing about what they say in the cloak rooms i am really sick of [59:35] it i'm very sick of it because they are betraying the kind of weakness that is you know undermining of [59:44] a great country and our institutions because they won't stand up to them unless why they're on their way [59:49] out why not are these jobs so great that that you can some people they are so for some people it's [59:56] simply staying in power being you know being able to you know feel like they are important for some [1:00:04] people it's literal threats you know the only person i know who spoke publicly about this was lisa murkowski [1:00:13] and basically if if you are threatened the way some of these people are threatened and their families [1:00:21] are threatened um and you think you can you may be rationalizing but you think well i can try to [1:00:28] rein in more if i stay on the inside so i can be against but i can't be against too much that's one [1:00:35] thing but the people who are in positions of great economic power like the tech companies and other [1:00:44] you know large businesses have been so disappointing in the way that they have you know basically [1:00:52] aligned themselves with uh trump trump policies uh and in large measure i guess because they think [1:01:00] quote it's good for their business and what i have said privately and publicly um is you are making [1:01:08] a grave mistake because you may think it's good for your business today but somebody who offers a bigger [1:01:15] bribe because make no mistake these transactional deals they're making are nothing but bribes [1:01:20] you support me or you don't get this contract you do support me you're going to get that contract [1:01:26] these are bribes that is in the constitution as an impeachable offense and so part of what i see [1:01:33] happening is men and they're all men basically convincing themselves they have to do this for the [1:01:40] business but what they're not appreciating is that this kind of unchecked unaccountable power [1:01:47] can turn and bite them just as easily you saw it you saw it in you know in russia you saw the [1:01:54] transition from the collapse of the soviet union uh and you saw you know the you know the oligarchs [1:02:01] being being formed the privatization but then when putin came along it was i want five percent no i [1:02:09] now want 25 percent i want 50 and that's why people say he's the richest man in the world because he's [1:02:17] basically i must say he loves you [1:02:22] i have never seen somebody speak so harshly of anyone as to watch putin speaking about hillary [1:02:27] clinton well i wear it as a badge of honor but it did help um you know it contrary to what you [1:02:38] hear from donald trump he did help donald trump win and partly because he knew what kind of leader [1:02:44] i would be compared to you know donald whom he knew uh would not you have a question from the audience [1:02:50] would you still defend the democratic strategy the democratic party strategy of trying to capture the [1:02:55] center when it has failed to repel donald trump two separate times it feels as though the only thing [1:03:00] democrats agree on is being anti-trump well i think this year anti-trump may work um so i'm not sure [1:03:09] this year is the right time to try to answer that question but also if you look at where we have to win [1:03:21] the electoral college is not our friend and it certainly is not the democratic party's friend and so [1:03:30] when you are planning a national campaign as opposed to a congressional or state by state senate campaign [1:03:40] you have to try to figure out how you're going to win those independent voters or you're not going to [1:03:45] win you're not going to win the electoral college you can run up your margins remember i beat them by [1:03:50] nearly three million votes because i ran up my margins um in new york and illinois and california and all you [1:03:58] know it was great so i won the popular vote and lost the election and so when people say to me [1:04:06] you know just you don't need to try to appeal well go to wisconsin go to michigan go to pennsylvania [1:04:13] and try to look at how josh shapiro wins or gretchen whitmer wins they win by appealing broadly not [1:04:21] narrowly and so it's it's it's frustrating and i know it's frustrating because all of this [1:04:28] is so self-evident to us about what kind of government we should have what kind of leaders [1:04:34] we should have what kind of candidates we should elect but it's a big country out there i want to [1:04:40] ask you two quick questions about the law and this is a beautifully crafted one on a scale of one to ten [1:04:46] how worried are you about being locked up well it's not for lack of trying that i'm not that um [1:05:01] they you know they continue to uh you know not only go after me but go after all kinds of you [1:05:10] know people that trump considers uh his quote enemies you know i'm not i'm not worried about [1:05:16] it if the law matters and if the facts matter i have nothing to worry about and and what i've been [1:05:23] slightly reassured about in the last couple of months is the way the courts are actually enforcing [1:05:29] their orders so the name is off the kennedy center the you know 1.776 billion dollar fund is enjoined and [1:05:45] so there is finally the pushback our big problem has been the supreme court and the supreme court has [1:05:55] enabled and approved so much of what he's done on the so-called shadow docket [1:06:00] um and that is what has given him the permission to go forward with a lot of the things that he has [1:06:07] pursued without there being yet any kind of final adjudication so when i think about the law personally [1:06:14] you know i'm not that worried um for myself but i do see him continuing to unleash his private law firm [1:06:27] which used to be called the justice department against people and forcing them to be you know [1:06:34] investigated spend money everything to just put them you know at risk so yeah i do think that he is [1:06:42] uh going to continue to do that and we unfortunately are going to have to continue to fight back has john [1:06:48] roberts in particular as chief justice failed the law i voted against him as a senator i met with him [1:06:58] i voted against alito and alito was a much more obvious right uh movement conservative a results [1:07:06] oriented uh judge um and so i had no doubt about what he would do and i gave a speech on the floor [1:07:14] john roberts though as i looked into his past when he clerked for justice rehnquist he wrote a memo [1:07:23] about reversing the voting rights act back in the 1980s so he has been a known commodity to some of [1:07:32] us who paid attention for some time but he comes across as more affable you know a kind of country [1:07:41] club person that you would have a nice dinner with but make no mistake about it he led the charge against [1:07:50] the voting rights act he led the charge against campaign finance reform he has been on the side [1:07:57] of the you know sort of federalist agenda um since he was a young lawyer a young law clerk and this is [1:08:07] his court and i think they have concluded led by him you know the majority certainly uh that their job [1:08:17] is to turn the clock back as much as possible on the 20th century you know they believe in you know [1:08:24] almost um the height of corporate power they believe in you know the uh role that corporations should play [1:08:35] in our our politics and basically undisclosed unlimited money uh plus then things like the voting rights act [1:08:45] which they view as in the way they describe it um unnecessary in a quote colorblind society that's [1:08:54] gotten beyond race i don't know where they live i don't know who they talk to i don't understand it but [1:09:00] that is their uh stated uh view but it's really you know i went to law school with clarence thomas [1:09:06] and so did you know him what did you know him of course i did and what was he like then he was kind [1:09:15] of a a guy with a grudge he had a grudge did you ever figure out what the grudge was i think he again i [1:09:25] i can't tell you all the reasons why i think that because i don't haven't you know i don't know enough [1:09:30] about him but i think he had a view uh that he was being treated unfairly in life and you know when [1:09:40] he got out of law school he couldn't really get a great job um and i just feel like for some reason [1:09:48] you know he began to think that uh life would have been better i don't know how he believes this uh [1:09:55] without all of these laws and regulations uh and so he is what he is and he just gave a speech about [1:10:04] uh for the 250th uh commemoration i think at texas or somewhere uh he gave a speech basically saying [1:10:11] that you know the progressive movement had destroyed america and it needed to be reigned in [1:10:19] secretary clinton thank you so much [1:10:29] you