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�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
February 2, 1994
For Internal ,use Only
AN INTERVIEW OF THE FIRST LADY
BY LIZ DREW
o I'd like to spend 20 hours with you, but I don't
think that's possible, just to go through some things and
have you help me understand what happened or what your
thinking was -
.MRS. CLINTON:
Okay..
Okay.
'0
as various things.happened and there will be,
as I say, no hint that I talked to you, as much ,as I would
like to.
'!""-
MRS. CLINTON:
Okay.
o Let us begin at the beginning, the genesis of
your role. There had to have been, after the election or
whatever, conversations between.you and. your husband, you and
friends, or whatever, "We know this is going to be different,
we know this is going to be new."
MRS. CLINTON:
Right.
o "How do we do it? What are the parameters, what
are the dangers," and just specifically when you were talking
about this and how the thinking was going.
MRS. CLINTON: Let's see. Well, you're right, you
know., We didn't -- we are very much of the school you don't
talk about a no-hitter until it's over, so we did not talk
about anything like that until after the election and then it
kind of -- it kind of evolved.
I mean, it was in Little'Rock, for example, that
the President first suggested that I might work on health
care when he came to Washington.
o
When was that?
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MRS. CLINTON: December probably, or early January.
I mean, I don't - I don't have an exact date. Sometime in
there.
Q
In or around then?
MRS. CLINTON:
Yes, somewhere around there.
Q I 'know that there were discussions on should you
be a generalist, should you -
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
-- do a range of children's' issues.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Right.
Right.
And it evolved into health care.
MRS. CLINTON:
Right.
Q I wonder, is there just anything you can
remember on how that happened?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I knew that -- I knew from my
experience as the First Lady in Arkansas that I wanted to do
the traditional parts of the job very well because they were
important to me and they were important historically and to a
lot of people.
So I was concerned about putting together a staff
that would support me both in the traditional
responsibilities I would have and whatever else I would be
involved in. And I think that· it was clear to me very early,
I don't know exactly when again, that I wanted Maggie
Williams to be my chief of staff 'and I think then that Maggie
talked with a lot of people, you know, who had been with Mrs.
Carter and Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Bush, you know, to try to get
an idea of what the demands were~
Q You picked her before Christmas, or you must
have, sort of.
MRS. CLINTON: I, you know, I knew I wanted her. I
can't remember when she finally said, "Okay," that she would.
But I mean, that was probably the best decision I made. And
so' I know that there were conversations going on about how to
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structure whatever it was I was going to do and I had said
all during the campaign I wanted to be a voice for
children
Q Right.
MRS. CLINTON:
because that's what I've always
worked on, as you know, and what I care about. And, at some
point --and I really don't remember, December or January -
the President was having a series of meetings in Little Rock
·and most of them were with his economic team, focusing on the
budget. And he was spending countless hours on substantive
issues like that and, you know, on personnel issues with
Warren Christopher and Vice President Gore and -QWell, you were in those, too.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
I was in those.
(Inaudible).
MRS. CLINTON: And Matt McClarty and Roy Neil, I
guess, was sort of in the group. And there were several
meetings about health care because, as the President kept
pounding on the table and pointing out, you know, no matter
what they did on the budget, they were going to have to deal
with health care.
And I ,think there were ~everal meetings about that,
and he kept reiterating over and over again, and it was not
something that was immediately understood by everybody on the
economic team, about how important it was to do health care
reform in some sequence with the economic package.
And then he decided that we were going·to have to
focus on health care but it had to be subordinated to getting
the other pieces of the economic package in place and he
wasn't sure about .the timing. We went back and forth on that
over the year.
Q They might -- well, there was a thought they
were going to be last year.
MRS. CLINTON: There was a thought that, but, you
know, once we got here, that was obviously not going to
happen.
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Q Think what the reconciliation bill
(inaudible)
MRS. CLINTON: That's right, exactly, you know. I
mean, they would have to hire armored trucks to bring it to
the Hill. But anyway, so he at some point asked me if I
would consider working on health care and supervising
whatever team was put together.
None of us knew exactly what any of this meant. We
were used to being very project-oriented, whether it was in
Arkansas or with his work on.the Family Support Act or the
national education goals or the work I've always done through
CDF and other groups; and we believed that, you know, you got
people together and you worked through what you were trying
to do and you went forward, and we didn't really fully
appreciate all of the challenges that would be. But he did
ask me if I would work on health care and then, shortly after
he was inaugurated, he announced that to the world.
Q About two days after. But you can't remember
whether this was December or January? The economic meeting
started on the 7th.
.
MRS. CLINTON:
Of what, December?
Q January.
MRS. CLINTON:
Oh.
There weren't any in
December?
Q Not with him.
There weren't any with him
until -
MRS. CLINTON: Well, then, it had to be in January
because it was an outgrowth of those meetings, I think, in
his own mind.
QWell, you remember the economic conference was
December and he kept saying there, "You can't get the deficit
down without" -
MRS. CLINTON:
health care.
Right, without doing something about
Q So can we agree it was January?
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MRS. CLINTON: I really don't know. I don't know.
I just know that it was while we were still in Little Rock
and it had to be December or January, but I really don't
know.
Q But there was also discussion, you know,
parallel or concurrent discussion, should you take a thing or
be a generalist.
MRS. CLINTON:
But that was (inaudible)
Q Tell me how that evolved.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I mean, it was the President's
decision. I mean, it, you know -- I mean, there was lots of
discussion, certainly, in the press about what I would or
wouldn't do. But I always viewed it as his decision.
You know, in 1983, when he decided he was going to
take on education, and passed the Quality Education Act in
Arkansas and then he asked me if I would head the commission,
I remember saying to him, "Do you think this is a good idea?
I'm not sure this is a good idea."
'
And he, I remember the moment before we were going
,to walk out of the Governor's Conference Room and he was
going to announce it and I'm saying, "Oh,' I'm not sure this
is a good idea." He said, "Look at it this way." He said,
'IINobody'sgoing to like it. II
He said, "Our enemies are going to think it's a
terrible idea because of who you are; our friends are going
to think it's a terrible idea because you'll either do too
good a job or too bad a job and we'll take the' blame no
matter where it is." He says, "But ,I think it's a good idea,
so I want you to do it." I said, "Oh, all.right," you know,
so I did it. And it was kind of the same way with health
care~
Q So do you remember anything like that in this
case?
MRS. CLINTON: He just, you know, he just basically,
said, "Look, this is, to me this is one of ,the most important
reasons why I ran for President and I've got everybody
assigned to do things already in the White House, and I think
this is what I want you to do." And so I said, "Okay. I'll
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do it."
Q
Meaning everybody was assigned to other things?
MRS. CLINTON: Right. There was nobody in
mean, Ira Magaziner was going to work on health care.
Q
I
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: But there was nobody to kind of
carry the overall responsibility.
Q
whatever.
Right.
MRS. CLINTON:
So -- •
You know, politics, policy,
Q When you said you didn't know what you were
getting into, can you describe that a little bit?
MRS. CLINTON: Oh, gosh, Liz. I mean just, you
know, I just had no idea how change-adverse this place really
is and how, in the last 20 years, both· legislatively and by
custom, the job of the President has been made so much
harder.
I mean, when we -- maybe I'll just give you a
simple example. When the President announced that, you know,
he was going to have me chair a task force, nobody knew that
that triggered some kind of federal advisory task force law.
I mean, you know, we come from the world where, you know,
people of good faith get together, try to do something that
creates results and have as broad a scope of opinion as you.
can so you get lots of good back and forth.
But, you know, people suing us over obscure laws
that have no relationship to helping the American people or
giving them health care, it was just a real learning
experience, you know, for all of us.
.
.
.",
\
Q But were there things, I mean -- well, you used
the word "change-adverse," this place is.
MRS. CLINTON: Yes.
Q .Could you go on about that? Besides this
lawsuit, which I hope not to even mention in the book,
because I consider it such a minor -
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MRS. CLINTON:
It's so stupid.
Q -- silly, silly thing -- where you ran into the
change-adverseness -- is that a word?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think that 'there is a real
recognition on all of our part about how limited the modern
presidency really is, you know. The opportunity of a
President to get his agenda through in the absence of strong
parties,' of any kind of party discipline, of a Congress that
is very driven from day to day by sound bytes and personal
exposure to a, you know, a press atmosphere that is very
cynical and disbelieving about the possibility of change, to
a people whose experience has been, you know, that they've
just kind of.lost ground over the last 10 or 15 years.
50,1 mean, there are political and cultural and
institutional reasons why it was a very difficult task to get
this up and going and the President was absolutely committed
to doing what he said he would do. I mean, one of the worst
attacks on him is that he doesn't keep his promises when, in
effect, he very carefully set out to do just that and has a
lot to show for it based on this year.
But it 'was a -- it was a -- it was an extraordinary
personal effort on his part that pulled it all together and
kept going through every adversity that was thrown up at him
and never wavered from his belief that this was a historic
opportunity and that this was bigger than he was and he was
going to do everything he could to deliver on what he said.
Q Do you -- he has said, more than once to people,
that he wishes he had picked the White House staff first,
early in that transition process, rather than after the
Cabinet. Do you share that view that that was one of the
problems?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think in retrospect not
enough time was spent on thinking through what the real
functions and roles in the White House needed to be, and he
did spe'nd an enormous amount of. time on the cabinet, and. I
think it shows. I think it's a remarkable Cabinet. And
somebody said they'd read something the other day which said
that. it's the strongest Cabinet, certainly, since FOR, both
individually and collectively.
But I think that he, you know, he really had so
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much to do in that, those first couple months that probably
he didn't spend as much time as he would have wanted to' on
the White House staff or thinking through how he wanted it to
function.
Q Okay. And then you got here. Is there anything
about the inaugural week that you remember that people didn't
pick up or that you were surprised by? Were shoes too small
or anything?
week.
it.
MRS. CLINTON: No, it was a -- it was a wonderful
I don't think I'd do anything differently. I loved
Q
I should think so. All right. Then you got
here and some -- I'm not only writing about the negative,
okay?
MRS. CLINTON:
Mm-hmm.
Q I mean, ,I realize, how much got done, and I think
how things started to -- there were some problems right away.
MRS. CLINTON:
Mm-hmm.
Q Lost the Attorney General the first day.
Whoever started the gays in the military business, it was
still the President, you know, having to arm-wrestle with
Nunn and the Chiefs, and it was rough. What were you
thinking or doing or (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON:
I thought they were blips on the
screen. '
Q Really?
MRS. CLINTON: I mean, yes. I mean, I have a very
'take on a lot of this stuff on a day-to-day basis, ~nd I
think so much of what is the daily coverage is irrelevant;
it's not of any real significance. And I always try to, in
my own mind, think about what is the big picture and what
, stories or events that are unfolding will really stand the
test of time.
And, you know, I also am somebody who believed,
once my husband decided he was going to run for President,
that he was going to be elected because I thought it was just
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the right time in history and that he was the right person;
and I believe that he's going to be a great President. And
so all of this stuff, which is painful and diverting and
creates misunderstanding, you know, you just have to kind of
get through and keep going on what he's trying to accomplish.
So I have a very long-term view of that.
Q
And you say that philosophically.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
I do?
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, you' know, some days you get
pushed over the edge a little bit -
Q
Yes, sure.
MRS. CLINTON: -- because something is outrageous
and you really just can't believe it. But most days, yes,
because it's just, you know, we both have learned it just
takes too much energy to be fighting these minor skirmishes
day in and day out, and -
Q When do you think you both learned that?
different times?
At
~S. CLINTON: " Because we've been learning for so
many years. You know, I have said many times that, over the
years of Bill's political involvements, I've gone from being,
you know, just hyper-concerned about what everybody says, and
taking.all of it very personally, to trying to have this
bigger sense of what's at stake.
And I've said, you know, I've tried to learn to
take, you know, criticism seriously, but not personally.
There may very well be something you need to know. You know,
sometimes your critics can end up being your best friends if
they are, you know, early alert signals or they give you some,
idea of what'you're doing wrong, and you have to always be
aware of that.
But what we try to do is just keep focused on what
we think is important. You know, most of the people who've
lived in this house would get up every morning and, you know,
they'd read the paper and they'd turn on the TV and they'd
watch the morning shows. Then they'd start picking up the
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phone, screaminq at people because people had it wronq or,
you know, "Why did .this happen," et cetera.
I mean, you know, 'we just don't live like that. I
mean, we, the first thinq we did was, there was this biq
piece of furniture in the bedroom that had five television
. sets in it. It had one biq TV set and then it had four
little TV sets. And we qot rid of .it. I mean, you just -- I
mean why would you live with that kind of anxiety all the
time when, in many instances, what's a story today is qone
tomorrow? So -- •
.
Q okay. If you can help me aqain on -- aqain
let'sqo back to decisions about your role, because we're
into major history here.
You must have been havinq conversations with your
husband as well as others -- but with him is what I'm
interested -~ "Okay, this is qoinq to be different. I'm
qoinq to do the traditional thinqs," but, obviously, that
you're qoinq to do untraditional thinqs. What did you
discuss about what are the parameters, the dos and don'ts,
and did that chanqes after you (inaudible) you were conscious
that you were qoinq to break new qround? We all knew that.
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. But I wanted to do it with as
little fuss and bother as possible because I didn't want to
make a biq deal out of it, in part because I don't think it's
fair to anybody who comes after me. to have a new stereotype
created. I mean, I think we ouqht to qet rid of stereotypes.
We ouqht to deal with each individual as he or she chooses to
fulfill their responsibilities.
Q Can you remember anythinq about those
conversations or your conversation with him and Maqqie or
perhaps other people?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, you know, Bill and I don't -
I mean Bill's attitude is that I should do what I think is
best for me, and he wanted me to work on health care in
addition to whatever else I decided I wanted to do.
Q
In your spare time?
MRS. CLINTON: Yeah. And so, it's just, I mean we
don't sit around talkinq about how this is qoinq to be seen
and what's this and what's that. That's just not the way we
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do that.
role.
So we had very few discussions about me and my
The discussions were much more about the issues and
the big personnel decisions that he chose to talk to me
about; and, you know, there was a kind of, I think acceptance
that I would have an office in which I would do the -
Q
That was also a decision, right, the west Wing
office?
MRS. CLINTON: Right. It was a decision. But it
just kind of evolved. I mean, I don't remember anything
particularly noteworthy about it. It just, if I was going to
work on health care, he wanted me nearby, he wanted to be
able to see me during the day, and I didn't want to be in any
way interfering with the people who were primarily going to
be doing the President's work, and it just sort of evolved.
eithe~
Q That was part of it, right, that you wouldn't
be or be seen to be dipping into everything?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Well, I wasn't interested in it.
Yeah.
MRS. CLINTON: I mean that wasn't -- I mean that's
never what I did. I never hung out in the Governor's office.
I never, you know, sort of called up people and said, "What
are you doing on this, that, or the other?" I mean, I worked
on issues that he and I decided were the ones that I was both
interested in and could help him on. And, in my case in
Arkansas, it was education.
But, you know, during the whole time I chaired that
education effort, I just basically did it. I didn't have an
office to do it. I didn't have a budget to do it. .I didn't
hang around kibitzing with the Governor's staff. I mean,
I've·been a professional all my life.
Q
Sure.
MRS. CLINTON: I have a pretty clear idea of what
the appropriate roles people should assume are and -
Q But this was different. I mean, earlier in your
profession, you had your own office -
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MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Right.
-- your'own business, so to speak.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, but see, I felt the same way
about this. I mean, I had the business of running the house
and overseeing the social activities of the White House. And
I'm -- I'm interested in all of that.
I care about what we're going to do to refurbish
the Blue Room or, you know, what the Easter egg roll is going
to look like. So that was the --, that was one of the two
most important things I had to figure out how to make work
right.
Andthen,I was interested in the issues and had
this assignment on health care and I had to figure out how
best to work that out. And I, you know, I think it's worked
pretty well. I feel very good about -- and then I would be
there and if somebody wanted to ask me about something else
or if the President wanted to have lunch with me or whatever,
I mean, it would be just a natural kind of development.
Q
People do want to ask you different things.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yeah.
More than you're available for.
,MRS. CLINTON: But that's okay. Because, I mean
it's, you know, it's the same as a lot of other people who
are advisors to the President. I mean, you know, Vern Jordan
walk through the West Wing to, visit with somebody. People
ask his questions.
I mean, there's just ~- that's always the way
Presidents have been with, you know, their friends, their
advisors, and their spouses, you know. Bess Truman worked
with Harry Truman every night, I'm told, read his speeches,
you know, oversaw his correspondence. So it's just a
, different way to do it.
Q
Okay.
By the way, Lisa, how much time do we
have?
A PARTICIPANT:
now you have.
You've got an hour.
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Q
From the time we started?
A PARTICIPANT:
Q
Started.
So what was that?
A PARTICIPANT:
About 25 after.
Okay~
Let us do a little more health care
No, let's not, let's (inaudible)
Q
genesis.
MRS. CLINTON:
I want to do it.
Q We were talking about selecting the White House
in the early period. Actually, when I saw you at the strauss
dinner, you were (inaudible), and I·said I was doing this,
and you said, "Well, there are a lot of things that we
learned" and again, what an interesting period I had picked.
There were a lot of difficulties in the early
months. Aside from being philosophical about being in it for
the long run, it will be a very good presidency and so on,
what were you thinking or did you think -'- obviously you
thought in part that the staff needed some changing or that
the staff was letting him down or that -- what were your -
Q I most -- you know, I don't know that I thought
that so much as I thought we were just not adapting
effectively to the new demands that we faced. I mean, it. was
the same as anything that.I've ever been involved in.
There's -- there's no substitute for actually getting into
whatever the situation is.
And, you know, in that campaign we had some rough
spots where we had to figure out what we were doing and how
we were doing it and how we were being perceived, because
there's a big difference between what you do and how you're
. perceived at what you do. And my feeling during the spring
. was that we were just kind of on a shakedown cruise in a way.
I mean, we were trying to figure out how to better serve the
President.
I mean, that's why any of us were here. I mean,
nobody was here by any right of venue. And so our whole job
had to be how we made this work better for him; and that's
what I was concerned about, that we not make foolish
mistakes, that we learn from our mistakes, that we admit our
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mistakes, that we go on when we had made one
better the next time, and that we not either
of hunkered-down, fortress mentality which I
Presidents in the past where, you know, they
Q
and try to do
get into a kind
think had ruined
really
You were aware of that going in?
MRS. CLINTON: Absolutely, you know. And I had
seen it up close and I had read about it historically, and
where it becomes an "us and them" mentality and everybody's'
wrong except us and the circle gets smaller and smaller
until, finally, you're jtisttotally isolated; and I didn't
want that to happen.
So I just kept kind of, you know, suggesting that
people try things differently, that they look at it from a
different perspective, but that my main interest during that
time was that we just serve the President better. I mean, he
deserved it. He had earned it. It was -- and he was trying
the right thing for the country and stupid little problems
that were popping up to either sap his energy or divert his
attention, you know, just that wasn't good. We needed to do
better for him.
Q In part, that involved some personnel
adjustments or some (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON: Yes, but I think that's -- I mean,
I
think that's all to be expected.
Q Oh.
MRS. CLINTON: so, I mean, I just -- I just wanted
everybody to feel their, what their primary obligation was,
which was to serve him. And I really feel very good about
the quality of life in this White House, the collegiality and
level of personal relations and, I also think, honesty.
I mean, .I think it's shocking to some people when
they come in~. You know, there's all this sort of mythol,ogy
about how, you know, you can't deliver bad news to the
President and probably can't deliver it to the First Lady or
. the Vice President. 'We deliver bad news to each other on a
regular basis and I think that has been terrifically healthy
for everybody.
Q . I -- it doesn't matter what I think but, I mean,
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I have quite noticed that and written, you know, and made
notes about it, that whatever happened, that you did not get
the bunker mentality here and there was a remarkable ability
on the part of the President to say, "Well, okay, how did we
screw that up?" And "Let's not do it again." And that's the
salvation.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q It's
collectively were
were on the wrong
down, and I think
That's right.
very different from - even if· you
made at the press or rightly thinking they
issues or petty issues, you didn't shut
that's been the -
MRS. CLINTON: And I give an enormous amount of
credit to the President but I also give a lot of credit for
that to McLarty.
I mean, Mac had a very strong willingness to be
open and to take responsibility and to say, "Look, yes, we
did, we screwed up and now let's figure out how we're going
to do it," but always to keep the lines of communication open
so that, with the President's leadership on that and Mac
supporting him, we've really kind of navigated some very
rough waters, I think in a healthy way and, I think, much to
the total surprise and consternation of a lot of people in
this town who still think -- what is it with these people? I
mean, you know, they don't seem to -
Q . "Why haven't you collapsed?"
MRS. CLINTON: Yes, you know, "Why haven't we
collapsed or why haven't we turned paranoid or why haven't we
lashed out and gotten angry at people or why aren't we more
willing to be the victim that we should because we're being
beaten?" You know, I mean all of the usual kinds of
categories.
And I think one of the great lessons that I hope
people will see from the way Bill has done this is, you know,
you can't let other people's expectations of you determine
how you feel about yourself or what you believe in or who you
are, ultimately.
Q I had the question and it's gone.
(Inaudible).
All right. Let's do health care genesis. When you started,
again, what were the parameters, you know, what was on the
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table and what was -- was it open to single-payer or had that
been foreclosed by the campaign and what the President had
been saying?
MRS. CLINTON: I describe it in this way: that the
President had very strong views, based on his work as
Governor and with the NGA and during the campaign, about what
he thought would work. But he told us to look at everything
and to explore any alternative.
(End tape 1, side 1.)
(Begin side 2, in progress.)
MRS. CLINTON: He would always ask the best
questions and he'd always poke the most holes in whatever
presentation was being made; and slowly things began taking
shape based on, really, his direction. I mean, we would come
and, you know, we'd say, "Well, we've explored this and
here's what it would take to do that," and he'd say, "Well,
have you thought about these people and that group and how it
would affect them" and "I don't think that sounds like a good
. idea."
So we constantly were sort of testing what we were
working on against his views, and this is his plan in the
fundamental respects. I mean, there are pieces of it that he
didn't really care one way or the other about but -
o But was it at all possible that you might have
gone straight to single-payer (inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON: No, because he doesn't believe that
that would be the very best thing to do right now because he
thinks we're already spending too much money and that, in the
absence of some means for driving down costs effectively,
single payer would just pump a whole lot of money into a
system that's already absorbing more than it should.
o
Well, it would have limits, wouldn't it, I mean?
MRS. CLINTON: It would have limits but they'd be
limits like Medicare and Medicaid that keep getting exploded.
I mean, there are no real limits·in the government-run
systems. At least, there haven't been up until now.
o But this, I mean whatever your plan turns out to
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be, it opens the door to all sorts of things. I've heard
that in your heart of hearts you'd like to see it end up as
single payer when things get under control./
MRS. CLINTON: No. You know, I want an effective,
functioning, fair, affordable system and I think it's -- I
think it~s absolutely possible for us to get there by a
variety of routes but that, given where we are in the country
right now, the President's approach to kind of marry the
single payer, universal coverage with the competitive forces
is absolutely the right decision to make.
But I want to -- you know, I want to get that in
place first and let's see how well it really works; because I
think this is going to be, if it's done right, a good base on
which we will evolve. So I'm very open. I came into this
without a preconception and I have a lot of confidence in the
approach that the President prefers and that we've put
together.
Q When you say you're open to everything and he
said to be open and explore everything, a single payer system
by itself really wasn't on the table because of what he had
said in the campaign.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, but we looked at it. We
looked at how much it would actually cost and we looked at
the pay-or-play alternatives that some of the Democrats had
supported before. We looked at whether you could replace the
private sector investment with a big VAT. I mean, we looked
at all of that and concluded, for both sUbstantive and
political reasons,' that, you know, those were not a preferred
decision.
QWhat took the VAT off the table?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
The size of it.
(Inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. I mean, it was just huge, in
order to replace the entire private sector investment.
Q At the same time that you're doing the economic
program?
MRS. CLINTON:
Right.
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Q Okay. Was it also expected when you began, just
part'of your thinking, that you would not only, you know,
want universal :and, comprehensive reform, but that you were
going to write it with, you know, as many details as it has
or~ did you consider, did you think that was the way to start
or did that evolve or did you consider, you know, "Here are
our principles" -
MRS. CLINTON: Yes.' That evolved. I mean, I would
have been very happy if we could ,have written kind of
framework legislation that -- you know, I looked at
legislation in other countries and I looked at the
legislation in Hawaii and ,in Washington, in the state of ,
Washington, and I would have much preferred going that way.
But, intoday's world, the level of suspicion and
distrust of the government is so high that, to do what
Franklin Roosevelt did and to say, you know, "Here's the
deal: you put your money in, you'll be taken care of when
you're old," you could -- you can, I think, probably convince
the people but you could never convince the interest groups
and the representatives of various points of view.
And the other part of the problem is that
Q 'That's different.' Is that the same, I mean is
that the same category as the level of suspicion?
MRS~ CLINTON:
Well, there's the existing suspicion
and I think we could have overcome that, if you weren't
dealing with interest groups that had to report back to their
constituencies about what they got for them. You could
probably, pecause most Americans don't read their insurance
policies and they're not going to read a health care bill.
But, as we went through this, it became clear to me
that the level of specificity demanded by people on this
issue was so great that -
Q
The interest groups demands?
MRS. ,CLINTON: Yes. -- that we couldn't really get
by with just doing enabling legislation and that it would be
'better to have thought through all the various issues and
then let the Congress decide that they don't want it in or
that they wanted to do it differently. But we ,would have at
least come forward with all the information we could on a
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particular point of view, you know.
And we went back and forth on that.
that a lot because -
Q
We debated
The (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON:
Yes.
Q-- detail?
MRS. CLINTON:
.Q
Yes •
That's· interesting.
MRS. CLINTON: And, you know, if, for example, I
had an early meeting with -
Q You say "We went back and forth."
and .the President or Ira and the group?
you know.
Is that you
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. More Ira and the group and me,
The President' would have -
Q
The small group?
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. The President would have
preferred a shorter, cleaner, framework legislation.
Q Actually, when we're describing the group, who
are we talking about? .
MRS. CLINTON: Oh, you know, Ira and me and then we
had this whole team of people: Paul Starr and Walter Zelman
and Rick Kronic (phonetic) and (inaudible)
Q
would they have been in on this kind of decision
as well?
MRS. CLINTON: Yes, they were -- I mean it -- they
were in on discussions. They weren't in on the decision,
necessarily, but they were in the discussions about it.
Q When do you think it got decided or it evolved
to "We have to write this thing"?
MRS. CLINTON:
Probably in the summer.
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Q
So in the spring you might have -
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. And that was still my
preference. But -- and I was going to say, I had a meeting
with several Members of Congress: Nancy Kassebaum and Jack
Danforth and Conrad Burns and Dan Glickman, and I think one
other, maybe McCUrdy, I can't remember.
But anyway, both senator Kassebaum and Danforth
kept saying, "You can't put the benefits into the
legislation," because their bill had a board that would then
decide the benefits, because the Congress will never say no
to anybody.'
And I said, "Well, if you don't put the benefits
into the legislation, how do people know what they're
getting?" They said, "Well, they just have to vote for the
Board." And I said, "And then if they don't know what
they're getting, how do we cost out the plan if we don't know
what the benefits are?"
And so, I mean, there was this tension between, "00
. it clean, do it simple and try to buck a lot of the decisions
to the regulatory process" and my concern, which I became
convinced by, that this was going to be hard enough as it was
but to basically tell people, "Well, trust us; you just past
this and then we'll tell you what your benefits are," I just
couldn't see us politically pulling that off.
'So for all the problem with the specificity and
complexity, I think in. the long run, still, it's going to be
an advantage because nobody can raise an issue we haven't
thought about and we at least have provided legislative .
language for them to reject or modify or do whatever they
want to with.
.
Q Was it in the spring, to just
when Rostenkowski said it was "Star Wars,"
sense, I think, that it might be something
understand. I'm sort of on the complexity
MRS. CLINTON:
use an example,
he was evoking the
people don't
point.
Yes.'
Q I mean, I know that you and your husband say,
"Well, look at the current one" --government
MRS. CLINTON:
Right.
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Q -- "if you want complexity." So, setting that
aside, this is the other side of doing what you just said,
obviously. It's complex. People get anxious, fearful. I
mean, did you ever look at it and say, "Holey moley, how did
we get to 1,300 pages or do·we have to" -- is this, is this,
in itself a problem? Because it has become a bit of part of
the politics of the thing.
MRS. CLINTON: It has. And -- but that's in part
because we've borne the entire burden of explanation. I
mean, Chafee's bill is over 800 pages and it doesn't even
deal with big chunks of the system, and nobody has focused on
that. Cooper's bill is, I think, nearly 400 pages and it's a
non-bill.· It doesn't get to universal coverage and it
doesn't deal with a lot of the issues.
So, I mean, we have, although nobody has really
understood it or said it, we've taken the entire system. I
mean, every change that needs to be made is in that 1,300
pages.
-Q
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: And we would eliminate thousands and
thousands of pages of regulations over Medicare and Medicaid,
et cetera, and substitute this bill for it. And, in
comparison with any of the other alternatives that are out
there, it's much more comprehensive and, really, in many
respects, simpler than what they are presenting. But either
they're not viewed as -
Q Because it cleans some other stuff (inaudible)
MRS. CLINTON: Every -- yes, and everything's
there. And, if you look at these other bills, .they really
don't even explain what they're doing very well.
I mean, one of the things I was struck by when I
started reading all.the bills, you know, because a lot of the
. health care bills that were introduced in the last couple of
Congress's were in the 200, 300-pages area, and they would
just, they would say things like, "We will control the rate
of growth of_ the premiums of insurance policies." I mean,
that was in the Nancy Kassebaum bill. "We will have a
premium cap." I mean, no explanation about how it was done
or anything like that.
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And, because health care was never seen as within
grasp before, because you never had a President who was going
to do it, nobody scrutinized any of these other provisions
very carefully. So we, yes, laid ourselves open to all kinds
of scrutiny but that's, you know, that's part of the price we
pay for trying to do it in a comprehensive, responsible
manner. And I still think, in the long run, it's better that
we did it than if we try to dodge all this stuff.
Q . But you were aware that was (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON: On, yes, yes. Yes, absolutely
aware. But I knew it was a tradeoff and it was a difficult
tradeoff.
Q Would it be fair to understand. that, once you
started going down the road of specifiqity, et al., as
opposed to principles, that it almost -had to get like this?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, because the problem is that
everybody who cares about this wants to make sure they're not
going to be left out.
Q
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: So you've got the academic health
centers saying, "Well, what are you going to say about us?"
You've .got the public health systems saying, "Well, what
about us?" You've got all different kinds of legitimate
claims that need to be considered.
,
And so, yes, we -- we knew that it was going to be
lengthy but we -- I still don't think it's very complex. It
is not complex on the basis of how people live. I mean, the
insurance system today is incredibly complex, which is why I
never read my policy, and most people are -- I mean, we've
tried -- we tried to design it so it would be most like what
people are comfortable with now. You get your -
Q
That's why you have the employer base?
MRS. CLINTON:. That's right. Exactly. So, from
the ground up, it's not complicated at all, really.
Q
No, it's just a big piece of legislation.
MRS. CLINTON:
Yes.
But no bigger than the budget,
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no bigger than a lot of things that are, you know,
complicated .and have to 'be dealt with.
I told a bunch of senators that, you know, the
difference in today's world and FOR's is, you know, you could
have Social Security be just this little, thin bill but now,
look at what we've done to it with all of the regs and
everything. And so, you know, it's just those are the
.tradeoffs you make.
Q WbatIwas thinking about earlier -- it did come
back -- was, you were saying -- (inaudible) the precise words
here -- you were sort of surprised by how difficult it is to
get change, the entrenched whatevers and the cynical press
and so on and so forth. Yciu and ,the President, you know, you
weren't strangers to Washington. You'd been here a lot,
worked, worked it, functioned in it, functioned within it,
succeeded at things.
So where was the gap that led to these surprises?
Was it things you -- well, you know what I mean. You weren't
strangers.
MRS. CLINTON: No, we weren't strangers. But we
had only been here kind of again on projects, you know. The
President focused all of his energy on the Family support Act
and, you know, welfare reform was popular, and he would work
on the education goals. But nothing ever got done on them
until he became President. I mean, they just kept spinning
around.
And I guess the -- it, it really was surprising to
me how much emphasis is put on words and on image as opposed
to results and deeds, and -- .
Q You mean in the total atmosphere?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yes.
Not just the press?
MRS. CLINTON: The total atmosphere, yes. So, you
know, yes, we had seen it, but it had never been part of our
day-to-day experience, and I think that's what we've
that's what we've had to learn about.
Q
And nobody in here had gone through it, either?
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MRS. CLINTON: No, that's another -- that's another
problem that we had is that, you know, what worked so well in
the campaign, when you had an election every Tuesday and you
had a, you know, a focused, strategic objective, was much
harder to do without some experience in, you know, in the
day-to-day governing. It just was a different challenge that
we had to learn more about and how to adjust to.
Q One adjustment was bringing in Gergen,
obviously, as an experienced person. What other adjustments
did you make?
.MRS. CLINTON: I just, I think every day that went
on, we learned more. We may be slow, but we -- we eventually
get it. And I think that -
Q What kinds of adjustments can you think that you
(inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I mean, just learning more,
for example, on how the Congress operated, that you couldn't
overload the circuits, that you had to be respectful of the
committee structure. I mean, you may not like it, may wish
it were different, but it's there and you got to learn to
work with it and not at cross-purposes.
And so just getting a sense of the timing and the
sequencing and the overload that they go through in order to
function more effectively with them was big part of the
learning experience.
Q What we were· talking about earlier, sort of
joking about, I guess now you see that putting health care
and reconciliation would just --talk about overload -
MRS. CLINTON:
Capitol, I think.
Q
The top would have flown off the
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: But
seemed like a good idea.
Ho~ard,
whe~
we first got there, it
Q I'd be surprised if people like George and
I mean, they would have known that, wouldn't they?
MRS. CLINTON:
I -- I mean, I'm sure they did
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but, you know, there were many voices speaking all at one
time.
Q
Sure.
MRS. CLINTON: And we didn't do it, to, you know,
they clearly made the points.
Q
That was as much Robert Byrd as anybody, wasn't
it?
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. He had a big role to play in
it. But it'was, you know, I mean we 'weren't ready, either.
I mean, everything -- you know, things kind of happened for a
purpose. I mean, 'actually, we had to get the economic
package done and that took every ounce of energy that anybody
had to get done, and then we had to deal with NAFTA. And,
all along, we're dealing with, you know, National Service and
the crime bill and finance, campaign finance reform and the
Brady Bill. I mean, we're doing a lot of things. But until
we got that budget done, nothing else was possible.
Q okay. You got it done. And then there was a
series of meetings, two or three meetings about the fall
agenda, lots of discussions.
MRS. CLINTON:
Yes.
Q That's okay. I don't know how you do it. Lots
of discussions about emphasis, time, the President's time, on
health care, NAFTA, some suggestion, "Let's put off health
care until next year." How did you feel during that when, I
guess they were in the Solarium, mainly, these meetings?
MRS. CLINTON: I thought we had to -- we had to
deal with all of them but again, they had to be -
much?
Q But not that you coulpput health care off that
What was your-
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
No.
-- thinking about that?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think it was pretty much
what the President thought, which was he wanted to get
started on reinventing government because that was something
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very important to.him and the Vice President.
He wanted to lay his marker down about health care
because he said he was going to come with a bill in '93 and
he wanted to get that done, even though he knew that we
wouldn't get the Congress to act on it until '94. And he
wanted to get all of the Administration working on welfare
reform because we had to get at least some sense of what the
budgetary implications were to be able to deal with it in
'94. So all those things had to go on at the same time.
Q But there·were some people who were saying,
"Let's just put off" -- "NAFTA is so important, let's just
put off health care."
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
They weren't the President.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
But they weren't the President.
That's right.
They weren't you, either.
MRS. CLINTON: That's right, exactly. And, you
know, I was, I was pretty much supporting what I knew he
believed because I think he's got an extraordinary sense of
how to get things done, and he's very good about listening to
thousands of people, then kind of processing it all.
But I usually have a pretty good idea, after
watching him, where he is, what his real senseis on most
issues, even though he may continue to talk with people to
try to make sure and doublecheck his own feelings about it.
And I just. knew that, you know, yes, people were making these
arguments and they were good arguments and they had a lot to
do with the institutional capacity of this town and the
Congress but that that's not what he was willing to do. So
he did what he thought was the right thing to do, and I
agreed.
.
Q And I guess maybe it would have been the same
thing about NAFTA, those who were saying a little bit
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yes.
-- you know, "Dump it; it's a loser."
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MRS. CLINTON:
(inaudible)" -
"It's a loser, it's not your
Q He was listening but he was committed in his own
head to (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON: Yes. See, he always listens and he
always processes it and kind of stacks it up against what he
thinks. And I have seen .him, in the face of a persuasive
argument or piece of evidence of some kind, you know, change
his mind, and he always thinks that's possible. But he's
really working to get his own comfort level because he wants
to know that what he's doing is what he believes is right.
Q Can you think of an example where, upon hearing
the arguments, he changed his mind?
MRS. CLINTON: I can think of more, you know,
during the time he was Governor, not during the time he's
President, not -- not one that comes to mind.
QOkay. It is said by some of the staff, and one
can observe, that, as the year went on and particularly
towards the end, he had a growing and greater sense of the
power of words, and I'm fascinated by that, as to how that
evolved. And you, you know, you'd be the person closest to
it and able to see it and explain it •
. MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think that -- I mean, I
think -- I think getting the budget done freed him up to
begin thinking again about the Presidency as a bully pulpit
and as a focal point for urging people to take responsibility
for themselves. And I mean, you know, the Memphis speeches
were obviously there.
He'd always talked like that during the whole time
that he was Governor and during the campaign.
QTalked like?
MRS. CLINTON: You know, talked in visionary terms,
I mean, you know, (inaudible) -
Q That's what I'm trying to understand.
MRS. CLINTON: -- (inaudible) parish and he'd
always talked.like that, and he even talked like that during
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the first six months of his Presidency. But there was so
much static and he was so focused on trying to get something
done -- not just words but deeds --and he felt that getting
this budget fixed would lead to what it's led to, that it
really would restore growth and confidence and. all the things
that it seems to be helping do.
.
So he didn't really, I think, have an opportunity
to unveil his thinking and feeling in words that would be
heard because people were kind of out there waiting to see,
"Well, what can this guy do?· Yeah, we all know he can talk
but what can he do?"
So once he got through the budget, then, you know,
we went on vacation and he had a chance to -
Q
Did you talk about this during the vacation?
MRS. CLINTON:
And he got -
Q
About "Now's the chance to" -
MRS. CLINTON:
talk like that. But-
Q
Oh, we talked about it a lot, yeah.
Well, not in those terms.
We don't
No, I mean once the budget was done.
MRS. CLINTON: Once the budget was done that, you
know, you know, what's your message for the country; what is
it you want to convey; how do you want people to feel and
think? How can you help place this in history?
And he read a lot and, you know, kind of recharged·
his batteries and, I think, came back just better
understanding how significant a President's words are. And I
think he's been determined·-
Q
As of the vacation, you think?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think he always knew it
intellectually, but he was so focused on kind.of getting
through those first six months, and he wanted that budget
done by the August recess. I mean, that was his internal
goal, you know.·
Nobody had gotten their budget done before October,
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I guess, you know, and he was just intent upon doing that,
and he didn't have a whole lot of time to sit and
philosophize or think in his historical terms when he was
spending every waking minute, you know, dealing with Members
of Congress and interest groups and trying to get this
through.
And then, once he got it through, he really, I
think, in his own heart, felt that his whole year would have
been justified. But.he believed in NAFTA and he believed in
National Service and he believed in all these other things,
so we just kind of cranked up to do it but, with him a little
bit more free to talk about what was important, to try to
begin to place a lot of this in context and to say what he
had said all during the campaign.
I mean, that line in his speech in the State of the
Union, you know, "Governments don't raise children; parents
do," he's been saying that for five years.
Q
Did he have that exact formulation?
MRS. CLINTON: Absolutely. Absolutely. He has
said it over and over again. I have said it, repeating him,
over and over again. You know,. he gave big speeches on
families at Chautauqua during the campaign.
And the words of the candidate or the words of a .
new President with a big agenda for change, where people are
kind of withholding judgment on whether you're real or not,
didn't carry the kind of weight that he now can carry because
he's proven himself, he's gotten things done. But he's going
to say the same things that he's been saying for years.
There's nothing new in what he's saying, you know.
'
Q I wanted to ask you about that. I really, for
history's purposes, I really want to have it right about the
Memphis speech.
MRS. CLINTON:
Mm-hmm.
.
Q Did he say anything different? I mean, I know
he talked about personal responsibility and so on. Was it
the King formulation that was new or was anything very new,
or just was it the timing and the people's awareness of what
he was talking about?
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MRS. CLINTON: I think the King formulation was
more developed in that one Memphis speech~ You know, there
were two -- two speeches and -- but I think if you go back
and look at his speeches in general and, particularly, at
speeches to 'black groups, going back a number of years -- the
same themes, some of the s~me phrases. And, you know, nobody
wrote it for him, and it was just basically his putting
together in one. place, as President, what he had said as a
Governor and a candidate.
'
And so, as President, it commanded more attention
than it ever did before and, I think, because he had proven
himself as somebody who could get things done, it was real.
So that combination of factors just heightened -
Q Well, it also came right up against something
people were so much more aware of in the daily stories -
MRS. CLINTON: . That's right.
Q -- I think, that he referred to, so that it had
a relevance -
MRS. CLINTON:
understand
things the
There were
speeches.
That's right, exactly, yeah.
Q -- to many people. I just want to be sure I
this right. So he'd been saying these kinds of
first part of the Presidency. You're right.
some Cooper Union, there were some very thoughtful
So it was (a), the opportunity but, also, what?
I want to be sure of the evolution in his own mind
since he had been doing this before. Maybe he didn't, it
didn't evolve that he understood better the power of words;
he just had an opportunity for the first time. What's the
balance?
MRS. CLINTON: No, I don't know what the balance
is, but those are both factors. I mean, he did -- he did
understand more the power of words. I mean, I think
Q Where do you get that?
MRS. CLINTON:
I'm sorry.
Well, I think he got -
Q FrQm reading?
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MRS. CLINTON: From reading and spending some time
thinking about what he was really trying to accomplish. He
had some time to talk to some historians.
'
Q That was that couple days.
MRS. CLINTON: And, you know, that was very
reassuring to him because, you know, people whose works he
respects were saying to him, "We think you're doing a
terrific job" and -.
Q He had already done Memphis by the time they
were here, I think.
MRS. CLINTON:' . I don't know. I don't remember the
sequence. But he'd also been talking to people kind of off
and on so that just, everything came together.
Q What kinds
MRS. CLINTON:
Yeah.
Q What kinds of people?
MRS. CLINTON: Just, I mean he just talks to
everybody, but, you know, just all kinds of people, you know,
that he is interested in and wants to get an opinion from.
But I think it was mostly that he found his own voice as the
President.
Q 'Even though it was much the same thing?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yes.
(Inaudible) just about the one speech?
MRS. CLINTON:
Yes.
Q And how do we describe that?
- he's done more than the Memphis speech.
MRS. CLINTON:
If he was giving
Right.
Q But did the Memphis speech give him the
confidence to do some of the things in this State of the
Union that maybe he didn't do a year ago? A year ago, he was
serious, you know, it was very agenda-driven.
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MRS. CLINTON: Right. But see, he -- but when he
ran for President, he talked about all those issues and he
said that we had to deal with those issues and he cared about
those issues. And I think that just like, I mean, you know,
you can only do so many things. And the first six to seven
months, you know, he was trying to gain his footing; he was
trying to deal with the real, you know -
Q Yes (inaudible) you said that he found his
voice, and I was fascinated by that. I want to know, if he
was saying the same thing -
(End tape 1, side 2.)
(Begin tape 2, in progress.)
Q
--. anything in between that I've missed?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I wasn't there, but I hear he
was great at Pat Moynihan's fundraiser.
Q
Oh, yes, I have that.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
I have that.
I heard he was just wonderful.
Yeah, that's another one.
MRS. CLINTON: He was very good at -- I heard that,
I mean, the speech that he gave at North Carolina was, a lot
of people said, one of his best speeches. I thought his
speech at APAC, which was more foreign policy but still --I
mean, you know, I think he's given a number of good ones~ .
Q Yes. Those are ones. Okay. I have to ask you,
though you, you know, you were able to say, "We're in it for
the long run," I mean, you know, it's about the Presidency,
you know what happens day~to-day. There you were at the end
of last year, everything really coming together, he's getting
the credit for it, and wham, I mean, two whacks in the face.
MRS. CLINTON:
.Q
The troopers and then Whitewater.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yeah •
Yeah.
What did it make you think?
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MRS. CLINTON:,
Q
Oh, it made me mad.
Good.
MRS. CLINTON:
It just infuriated me, basically.
I
mean -
Q
Both are we talking about?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
I mean the -
What infuriated you?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Yeah, both.
Well, I mean
It's a stupid'question, but I want to hear it
anyway.
, MRS. CLINTON: Yes, but, I mean the trooper thing
infuriated me because it was untrue and they're real -- you
know, everybody who knows those people and knows anything
about them knows that it was politically motivated and it was
perfectly timed.· I mean, it was not an accident that it
happened at the time that,you know, Bill was getting the
credit that he deserved in the polls.
Q I don't want to be rude about this, but
"Spectator" is a monthly magazine. I mean, I've thought
about this. They couldn't know, w~en they went to press,
necessarily, when he would -
MRS. CLINTON: Yes, but -- see, . I just don't -- I
just don't believe that. I mean, I think that Cliff -- I
mean, ,all I know is what we're told by people in Arkansas who
tell us that this group of people who are obsessed with
Bill -- you know, the Sheffield Nelson, Cliff Jackson, Lynn
Davis group -- is in constant communication with right-wing
Republicans.
They get promises of money. They get all kinds of
support and technical assistance. They get hooked up with
the David Brocks of the world. I mean all of this is, you
know, I mean, the secretary of the Republican Party of
Arkansas told one of our friends just a few weeks ago when he
was skiing, he said, "You know, this is so much bigger than
we are now. I mean, there's just so much money out there.
We can get anything we want done or placed."
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And I mean, it's just -
Q
How would they -- how would money affect this?
MRS. CLINTON:
Because that's what those men were
promised.
Q
Oh, I see.
MRS. CLINTON: I mean, you know, there's a lot of
money being promised and thrown around, you know.
Q So it wouldn't necessarily be that they were
doing it for book contracts? They might have been just paid
off to do it?
MRS. CLINTON: They were promised jobs and book
contracts, based on what we've been told. But again, I mean,
look, you know, there's a dime-a-dozen of those kind of
people. And, you know, and I told Bill the other day, I
said, you know, "Since they have failed once again, they will
up the ante," you know. "They will come up with yet new
kinds of things and charges and claims."
I thought, for example, that that little deal in
"Time" magazine about how we're sneaking out, I thought that
was a -
Q
I didn't see it.
MRS •. CLINTON: Well, it was in "Time" magazine last
week and it said, liThe President has escaped the press and
snuck out several times and Hillary Clinton goes around in
disguise." Totally untrue. I read it. You know the first
thing I thought of? It was deliberately planted to lay the
groundwork for claiming that either he or I were sneaking out
of the White House to do something immoral and unethical or
illegal. I mean, .that's how these people work.
They -- you know, Floyd Brown, the guy who did
Willie Horton? He has an associated named David Bos~ey
(phonetic) who is now on contract to NBC and is runn1ng
around, you know, trying to stir up stuff in Arkansas. I
mean, this stuff is a cottage industry.
So it infuriates me and it infuriates me that the
so-called mainline press gives people like this any, you
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know, credit without what I would view as legitimate
corroboration. So it puts us in the position of neither
wanting to escalate the story by saying "It's untrue and,"
you know, "we can prove it's untrue," and, you know, go talk
to this woman that the "Spectator" identifies who's the wife
of the judge who's our dear friend and let her on camera tell
the world that it's untrue. I mean, you know, that's not
I mean, that's not useful.
So it puts us in the position of trying to blow it
off which only, then, escalates the desire on the part of
these people to continue to come after us.· So it is, it's
infuriating. But I have, I guess, become resigned to the
fact that we're just going to deal with it and it's going to
keep coming back, and that there's too much money and too
much at stake for them to ever give up.
Q
Where is the money coming from?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I know that a lot of the money
has come from Sheffield Nelson personally and others of his
ilk, .and that now some of it's coming from, like Floyd Brown
runs a little operation called, what, Citizens united or
something, in Fairfax, Virginia. I mean, these are right
wing -
Q
There's a lot of money (inaudible) -
MRS. CLINTON: -- nasty people. They got lots of
money. And'they don't like what the President's doing. So
it's in their personal, political, ideological interest to
try to destroy us.
And the Whitewater thing, I mean, you know, that is
just something that I was bliridsided by. I mean, the
f~ndamental truth is the same as it always was.
It'll be the
fundamental truth when Bob Fiske does his report. We made a
lousy real estate deal. We lost money. We didn't control
it. We tried to save ourselves from further embarrassment
toward the end by pumping more money to pay taxes and other
stuff into it, until we could get out of .it. We weren't in
any other deals at Madison Guarantee or any of that stuff.
But it is -- it is so hard, and I finally had to
accept this, although it's very hard, that nobody believes
anybody anymore. So that when I said, "Look, we lost, I can
prove we lost $69,000," and they say, "Well, we don't believe
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you," so we go hire an accounting firm that we don't know,
we've never met, have no. relationship to, but a friend of
ours who's a lawyer knows them.
Q Lyons?
MRS. CLINTON: Lyons, you know. We hire this
accounting firm. They say, "Look. Based on the records
we've got, we can tell you they lost $69,000. We can't tell
you much more because Jim McDougal didn't have any records."
We have painstakingly, over the last two years, since this
became a campaign issue, tried to create enough records so
that we could, you know, demonstrate, I guess, now, to
special counsel, but to anybody, you know, what nonsense this
was.
Well, then, people say, "Well, we don't believe the
accountants." So, you know, after a certain time, you say,
"Well, go jump in the lake." I mean, you know, I'm sorry.
Q Or worse.
MRS. CLINTON: And then, to have a special counsel
appointed for an investigation, for which there is no
credible evidence, no allegation of criminal wrongdoing, no
witness who has even made. such a credible claim, which is the
standard for appointing a special counsel, I think is very
bad for the presidency. And I thought it was just a real sad
development that, for political and press reasons, we were
forced to do it.
NOW, in retrospect, maybe we could have done
something differently. But every time we tried to satisfy
the press that was interested in this, Sheffield Nelson would
call them up, get them into his office, and come up with some
more conspiracy. When I released ten years of income tax
returns in 1990, nobody in, who's lived in this house has
ever released as much information as we have •. At least
that's what I'm told by people who cover this stuff.
Sheffield Nelson said, when he saw that I had not
made a lot of money, that I had not profited from my
position, that, in fact, I had bent over backwards never
taking any money that could be linked to any kind of, you
know, state tax money, he said to the press, "Well, don't
believe that. She must have it hidden in her pension and
profit-sharing account."
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So we released the pension and profit-sharing
account. He's saying, "Well, she must have secret bank
accounts or maybe Jim McDougal" -- you know. And so because
you've got this conspiratorial mentality in the press, they
are easy prey to the kind of vicious attitudes of these
people who hate my husband because he beat them. He beat
them once, he beat them again, and he keeps on beating them,
and they can't understand it.
So I guess, you know, it infuriates me, but it's
something else I'm just trying to just put down because I
can't control what they do.
Q Yes. I was thinking a lot, I was thinking about
how you must have been thinking about it during Christmas and
afterwards, and what it must be like for, you know, friends
or advisors when you hear friends and advisors say, "Yeah,
it's unfair; yeah, there are no charges; yeah, it's an
invasion of your privacy" -
MRS. CLINTON:
that's (inaudible)"-
"It's bad for the Presidency, but
"but that's the way this place is and you
Q
have to do it."
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
It's just infuriating_
HOw, I mean
MRS. CLINTON: It is, it is, Liz. Because I'm
sitting here saying, you know, one of my heroes from the
Reagan years was Shultz. Remember when they, when Regan
said, "I .want everybody to take lie detector tests"?
Q
Yes.
MRS.· CLINTON:
where these leaks are"?
"Because we're going to find out
Q Yes.
MRS. CLINTON:
And Shultz said, "I'll resign"?
Q Yes.
MRS. CLINTON:
He was one of my heroes.
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Q
Yes.
MRS. CLINTON: And he stopped that madness. And,
you know, I thought that was wonderful. But, you know
Q So how do you deal with that equation in your
own head, or, you know, just, "Sorry, we love you, you know,
we're for you, but you got to do this because you got to do
this"?
MRS. CLINTON: It was very, it was very hard,
because I -- and, you know, it 'was something that I thought
was brought about solely 'for political and press pressures
and I kept thinking, "Well, what's the next thing?" I mean.,
where do we begin to kind of rein this in and get back some
sense of propriety and proportion? .
Or do we want a country that's paralyzed so that
you're basically dealing with irrelevancies and distractions
instead of solving problems? I mean, I guess there are some
in this country who profit from the status quo for whom that
is just fine. They love it just the way it is.
But eventually, I just realized that it was going
to take up too much of my time, too much of the White House
time, it was just going to become a huge daily ordeal and,
since I don't have anything to hide and I don't have any
reason to worry about the outcome, I just finally decided it
was inevitable, so it was fine with me. I couldn't --there
was nothing else to say (inaudible)
Q
(Inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON: No, it was not. I think it was
wrong and I think it was a bad mistake that people in
washington have that mentality and that they permit
themselves to be stampeded and that you -- you can't deal
with these issues ina more appropriate manner.
And then I really was amazed, totally amazed, that
on the day his mother dies, you have Republicans in the
Congress insulting and criticizing and calling for further
investigations and keep it up as a drumbeat until he buries
her. I thought that was really low-class. You know, my
husband would never do that to anybody. And I just thought
that was pathetic.
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A PARTICIPANT:
Liz, we have to wrap up.
Q Okay. Let me just ask you one, one very tiny
point about this. There were those who understood how
difficult this was for you, for all the reasons you've said,
but really felt it would have been better to do it earlier
because there appeared
there was an appearance that you
were hiding something. I mean, I don't -- that's not where I
was •.
So do you now think maybe you should have done it
earlier, .that you paid for wrestling with this, or -
MRS. CLINTON: No. I mean, you know, I don't know.
I suppose we did. I can't really comment on that. But our
problem always was we couldn't answer a lot of these
questions the press would ask. The press would say, "Well,
what about McDougal's ex-wife?" We didn't know. And I
became convinced that, no matter what we told the press,
there were certain vested reporters who were going to claim
something.
Q So even if you'd released the Whitewater papers,
that was going to lead to more (inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON: I mean, and .questions we didn't -- I
mean, we didn't know what this guy was doing. We had no
involvement in his business affairs. We weren't kept
apprised of it •
. I mean, I read in the paper for the first time some
of the stuff that I now have knowledge of. And we had, until
November and December, we had no reason to go out.and collect
up documents, you know. We had some from the campaign, but
we didn't do some kind of huge outreach and search. And
finally, we did that, and so we gradually pulled together
documents.
I also honestly believed that, once we made the
decision to voluntarily cooperate with the Grand Jury in
whatever way they wanted us to, that would have been the end
of it. And it should have been, in any sensible ordering of
the world.
We didn't -- I mean, this was a Republican
prosecutor. We knew nothing about him; he knew nothing about
us. We weren't related in any way. And, when that was not
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enough, and then they called for a special counsel, we do the
special counsel, then they call for Congressional
investigation -- see, that's how -- that was the slippery
slope I always saw. So I never saw -- I never saw how you
ever got out of it.
Now, at least, if this'man can do his work and,
hopefully, in an expeditious manner, maybe we can put it to
rest. But it won't put it to rest for those who choose not
to believe it, so there's nothing I can do about those
. (inaudible)
Q Yes. I thought it would sort of disappear from
the papers, but it doesn't from some.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, because there's a -- I mean,
there is a cottage industry out there that is stirring this
stuff up all the time and, you know, there's just -- and I -
I think the best thing we can do is keep doing what we're
doing and for the President to keep being successful and
there's not, you know, not anything else we can do to control
it, other than that.
Q Okay.
Thank you.
MRS. CLINTON:
You're welcome.
Q This is interesting.
Because I thought it
might be.
MRS. CLINTON:
Good.
Good.
Q One other thing I had planned to ask you
(inaudible)
MRS. CLINTON: I mean, I talk about that stuff all
the time. I mean, again, I just, I talk about values all the
time. I talk about spirituality all the time. I'm giving a
speech to the prayer lunch tomorrow.
I mean, I talk about that stuff all the time. And
I think that it ties into, you know, the culture of disbelief
that the sort of elite press had a very difficult time
dealing with it, and either took the stance like, "What is
she talking about" or "Why is she talking about it?"
And I think, you know, I think that it's important.
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I think that, for me personally, but I also think for a
society, some sense of spirituality; and religious values,
however one explains or defines them, is important as a basis
for meaning in life.
I don't have any regrets about that. I'm trying to
find ways to keep talking about it and keep encouraging
people to be involved in understanding the role of values and
. religion in our life.
Q
So you haven't (inaudible)?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
(Inaudible).
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Okay.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
No.
(Inaudible).
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Oh, no.
When is your book going to be -
Oh, my friend
(End of tape.)
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Lissa Muscatine - Press Office
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993 - 1997
Is Part Of
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36239" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
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2011-0415-S
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lissa Muscatine first served in the Clinton Administration as a speechwriter. Within the First Lady’s Office, she served as Communications Director to the First Lady.</p>
<p>Lissa Muscatine’s records consist of materials from First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Press Office, highlighting topics such as health care, women’s rights, the Millennium Council, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and deal extensively with press interviews given by the First Lady; her domestic and foreign travel; and speeches and remarks, on a wide variety of topics, given by her before and during her time as First Lady. The records include interview transcripts, press releases, speeches and speech transcripts.</p>
Provenance
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Adobe Acrobat Document
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1,324 folders in 27 boxes
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Paper
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FLOTUS Press Office Interview Transcripts Volume III 02/02/94 - 05/31/94 [Binder]: [02/02/94 Drew, Liz]
Is Part Of
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Box 3
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/Systematic/2011-0415-S-Muscatine.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Creator
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First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
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2011-0415-S
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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11/26/2012
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2011-0415-S-flotus-press-office-interview-transcripts-volume-iii-02-02-94-05-31-94-binder-02-02-94-drew-liz
7431941