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· i. .
�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
Internal Transcript
March 12, 1994
INTERVIEW OF THE FIRST LADY
BY
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK
Q
You came to Washington, I guess a generation ago now as
a member of the Watergate committee. And now we have a --your
counterparts 20 years later coming to work for the Fiske committee. Do
you a similarity in that or -
MRS. CLINTON: Oh, I don't think there's any comparison. And I
think that the idea that there is is way overblown and should be
debunked easily if anybody looks at history and what's at stake in -
what was at stake in the whole watergate investigation and this matter
concerning Whitewater. They're just not comparable. So I don't even
see any basis for comparison.
Q
I guess t~e only thing I see comparable is that a lot of
people want to launch careers based on finding something -
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I mean, ·you can't control that. I happen
to think that the special counsel has been a used device over the past
years; and in some instances like with Jimmy Carter's peanut warehouse
they found nothing. In other instances they found something, but not
anything major. There is too many insta~ces where it has worked
effectively.over the past to worry about what the outcome will be. And
we don't worry about the outcome anyway. We want the special counsel to
do its job as soon as possible so that we can get this off the country's
radar screen and get on with what my husband is trying to do for the
country.
Q
their own.
Sometimes those investigations do take on a life of
And he's taken out a lease for three years in Little Rock.
MRS. CLINTON: I don't know what he's going to be doing for
three years, but obviously we want him to do his work and do it as
expeditiously as possible.
l.
�Q
I think you have said in some forums that, you know,
where are our friends? When people are underfire they sometimes do find
out just who their friends are. Have you -- what have you learned about
that?
MRS. CLINTON: That we have wonderful friends.
(Laughter.)
That is not a problem for qs.ln fact, I've been spending my time
trying to calm our friends down and cheer them up as much as anything
because people who know my husband and me are outraged by this. But we
now have this special counsel. We want that to work. We want that
process to be as complete as soon as possible. And so what we're doing
is cooperating fully. And our friends who are out there defending us
and writing letters to the editor, we want them to do that, too, because
they know what kind of people we are. And many of them have been around
here a long time and can see that this is a matter that's been blown way
out of proportion. But, you know, I understand that journalism is a
business; and there's a bottom line; and there's a lot of competition in
the journalistic marketplace now; and people are scared to death that
they're going to lose out to a competitor if they don't get more and
more sensational. So I understand what's driving this. And we're just
going to wait for the special counsel to do his work.
Q
Have you had as many defenders as you might have
thought, I mean, considering it's the first Democratic administration in
a dozen years?
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Sure.
I mean, I have no -
On the Hill and that sort of thing?
MRS. CLINTON: Yes, I feel very good about it. I think that a
lot of times what our friends on the Hill say in defense of us isn't
covered, and so the full extent of their efforts have not been perhaps
fully appreciated because I'm very grateful for all the. help that we're
getting from people who are standing up for us and against some of the
outrageous claims that are being made.
Q
You present a smiling, very rational face to the world
MRS. CLINTON:
Thank you.
(Laughter.)
Q
How angry are you, though, about the way this has
mushroomed from a little land scandal -- not even a scandal
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Not a scandal, Eleanor.
Land transaction -
(Laughter.)
�MRS. CLINTON:
A failed land transaction.
Q
Right, into some sort of an allegation that somehow you
and your husband are corrupt
especially you? I mean, that's the way
it seems -
MRS. CLINTON: I'm very sad about it. Lots of days it makes me
feel terrible to have people saying things that aren't true about me and
having those people be given any credence at all. So I do feel bad
about it. But I also have a full life to live. I mean, it doesn't
matter what anybody says about me -- I'm still my hus~and's wife; I'm
still Chelsea's mother; I'm still involved in a lot of other activities
that are important to me and my family. So I don't really get the
luxury of expending too much energy being angry with people who are
being unfair and untruthfu:J..
Q
And you're still a very high policymaker in this
administration. And that -- I've been struck by it's not only the right
it's the left have come out this week saying that you can't have it both
ways; that if you're going,to chair health care that you can't then
retreat to a traditional role when you're faced with other ethical
questions, and you have -
MRS. CLINTON: I don't think I have. I don't feel that I've
done that at all. I'm doi~g what I'm supposed to be doing on health
care. And we are fully cooperating with the special counsel, which is
what I thought we were supposed to do and what our primary obligation
is. And as I think it's been reported publicly, weare giving
everything we can and have not claimed any kind of privilege. We are
fully in line with the President's belief that we have nothing to hide
and want to give everything we can to the special counsel. So I don't
know where all that talk comes from.
Q
Well, as these interviews today --and I guess you're
going to be doing more -- seems to be now that you've realized that
you're losing in the court; of public opinion. You may be cooperating
with the special counsel, but I guess you have to disclose more to the
media beast or you're going to get crucified. I mean, has there been a
change in your thinking about you handle -
MRS. CLINTON: I don't know how to answer that because -- I've
done a lot of .traveling around the country in the last several weeks and
have seen literally thousands of people; and have also been very
involved in talking with people these past two weeks on the Hill
particularly about health care and what's going on. And I think that
the public wants this President to do what he came to do in Washington,
and that is solve problems. And from my perspective, I can only tell
people that we are cooperating; we are doing everything we can to get
�this matter resolved. And I think most people are very receptive to
that. That's what they think should be done.
Q
Right. Well, there is some sense that the media may be
obsessed with this and that -- I think you have expressed some feelings
in private that the media makes it very hard to change things in this
country because of the things we focus on.
MRS. CLINTON: As I
business. And I think that
proportion and treated in a
significance. And not just
that's not for me to judge.
business to decide.
said, I know that -- the media is now big
because of that, matters get blown out of
way which is not related to their
on this matter, but on many matters. But
I mean, that's for those of you in the
Q
Speaking to some of your friends -,- (inaudible).
Talking to some of your friends, they suggest that when this is over,
that, you know, it might be payback time.
MRS. CLINTON: I don't know what that could be. I'm more
interested in getting health care over. I want the payback to be the
payback for this country. I have this sense of obligation, which is
what keeps me going a lot of days, that is rooted in all of these people
that I've met allover the country. It's like I have this movie going
in my head with all these faces and these stories. And the only payback
I want is to be part of solving these problems, like providing health
insurance to everybody. That's what I'm interested in.
I thought the President said it better than anybody could last
week when he said, you know, we don't have time to be bitter. We don't
have time to be angry. We can get hurt -- we're human beings and it's
painful when your family and friends are subjected to stories that are
not true; and that even when discovered to be untrue are never recanted
or corrected as though it's alright to continue to throw stones at these
people because they are so-called public figures. You know, that hurts.
But nobody that I care about believes it or is any way affected by it.
So, what I'm hoping is that the President and I and everybody
associated with him can just keep doing what he was elected to do. And
that's the payback. That's the gratification. And that's all that I'm
really working towards.
Q
In trying to look how this mess reached this level, it
seems as though Vince Foster's death has a lot to do with it. Do you
see a connection there?
MRS. CLINTON: I don't know, Eleanor. I think that mistakes
were made along the way in handling this. I mean, I have learned a lot
about the needs of the media and how they kind of make stories
I./.
�'-,
.
important. And I think I've learned more about how to be responsive and
try to deal with their business and other requirements than I ever knew
before. There were lots of missteps along the way. I'd be the first to
say that, and obviously, wish there. weren't because this thing has
gotten so blown out of proportion.
But, I suppose, also, that in today's a~mosphere, any unanswered
questions are going to be grist for the mill. And I've tried to learn a
lot about suicide and particularly about depression ever ~ince Vince's
death. A lot of us here in the White House have. We've passed around
Bill styron's book. We've passed around books that we've gotten from
the people doing the mental health work for the health care task force
- all of us reading about this disease and trying to understand it. We
don't have any answers either. But we don't presume to try to make up
answers. There are some things about life, and particularly as I've
learned about what depression makes people feel and think, especially
when it leads-to suicide, that we're not going to know anymore than we
know now.
And I will predict to you that when all the wild stories and
rumors and stories and innuendo are finished making their rounds, we are
going to be left as we were with Edward Arlington Robinson's poem,
Richard Cory, with an unanswered, very tragic question. I just want
this to be put to rest for his family's sake and for the sake of all of
us who were his friends. It is extremely painful to have this used as a
political football by people. It is really unfair to his family
particularly. But, I guess, I now I understand why, in the face of a
tragedy, some people will want to make up their own answer because they
can't deal with what are often life's unanswerable mysteries.
Q
So, to those who wonder whether he really committed
suicide, you would say. • •
MRS. CLINTON: I'd say, there's no doubt about it based on what
everyone knows. And it is difficult to understand how, in the absence
of any credible evidence, people are permitted to say anything to the
contrary.
Q
Are you in touch with Mrs. Foster?
MRS. CLINTON: Oh" yes, all the time. You know, we saw Lisa
when we were home for Bill's mother's funeral. And we all went to the
Razorback basketpall game together. We wanted to get her out and kind
of back with her friends.' She is a wonderful, strong woman; but she
does not deserve this kind of constant misuse of what happened to her
husband.
Q
You uttered the magic phrase. "mistakes were made."
you regard yourself as having been responsible for.any of those?
Do
�MRS. CLINTON: Oh, :sure. I mean, hindsight is always 20/20. If
I had known in the past some of. the things that I now think I understand
better about the way modern-journalism works, I would have been more
appreciative of the pressures, the business pressures on a lot of , these
different media outlets and would have had an earlier understanding as
to why they were pursuing what, to me, seemed so insignificant. And, of
course, I never would have:participated in the investment in the first
place. And I would've, you know, tried to get everybody to focus on it
sooner and earlier to. try to deal with it.
so, I think that, 9f course, I made mistakes. And that's part
of the learning process that you go through when you've never been
accused of doing anything ~rong before in your life; and people start
accusing you, and you are stunned by the accusations and don't take it
seriously enough to deal with it, to try to get rid of it because it is
so outrageous that you can't believe it.
Q
There is a:widely-accepted theory that what this could
well show at the end is that you did some ~hings that were maybe
personally or professionally -- it could be personally and
professionally embarrassing if subjected to standards 10 years later in
Washington that you weren't:. attentive enough to the conflicts of
interest of being a governor's wife and a high-powered attorney in a
state where a lot of relationships intertwined. And so, I guess a lot
of people have been saying.: t.hat maybe you should have just said, I made
some mistakes in judgment early on, and just moved on and that would
have been enough.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I don't know of any claim that has been
made other than the one arising out of my signing letters to the
Securities commissioner which, in retrospect looking back on it,
obviously I wouldn't have done if I had known people were going to get
so out of joint about it years later. But I tried very hard always to
be as careful as I could; and in retrospect, that was something I WOUld.
not do again. But, there Is no evidence whatsoever that it was either a
conflict or that it had any impact on the decisions that were made.
So, yes, I would be happy to say I wish I hadn't done it and
wouldn't do it again. But:there was nothing wrong .about it. It was
just -~ now, in retrospect~ the appearance of it that I obviously wish
were not present. But there wasn't anything wrong with what was done.
Q
Okay, so then, if there was nothing wrong,. why were you
so resistant to making records public? My theory is that you sort of
have a thing about privacy.
MRS. CLINTON: " I have "a big thing about it. And that's one of
the things I've learned,- E.+eanor. I mean, I really have been pulled
":
�kicking and screaming to the conclusion that if you choose to run for
public office, you give up'any zone of privacy at all. Not even that
you have anything that the:whole world couldn't look at, but it's just
the idea of it. That does get to me.
And I'm not comfortable even with the recognition of what is
clearly the fact that there is no such thing as privacy left because I
believe strongly in giving ,everybody, including people in public life,
the benefit of the doubt, a zone of privacy in which to act out your own
life. And I think it's very destructive to people in public life not to
have that freedom to be who they are. So, you're right. And I look on
that -- in the past, I would never mislead anybody or say something that
I did not think was absolutely true, but I get my back up every so often
about even having to answe~ questions that I don't think are in any way
connected with the fact that my husband is in public life. And that's
what's going to be concluded about all of this.
I mean, people are going to spend millions and millions of
dollars and they are going to conclude we made a bad land investment and
we didn't make decisions that wer~ involved with the land deal and we
did our best to try to wor~ through it. And we didn't do anything
wrong.
So, my attitude is,' now, well, maybe that should have been
something we got to earlier instead of later, but now we've got a
special counsel, so let him, do his work. And that way there, is a
standard of evidence, there is a standard of proof. It's not rumor and
innuendo and gossip and political hatchet jobs. It is the facts.
Q
Do you wish maybe that you hadn't resisted disclosure
earlier in the year? I guess the White House seemed to be moving to the
release this stuff, and I think you underestimated where this would go
if you maintained your zone of privacy.
,
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think I did. I really -- I think I was
probably acting as my father would have advised had he been here which
is, you know, these people don't deserve anything. Don't deal with
them. That's his attitude about all of this intrusiveness. And I think
probably I just did not understand what I now do which is how,
especially in this town, you just have to bend over backwards. You
can't stand on what you think of as principle. So, you know, you live
and learn and you go on.
Q?
The attacks against you are, of course, are really about
more than Whitewater. And they really do go to the whole role that
you've taken on. And, you know, whether you can be the spouse of a
president and a policymakerand if there isn't some conflict here. What
-- it feels as though people are trying to use this as a springboard to
question the whole way that you've established yourself in this White
�House.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, some people have been trying to do that for
more than a year. And people have been doing that to women in this
position since Martha Washington. There's an attitude that is
historically wrong that is.behind those charges which suggest that I am.
the first woman in this position who has ever exercised influence.. And
certainly, in private, women have done it from the beginning of our
democracy -- and in public;
,
I was the not the first to testify before a congressional
committee. I was not the first to be criticized by the press. Iwas
not the first to have issues that I was involved in questioned or
attacked. And I look at what was said about Eleanor Roosevelt or a lot
of her predecessors, and I know that there's always the possibility that
no matter what you do, you are going to be criticized. And, so I take
that as part of what happens with women who are in my position who have
any kind of public role.
But I just think that everyone of us who is here working for
the President is doing the best job we can that he has asked us to do.
We are all here because of him. I mean, nobody is here on his or her
own. And I think that what,'s important is that we all make the best
efforts we can to try to fulfill the trust he put in us. And that's
what I'm doing with respect to health care.
NOw, I do think the fact that I am involved in an issue of such
magnitude with so many interests at stake has raised the visibility of
my role and has caused some to question it for their own purposes as to
what the policies are to try to discredit me as a way of discrediting
the policies. But that's also been done before. So-
Q
Do you think you're being treated, quote, "like any
other public figure?"
MRS. CLINTON: I think I'm being treated like any other First
Lady •. 1 think that if you go back and read what was said about most of
the predecessors in this position, often in their own times, they were
subjected to extremely critical attacks. There were those who loved
them and those who were critical of them. And I don't think that's any
different for me as it was for anybody else.
Q
I'm supposed to ask about the chef, too, if I can -- I
mean, not the chef -
,
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Okay.
I don't comment on any personnel matters.
All right, fine.
(Laughter.)
�•
(gap)
(in progress) two-column piece on David (inaudible); and one of the
stories has been that he sort of ran afoul of you and your staff because
he was an incrementalist and he -
MRS. CLINTON: It is just untrue. David has been invaluable in
the whole health care.planning process over the past months. He has
raised all the right issues. He has given great political advice. And
I think sometimes people misunderstand the dynamics when two people as
involved and intense as David and I are have a conversation about a
mater that we both care about, namely, health care for America. And
they say, Oh , my goodness, look how intense their conversation is.
Well, it's intense because we both care and we both respect each other
and like each other so much.
And that's what this President wants everybody in his White
House to do. He wants everybody to bring their best ideas and to go
back and forth, and then he makes the final decision. And David and I
are two people who participate in those conversations and love doing it.
And then the President decides what he is going to do. And then we all
go on and have another conversation.
Q
It's a different style than what this city is used to.
I mean, there was much more backbiting in other White Houses -
MRS. CLINTON: See, that's the problem. And I wish somebody
could say that because I think we have one of the most collegial -- I
don't want to overstate it and say loving -- but certainly, supportive
White House environments + have ever read about. NOW, does that mean
everybody agrees with everybody else 100 percent? Absolutely not. And
in fact, the President wouldn't want us around if that were the case.
It also doesn't mean that we are not full of energy about our
particular point of view and push it as far as it will go as a way of
giving the President the best possible advice we can give him. We find
that exhilarating. And it .is a little bit surprising when people who
are used to yes men, not many women, but a lot of yes men, and people
who are always trying to pr9mote,their own agenda at somebody else's
expense, see it as different models that we are trying to work with.
And all I can say is that I hope that the political culture in
Washington catches on to it because it really is a lot closer to the
kind of teamwork model that: is working in American industry now and that
will work better as we put different groups of people together from
different backgrounds to reach consensus than the old top-down, cover
yourself approach to making decisions that got a lot of people in
trouble.
The other thing about this White House, which I am very proud
;.
�of, is we admit mistakes wpen we make them. You knqw, obviously, nobody
wants to make mistakes, and we all wish we didn't, myself included; but
when they are made, we say, look, we made a mistake. And I think that
is so healthy for the country.
Q
Edward Bennett Williams used to say that Washington
likes to burn a witch every three months -
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
Right.
MRS. CLINTON:
Q
enough.
Oh,I think that's right.
I think that's right.
and there is that
Anyway-
.MRS. CLINTON:
Thank you.
END
Bernie, poor Bernie, wasn't
�
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Lissa Muscatine - Press Office
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First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
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1993 - 1997
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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>
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2011-0415-S
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<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>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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1,324 folders in 27 boxes
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FLOTUS Press Office Interview Transcripts Volume III 02/02/94 - 05/31/94 [Binder]: [03/12/94 Clift, Eleanor Newsweek]
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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>
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First Lady's Office
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Lissa Muscatine
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2011-0415-S
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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2011-0415-S-flotus-press-office-interview-transcripts-volume-iii-02-02-94-05-31-94-binder-03-12-94-clift-eleanor-newsweek
7431941