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THE WHITE HOUSE
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Internal Transcript
March 12, 1994
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INTERVIEW OF THE ,FIRST LADY
BY
TIME MAGAZINE
Q
Would you
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~escribe
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the pain of the last week?
MRS. CLINTON: Let' me say that this last week has been like a
lot of weeks in my life. There have been hard days and great days. And
I really am trying to keep all of this that happens in the political
part of our life in perspective because, you know, every day I've had to
get up and be my husband's wife and my daughter's mother and keep going
and doing what I thought was important. So, for me, it has been the
constant balijlnping ~hat qomes" 1- think"~ t9 every woman, but is certainly
part of my .l~~,e:....?ijlhp.~th~_l.ife .of *every. oile of. my friends where if it's a
big thing that's happening to you or a lot of little things, you've got
to get up and keep going. You've got obligations and responsibilities
that you have to me~tJ t",O'1 oth~r p'~ople. So, that's what I do, and that's
.....
what I've done"-this past~·week.- .
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Q
Let me ask you this -- before he died, Vince Foster said
of Washington, "Here, ruining people is considered sport. 1t Is it?
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. MRS. CLINTON:" I hope not'~ , But I can see why many people feel
that way because it does seem to be a place where keeping life in
perspective and keeping your focus on what's really ~mpo~~ant to people
is more difficult than in other ··parts·o-f~·the·"c'ciuntry. You know, I've
done a lot of traveling in the last weeks, and I have been in real small
towns -- gosh, I ~as in Lenox, south Dakota and Brooklyn, New York
within the space ofi 10 days. _ And my f.~~1.ing is.,',,the same that it was
during the campaign -- that most people want everybody in Washington to
be paying attention to what affects them. And they're not interested in
the personality and the kind of horse-race aspect of politics. They
want results for their lives and their children's lives. So, I hope
it's not true, and I hope ,where it is true people can begin to have some
second thoughts about it because we need all of our energies focused on
trying to solve the problems of the country and take care of people.
Q
Mrs. Clinton, you mentioned that people don't care about
some of the things that maybe we seem to be interested in here in
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Washington, including the Whitewater affair. And I was just wondering
if perhaps you've thought about the fact that people do seem to care
that you have a great deal 'of influence in the White House but no
accountability officiallY. How would you respond to that?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think that's an understandable concern by
the people who have it, but I think it's misplaced. Both historically,
when you go back and look at the roles that other women in my position
have played, both in public and in private, I think that it is
absolutely the case, as I believe Mrs. Johnson said one time that
everybody's in the White House because of the decision of one man.
Everybody who works here is here, and if you're married to the
President, you're here because that's the relationship you have, so
Lady.
Q
You have more power and influence than any other First
Is it right for you to have so much influence?
MRS. CLINTON:
I don't know that that's true.
I mean, based on
what?
Q
Based on health care, based on influence over a lot of
people who have been appointed to office.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I don't know that that's true either,
frankly. But what I would be interested in is some historic perspective
on this. This has been said about nearly every woman who has been in
this position -- in some respect or another. And it is really -- in
today's environment, the media attention is so much greater and the
relentless attention is constant that I think it magnifies anything,
even the smallest thing becomes much bigger.
So, but if you go back and read the editorial opinion and news
coverage of other women who've been here and the kind of political
attacks that they were subjected to, you know, I don't know that that's
a fair comparison. But, if people are concerned about that, I can only
say that what I am trying to do with respect to health care is what my
husband has asked me to do. It's what he has turned to me to help on,
but I am one of many •. I mean, there are many people in the White House,
in the Congress, around the country who are working on this. I serve as
a spokesperson, but he's the decisionmaker. He always has been, he will
be as this moves through the Congress. I think, to some extent, this is
overblown.
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Q
Let me jump in here with something a little bit more
specific. Did you or the President ask Bernie Nussbaum, Patsy Thomasson
or your Chief of Staff to sort documents from Vince Foster's office the
night he died?
MRS. CLINTON:
NO,: not that I am aware of.
I certainly didn't,
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and I have no reason to believe anybody did.
Q
Did you know about it?
MRS. CLINTON: No. I don't think that happened. There's been
no -- I've never read anything that suggested that ever happened. So, I
don't know what you're talking about.
Q
Well, we've read that at least at some point during the
night documents were removed, including the Whitewater documents.
MRS. CLINTON: Tha~'s just not true. I think what you're
confusing, based on my reading of the press reports, is that the next
day or the day after when the investigators came, Bernie went thr9ugh
the documents in the prese~ce of the investigators. That's what I
believe happened.
Q
So, you don't believe that they went in there the night
of his death
MRS. CLINTON:
Q?
And sorted documents?
Yeah.
MRS. CLINTON:
No , 'I don't believe that.
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Q
Okay. This is to another specific question, if you
don't mind. Jim McDougal claims that your contribution to Whitewater
was limited to just $13,000, not the $69,000 reported in the Lyons(?)
Report. Do you recall who's right?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, Jim doesn't have any documents that he can
recall only from his memory. And we are doing everything we can to
cooperate with the special counsel so that everybody will know exactly
what we contributed, and that's -- all we've ever done is to say, look,
we lost money on this. And we made a losing investment, and we're going
to give every scrap of paper we can find and have to the special
counsel.
Q
Do you think that you may have overdeducted on your
income taxes during those years, during the 1980s?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, we don't know. We don't believe so. But
during the Lyons(?) Report, they brought to our attention a deduction,
two deductions, that were supported in our documents which we had, but
were contradicted in documents we had never seen before until they were
collected for that report., And once that was brought to our attention,
we paid back. Because we're not out to take any advantage of anybody.
'We are only able to act on,the knowledge we had at the time. And we
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have tried to be as scrupulous as possible about that. But there were
many activities that were carried on we didn't know anything about and
have been only recently brought to our attention. And as we gather new
information, we will act appropriately as we did based on the
information we had at a previous time.
Q
One more question to that general area. . In 1986
MCDougal says you had the chance to sellout. Most of the lots had been
sold at that time. Do you'recall why you decided not to sell then?
MRS. CLINTON: You know, we're just going to let all of this
unfold in the course of the special counsel's investigation. And,
again, I would only say, this was a private and unsuccessful business
deal. So, from my perspective, we will do everything we can to give
every piece of information to the special counsel so there can be a full
and fair and documented report that will g~t to the bottom of this and
get it behind everybody.
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Mrs. Clinton, you're wearing two hats now. As a private
Q
citizen under a potential legal cloud, you have an interest in not
disclosing information.
But as the First Lady, you have a
responsibility to be candid with the American people. It's a tough
situation to be in. Which comes first?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, but it's not, because we have been candid.
We have been candid all the way through this. We made an investment
decision that lost money. NOW, I have only recently come to appreciate
how important that fact has been to people, particularly to the press.
I have to admit that for the last two years, I was bewildered by
people's interest in this. I mean, it happened many years ago. We did
the best we could always to be as straightforward in our dealings on
this as we could based on what we knew. And so, I've never, until
recently, appreciated how ~his became such a big issue.
We have fully cooperated with the grand jury, with the special
counsel. We have been more than open and candid. We have not denied
any document. We have claimed no privilege. We are not in any way
unwilling to be ful~y candid about this. But for years now, we have
been asked questions we didn't know the answer to. We did not run the
company. We did not make its decisions. We did not have its documents
or its records. So, we couldn't answer most of your questions anyway.
We've done the very best w~ could based on what we knew and could vouch
for.
QWould you
MRS. CLINTON:
decides to do.
~estify
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before Congress
Weli, we'll have to see if that's what Congress
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Q
Do you feel that you've -- anything that you would have
done differently over the last few years or made any mistakes?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, we've made lots of mistakes. We never
should have made the investment, number one. But you know those are
things that you can look at in hindsight. And I suppose the other big
mistake that I made was not appreciating how other people viewed this
when I knew we had done nothing wrong, and we had done everything we
knew to make good on obligations that we had learned about like paying
property taxes and other things to try to be as careful as possible.
So, yes, I mean, we've made lots of mistakes. I'll be the first
to admit that, and obviously wish that we hadn't. But those are things
that you look at in retrospect. And we didn't do anything wrong. We
never intended to do anything wrong. And we're just going to cooperate
with this process which people, I think, should let work its course
until finally it gets to the bottom of all this, and then everybody can
see the same information at the same time.
Do you worry about how this whole mess is going to
affect your husband's presidency?
Q
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I worry that anybody would give it any
credence that would affect. his presidency. He said I I thought, .very
well several times last week that he is cooperating; he's having
everybody cooperate; he wants to get to the bottom of this. There is no
"there" there. This is something that has been, for reasons I now
appreciate, whereas I didn't before, you know, blown up to huge
proportions. And I think that there is no justifiable reason why anyone
should let this affect his presidency. So, that's what I think will
eventually be shown to the public and the press.
Q
Health care is already in some trouble on Capitol Hill.
Do you think that this will affect it?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, see, I see it differently than that. I
don't see health care in trouble on Capitol Hill. You know, for the
last two weeks, while I know there were articles being printed about how
I was probably in seclusion somewhere, I saw, I think, 15 members of
Congress on a one-to-one basis. I probably met with another 50 or 60.
And all my conversations were really positive about where we are with
health care. And that included some Republicans as well, not just
Democrats. The vast majority of those I met with were Democrats who are
on the committees of jurisdiction who are working with the leadership on
health care. And from my perspective, we are moving right on the -- we
are moving on the right track with health care.
The committees are taking the issue seriously. They are
beginning to wrestle with a lot of the hard choices that are posed to
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�the Congress. I cannot help what other people say about the process. I
can only tell you from my experience of the last two weeks how positive
I feel about how seriously this issue is being addressed and how much
progress is being made. And I've heard that from the chairs of the
committees and the subcommittees on a regular basis. So, I'm very
encouraged by where we are with health care right now.
Q
Can we go back to Arkansas one more time? How do you
respond to charges of conflicts of interest in your dealings with some
people who had been appointed by your husband when he was governor of
Arkansas, and, also in representations of Madison? I mean, while you
were a business partner with McDougal.
MRS. CLINTON: I don't know of any charges other than this
incident arising out of a limited representation I had of Madison in
which a request for a legal opinion was made to the Securities
Commissioner. I don't know of any other legitimate claims. NOw, there
are lots of illegitimate ones floating around these days. Apparently,
you can say anything and get somebody to print it. So, I can't comment
on all of that.
And I don't believe that there was anything that was improper
about that, nor do I believe that there is any evidence that the
Securities Commissioner in any way was influenced. It was not proven at
all that she would have done anything differently than what she did.
And the facts, as they will, I'm sure, be finally produced in this
special counsel effort, is that she acted responsibly and appropriately
and expeditiously to deal with Madison when there were not many state
regulators able to do so around the country because of the changes in
the S&L laws.
So, I don't -- you know, I know people can say whatever they
want to say, but we're trying to break through all of that and get to
what the facts are. And I'don't think there are any facts that anybody
should be drawing conclusions about that are aimed at impropriety at her
or at me.
Q
Mrs. Clinton, you worked on watergate.
when people compare Whitewater to watergate?
How do you feel
MRS. CLINTON: Oh, ,it's the way that I think a lot of the people
who have been commenting in the last few days have expressed -- that
there is no comparison; that there is no basis for it; and that it's
kind of a sad commentary that anybody would draw such a conclusion.
Q
It's been reported that you opposed originally the
appointment of a special prosecutor or a special counsel on this. Is
that true, and if so, why?
�MRS. CLINTON: Well, there were no allegations of wrongdoing
against the President or me. There were lots of wild and
unsubstantiated stories which are f,illed with hurtful claims about
people. There were questions that led to the President agreeing to
appointing a special counsel in order to get on with the rest of the
work of his presidency. And that's where we are now, and that's, I
think, appropriate and am pleased that weare going to have this process
unfold because we will get'to the truth of matters and not have to be
subjected to, on a daily basis, wild and unsubstantiated rumor and
innuendo and gossip.
Q
When you go up to the third floor and close the door and
your husband's there, how do you explain this to each other? I mean,
you must -- worked all your life to get here. You must look at each
other and what do you say?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, you know, the reason he worked when he ran
for President to get here was to do what he's doing. And it's working.
He is changing the economy. I mean, the budget went through the House
yesterday on a big vote, and it was a yawn story because we now have a
President who knows how to present a responsible budget. I tell him
that I think he's making it look-too easy, that people are not going to
give him the credit that he deserves for changing the course of the
country and doing what needs to be done on the budget and crime and
health care and welfare reformj that somehow, he needs to have more
sensationalism attached to the hard work of the presidency so people
will pay attention to it again.
But, you know, when I stop kidding him like that I just tell him
that I'm very sad that this kind of situation has occurred, and that I'm
sure we could have handled it differently or better or tried to
Q
What would you have done?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I never would have made the investment.
mean, it was a stupid investmentj it lost money.
Q
I
-- the politics of it in the past few weeks or few
months?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think that -- no one likes to be accused
of doing things they didn't do. No one likes to see people make
accusations that are terrible that would have never been printed, even a
few years ago, about the President of the united States and people
associated with him. It's a very hurtful and distressing turn of
events.
I probably worry about that as much as anything because I know
that when all is said and done, there's nothing there on this whole
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Whitewater situation except a lot of confused documents that are only
understandable in light of what happened at a certain point in time and
it will be fit into some sensible order and presented to the world when
the special counsel get's done. So, I don't even worry about that.
That's not something I concern myself with. I worry a lot about what we
are doing to ourselves and what we'are doing to the institution of the
presidency. And I worry a lot about my husband who I think has worked
as hard as anybody could to try to get the country turned around in the
last year.
Q
What do you worry about?
MRS. CLINTON: What any wife worries about with their husband.
You worry that it's not fair. That he's not being given the chance to
make the case that he deserves to make because it's what the people of
this country want to hear 1;lim make.
I had a photojournalist tell me the other day, he said, gosh,
some people say that the President didn't get a honeymoon; he didn't get
to the bridal suite. You know, I think that despite all of that, he has
never lost his optimism. He's never lost his hope. He's never lost his
commitment to this country and to what he's trying to do. And so, he
keeps going no matter what,anybody says or does.
Q
What about you?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I feel on most days good about what I'm
doing. But on other days, I get down like anybody else. It's not easy
to have people saying untrue things about you. And you wonder, why can
they do that? And then when you stop and think that now that you're in
public life at the level we are, we have no protection against any of
that. People can lie about you on a regular basis and you have to take
it. That's very hurtful. I mean, that'really is hard to take, you
,
know, because I've got a family. I've got a mother who is very proud of
us. And to see the things that are said without any refutation or
correction most of the time is painful to your friends and your family.
So, I worry a lot about them. I mean, I spend a lot of my time sort of
cheering up my friends who are in distress and anger over what they see
or read. But I feel like I've got a wonderful -
Q
Who -- you up?
MRS. CLINTON: My husband and I. I mean, because we know how
this is going to turn out. And we will be fine. We are both resilient
and committed, and we are here because of what we want to do for this
country. So, we just get up every day and keep going.
In addition to my personal obligations to my family and my
friends, I mean, I have -- I have a lot of young women who work for me
whom I think deserve, an example of somebody who keeps going and gets up
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and does what she's supposed to do because that's what women have to do
every day of their lives. -And a lot of the young women I see when· I go
to college campuses with the kind of bright eyes and enthusiasm about
what's lying ahead of them, I want them to know you cannot be deterred.
You cannot be turned into a victim by other people who have either
ignorance or malice towards you. You've got to live your own life. So,
you know, you just kind of; take the good with the bad and you have faith
in the way it's all going to turn out. And that's what I do.
Q
How do you explain this to Chelsea?
MRS. CLINTON: Chelsea doesn't. need an explanation. I mean, she
is fully aware of what happens in politics. We've been telling her that
since she was six years old. We've told her that her father has chosen
a profession because he really cares about people, to serve people and
that with that, come great opportunities and wonderful experiences. But
also with it come a lot of the worse that human nature has to offer.
And that is something that we have prepared her for and that she has
seen more of in her young life than probably most children her age. But
we spend most of our time together, you know, playing cards and doing
jigsaw puzzles and watching basketball on T.V. So, that's something
that we don't really spend a whole lot of time dwelling on.
Q
That's great.
MRS. CLINTON:
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
I'm glad you could come in.
END
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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 Time Magazine]
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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
Press Office
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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11/26/2012
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2011-0415-S-flotus-press-office-interview-transcripts-volume-iii-02-02-94-05-31-94-binder-03-12-94-time-magazine
7431941