On with Kara Swisher - Hillary Rodham Clinton Drops Truth Bombs

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Former First Lady/Senator/Madam Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton is in a political league of her own. But the “housewife from Chappaqua” (as Kara likes to call her) isn’t ready to hang up her party hat just yet. As she details in her latest memoir, Something Lost, Something Gained, HRC continues to champion the rights of women and girls across the globe. And as a former opponent to Donald Trump and only other woman to lead a major presidential ticket, she’s an inimitable advisor and surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris in her race to the White House.  In their sixth interview, Kara and Hillary do post-game analysis of the Harris/Trump debate, chat about campaign strategy (do voters really need more policy?), discuss the recent backlash against gender equality and what a Trump re-election could mean for HRC personally and the country at-large. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing,

and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And today I'm talking to former First Lady, former New York Senator, former Secretary of State, 2016 presidential nominee and all-around badass Hillary Rodham Clinton. I have interviewed her half a dozen times. I think this is our sixth one, and I always enjoy them. I understand she's a lightning rod, but I think she's going to go down as one of our greatest political figures in history and certainly is a consequential one.

We call men elder statesmen. We don't really have a word for someone like HRC because there's never been an HRC. She and Nancy Pelosi are a kind of league of their own. We're talking because Madam Secretary has a new book out, Something Lost, Something Gained. It's a line from the song Both Sides Now, which you probably know if you're a Joni Mitchell fan or at least saw her perform at the Grammys back in February. If you don't know who Joni Mitchell is, I need you to stop listening right now. And HRC certainly has looked at a lie from both sides, from up and down, from win and lose. I'm not going to sing myself, and somehow she's still around. She's just not taking long walks in Chappaqua where she's living, but she's

still working and impacting politics, including as a surrogate for the Harris-Walls campaign. So we're going to talk about that, about her thoughts on last week's debate between Harris and Trump and some of the issues she's been working on. And it has a lot to do with the fate of women on this planet, but all of us really. She's gotten a lot spicier over the years as she's gotten older, and you're sort of seeing the true Hillary Clinton that I have often seen privately. So it's going to be fun. Madam Secretary, thanks for being on On. I am so happy to be on On with you.

You look ebullient, you know, today. We have a lot, look at you, look at you go. And this is, just, you know, today. Look at you. Look at you go. And this is, just so you know, this is our sixth interview together, our iron anniversary, so to speak. I don't know what you got me, but I'm excited to see. You'll get it. You'll get it. I'll get it.

Our last interview was in 2022 in Austin, a very different time, actually. You're out with a new book, which I thought was delightful. I want to talk about it in a minute, but obviously I've got to get your thoughts on Tuesday's presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Just download me. How did you feel about it? You had given Vice President Harris advice

and stuff like that. Obviously, you've been on that stage. You've been stalked by Donald Trump on a stage. Talk a little bit about it and how you feel about it right now. I feel so relieved, excited, optimistic. I knew she would do well because I had a lot of confidence both in her and the team that was preparing her, I thought, would literally get her ready for any kind of stunt he would pull or anything he might say. But she even exceeded my high expectations. I thought that her ability to expose him by triggering him so that people could see in real time this is a man who is unhinged, incoherent, and dangerous.

And so the main goal of the preparation was to give her a chance to contrast herself with him so that people who are just tuning in, who, you know, maybe Kara didn't know much about her, even though she's been vice president for four years, would see her in command, could envision her as president. And I think all that happened. Yeah, she was, I call them, I mean, Audie Cornish coined this term, comical curious. People were very comical curious because they don't know her as well as they know someone like you. And you were well known when you were running for president already. People had a definition in their head for lots of different reasons, good and bad, which we'll get to in a second because you address it in your book. But you

debated him three times during the 2016 election. And you said in the New York Times that she should try to rattle him. She clearly did. He took the bait over and over again. And not at the beginning. And I was worried. Everyone was a little worried at the beginning, obviously, they were nervous because it had such high stakes. The thing that worked was, one, she got a real head of steam on the abortion issue, and then secondly, put in that walking out on the rallies, for example. Did you speak to her before and give her any advice ahead of the interview? You're the one who's... I did speak to her, and... So tell me about that.

But I've been speaking with her, you know, fairly regularly for a number of years. I've known her for a long time. Her sister, Maya, actually worked with me in the 2016 campaign, traveled on the plane with me. When she was running for president, when she was selected to be vice president, she would call me. When she was running for president, when she was selected to be vice president, she would call me. She would ask for advice. When she was putting her office together, a number of the people that were advising her were people that I knew well. So there was nothing, you know unusual about uh this conversation going into uh the debate um literally within

you know 30 40 minutes of uh president biden withdrawing and endorsing kamala um i talked with her she you know she knew that bill and i had endorsed her so with respect to the debate, I had full confidence in the people preparing her. Karen Dunn is an extraordinary, not just debater, but incredibly smart communicator. Philippe Reines can literally channel the kind of bullying. He played Trump. Yeah, he channels Trump. He plays Trump. He puts makeup on like Trump.

He puts lifts in his shoes. He fixes his hair weird. I mean, and then he literally can parrot what Trump has said in a way that is just uncanny. And I know that, you know, I don't think there was anything she was surprised by because she had been so well prepared. Were you surprised it worked? I mean, one of the things she did, Biden was focused on the idea that Trump is a threat to democracy, which is exhausting, right, to have to fix that.

And she had more world leaders think he's a disgrace. You know, you talked about that a lot. It didn't work as well when you did it. You know, is it better to have a campaign strategy that depicts him as weak rather than dangerous? You had talked for many years about the dangers of Donald Trump, but it seems baked into the 20%, 30% of his constituents that just doesn't care.

Do you think it was a better tactic to use that now? I think one follows the other. You know, when I was running against him and debating him, all most people knew about him was that they'd seen him on TV and he was a really successful businessman who was strong and tough and fired people and all of that. They didn't know anything more about him and they didn't really pay a lot of attention to the things he was saying because he was just so entertaining, and it was like watching, you know, a train wreck. They couldn't believe, what's he going to say next? Who's he going to insult next? It was very entertaining, kind of the, you know, the sequel to The Apprentice.

So I had to do a lot of things at once, and it was to warn people. In my convention speech, I said, you can't trust a guy with nuclear weapons who can be baited by a tweet. So we did both. We tried to sound the alarm about danger, but we also tried to ridicule him, which was so well-deserved. I think eight years on, and especially four years of his presidency, people could see that he did things they were worried about. Part of the reason he lost in 2020 was because of the very bad way he handled COVID. So people were like, hey, God, I don't want to go through that again. And then the idiocy about drink bleach and all the rest of it. So I think there was a kind of platform that had been established that he's both dangerous and he is ridiculous and a disgrace. So trying to...

Which she did in the speech, in the convention speech, which was, he is in many ways unserious, but he's dangerous. Exactly. You can be both. You can be absurd, which he is in so many ways, in the way he talks, the way he behaves. You know, we threw everything at him in 2016, trying to see what would stick because it was so new to people. She has greater range. You know, we tried to define him as corrupt and mean and narcissistic and unprepared and impulsive, all of which he is. But we couldn't break through for a lot of different reasons. but we couldn't break through for a lot of different reasons. Now I think people have enough experience with him. They may still vote for him because they may still decide that, oh, well, yeah, he may be all these things,

but I still like X or Y about him. Right. But they can't say they weren't warned. They can't say that they didn't have that information. Well, we'll talk about that because optics are everything. Biden lost voter confidence because he seemed kind of lost in his split-screen moments there. It was a huge issue for you in that horrible second debate in 2016 where he's basically stalking you on stage, which we've talked about before. One of the things I said about before the debate, that Harris needs to win over men and Trump needs to stop repelling women. Looking at this from your perspective, trying to win over swing voters, what do you think

has to happen next with Harris and Trump? I know you don't want to give advice to Trump, but what do you think he has to do and she has to do now? Well, I think what he should do, he's incapable of doing. He is so clearly comfortable only being divisive and dark. He doesn't have an optimistic view of America, and he doesn't think it's in his political interest to have one. So he can't expand his reach very far. He has to keep hammering the people who already are attracted by that dystopian view of our country and make sure that they actually turn out and vote for him. She has to do what she did so well in her speech at the convention, what she did on the debate stage, which is to reassure people she's going to be the president of everybody. You know, she is not going to be the president just for black women, children of immigrants, Democrats.

I mean, she's the president for everybody. And she must have said that two or three times. And it's something that I thought was really important for her to do because it's a stark contrast to him. Right. I'm here for everyone. Yeah. And I think she very effectively did reach out to swing voters. I mean, she talked about small businesses. She talked about the opportunity economy. She talked about making homeownership affordable for people.

So this was very intentional. She wanted to expose Trump, which she did very well, but she also wanted to speak directly to the camera, to those, if there are undecided voters, swing voters, however you characterize them, about both her temperament that I am on your side, I am going to be your president. I've seen presidential. And seen presidential and tough, commander-in-chief-ish, and also talk about her policies. So she's got a much more difficult task than he does because he just, you know,

bears down on what he's always done and what works for him. But I think she's got much more ground that she can cover now. And the thing that I really liked about her performance is that she stood up to him, which you have to do. She exposed him, but she did it as a joyful warrior. I mean, she kept that smile on her face. You know, some Republican megatypes criticize her for having expressions.

Well, you know what? I found that very relatable. You know, because, you know, he would say these ridiculous things, and she would have the same look that a normal person would have hearing this from a guy, you know, at the grocery store that you ran into. Right. So I thought she handled her assignment extremely well. And it was, you know, it was very different from what I faced in 2016. And she was able to kind of pocket some of what I tried to do and also having the knowledge that enough people knew about him to be able to go from there. I think she also did very effectively

something that I want to see her do a lot of between now and the election, and that was to reference what other leaders, leaders around the world, but also people in our own country, national security leaders, defense leaders, people who had worked with Trump, they're all coming out and sounding the alarm about him. That has to be front and center. You need to do everything you can in this election to put people who should and do know better on the defensive to justify being for somebody whose chief of staff from the White House says is untrustworthy and should not be near power, whose national security advisor, former defense secretary, the list goes on. And, you know, part of what I tried to do in this book was to talk about the stakes. You know, it is, of

course, an election between the Democratic, the Republican nominee, but it's so much bigger than that. And 100 percent, which you point out. What's hard for you is you were defined by, you talk about the right, the right wing, vast right wing conspiracy, people make fun of you. Often it's what's happened with you, it's kind of interesting as you say something, people make fun of you, which you note in the book, and then it turns out you're right. There's, I've seen so many tweets, it looks like Hillary Clinton was right, looks like, you know, which is fun. You enjoy it. I think you enjoy it. I have to at this point in my life, you know? Yeah, because what the hell? Like, yeah, but there was a vast right-wing conspiracy. Yeah, it certainly was and still is. They managed to define you and they haven't managed to define

her. Let me ask you just a few more questions about this and I want to get to your role going forward and what things you have in the book. Undecided voters want more policy details from her. Trump was hardly bursting with policy ideas. He said he had a concept of a plan for health care. And, of course, they don't want any from him, which is interesting. Does she have to do it? Because this is, you know, it seems like sometimes it's like she lands the plane and then they're like, well, we'd like you to try it again.

And she lands the plane. She does not have to do it we'd like you to try it again. And she lands the plane. She does not have to do it, Cara. I'm going to just cut to the chase. In fact, she's put out policies on her campaign website. Anybody who's truly interested can go and read about them. She referenced policies. She actually doesn't just have policies and concepts. She has plans about what to do.

She's got the good things that she was part of in the Biden administration she can continue to talk about and even, I think, highlight the jobs that are being created, clean energy, all of that. That is partly because they are still getting to know her, but also because they're still grappling with the idea like, oh, am I really going to vote for a woman to be president and commander in chief? I mean, I really, really have to think about this. Well, maybe I need to know more. I don't want to make a mistake. And this is particularly true. Let's just say it and underline it for white women. You know, I was told by Adam Grant, whom I'm sure you know. I do. I just interviewed him.

Before the 2016 campaign that my biggest problem would be white women. And he basically said it's because they have a lot of conflicts in their lives. They don't want any more conflicts. Their husbands have set views about politics or their employers or whoever the men in their lives are. And it will be really hard to deal with that. Now, we have a huge gender gap in this election, as we always do, but it's even bigger now because abortion has triggered a lot of women who are ordinarily Republican-leaning or certainly independent. And so Kamala has that enormous gender gap. It's in her favor, but it has to get even bigger in order to win these swing at the southern border, which she cannot say enough. Donald Trump actually stopped. Yeah, she does.

Where she plans on gun safety. She's a gun owner. And, you know, so is her vice presidential candidate. They're not going to go for people's guns, but they're going to try to prevent children from being slaughtered in schools. You know, I put out more policy than anybody I think ever has. Even Elizabeth Warren. Who wonks. Well, Elizabeth took a, you know, she came after me. than anybody I think ever has. Even Elizabeth Warren. Who wonks. Well, Elizabeth took a, you know, she came after me.

And, yeah, she did her part. And I'm grateful to her. She's wonkier than you. You're pretty wonky. You're wonky. But she wins wonk. Top wonk. And I talked about the economy every day.

But literally, literally after the election, I was told that I never talked about the economy. You know, they did one of those word bubble things. after the election, I was told that I never talked about the economy. You know, they did one of those word bubble things. And, you know, campaign policy is really about showing that you can govern with your values in a way that's going to improve people's lives. And everything about Harris's policies, you know, really speaks to the overall messaging, which is, I'm going to help you. I'm going to protect you. I'm going to try to provide opportunity for you. And, you know, even the things that sometimes, you know, more progressive, more left-leaning voters

might get a little worried about, like, okay, fracking, we have to transition out of it, but right now it provides jobs for people, and I understand that. And we're going to focus on renewable energy, but we're not going to, you know, put people out of work. I mean, she is being the pragmatic person that a president has to be if you want to get things done. Right, a consensus thing. Last thing on the thing, Harris received the endorsement of Taylor Swift. Her custom URL drove more than 330,000 people to vote at vote.gov in less than 24 hours.

She's already potentially pushing registrations. You've had plenty of celebrity endorsements over the year. Just curious, of course, Taylor Swift herself was triggered by Donald Trump doing fake AI, and she did it in a very deft way, saying, you can vote for who you want, you should do your research. I did my research, and then cited, of course, Childless Cat Lady, which is the gift that keeps on giving from J.D. Vance, that terrible, terrible politician in so many ways. And whether you agree with him or not, he's a terrible politician. So you certainly were on the receiving end of those. Does it matter or is just this particular woman matter? I think it does matter because sometimes voters can use that as a doorway into deciding to vote. Oh, hey, you know, my favorite singer, my favorite actor, my favorite athlete, you know, is for this candidate. But I think Taylor Swift brings an unusual impact to an endorsement. I think her fan base is so intense and incredibly influenced by her. She, yes, is a singer who charts the course of her life, which they relate to as their own lives, but she's also somebody who stood up to a guy who groped her. She stood up to get her music back from somebody she thought had, you know, illegitimately taken it from her.

So as she has become, you know, a mature woman from, you know, literally the first time we saw her, she was, I don't know, 13, 14, 15 years old. Demonstrated a resilience, and not just in her love life, which she's told us all about, but in, you know, taking control over her own life in a way that I think sends a strong message to people who follow her. I'm a huge admirer of her as a person. And so I think that endorsement, and as you rightly said, it's already driven registrations of voters. She mentioned voting, you know, registration again when she won yet another award. So I think this has real impact. I do, too. And it was interesting because I thought, oh, please, Trump, don't say a stupid thing about her, right? Just say nothing or move along.

And his spokesman called her a teeny bopper. And I was like, what, do you live in the 50s? Yeah. Yeah, well, he had his alter ego, Elon Musk, say something really rotten and creepy about her. Please comment on that. It was what Elon said. It was he essentially would have a baby with her or forcibly have a baby with her. Yeah, impregnator, which is kind of another way of saying rape, I think. Right. I believe, I agree with you. I don't, I can't, I can't understand,

you know, why he says what he says. You and I have talked about this before. It just is beyond my imagination. Well, Hillary is a horrible person. That's why. But go ahead. Well, you know, but when I see Trump or I see him, but, you know, really the whole cast of these MAGA characters, and especially the so-called masters of the universe in the technology world, misogyny is such a part of their worldview. And they, you know, they gravitate toward, you know, toughness and brutality and machoism. And, you know, here's Taylor Swift, a self-made billionaire who brings joy to people, who imparts life lessons, particularly to girls and women, they can't stand it. And I think it was really going to trigger Trump. I mean, if it had happened before the debate, it would have overpowered the debate. The fact that it happened right after

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Hillary, just saying. Just live long enough, Kara. Live long enough. You obviously spoke at the convention, and you gave sort of a speech talking about sort of the defining nature of what had happened previously, and a little bit about, you know, your role in it. I'm going to play a moment from the speech in a second, but first talk about your role. You know, my role is really what I choose it to be these days, which is a great privilege. And this book, which is kind of a love letter to life and family and friendship and our country, our democracy, kind of sums up where I feel I am personally and where I think we are politically. And I try to be as helpful and supportive as I possibly can. I obviously did that with President Biden wherever I could. And I've known Kamala since she was a DA. So I've had a long, friendly relationship with her. I am literally prepared to be as helpful as I can. Because as I said in the

convention speech, this really is a defining moment. It's a defining moment for our country and the world. And I have a very acute sense of history, my own role in it, but more importantly, the choices we're making now. And I want to lift up other people, particularly other women, as I write about in the book, who have both come before, are active now, and those who will come later. who have both come before, are active now, and those who will come later. Because we're in a moment where a lot of what I've been part of my entire life, fighting to expand opportunity and rights and take chances and get out there and, you know, have both the opportunity to win and lose right there in public, all of that is being pushed back on now. This misogyny, this anti-abortion drive is very much tied up with freedom and democracy,

and it goes far beyond whatever the issue might be. It is about how you define the right of somebody to make the choices that are best for her or him or them in a way that enables us to live our best lives. And the country itself is so divided about this. And I think, sadly, it's divided on the negative side, pulling back rights, undermining people. I don't know if you saw Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's speech a few days ago at NYU, where she basically said, make no mistake about it. This current Supreme Court, they're coming after gay marriage, interracial marriage, contraception. truly rooted in not just partisan and ideological points of view, but religious about how we are supposed to behave and live, and it is how they tell us to behave and live. I cannot overstate the stakes and the risks of this agenda that years ago I called the vast right-wing conspiracy. There's nothing conspiratorial about it. It's right there in public, Project 2025,

right-wing conspiracy. There's nothing conspiratorial about it. It's right there in public, Project 2025, Leonard Leo and his billion-dollar fund to force us to, you know, believe as he believes, do as he wants us to do. So, for me, writing this book was both personal and political, kind of taking stock of my own life and the role I play now and the role I hope to continue to play as long as I'm able to, but also a very loud warning about what's at risk if we don't get this election right. I would agree. One of the things you did was define yourself as a woman, and Harris is trying to make it a little bigger, right, and not necessarily focus in on it. But one of the moments that you had, I have to ask you about this, and I had different thoughts on it when you were doing it.

Let's play this speech. She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety. Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial. And when he woke up, he made his own kind of history. The first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions. As vice president, Kamala sat in the situation room. The crowd is chanting, lock him up, lock him up, which is, of course, your thing. And you're smiling and nodding like a treasure cat. And part of me is like, oh, Hillary, don't do it. And then I thought, oh, why not?

You deserve it. Tell me just how you, that moment. Because, you know, I felt you deserved it. I wasn't going to egg them on. But I got to tell you, I wasn't going to take away this little moment people were having. They all remember the, you know, the chance, literally, from the stage of their convention, not just, you know, enthusiastic delegates. But, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander and vice versa. And this guy has escaped accountability his entire life, his bankruptcies, his, you know, discriminatory rental policies, all of it. He has escaped it. And all of a sudden,

he's finally being held accountable. And boy, does it drive him nuts. And I think those 34 felony convictions, people lose sight of the fact, that was election interference. And, you know, I look back on 2016 and all of the disinformation and the attacks that we, you know, endured from adversaries both abroad and at home and the stealing of emails, all of which were published and the pizzeria basement, all of that stuff. published and the pizzeria basement, all of that stuff. And what Trump was doing was hiding information from voters who might have found it relevant to their election choice. So being held accountable for election interference is the first step in helping to peel back this onion of deceit that he lives in the middle of. I only wish that the documents cases and the election interference from 2020 had gotten to trial. It's been pushed back until after the election. And his sentencing, even on the 34 felony convictions, has been pushed back.

So I think, you know, I tell the story, you know, in the book of learning about the conviction. I was actually in the last stages of editing this book and exchanging, you know, pages with my colleagues who were working with me. And I'd put my phone down and turned it off because I just literally had to get these pages done. And then when I finished, I picked it up to see what was going on in the world, saw the convictions. And then when I finished, I picked it up to see what was going on in the world, saw the convictions. And I got teary-eyed because, you know, having gone up against him and and responsibility and the terrors that were inflicted on that day and on and on. You know the stories so well about what he did and what he was responsible for. To just see finally, okay, he was finally tried by a jury of his peers, fellow New Yorkers, which is where he was, you know, born and raised. And finally, people are saying, wait a minute, you know, we're not interested in the next season of The Apprentice. And we're certainly not interested in, you know, you getting away with all that you've done, sexually assaulting women for which you've been held accountable, your company committing criminal offenses, on and on it goes. Enough. So, I did feel a sense of, okay, finally, reality is catching up with this so-called reality TV performer. Or possibly not, that's the thing. So, I mean, you just mentioned this issue of gender and the gap and tech, and you read about this. Let's talk

about your book. It's called Something Lost, Something Gained. We talk about gender gap in the campaign. There's a positive one for women for Harris, but she isn't getting men, but especially Gen Z men. Every week we get a question from an outside expert. Today we have one on the subject from someone you know. Donald Trump called her that woman from Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Let's hear it. Many studies show young American men falling behind women in their generation in educational attainment and professional prospects, among other measures. And we're seeing a significant and somewhat concerning gender-based divergence in political views. As a nation, I think we tend to err on the side of overcorrection at times,

like a pendulum in reverse. How do we address this disparity while preserving the progress that has been made for women? How do we ensure we do not penalize success and ensure policy instead lifts those who are struggling? You write about technology and a group, lifts those who are struggling. You write about technology and a group CBAN are referred to as rootless white males. The kids online are susceptible to sexist and racist attacks and are easily lured by the right wing. You said you were too slow to see the strategy in 2016. Talk a little bit, answer her question and address technology too.

Well, I think Gretchen Whitmer is right on point, raising this issue and then making it clear we've got to deal with it. And address technology, too. present in our country. But I've talked with people in Europe, in Asia, places like South Korea, et cetera, where men are falling behind. They are not finishing school. They're not graduating from college. They're not in the formal workforce. And I think there are a couple of questions we have to ask and answer. What role has technology played in this? And you're right. In my book, I talk about gamers. And one of the very first explosions of misogyny came from what was called Gamergate.

And you're familiar with this. You've talked and written about it. But that's where Steve Bannon got the idea that, you know, men were playing games. And they were games that were often violent, but they were games that were totally consuming, creating worlds in which they were the powerful agent of destruction or building, however. Ready player one. Ready player one. And he understood that this rootlessness, this enemy, was harnessable for politics.

And social media has given so many literal channels for men to connect with other men who are feeling angry, displaced, worrying that they are not attractive to women or that they are being left out and left behind because women are taking their jobs or blacks are, immigrants are, whoever the scapegoat of the minute might be. So this is no longer just about maybe getting a little disassociated from real life because you're spending all your time in front of a screen. It's about how that then impacts what's going on in society and certainly in politics. I don't think we paid anywhere near as much attention. Now, you know, we've got people like Jonathan Haidt writing, you know, The Anxious Generation and sounding the alarm about screen time.

We've got American Academy of Pediatrics. We've got countries like Sweden. We've got all kinds of people finally coming to. Vivek Murthy talked about it. And they're saying, wait a minute, we have turned our children over to these forces at work behind these screens that are, you know, infecting them with alienation or anxiety or depression or anger, whatever it might be. By the way, just yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg said he's tired of saying, I'm sorry. Just so you know, he does, he's not sorry anymore of what he's done. But among other solutions, you propose reforming or repealing Section 230 of the 1996 Telecommunications

Act. You talk about this in the book, which was, in fact, signed by your husband, President Bill Clinton, when he was president. Do you think it was short-sighted to give them such an open check? And when did it become clear to you that it was a problem? And lastly, what should, if Harris is elected, they do? Well, I think it was unforeseen in the way that it has developed. The idea was, oh, okay, they're like a utility. They are a platform that people will post things on and get to know their friends and all the rest of it. I don't recall large protests or loud alarms being sounded back then. There may have been. I wasn't aware of it. But it was also in the late 90s before the explosion of social media. So it was not something that even people who thought

they understood technology and what was going to happen on the internet were particularly worried about. What they were worried about is, oh, you know, we're going to stop the development by, you know, putting up all kinds of roadblocks and regulations. And we need to, you know, see how far we can take this. Okay. A defensible argument that now needs to be totally revisited because we have lived for more than 25 years with the consequences. And so, I have long advocated for the repeal of 230 and the implementation of guardrails that would hold the platforms accountable and that would force them to do more on content moderation than they even used to do and now have given up on doing, as you know so well. And I think about this as a kind of, and I write a little bit about this, as a kind of necessary awareness evolution. So, you know, when cars first came in, I mean, who had stop signs or speed limits or, God forbid, safety belts, you know? We learned, hey, technology has huge benefits, but, you know, it's like part of human life. It has drawbacks.

So we have to try to limit those. And we should be at that stage right now. And I think many, many people are, but they are somewhat intimidated by the tech gurus who act like, you know, all the rest of us are idiots and only they know what is possible to be done. And we are going to stand in the way of however they define progress. So people get intimidated, people in decision-making positions, the huge, you know, war chests. You call them industrial lobbyists. They are industrial lobbyists. And the huge war chests they have are now being put to use to lobby against any kind of even reasonable regulation. And we just have to take them on. We have to take them on in the courts. We have to take them on in state

and federal legislation. Because otherwise, we are losing now and we could get to a point where it's unrecoverable. Well, this sounds like me all the time, but Democrats and Republicans are getting a lot of money from the tech industry. And I think the question is, when are they going to start turning it down? We'll be back in a minute. Think about those businesses that grew their sales

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer

data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM. The through line of this book is women, right? It's about your friends or the women from Afghanistan, et cetera. It's a real through line. And it's still, you know, it goes back to your very famous quote, human rights, women rights, women education and women's rights. And to me, it distilled what you've been doing much of your life, right? Explain what happened. And do you agree, you know, the withdrawal has been attacked for being botched. But talk about this moment in Something Lost,

Something Gained. Well, I started worrying about what was going to happen when Trump's Secretary of State Pompeo signed the deal with the Taliban. So this predated Biden. It was a surrender agreement. It was filled with bad decisions like releasing 5,000 hardcore terrorists that we were holding in a prison in Afghanistan, along with the Afghan government. It didn't even involve the Afghan government. There were no guarantees coming from the Taliban. And as Kamala Harris said in the debate, Donald Trump even invited the Taliban to come to Camp David. I mean, the whole thing was,

it was not just absurd, it was so dangerous. So I started worrying about that. And then, you know, when Biden became president, I knew because I talked to people in the White House and the State Department who were now working for him, you know, the Taliban had a very simple message. The Taliban had told Trump, if you don't agree to withdraw, and under Trump's agreement, the Afghan army and basically saying, you know, the Americans are going to withdraw. Trump has signed this agreement. And if you don't get your men home, we'll kill you and we'll kill everybody in your village. So, I mean, they had a strategy. So, when Biden became president, he had the same warning from the Taliban. Like, look, you know, Trump had drawn down the American forces. We really couldn't defend our positions

and our people. And Biden wanted to leave anyway, because he thought it was, you know, an unwinnable longest war in American history. So he basically said, okay, don't kill Americans. We are going to go, but we can't do it on the timeframe. We just got here. So basically, the amendment to the agreement that Trump had signed was, okay, Biden saying we're going to get out by September 11th. All right. Now, shortly after the Biden decision was made, I was contacted by someone in the Biden administration that they had gotten a hold of a list of Afghan women that they had reason to believe had been compiled by the Taliban, that these were the women they would go after. And it became known as the kill list. And on that list

were women that I had gotten to know since I was a senator and started going to Afghanistan and even working with Laura Bush to support Afghan women at that point. And I saw these names. These were women who'd been in the government, politics, education, healthcare, etc. And I knew that under any kind of evacuation that the United States would run, these women would not be on our list because they didn't work for the United States government. They were working in Afghanistan to do what... To try to better the country. To try to better the country, try to build a democracy, to try to implement education for women, all of those things. And I also believed, based on my own experience, that the Taliban would be

quickly in charge of Afghanistan. Now, the Biden administration had intelligence to the contrary. The Afghan government was also very adamant that it wouldn't happen. I didn't believe either of those sources. I knew it was going to happen. So I knew that we had to be prepared to move quickly. And we began to acquire like email addresses and cell phones and WhatsApp and signal contacts for as many women on the list as we could. And in the book, in a chapter called White Scarves, I detail the effort that I and a wonderful network of predominantly women in our country, but also countries around the world, undertook to evacuate and save these women. And I have to say, Cara, the several weeks of intense effort that we had Afghan women expats who were helping us, who were

obviously translating. We had, you know, some of my longtime aides like Huma Abedin. We had people at the State Department in the Women's Office that I'd helped to institutionalize all of that. So everybody was working. I was calling leaders of nations like Canada, Albania, Ukraine, Qatar, places to say, can you help us get planes? Can you let us land? Can you provide refuge for these women and their families? And it was literally a minute-by-minute intense undertaking where sometimes a woman would get onto the Zoom and she would say, the Taliban were just at my mother's house looking for me. What am I supposed to do? Or I've been on this bus for two days and we can't get through the crowds. The Taliban won't let us

through the checkpoints. So we were living this in real time. It wasn't from a distance. We were there. We were raising money for planes. We were raising money for, you know, buses. We were raising money to support women once they landed. And we were able to, you know, get about a thousand women and their families out. And we continued it even after the last American civilian and military evacuee left because we had women still in safe houses hiding from the Taliban. So we were able to get some more out after that. You know, what's interesting about that story is, again, there's this through line. Your work on their strength was palpable. I think one of the most moving essays is Rebel with a Cause, the stories of women against Putin,

you know, of other totalitarian leaders. It's like everywhere in the world, it's a whack-a-mole of terrible misogyny. You were standing next to Yulia Navalny when she was announced that her husband, Alexei Navalny, had died last fall. You were with her. It's everywhere you go, right, across the world. And you said, I've heard that the same determination women activists and dissidents all over the world, one foot in front of the other, no matter what comes along, keep going. It seems like it's everywhere in this book, you know, my entire adult life. And up until relatively recently, it was a difficult effort, but the trajectory was going in the right direction. I mean, we were making progress. We were changing laws. We were upending customs and traditions that, you know, valued marrying, you know, girls when they were 10 and 11 or, you know,

genital cutting and all the things that women were suffering from and wanting to be liberated from to make their own life choices. So I felt that certainly from the 1995 Beijing Conference, when I did deliver the speech about women's rights or human rights and the platform for action that, you know, we helped to draft that laid out all of the changes we wanted, everything from, you know, criminalizing domestic violence to decriminalizing contraception, we were making so much progress. And the backlash to women's rights and certainly to high-profile women, women in journalism, in business, in entertainment, politics, government, who online are attacked on a literally minute-by-minute basis, vilely and virally. Something has changed. Something has been injected into our history, our body politic in this country and elsewhere, where women are now seen as fair game, where women's advances are living at a time when so much of the progress on women's rights, obviously in our country, the overturning of Roe v. Wade is exhibit A, has been put at risk.

And I wanted to highlight these brave women whom I've been so privileged to get to know and work with over the years who have stood against tyranny. They've stood against dictatorship and oppression. They've stood against online harassment and threats. So, we have to lift them up, and we have to understand their struggle is our struggle. You yourself are at risk. You know, let's talk about post-election America. As we know, Locker Up wasn't just rhetoric on Trump's part. He tried to get the DOJ to keep investigating you on numerous occasions in your book. You later said an area of what could happen if Donald Trump is reelected in November.

I want to finish up on two questions. This is the first one. What's your biggest concern? Are you worried that you personally will be back in his crosshairs? Well, he's been lying about what he did as president. He did personally direct his then Attorney General Sessions to reopen investigations into me. He did direct his secretaries of state, first Tillerson, then Pompeo, to reopen

investigations into me. He prompted an investigation of the Clinton Foundation, which is a platinum grade A, first-rate, you know, nonprofit organization. So, we spent a lot of money on lawyer's fees, let me tell you that, because he had us being investigated personally, the foundation. And, you know, luckily, thankfully, we knew there was nothing to find, but we knew that it was meant to harass, to intimidate, to cost a lot of money. That was part of the domination that he believes he's entitled to if he has any power. And I think he has recently been saying he wants to kill, literally kill, or jail his political opponents. And he often mentions Obama or me or Biden or, you know, I'm on the list sometimes, off the list other times. Does that worry you?

You know, I think you have to be worried if he gets power and gets to be the dictator he wants to be. I think you do have to worry that. Look, why is anybody questioning it? He's telling us what he wants to do. And if you look at Putin or Xi Jinping or Viktor Orban or the Iranians or any other dictatorship. Right. The Taliban take them at their word. They want to squash any voices that question them, that counter their propaganda, their lies, their disinformation. But, you know, personally, I don't think about it because, you know, look, when he was president, you know, bombs were delivered to me and Barack Obama and George Soros and CNN. I just live with that. That's part of the... Part of what's doing. Yeah, you have that kind of tone. It's kind of a

don't give a fuck. Yeah, but I also have security. Yeah, you have that kind of tone. It's kind of a don't give a fuck tone anymore. Yeah, but I also have security. So, I mean, and I only have security because I'm a former first lady, not because I ran against Donald Trump, but I have security. And, you know, our institutions withstood a lot last time. And I think he and the people around him learned a lot. Don't put somebody in who's not a true believer. I mean, John Bolton, who's as conservative as they come. I mean, he actually respected democracy and had a regard for the truth, even if you disagreed with him. Oh, my God.

No, bring in the people who are the true believers, who are the foot soldiers, who want to do Trump's bidding. And if he's unencumbered, if he's surrounded by many dictators themselves, and this guy, J.D. Vance, who is like a robotic wannabe dictator, and his deep personal problems that manifest it in the way that he talks about women, and problems that manifest it in the way that he talks about women and take them at their word. Take them at their word, which you say a lot. I mean, what Maya Angelou said, I mean, you know, when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them. There's no telling what he will do. Right. So he's not trying to just go after those of us in the public eye, although we would be the

high-profile targets. He will go after anybody who gets in his way. And read a little history. That's what they do. Yep, yep. So, let me finish on a happier note very quickly. This is the last question. If Kamala Harris, conversely, if she wins, I assume it will feel like a personal victory, because you plowed the field to her to get there. But the title of the book, Something Lost, Something Gained, it's a line, obviously, from the Joni Mitchell song, Both Sides Now. You write about watching Joni perform the song at the Grammy Awards back in February. I love that moment. It was very powerful because it was, you know, a later Joni Mitchell, just like a later Hillary Clinton. Yes, it was so incredible. And Brandi was there right with her. It was so incredible.

Brandi Carlile was amazing. But there's also a later Hillary Clinton, right? So I'd love you to answer your last question. What have you lost and what have you gained? You know, the losses are both personal in terms of, you know, losing loved ones. Obviously, my parents, my younger brother, dear, dear friends who meant the world to me, brother, dear, dear friends who meant the world to me, people who I worked with and admired so much. So the losses, first and foremost, are the losses of a life, people that you wish were still here that are not. The losses are obviously political. You know, I would have loved to have been president and would have, I think, done a really good job, but that wasn't to be. So in the book, I do talk about both personal and political losses and setbacks. But since it's kind of a book taking stock of my

long, eventful, sort of improbable life, the gains are, you know, so much greater. Because I was willing to get outside of my comfort zone, willing to take risks. You know, part of public life is all the good stuff that is gratifying. But the hard stuff is made harder because you're in the public eye. So if you have problems with your marriage, you're right there. And one of the things I have in the book is a letter that Lady Bird Johnson sent to me during Bill's impeachment, basically saying how glad she was to see me standing there and, you know, supporting him. And, you know, obviously I was doing it because I say in the book I thought he was a really good president. And I was, you know, in turmoil inside trying to figure out what am I

going to do and what's the right thing to do. And people make assumptions about you when you're in the public eye. They project their own fears and desires on you. They try to define you in ways that aren't real to you but are important to them. But the point of this book really is when you add it all up and you look across a life, and I would encourage readers and listeners to your podcast to think about their own lives this way. I know my own truth. I know who I am. I am grateful for the life I've had, not just the good parts, but all of it. And I do so deeply, and I know this will sound corny to some of your listeners, but I so deeply love this country and I'm so grateful that I was born in the middle of the last century, a middle-class family,

middle-class girl at a time when doors began to be cracked open for girls and women. And I was able to be one of those people who walked through that door, sometimes a little apprehensive, like, what was I going to find on the other side? Would people like me? Would they accept me? Was I good enough? I mean, all the things that, you know, women of my generation went through trying to figure out how to do this. And I am thrilled that I had that opportunity. And I look at my grandchildren,

I have a granddaughter and two grandsons. Honest to God, Kara, I can't bear the thought that their futures will be more constricted than mine was. Yep, same with my daughter. and divisive and led by people who are cruel and mean-spirited and disrespectful about our whole journey as Americans. I mean, I want this book to obviously connect with people who see different parts of their own lives in it, but also to be a wake-up call. And I have this chapter, as you know, about, okay, you're going to wake up, and if Donald Trump is president, look what's going to happen. And don't think it's not about you. Okay, you may not be a woman, you may not be black, you may not be gay, you may not be an immigrant. It is about you. Because

it is. Dictators, authoritarians, narcissists, it's always about them. And anybody who does or says anything at odds with their self-image, their lust for power, you're in their view and they can come after you too. Absolutely. I guess I do have to beg the final question. Would you like to serve in the Harris administration?

I don't think that's in the cards. I think I want to be as helpful as a citizen advisor. So what's your next job, Hillary? I always call you that housewife from Chappaqua. Whenever my Trump relatives are like, Hillary's running everything. They're always like, Hillary's behind it. And I'm always like, no, no, Nancy Pelosi's behind it, for goodness sake. Nancy and I take turns. Tell your Trump relatives. Nancy and I, you know, we alternate. I know, that's true. But whenever they say that, I said, she's just a housewife from Chappaqua with no power.

So is that where you're going to stay? I'm going to do everything I can, number one, to help Kamala get elected, and then number two, to be the best president she can be and try to help bring our country together. I'm going to be out there speaking and, you know, just throwing as many truth bombs as I can. All right. Well, I like when you do. The unlikely life of Hillary Clinton, I think. It's really funny. Thanks, my friend. Thank you so much. Good to talk Gallagher. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get to come to the meeting where she, Madam Secretary, Nancy Pelosi,

and me plot the future of the United States. If not, go to Taylor Swift's Instagram and register to vote. As she said, do your own research and make your own decision, but please vote. Go wherever you listen to podcasts also and search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential,

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