Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson - BONUS: A Conversation with Bill Clinton on “Citizen: My Life After the White House”

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Today, we’re bringing you my conversation with former President Bill Clinton from earlier this month in Little Rock, Arkansas. We sat down to talk about the 20th anniversary of The Clinton Library and his newest book, “Citizen: My Life After the White House,” a front-row, first-person chronicle of his post-presidential years and the most significant events of the twenty-first century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, it's Jesse. Listen, I have something really exciting for you. It's not an extra episode of Dinners on Me, but it's equally exciting. I recently had the chance to go to Little Rock, Arkansas to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Clinton Library. And while I was there, I had the chance to sit down with former President Bill Clinton to talk to him about his latest book, Citizen, My Life After the White House, which is, as you guessed it, about his transition from a lifelong politician to a private citizen.

Bill Clinton was candid about his family, his friendships, and his life as a private citizen who also just happens to be the 42nd President of the United States of America. It was a really special conversation that I was so honored to be a part of. Here's a piece of our chat, which was edited for clarity and length. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Whoa.

That was all for you. You got to run for office. I got to run for office. It's so, you know, I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here.

I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. I know that you're going to be here. That was all for you. You got to run for office. I got to run for office. I know that you've had so many incredible moderators doing your book tour. Shonda Rhimes, Billy Crystal, Cory Booker. They're all unbelievable. They've got to do these unbelievable cities. But I am so honored that I get to do the best city on your book tour. This is incredible to be in a space

where so many people who just adore you are gathered. You adore the city. I was able to see the library today. The 20th anniversary is now. I mean, it's just an incredible time to be here. And I'm just so honored to be asked. the library today, the 20th anniversary is now. I mean, it's just an incredible time to be here. And I'm just so honored to be asked. It's a great city.

I do come back a lot, I assume. Yep, every chance I can. Yeah. I've been busy the last few months, you know, but now I'll have more time next year, it looks like. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I do want to offer my condolences though. When I was coming in, our driver did tell me that the McDonald's that she left was shut down and turned into a Chick-fil-A, so I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a bit of history. That old McDonald's thing was way overrated, but I did stop for coffee there every day on my morning run. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was at the library, it was such a great reminder of obviously your incredible career that you had in the White House, and your book obviously talks about your years after the White House. But I thought it'd be an interesting way to sort of set the stage and just kind of remind

everyone your passion. Because being a president, I don a president, so many of you probably relate to this. When I sit at home, some of you are like, oh, God, who wants that job? That is a hard job. And yet, there are people who need to step up and do it. What made you want to be in politics

and ultimately president? Well, when I was a boy, I was always interested in it. I remember we got a television when I was 10. And by the way, we didn't get a television until I was 10. And I think it's one reason I got to be president. Because when I was born, we lived in a conversational culture. And if one of the things that I think is wrong with America today is the way we talk about each other

and talk past each other and basically categorize each other as two dimensional cartoons. If you live in an oral culture, it's harder to do that. Particularly if you're living in a small town. You know people. Lyndon Johnson said that he was happy after all the years at the pinnacle of Washington power to go home to Johnson City because it was a little place

where people know when you're sick and care when you die. And I thought that was a part of my life. But anyway, I did watch, I remember sitting on the floor in front of our new television at age 10, watching the Democratic and the Republican conventions on television. And it's when President Kennedy ran for the vice presidential

nomination in a floor challenge to Estes Kafauver and he lost and it's the best thing ever happened to him. I mean it had a lot to do with you know how he basically jumped into the leadership in the primaries in 1960. It was interesting. So I liked it. And I remember I didn't really make a decision till I was 16. And I was, I thought about being a doctor and I loved music.

You know, I love my saxophone and I played it well by local standards. And I remember looking into the mirror one day saying, you could be a really good doctor, but you'll never win a Nobel Prize. You could make a living playing saxophone, but you'd never be as good as John Coltrane. living playing saxophone, but you'd never be as good as John Coltrane. And back then, if you were a jazz musician, it didn't matter how many hit records you

had, you couldn't make a living unless you did the clubs, which meant that you stayed up all night, slept till noon, and your chances of becoming drug dependent were roughly twice as good as your chances of building a successful family. And I wanted to become a father, I wanted to have a normal life, I wanted to be a good partner. So I said, you know,

I think I could be really good at politics. And I just thought, because, and I was, it's not true that I knew I was going to be president and all that when I shook John Kennedy's hand. My original aspiration was to be a senator and then after I served as Attorney General I wanted to be governor because I like doing things. I like taking responsibility for solving problems, seizing opportunities. I was fascinated and still am about how things work. One of the reasons I think our people

are easily turned cynical by all this stuff that's in the modern communications ecosystem is that we talk too much about what are you gonna do and how much money you're gonna spend off on it, and not enough about how are you gonna do it. And then let yourself be grilled. Let people ask you the hard questions. Work through, because how you do something makes all the difference in the world.

So that's how I got involved in politics. I thought I could do that maybe better than anybody I'd ever met, and I just wanted to see if I could do it. And I had a good time doing it. You did a pretty good job. I know when you left the White House, you were 54. I'm gonna be 50 next year. I'm looking at the age of 54.

It's not too far away. And that's a young age to consider retiring. It's also an older age to consider what next. When you left the White House, you had 25 years of experience as a politician behind you and yet you didn't know what was behind the door. I find it so inspiring that you took what you learned and what you had accomplished already and then forged a new path outside of the White House. What advice would you give to people like me who, you know, are always wanting to grow and always wanting to change and always wanting to contribute?

Like, you know, how do we forge those paths when we don't see the path in front of us? I tried to outline this in the book. I think that, first of all, you have to discipline yourself and steel yourself Not to waste a day Wishing you could do something you can't do anymore. I Mean, I really admire Magic Johnson because when he had to retire from basketball, and there was still a lot of fear about people who were HIV positive and He lived for several years on the discipline of his maintenance of health

before the antiretrovirals were available. But he thought for years while he was playing basketball about what he could do. And he said, I wanna see if I can make a career in business. I believe I'd be good at it. And he turned out to be good at it. And he did a I want to see if I can make a career in business. I believe I'd be good at it. And he turned out to be good at it, and he did a lot of good. He had a lot of interest in New York City for a while. He owned theaters and other things.

He just cared about doing it, and he did a good job. So the first thing you have to say is, do I have to stop doing what I'm doing, or do I want to stop doing what I'm doing or do I want to stop doing what I'm doing? If so, you have to commit yourself to your new life. Then I think you have to decide what you want to do. And then maybe most important of all, you have to decide how are you gonna keep score?

Truth is, everybody in this audience keeps score all the time. And a lot of times we keep score wrongly in ways that set ourselves up for fear and disappointment or resentment. But I decided that I would try to keep score as a private citizen the way I had when I would try to keep score as a private citizen the way I had when I was in politics. Are people better off when you quit than when you started? Do children have a brighter future?

And are we coming together instead of being torn apart? If that's how you keep score, and you can honestly answer yes to those three questions. It doesn't matter much if you have ups and downs and setbacks and you back people who don't get elected or you get frustrated. And then I tried to learn everything I could about what it would be like to build

a non-governmental career, to be an NGO, a non-governmental career, to be an NGO, a non-governmental organization. And I learned a lot from Hillary, because she was always involved in other things, and she was always really good at it. And I remember one day I was shaving, and a few months after I left office and I was staring in the mirror, and I said, my God, I've become an NGO.

And we had, we had, we'd changed positions in life. Yeah. And I had a great time helping her in politics. And I have loved building this foundation and we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the library here. And I just kept trying to find something useful to do. And I was so proud here of all the people that work in and with the library when we delivered

almost a million meals during the COVID. Yeah. That was the interest, right? Yeah, it was. And, but that's, but there's all kind of stuff out there to do. There's always something to do. Because there's always a gap between what the government can provide and the private sector will produce.

And the best non-governmental organizations find ways to work with government and the private sector to do things faster, better, at lower costs. And so I've had a good time trying. Yeah. Yeah. You brought up, obviously, all these incredible institutions you've built since leaving the White House. The Clinton Global Initiative and also the Clinton Health Access Initiative. My parents weren't involved in show business. My mom was an OBGYN.

My dad was a microbiologist. And he actually helped set up TB labs in Tanzania in AIDS research labs, which I know that's work that you also did after he retired. And I think that there's a sort of expectation or hope from parents sometimes that their children are gonna follow in their footsteps and I certainly did not do that with my family. But you know Chelsea who's you know such a dear friend of mine and her husband Mark are such dear friends of Justin of mine.

And you know it's it's really I think it's so wonderful that she's taken such an active part in your work as well. What does it mean to have your daughter working so closely with the Clinton Foundation? Well, first of all, I'm really proud of her. She followed her heart. She went to Stanford, I think, thinking she would become a physician. And she called me one night when she was,

I don't know, freshman or sophomore. She said, Dad, I don't know, she said, I've got really good grades in a history class and an English class, and I'm doing okay in science, but I'm thinking about practical ways to use what I care about in healthcare. And she said, you got any advice? And I said, I think you should do what makes you happy,

because most people are happiest doing what they're best at. And I remember a few years ago, I looked at her and I said, you know, briefly, when you were in high school, you thought you knew more than your parents did about everything. And I said, alas, it is finally true.

You do know more than we do about everything. And it's a joy, you know, just kind of hanging around watching her mull things over. Yeah, yeah. And having the occasional argument still. Every now and then I win one, but not too often. I know you spoke in the book about, you know, when the COVID-19 virus was sort of creeping in.

The first person you went to was Chelsea. Yeah, I did. Just to get information. I called her. I remember when I read about the first case in China, and I write about this in the book. I said, so I picked up the phone and I called Chelsea, because she was already teaching her course at Columbia

and doing all these other things. And I said, Chelsea, how bad is this going to be? She said, Dad, I just pulled up a picture of it on the internet and I've been studying it. She said, I think it's going to be horrible. She said, I think it's gonna be horrible. She said, I think it's gonna be not as deadly as Ebola, but much worse than the flu. And it's gonna spread like wildfire, and I do not think we're organized to handle it.

And there'll be a lot of people who'll be tempted to go into denial, and act like it's not that big a deal, and there'll be a lot of people who'll be tempted to go into denial and act like it's not that big a deal and we could ignore it. And I'm just afraid we are not organized to respond. And we know now that we got the best and the worst of both of her analyses, that is Congress passed this big bill

to develop a vaccine and President Trump signed it and we developed a vaccine in a hurry and then people were pushing back and in denial about it and so we didn't do a very good job of getting it out there as quick as we could although it saved an enormous number of lives and the evidence is clear that in the areas where the vaccine was heavily most heavily used there was far less hospitalization, far fewer people put on ventilators,

and the death rate was much lower. But there are still people who say that they're all bad vaccines, and I just don't believe that, and I think the evidence points that way. And the most troubling thing we have now in a time where people have lots of reasons to be skeptical about anything they read

that has any political tinge to it, is there still people who act like this was not a positive thing? And God knows how many people are alive today because of that vaccine. And I think, so, and every time they do a variant or an upgrade, you know, because I'm a creaky old guy now, I'm supposed to run in a hurry and get this, the newest variant vaccine. So I get stuck again. And I'm grateful. Yeah, yeah. You know, your time right out of the office,

you speak so much in the second part of your book, specifically about all the work that you, or maybe it's the first part of the book, the work that you did with sitting presidents. Explain to me, I imagine there must be a lot of nuance that you have to sort of have to, when you're trying to help, or when you're offering help to a sitting president,

is it, are there boundaries that you're, or maybe afraid to when you're offering help to a sitting president, are there boundaries that you're afraid to cross? Did you learn something from the way your friend Bush 41 maybe helped you while you were a sitting president? I just imagine there must be some, are you ever worried about overstepping the boundary? I think I was, when you're president, you almost by definition can't overstep.

Yes. You call people, you ask them to help, and they say yes or no, or you talk about an issue. But I think when you're not president, you have to respect the fact that there can only be one president at a time. If in good conscience conscience you can't agree with the existing president,

I think any disagreement should still be respectfully voiced. I remember once I was having a talk with President Bush because I did a little errand for him. And I never do that without asking, but shortly after George Bush took office, W. Bush, you may remember there was a big brouhaha with China because an American spy plane had crashed on a Chinese island. And there was a, there's a hot phone, there's a red line between the two countries,

but it wasn't used. President Bush said something about, you know, it's our plane, give it back. And then Jiang Zemin, then the president of China, who's I think a very good man, said, you know, he said something pretty hateful back. the president of China, who's I think a very good man, he said something pretty hateful back. So in the middle of all this, I got invited to go to Hong Kong.

A friend of mine, who sadly passed away now, he was sponsoring this meeting, and he asked me to come give a speech. So I called Condi Rice, who was later secretary of state, but was then the President's National Security Advisor. Condi was Chelsea's Chancellor at Stanford and she did what she could to protect Chelsea's privacy which I always respected and was grateful for. So I called Condi and I said, look Condi,

you know, I got invited to go to Hong Kong and give this speech and it's a pretty good fee. And you know, and I said, you know, you guys bankrupted me when I was president. And she laughed because she knew it was true. And I said, so I got bills to play and things to do. I need this speech, but I'm an American first. So if I go, I'll have to see President

Zhang Jimin because he's going to be there. I know we're fighting now and he's my friend. I can't go and not see him. But tell me what you want the administration to communicate and I'll say what you want. I won't, you know, twist it or lie about it or anything. And I said, but I gotta do it if I go. If you don't want me to do that, then just tell me and I won't. And she said, well, let me check check with the president I'll call you.

So then she calls me back in about half an hour and said we want you to go. And I said well what do you want me to tell him? He said tell him to give us our plane back and then and promise him that as soon as you do you'll have a good talk and we'll start again. So I'm there with Jean-Germain and I said, Mr. President, before we get into all the personal stuff let's talk about this airplane. And I started into my spiel, you know, that I was going to... and he stopped. He said, wait a minute. He said, this is not nearly as bad as when you blew up my embassy in Belgrade. Which we did do. We had an out of date map that said that it was

a Serbian intelligence center. And when I was trying to stop the carnage in Bosnia, we bombed it and three Chinese citizens who had nothing to do with it were killed. And there were riots in the street and everything. He said, but what did you do? He said, first you apologize and then you tried to call me. And there were riots in the street.

And he said, and you understood that we had our politics too, just because we're communist doesn't mean we don't have politics. So he said, you knew why I couldn't take your call. So you apologized again and you tried to call again. The third time you called, I took the call. The demonstrations went away and I told you that I understood, he that I understood. He sort of understood.

I called him, I said, it's all this work we've done together, you and me, you don't really believe that I would intentionally bomb an embassy. He said, no, I don't. But he said, the American CIA and other intelligence agencies, you guys are too smart,

you couldn't make a mistake like this. It's interesting, the first time I ever realized you could be punished for being smart. He didn't believe that we could have made a mistake. And I said, well, if that happened, I'll find out, but I think it was honestly a mistake. I said, you know, nearly all people make them from now and again.

And so anyway, I called back, told George Bush, he called him, they gave the plane back. Oh, and John's man was funny. He says, nobody thinks we shot your plane down, do they? He said, no, he said it was an accident, a crash. But it crashed on our island, and you can't blame us for taking a look at it. You spy on us, we spy on you, everybody knows it.

But if we can get a little advantage without having to shoot anybody, it's not a bad thing. So, and we're having this totally, you know, non-dogmatic conversation. So anyway, they talked and that was the end of it. So Bush called to thank me. And I told him, I said, Mr. President, I know you don't like me. Because I defeated, Mr. President, I know you don't like me. Because I defeated your father.

And I said, that's okay with me. I like people who love their parents. But you have to understand, I like him too, a lot. But I had a severe policy disagreement with him when he was at over 70% approval after the first Gulf War and he was pursuing an economic policy that was gonna bankrupt our country and was already driving down middle income incomes and lower income working people.

I said, I just wanted him to use the power to do it. So we had this agreement we ran and I won and I understand that but I want you to know that I will never talk about you the way your guys talked about me and I'm not complaining politics is tough business it's a brutal contact sport, it's a zero-sum game. But I said, I'm an American first. Now Hillary's in politics and you'll do things that I don't agree with. And because she's in politics, I may have to comment on them, but I will never do it disrespectfully. And if you ever need me and I can do it in good conscience,

I will do what I can. And he started calling me, he started calling me twice a year. And we'd talk normally for about 45 minutes about everything under the sun. And he told a lot of people that one reason he came to trust me was I never leaked the conversations. And then I finally, with his permission, told about-

Leaked the conversation. No, just kidding. No, and with his permission, I told the story about my conversation with him when we went together to the Pope's funeral, Pope John Paul's funeral, and I talked him in to giving generic medicine a chance to prove that it worked because the American drug companies who were big supporters of the Republicans were saying, you can't allow this to happen, our drugs are better. Theirs are only 60% as effective.

And so Bush said this and I said, I know they say that, but you know, first, as smart as they are, they ought to understand math. Since our drugs are less than 10% as expensive, even if they're only 60% as effective, I think the math is we save six lives for every one they save for a given amount of money spent. So I told the head of Pfizer then, I said,

I don't believe I'd make that argument anymore if I were you. Somebody's liable to do the math. They're right over dinner and then you'd be. So I said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I said, what about if I submitted every drug we put in any human body anywhere to the American Food and Drug Administration, if they say it's safe and effective,

would you say to the countries you helped through his program, PEPFAR, which I loved, and we work with them. But I said, you're spending all this money and you're only in seven countries, and you're doing it because you and you're only in seven countries. And you're doing it because you're paying too much for these drugs.

So I'm not asking you to do anything. Just let the Food and Drug Administration analyze. He said, that sounds like a fair deal to me. And he didn't stop and talk to his aides. If he had, they'd have just croaked, because it was bad politics. And the Food and Drug Administration, to be fair to them, didn't sit on it.

They conducted all the tests, and quickly they said that they approved 22 of the 24 drugs. And Bush was as good as his word. He sent word out to every country that if they wanted to use these drugs, they could. Today, 97% of the drugs purchased with money from PEPFAR, the American program, are generic drugs, 97%.

And immediately, immediately, once the 22 were approved, PEPFAR went from being involved in seven countries to 15 countries without spending one penny more of tax debtors' money. Now if people would just talk to each other and treat each other in good faith and have some verification procedure that they trust,

we could do a bunch of stuff like that in many areas. But if you live in an environment where anybody can tell his or her supporters that what the other side says is false always. It's hard to get anything done. And George Bush proved that he really did want to be a compassionate conservative when it came to people dying with AIDS. And I'll always be grateful for it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so many people are in a way fascinated with your friendship with George Bush 41. Justin and I talk about this all the time. Representation matters so much. Having people actually see the action, seeing us together as a couple and raising kids together means something. I really feel like, for so many of us,

seeing you two genuinely bond and work together, even after your presidency, was so important. And very meaningful too, to see these people who were on opposite sides of the aisles work together for the same America. And I was always very inspired by your friendship. And I know he meant so much to you. And you speak so eloquently about your friendship in the book. And it's one of my favorite parts that you wrote about.

But just to sort of give a taste now, about your friendship in the book, and it's one of my favorite parts that you wrote about. But just to sort of give a taste now, tell us a little bit about why it was so important to you. First of all, I liked him. When I was governor, I was the senior governor in the country even though I was the second youngest. And the people here were good enough to keep me on. You know, nobody can ever say I couldn't hold down a job. I stayed here.

So anyway, what really solidified our friendship with me in the beginning was that as Vice President, George Bush hosted the Governor's Conference in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he had a summer home. And all of us were there. And it was 1983. I remember like it was yesterday.

Chelsea was three years old. And I said, come on, Chelsea, I want you to meet Vice President Bush. He's our host. So I introduced her and she reached up and took his hand and she said, where's the bathroom? And George Bush took her by the hand and took her to the bathroom with only a stop so she could shake hands

with his mother who was, I think, nearly 90 then. But you know, it just, even when we were running, when we were having these tough debates and when they were trying to tear my guts out, I always remembered that however much we disagreed and however hard he hit me, the guy that took my daughter to the restroom was there. He was there too. Yeah. You know, I don't get mad at politicians very much. It's a contact sport. If you're gonna complain about being here,

that's like being a quarterback and pro football, saying they shouldn't have tackled you. But I do think that the people who are opposing as referees should attempt to be fair and always accurate. And the real problem that has been plaguing America worse and worse, going all the way back to Watergate, a lot of people in the political press, they realize they make a lot of money, you know,

if they bring somebody down. And so it became sport, even before Fox News, to figure out how you can take somebody out. And I remember when I was running in 1992, when I hadn't even finally decided, somebody called me from the White House and said, look, here's how Washington works. The press has to have somebody at every election.

And they're pretty elitist, so they'll believe anything we tell them about Arkansas. I mean the guy didn't even, this guy was calling me from the White House and so he said you're the only one who can beat us because you're different. You got the fastest growing or second fastest growing economy in the country then after ten hard years when we'd been with massive unemployment and we worked hard on it and he said your schools have improved more since you became president than almost anybody else. Your crime rates down, you've got an interesting welfare reform program, you're different, you can beat us.

And so since the press has to have somebody at every election, we're gonna give them you. And we're gonna do it early, and you will never know what hits you. And I thought, oh my God, I'm going home and I'm gonna do wills and $100 divorces. You know, spend the rest of my life doing this. But I told him, I said, you know,

you guys have been in too long. You think those parking spots in the West Wing belong to you. He said, well, that's a pretty speak, but you just remember, I warned you, we like you here. And we don't wanna take your head off, but we don't have a choice. And they were as good as they were. They did everything they could and I just decided

that I needed a high plane threshold and I needed to keep a smile on my face and say, you know, listen all that stuff. This is not true, that's not true, and the main thing is, they're trying to take the election away from you. When I was a kid growing up, my mother said, anybody who tries to make you mad all the time is not your friend. They don't want you to think, I want you to think.

And I trust you. And it was really interesting because it's one reason that I kept the support of a lot of working class people who now have abandoned the Democrats because they've been successfully branded. But all those people had been in situations where people made assumptions about them that weren't true. And I think we should all remember that.

It doesn't hurt anything to give somebody the benefit of the doubt as long as you can and treat them like a person. You're presenting as you're very good at letting go of grudges, which is really impressive to me because I am not. I think it's natural for people to go of grudges, which is really impressive to me, because I am not. I just think it's natural for people to sort of hold things, you know? And you talked about, one of the stories that you talked about that I didn't know too much

about this, excuse me while I look at my notes so I can make sure I get all this right, but you expounded upon working, your relationships that were active, with people that were active adversaries during your time in the White House. Representative Bob Inglis, is that how I, am I saying his last name right? Bob Inglis.

Bob Inglis, yeah. He's a great guy. Well now this is very interesting. I mean, he was one of your adversaries. Well, Bob Inglis is an interesting place. He was elected to Congress as a Republican Well, Bob Inglis is an interesting place. He was elected to Congress as a Republican, and overwhelmingly Republican district,

a deeply religious born-again Christian, very pro-life, very pro-gun. And he won overwhelmingly. And he served three terms and he said he believed in term limits, so he laid out. Then he came back and won again, got about 80% of the vote. But in the middle of all this,

he had been through a terrible personal crisis. He fell in his bathroom and his open jaw in his bathroom and his open jaw hit the sink and drove his teeth up into his head. And they had to pull him down, wire his jaw shut, and for months he lived through a straw. So, English comes back to the Congress. But then President Obama's in office and one of those South Carolina congressmen, you remember, screamed out in the State of the Union

address that Obama was a liar. Remember that? So, English decided that he was going to run again because he was healthy and he said, you know I have always believed that I owed it to my constituents to be straightforward with them and if I changed my mind about something, I owed it to him to tell him.

So I have changed my mind about two things and you're entitled to know. He said the first thing is I think that our senior Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain are right about climate change. I think it's real, I think it's manmade, but I'm a conservative, I think we can develop market-based solutions that will create

lots of new jobs, lots of new businesses, but I'm not gonna deny it. It's just, I just, the evidence is overwhelming. And he said the second thing is, I think this hate in President Obama is a bad thing. It's bad for us. He said, you know, he's a Christian, not a Muslim. He's American-born, not born in Indonesia. He loves his family and he loves our country.

And I vote against him on nearly everything. But I am not gonna say he's a bad person just because we disagree. Otherwise, I'm just who I always was. I'm old fashioned Bob Inglis. bad person just because we disagree. Otherwise, I'm just who I always was. I'm old-fashioned Bob Inglis. I'm a born-again Christian and a conservative. A man named Trey Gowdy, who was a prosecutor in Spartanburg, ran against him and beat him 72 to 29

in a Republican primary. That would tell you how polarized we'd become there because he didn't hate President Obama and he wasn't prepared to deny climate change. And so he couldn't represent him. So anyway, all of a sudden one day I get this letter from Bob Engglis up in New York saying he'd like to talk to me, so I called him.

He said, I would like to come and see you. I said, come on. So a couple days later he shows up in my office in Harlem. And anyway, and I thanked him for what he said about what it for his statements. He said, but I didn't come here for that. I came here to apologize to you. I said, why? He said, well, I was elected when you were,

and I was committed to impeaching you for I knew what I was mad at you about. Because I had been totally carried away by Newt Gingrich and his little red books and giving us 100 words like sick, perverted, twisted. We were always supposed to use talking about Democrats and there you were, a Southern Baptist from Arkansas eating our lunch with stuff that I just couldn't stand it.

And I was committed to getting rid of you. And I was wrong. And I want you to forgive me. And by then he had started working with a woman whom he had defeated for Congress named Liz Patterson. She was the daughter of a South Carolina governor back when Democrats could still elect a governor in South Carolina.

And they started having a lunch once a month, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and they would start by agreeing on a problem they wanted to solve and then see if they could get the consensus. He said, it's just a little thing, but it's all I can think of to do now, and they're still doing it. But that's who Bob Englis is. So we became friends. Hillary used to make fun of me.

She said, you know, you are Irish to the core in so many ways, and you played a big role in the Irish peace process, but you have forgotten the importance of Irish Alzheimer's. And I said, what's that? She said, all you remember is the grudges. He said, you're the worst. He said, you can't even remember from one day to the next

who you're supposed to be mad at. But I have found it liberating. You know, it took me as I, and I apologize in the book, But I have found it liberating. Yeah. You know, it took me as I, and I apologize in the book, I said it took me two full years to get over what I consider to be the most dishonest press coverage in the history of my lifetime anyway, which is all that stuff about the emails

and Jim Comey talking about the...... Donald Trump's State Department said Hillary sent a grand total of zero classified emails and received on her private phone a grand total of zero. That was the number one attack on her in 2016. The number one, and they knew the people who were pushing it, the day after they started, that the rules specifically allowed her to do it. And you know, then Comey broke 70 years of FBI policy.

Even J. Edgar Hoover never did what he did, saying that he had reopened a criminal investigation, which he knew 99% there was nothing there. And then said right before the election, well, there's nothing there, which of course made Donald Trump say, well, he just sold out the deal. And I knew Trump was going to fire him

because he didn't like having somebody around that reminded him why he really got elected president because she dropped five points overnight. And in the end, it was three points. And according to Nate Silver, four and a half points in all the swing states. It was a personal tragedy for her, a real tragedy for the country, I think.

But mostly, but mostly, but mostly, but mostly, but mostly, it made people cynical about anything they read. And all that cynicism always helps the far right because they think that's okay.

That the chapter where you sort of disseminate from your point of view, 2016, it's hard to read because it's very, it's obviously very factual, but it's also coming from a place of, you can tell, deep personal hurt. And I can only imagine that was a, hopefully somewhat, that writing that down was maybe hopefully somewhat of a release for you. The last time I saw you in the same room was during the DNC and you gave a very powerful speech. There was a lot of optimism in that room, there was a lot of positivity.

Looking back on it now, after the election results, I can sort of identify a lot of that optimism was sort of tentative optimism. And as I go back and listen to some of those speeches which I have done to like give me some hope I can hear like, you know, be careful this could happen What if you obviously but came out before these election results If there was another chapter to write about where we are now, what would you say about these last few months? All these elections are different by the way and the American people essentially are like

music composers and in every election they write a different piece of music and you have to hear it if you want to win and they may be concerned about the same issues or may not but essentially this has not been a good time for credentials. You know, and I'm being serious, if you are repeatedly frustrated and you think you're not getting a fair shake at work or you're not respected in the country or whatever, it's very easy whether you're on the left or the right to think that nothing is legitimate. The problem is that if you're cynical about everything, it makes you extremely vulnerable to being manipulated.

So if you believe everything, you're naive and wrong. That is, if you're not capable of thinking some institution that you otherwise respect can make a mistake, that's a bad deal. But if you think that anybody that disagrees with you is by definition lying, that's also a bad deal. And that's why it's so hard to get people together. I wrote about this in the book,

but one of the things that I'm proudest of is another partnership I have with George W. Bush. It's called the Presidential Leadership Scholars. And we take people who are more or less between. We got some of them here. A lot of them are from Little Rock. I probably overdid my quota. Anyway, but every year we take people

who are usually between 29 and 40. He picks 30, I pick 30. And they go to his library and mine and we meet with them and answer questions and then they go to George H.W. Bush's library and the President Johnson's library and they study some aspects of presidential decision making. Then they break up into more or less evenly divided smaller groups and they pick an issue that they all agree they'd like to do better with, they'd like to see the country solve. And they work on that. And

it's stunning, about 70 plus percent of the time they'd reach total consensus. You have people from the far left, people from the far right, people in the middle. People very often surprise themselves. But what happens? They become people to each other. They're three dimensional human beings, not cartoons. They meet over and over again, they talk through things, and somebody makes

a point that the other side never considered and they just kept on working until they worked something out. And every year Bush and I do the commencement together. We alternate it between here at our library and at his down in Dallas. And so it's fascinating. This is just one example, but I remember one year I had these two real burly veterans, both of whom had lost legs to roadside bombs in Afghanistan or Iraq.

And they were very moving and one guy still had serious shrapnel scars that had not all been removed by surgery. And they thanked me because they said, we're trying to build, our whole goal in coming here was to develop the skills to build a lot of public support, to help veterans after they're back on the street

and trying to put their lives together again. And one of your picks had all the skills we needed and was the most valuable person in our small group. And she was a very large, formidable leader of the gay rights movement in Arkansas. A tall black woman that, they said, we would have never known anybody like her existed if we hadn't come here.

And a lot of the Democrats say the same thing. The Democrats go up to him and the Republicans come up to me. That means we're doing the right thing. So we gotta take a little time out to govern and to care for each other. Politics are fine, I love races, I love, I worked hard in this last

election, but you just got to keep at it. You can't give up, you got to keep going and if you give up on people as people, we are totally shafted. And you got to be careful what you believe just because it feeds into your pre-elections. I literally had a lady come to me in Western Pennsylvania in the last election in a little town that I loved, and I couldn't check this story out except at the local bakery. It was a heavily Republican town,

and the Trumpers were there with their banners and stuff. And this lady came in to me, she said, you know I always liked you so much. I voted for you twice. I voted for Hillary in 2016. I just don't know why you went so bad. And I said, you know, I don't either. I said, tell me what I did. I was respectful.

I wasn't making fun of her. I said, tell me what I did. She said, you know. I said, no ma'am, I don't. Tell me or at least tell me where I can read about it. She said, I did my own research and I am sure. don't, tell me or at least tell me where I can read about it. She said I did my own research and I am sure. And so I went in a local bakery.

For the Democrats in the audience, here's a little tip. If you're ever in a little country place that's overwhelmingly Republican, if there's a locally owned bakery, the chances are still better than 50-50. The person who owns that is a Democrat. So anyway, I went back to this bakery and I told the lady this story. She said, oh, I know her. She said, there is this crazy, crazy right wing website

There is this crazy, crazy right-wing website that is targeted toward people in really small places, and everybody here has discovered it, and you'd think they found gold in California in the 1800s. And he says, you can't argue with them. If it's on this website, it's just the God's honest truth. And it's called Facebook. I don't know. Well, it's just the God's honest truth. And it's called Facebook. I don't know.

Well, it could be. But my point is, think of all the money all these people are making, these big tech people, keeping us torn up and upset. And Elon Musk, and I've always kind of liked, you know, until all this happened. But he, the Tesla is a great gift to civilization in our fight against climate change.

And he announces in his campaign that he's canceling all of his recharging stations. And I have a friend, a college classmate I just talked to today, who may still be here in the audience, but he's the largest provider of solar and wind energy in Central America and the Caribbean. But he just won a contract to build

a massive recharging station in Queens, in New York City, because our cab fleet has to be all clean energy by I think 2030 or 2035. So he built it but Musk basically chose political power and dominance over something he knew was right, where he'd made a massive contribution. So, that's the only thing. What I'm really worried about is we can't treat each other right anymore if we don't even believe that we can get something

that approximates the truth we will agree on. And there's all this stuff, it's not healthy. Boy, we have a lot of challenges before us. We do, we do. I know we're almost out of time, and I owe it to the people of Little Rock to not leave it on Elon Musk so I just want to... This is the first thing I highlighted in the book that I just wanted to read really quickly and sort of end with and it's from a chapter called Introduction. It came on page three

but it's really struck me I was like oh I'm in for a good read because I needed It came on page three. But it's really struck me. I was like, oh, I'm in for a good read because I needed to hear words of encouragement. I think we all need that right now. And I do think, as you were just talking, we have so many future leaders in this room. I think it's so important to hear words like yours for inspiration and to have an adult in the room to look to. It's really very important because we don't always have that.

And this is the first thing I highlighted in the book. Never, never, oh, good job, Jesse. I'm an actor. Nevertheless, I continue to believe we all do better when we work together. But to do that in such a polarized environment, you have to be willing to work with people you don't like along with those who you do. Almost always cooperation beats conflict and when you do have to stand your ground, it's wise to leave the door open for reconciliation. The ability to do that distinguishes great leaders. You're a great leader.