Hillary Clinton: This is the Biggest Story That No One is Paying Attention To | Pivot

Oh, it's great to be here. I didn't know this was officially Scott Free August.

Yeah, I'm excited. Wherever you are, Scott, have a great August.

Oh my god. Well, you know, because you've been there, it is the most exciting and fun experience. I mean, honestly, the way that arena, you know, Barclays in Brooklyn lights up with the Liberty, and of course Ellie the elephant, who is naughty and fun. Did you mind the naughtiness? No.

Oh, well, I love the crowd. I mean, going to a Liberty game in the summer in New York, people are in a good mood. They're happy. They cheered literally everything. I mean, if the referee walked onto the court, they cheered. They were just in such a good mood.

I mean, I would encourage anybody. You know, my husband watches both men's and women's basketball, and I watch some of it as well. But there is just a feeling, and my friends told me this, you told me this, and others told me, just go to a game, you will have a sport experience. I've been to women's soccer games, but being in an arena with a crowd that is so enthusiastic, and it was just a naughty elephant and a naughty elephant. Your favorite part.

Oh my god. Naughty.

I've done a lot of traveling with my family. Going out west, went to, you know, Wyoming with my daughter and her husband and the three grandkids. Had a great time. Visited some friends in Montana. You know, obviously the American West is just awesome in every way. And I like to hike, and so just getting out into the mountains.

I was just thinking, not only do I not want to be on Mount Rushmore, I don't think anybody else should be added to Mount Rushmore, but it's quite a sculptural feat. I mean, when you do get there and you look at these giant heads on the side of this mountain. Now, I'm also told that, kind of similar to the reflecting pool, screwing with it could possibly bring the whole thing down.

Yeah, that would be... that's a good idea.

Well, first of all, if you go through the chronology, it's really clear what happened. You know, they hired a guy who didn't know what he was doing, and he did what he didn't know, and the result is, you know, the algae center of the universe. And you know, I think even Jeanine Pirro says, 'I can't prove this case.' Now, she went in guns blazing into the Oval Office, I read, and basically, you know, said to the president, 'It's not my fault, it's his fault,' and points to the interior secretary, which has some truth to it. I mean, she's a US attorney. She's not the interior secretary. She doesn't run the National Park Service. She didn't give the contract to the pool contractor who didn't know what he was doing. And so she survived. She actually had good arguments on her side, and she was unafraid to make them. But it's just another example of the absurd world in which we are living, that you've got the president of the United States obsessing over a failed pool job, a construction job gone wrong that he oversaw, just like what he's doing now on the south lawn, tearing it up for the helicopter landing zone. I mean, honestly, the guy is so out of it right now, unhinged, obsessed, and focused on all the wrong things. You know, maybe we should be happy he's messing around with the reflecting pool and, you know, not starting another war somewhere else.

Um, I never really thought about it. You know what we did? And it was a temporary solution. Everybody did it. If you had too many guests coming, it would be there either outside or you'd put up a tent. Now, I'm not against the idea of a ballroom. I'm against this ballroom. I'm against the process that... well, the fact there was no process that created this, you know, carbuncle on the side of the White House, which I think is so unfortunate looking. So I don't know, and the next president's going to have a big decision. What do you do with a finished ballroom?

I don't know. I mean, the idea of tearing it down is... and we don't know really what's going on underneath it. You know, under the... you know, several floors down under the White House there are, you know, security secret rooms, I assume, infrastructures. There are, you know, safe rooms. If you remember after 9/11, there's a picture of Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney in a room, a very, you know, kind of crowded looking room that is under the White House. So, I don't know what they're doing down there. So, you'd have to figure that out, too. But I think there'll have to be some... you'll probably have to take down the arch, which he is determined to put up, which I think is just a terrible idea. I think we'll have to worry about the reflecting pool because it's not going to be fixed by the time he leaves, assuming he leaves. So, there's going to be a long list. I'm making a list.

Yeah, I saw a picture. I saw...

It is. You know what, that's a very... you know, when I was in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein, I had meetings, I was then a senator, I had meetings in some of his palaces, and they were quite reminiscent of what we are seeing in our own White House. It's just insane.

It's sad to me. It's sad that it's so tackied up, and it is a reflection of, you know, his narcissistic personality and his need to feel important, including sticking gold embellishments all over the walls of the Oval Office. I mean, I was in the Oval Office, you know, under, gosh, I think Carter, you know, Bill, obviously, you know that house, Obama, Biden, etc. And I'm looking at what he's doing to it. And this is a man who can't concentrate. This is a man whose mind apparently goes to where can I add more gold instead of how do I get out of Iran without looking like the loser that I am.

How do I begin to, you know, deal with AI, which is a serious threat to our security, our labor force, and so much else. His mind is about what are these things that reflect my need to appear important? And so that's what he spends his time on.

Wouldn't that be a good idea? Yeah.

Cleaning up. Oh my. They would lose their mind.

Well, I think you have to look at both the candidates and the messages and the support that each had. I know Haley. She was a terrific member of Congress. She was a really effective member of Obama's auto recovery task force. She's a doer. She's a doer, but she's not a modern politician. I mean, she is not somebody who has mastered the art of video and performance online. And I think part of the lesson is that's what people are looking for, or at least half the people, because as you said, it was absolutely skin tight. The election wasn't even called until just recently this morning. And so I think we're living in an era where, because of people's, you know, attention spans and their obsession with their screens, they're looking for a candidate, regardless of almost where that candidate might stand or their positioning, but who first and foremost they can relate to through the screen. How does that person come across? And I'm just hoping that the people who come across well on the screen are also people who can produce results, because that's not always the same thing. But that's what the evolution of, you know, political contests now is pointing us towards.

Exactly. You have to have that skill, as you had to have various skills over the years. But there's this whole idea that there's this sort of struggle within the Democratic party. And I think of my own son who lives in Michigan. He just liked what he had to say there. And there's also a throw the bums out thing. I think he was impacted by the money. He was sort of like, what's with that? And he wanted to be able to articulate it without being like, I don't like AIPAC, Elon, anybody coming in. And he wanted to be able to articulate that without being called anti-Semitic or whatever it happens to be.

Yeah. No, look, I think there's no doubt that, you know, the Republican party is the Trump cult and the Democratic party is a bigger tent. You know, we do have a broad cross-section of people, what they believe, what their experiences are. I think that's an advantage. But we also have to win general elections. And so how we pivot and get behind the candidate in Michigan so that we can beat, you know, the Republican candidate Mike Rogers. That's going to require a lot of outreach and a lot of willingness on the part of the, you know, the winning candidate and his supporters to know that they need the people that they were vilifying online in person. I mean, the kind of things that were said about Haley, her supporters, you know, there were a lot of really nasty personal attacks, which you're familiar with. I mean, that's nothing new.

And you know, one thing that we haven't yet seen enough of is that when the progressives, the left, whatever we want to call, you know, candidates on that side of the Democratic party, when they lose, they often don't support the candidate that has been nominated. You know, there was a lot of reluctance to support Kamala Harris. There was a lot of reluctance to support me when I got the nomination. So, it can't be a one-way street. You know, if we're going to have a fair election, as there was in Michigan, and somebody comes out ahead, a little bit ahead, but needs to get a huge percentage of the voters that voted for Haley, they're going to have to be willing to, you know, get into a conversation that brings those people over. You're not going to convince Republican voters in Michigan. And the real fight will be how do we make sure that people who voted for Haley feel comfortable voting for Abdul El-Sayed, and how do we get independents to feel comfortable? And you can see that it's not just about Michigan, but the Republican messaging is communist, socialist. It's going to be a very effective attack. And so people on the left have to be prepared to answer that and to be effective at answering it.

Well, all I know is that's the attack that Trump is leading with, and I assume they've tested it, and I assume that they have reason to believe that it's effective, or they wouldn't be beating the drum on it, because now it's not just him. Vance has done it. Others are doing it. They are trying to, you know, bring back scare tactics about our candidates. And you know, it didn't work in New York. Mamdani was elected, and there was a lot of money spent against him. When you have an effective candidate on the left, it still is going to be a close race on our side. So then how do these candidates who win, whether they're the, you know, candidate that's the more conventional so-called moderate candidate, although really moderate compared to what? Not compared to Republicans. They're, you know, very much on the, you know, social justice, you know, redistribution side of the ledger. But if they are going to have to pivot to support the candidate on the progressive left side, they're going to need to feel they're welcome. They're going to need to feel that, you know, yeah, a lot of people like your son voted for him. They liked the message, but other people voted on different grounds. I mean, you know, Israel played a role in this election, as we know. AIPAC played a role, as we know. So there's going to have to be, you know, on both sides, an understanding: look, we got to work together. We're not going to beat Republicans by being divided.

That he's a, you know, he's a Trump candidate, that he's going to show up and he's going to, you know, vote for the Republican agenda. He's going to vote for Trump. And how well has that worked for you? I mean, even the people in Michigan who voted for Trump, is that what they voted for? Did they vote for the war in Iran? Did they vote for corruption unlike we've ever seen before? Did they vote for tearing down the east wing of the White House? I mean, there's a long list. So, there's a long list, right? He doesn't have much maneuver room, or Trump will denounce him, although Trump, you know, can't go too far because he needs... he wants him to win. But, you know, Mike Rogers is not a, you know, clone of Trump. He's not a certified cult member. So, I think it has to be a two-way attack. Pin Trump on him, but also force him to have to decide whether to separate from Trump, which in turn undermines Republican enthusiasm for those who are, you know, the true believers of Trump, right?

No, no, no. Look, the Republicans, you got to give them credit. They know what they're doing. They have to try to narrow the electorate in order to elect their candidates. And they're purging voters. They're waging all these lawsuits trying to get a hold of voter rolls. They are trying to intimidate voters. They're trying to undermine confidence in the election. They know exactly what they're doing. And one of their most effective strategies is what they've done with gerrymandering and redistricting over the last years. And you know, Republicans have no doubt about what's at stake. You know, they could care less about good government. They could care less about, you know, trying to figure out how we create an optimum environment for even more people to vote and feel their vote was counted. That's not what they're interested in. They're interested in winning, holding power, and then inflicting their values on all the rest of us. So, the Democrats for years, and you know, there was a big movement, we wanted to go to nonpartisan redistricting. We wanted to make sure that, you know, people felt that they could vote in primaries or do what's called jungle voting, so they could vote for both Democrats and Republicans at the same time. We did all of this in the name of good government, expanding the electorate, all the right things. Meanwhile, the Republicans on the other side of the aisle were doing everything they could to create a map that they would dominate, and they did it. So it wasn't enough for them what they'd already done. Then Trump went looking for more votes because he knew that the midterms would likely be bad for him. So that's when he called, you know, Abbott in Texas. And you know, I'm really happy that Gavin Newsom was one of the first to say we're fighting back. We're not going to sit here and be treated like chumps. You know, we're for good government. You're for power, and you're going to dominate us for the foreseeable future. We're not going to live in that world. So, we have fought them to sort of a draw, but they ended up with an advantage. And there were a couple of states that resisted Trump until he literally picked candidates to beat the state legislators who thought it wasn't the right thing to do. So, they are still on the march to do everything they can to advantage themselves. Our, you know, effort in Maryland fell short because a Democratic, I think, speaker of the House or Senate leader was against it. So Wes Moore couldn't get it out of the legislature. So he's trying to take it to a vote of the people. We saw what happened in Virginia where they went to the extraordinary lengths of getting a new map that they submitted to the voters. You didn't see Abbott doing that in Texas. They just drew the lines and, you know, told people to fall in line. And so, when Virginia was overturned, that would have given us, if it hadn't been overturned on what I thought was a kind of a procedural, you know, red herring, but they did it. So, we lost those potential seats. So, this is going to be a real fight. Most people think it's going to be a slam dunk.

It does. It does. It needs to be big enough to accommodate our big tent and also to drive an agenda in the House. And I still think, like I say, I still think we're going to win. I still think that, you know, the efforts that were made for us to fight back, you know, did give us some advantage. I think maybe we'll even see some surprises in the Texas redistricting because I'm not sure they did as good a job redistricting because of the way they cut up black districts. But then along comes the Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. And so all of a sudden that gave states that wanted to limit black representation another bite at the apple, so to speak.

It worked in Louisiana and it worked probably in Alabama. And so, you know, that... so they never stop. I guess my point is they're not interested in free and fair elections.

I think we still have a 50-50 shot. I mean, it really comes down to Michigan and Maine. Can the new candidate in Maine beat Susan Collins? You know, she has a remarkable staying power in Maine.

Yeah. I mean, the barnacle... the, you know, Maine voters have voted for her while they voted for Democratic presidents, Democratic governors, and Democratic members of Congress. So he, you know, he seems to be, you know, really vigorously trying, and unlike the, you know, the problems that we had with the first candidate, he seems to be in, I hope, the stretch to, you know, be able to compete all the way. No, no surprises. And then back to Michigan. We'll see. We'll see whether... and it's the best year for somebody like El-Sayed to be running. It's the best year because, you know, Trump is so unpopular. His popularity, I think, is down to 33%. So he will have the advantage of running against a Republican when the Republican brand is not in good standing.

Especially. Yeah. And a lot of people I talked to about Iran, Kara, say that we're not going to be out of it by the election. It's going to linger over this country and cause problems in the economy. And just about any way Trump now tries to get out of it, he's going to look like a loser, which I think our candidates can then add to their messaging against Republicans.

Well, look, I think Todd Blanche has proven himself to be a total sycophant in every way. I mean, he had a fairly robust legal career before he began representing Trump, and he is all in. He's not the attorney general of the United States. He is the personal lawyer of Donald Trump presiding over the Department of Justice.

I know. And what they've done to the Justice Department, I don't think most people who are not lawyers or don't follow this closely realize what the perversion of justice means. You know, I've heard you and Scott talking about what are the real pillars of the American success, our political success, but especially our economic success over, you know, 250 years. Well, part of that was, you know, look, with exceptions, a rule of law, a Justice Department that we thought was, you know, mostly on the level, a legal system with judges who were more interested in following the law than currying favor to the president who appointed them. That is a key to whether or not we have confidence in our economic system as well as our political system. So what they've done to destroy confidence in the justice system has far-reaching implications. It's not just about Trump trying to get immunity from having his taxes ever audited. You know, I've been in politics for a long time. I've been audited more times than I can remember. You know what? That's part of the way that you show that there's nothing to hide, and you show that you have confidence in our legal system. Trump doesn't want to be accountable to anybody, and he now has an attorney general who is, you know, an absolute implement of whatever grunt or grievance that, you know, Trump puts forth. And I think Todd Blanche is extremely dangerous. And the idea that you would say what he said about abortion when allegedly the DOJ's decision was to put it back in the states, that was never their final goal. They always intended to go from returning it to the states to try to prevent the states like Kansas, a surprising red state that consistently votes to keep abortion out of politics, to give women the choice to make what is best for them and their families. They don't want that. They want a uniform national set of, you know, criminal penalties and rules, and Todd Blanche is going to deliver for them the best he can.

I don't know. I don't know what he means by that. I think what he means is they're going to try to...

That's the irony. If you really wanted abortions to fall, which I've been working for since the '90s, I've been working to decrease teen pregnancy, working to, you know, make abortions not necessary by providing, you know, contraception to people at an affordable way so that they could, you know, make decisions when they felt ready to make decisions, doing more education so that people, particularly young people, knew what was at stake. I mean, there's a lot of things you could do. But if you're going to treat women like they're disposable commodities and they should be barefoot and in the kitchen, you're going to get more abortions. Because they're going to be either legal abortions in the states where they are still available, or they're going to be back-alley abortions. And anybody who has studied history or knows anything about this understands it.

Well, I think they will try to reimagine the weaponization fund and call it something else and bring it back because Trump wants to reward his insurgents, particularly from January 6, but, you know, others who have stuck with him despite all the evidence to the contrary. They want to finalize this immunity from auditing, which I don't see how they can do that, and I think that can be reversed. So I think he's going to... he has a checklist. He has the Trump checklist. He's going to go down it.

Well, I don't think I'd be eligible under their definition. But I would, you know, certainly consider it if they're going to take care of, you know, the crazies on the right who tried to upset our election and were beating police officers, which is absolutely disgraceful.

I think they're waiting to see what happens in the midterm. I think a lot of this will wait till after the midterms. And I think it's going to be likely that Trump is even more out of control after the midterms. And let's assume, from my perspective, the best happens: we take back the House, we take back the Senate. He's not going to work with them. He's going to do everything he can to undermine them. He's going to instruct people who work for him not to respond to inquiries or even subpoenas. He's going to be in a big standoff with the Congress, and he's going to be using executive orders and whatever power he has from the presidency to pursue his agenda. I think he'll be pardoning a lot more corrupt people. You know, you look at the list of the pardons that he's given. It's a total transactional exchange. You or somebody on your behalf gives me money, I don't care if you've cheated, you know, elderly people in nursing homes, which one of the people that he pardoned...

It is coin operated.

Hypo whatever, like stick any money in or you give money and you get a contract with the government. That's the other to fix the reflecting pool, whatever it is, right? Yeah. Yeah. I bet you could fix the reflecting pool. Anyway, um, speaking of...

It's true. You know a pool guy, right?

I know a pool guy.

Well, I don't have any confidence that it's a good deal, but it may be the best deal Trump can get because he doesn't really understand. I mean, he approved of a ceasefire agreement a few months ago that was a terrible deal for the United States and the region and international shipping, and you know, the list goes on. So he really doesn't understand what is happening and what the stakes can be. So, as I understand this latest attempt at a deal, it would result in fees being charged to at least some category of container ships going through the Strait of Hormuz. It would be a quote, a service fee. Now, that has never been applied prior to this ill-conceived war that Trump embarked on. So, that's a definite loss. The loss is that what used to be free, free navigation, a commercial sea lane that was open to everybody is now going to be in effect taxed by Oman and Iran. That's the first loss. Second loss is, you know, Iran still has ballistic missiles. It still is producing deadly drones. It is still attacking shipping, and it is still encouraging at least its proxy, the Houthis, to attack, and they went so far as literally to attack a ship in Egyptian waters. So what happened to the destruction of their ability to launch ballistic missiles, to launch deadly drones? That's a third loss. The leadership. Yeah, he got rid of the people who were at the top, but the infrastructure prevailed. So, you now have probably a more militaristic government structure that the, you know, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps dominates, and the clerics have been somewhat weakened but are still useful to keep the regime in place. So, that's a third loss. And I think the fourth loss is that a lot of our allies have watched this in total confusion. I mean, the lack of strategy, the lack of effective implementation, the lack of results that were trumpeted as what was going to be achieved, and people are going to not just start, they have started hedging their bets. I mean, how are you going to look at the United States, at least so long as Trump is there, with any kind of confidence at all? So, I think it's a major loss, not just for Trump, sadly, but for the United States.

Yeah.