Hillary Clinton on China, Putin and the threat to US democracy | FT

um so I want to get into really important things like U.S China relations the coming counter-offensive in Ukraine Putin of course a 2024 election but let me just start by asking you have you watched the Netflix series The Diplomat it is on my list Ed I have not started it yet okay let me so that you don't have to watch it quickly summarize the plot and there's a reason why I'm quickly summarizing the plot mid-level Diplomat gets called into the Oval Office by the president and he says to her you're going to London as Ambassador is going to Afghanistan you're going to London next morning she's on a Gulfstream jet to London she arrives at the Downton Abbey on Thames place apparently having been they didn't show this but having been confirmed overnight by the Senate um admission fiction for sure and then she has a Cinderella shoot with British folk now the reason I mentioned this this see me sort of realistic plot to you is because the scriptwriters of it and it's quite a big hit to say that they partly draw their inspiration from you and Bill Clinton because her husband's also a high-ranking diplomat so my question is does any of this ring any bells with you confirmed but not right um it doesn't ring bells but I'm thrilled that people are being drawn into a story called The Diplomat and that it's a it's a woman who has apparently the largest writ to be ambassador to the UK that anyone has ever had since she's out solving a lot of problems besides who gets invited to the coronation and so I think that uh it's it's doing a a good uh service in kind of raising people's uh understanding and the visibility of diplomats and diplomacy so you can you're being diplomatic you might watch it you might not well I mean if I'm talking about the Diplomat you know I guess I have to be diplomatic yeah yeah what do you watch out of it oh you know but I I wrote a book with my good friend Louise Penny called state of Terror about a woman uh Secretary of State and we took a lot of Liberties uh in there uh but I always tried to ground them in reality so um it actually I think it's a terrific book because she's a terrific colleague and uh collaborator but you know when um the character the secretary of state is flying around uh the world trying to stop nuclear catastrophe she does check in with the president from time to time like is it okay if I take a military plane to Iran um oh my God he says but you know it's that kind of you know rooted in fact rooted in uh the reality of uh diplomacy but obviously going far beyond that so let me I was talking a little bit earlier with a with a mutual friend of ours in fact who reminded me that it's almost 30 years ago that you uh as first lady and your husband went to as president um went to Oklahoma City for the memorial of what was and Remains the largest home-grown domestic terrorist attack in U.S history and modern U.S history 168 people killed by Timothy McVeigh and he gave that famous speech that you cannot love your country and hate your government and that the fact that it's almost 30 years and the fact that you have you know you'd had death threats credible ones before then but the fact that you've sort of kind of continuously lived through this reminded me that you're probably one of if not the most sort of targeted over a period of Time person in American history my question to you and it's a very difficult one um is that old FDR campaign theme Happy Days Are Here Again what's the most plausible way that America today is going to get to something approximating Happy Days Are Here Again that well that's a very complicated question and but let me sort of pick it apart a little bit um you're referring to the Oklahoma City bombing and Jeffrey tuben has just written a brilliant um description of it and through his writing about uh the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City he does raise a lot of important questions about the antecedents uh Timothy McVeigh a homegrown terrorist former military service member uh was you know convinced as too many people today are that the government was against us that there is the need to kind of cleanse society and he was motivated in part by what had happened in Waco when the FBI eventually had to storm a compound of some you know apocalyptic Believers of a you know character who had been abusing children and all kinds of other um issues so the the direct line between a Timothy McVeigh who committed such a highness act and what happened on January 6 I think tuben really causes us all to you know Wonder um how we're going to deal with this strain of violence this anti-government mentality that has been a part of American history but which has been uh somewhat uh turbocharged by the alliance between the religious right Financial interests partisan Republican politicians and of course Donald Trump and the militia groups that we saw in Charleston and then we saw at the Capitol So when you say how do we get back to that it how do we get back to something that is more peaceful whereas you know my husband said you know it's not just if you love your country you need to love your government you need to love your fellow Americans you need to have a sense that we are all in this together again and that is a heavy lift and honestly I think you know it certainly is at the core of Biden brand of politics he cares deeply about you know trying to you know get people to work together he labored very hard and and ultimately successfully to pass a rather remarkable legislative uh agenda that he doesn't get enough credit for which has a real capacity for giving us a sensible futuristic industrial policy on clean energy on chips and so much more plus the big infrastructure bill so the way you do it in politics is to defeat your opponents who want to divide the country who want to use cultural issues to inflict pain and Punishment on people who don't fit within their version of the United States and I know when you know people ask me what what can we do and I say something like you can vote and you can vote in every election because the other side does and you need to show up and you need to get other people to show up they look at me like well what else can I do there must be something else I can do unless you defeat those politicians those demigods those authoritarian wannabes we are in a very dangerous uh position right now in this country and so I think it comes down to winning elections as as maybe boring and simple as that sounds and it also comes down to having a better sense of what's really at stake uh and I'm encouraged that young people are turning out in much larger numbers in elections in referenda they're motivated by abortion uh they're motivated by gun violence they're motivated by the climate they're motivated by the lack of freedom and the sense that you know Governors are Banning books that they read when you know they were 10 years younger in school so there's a lot that is churning right now in our society and therefore reflected in our politics so uh you've got to try to you know prevent the people who want to turn the clock back from continuing to win elections do you uh of course Secretary of State and I think I don't know whether John Kerry he was competing with you for a number of Air Miles who have more Air Miles you're John Kerry but you have a lot of Air Miles you visited a lot of countries one of which of course was Russia and you interacted with Putin um could you reminisce a little bit about those interactions and what they told you about him nothing good um and apparently he felt the same way so um look I am I remember when George W bush famously said you know he looked into his eyes and and saw Putin's soul and I maybe not so famously responded he's a former KGB agent by definition he doesn't have a soul and it became really clear to me that his mission was to reassert the greatness of Russia an imperial project for sure he had said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the great catastrophes of world history and he was going to use every tool at his disposal to actually accomplish that so we of course knew he was suborning politicians in uh Central and Eastern Europe he was funding political parties uh and and candidates like uh Le Pen in France uh he was having favored oligarchs purchase media in the baltics and elsewhere to try to convey a pro-russian anti-uh West View so he had a whole project that was going and we also saw his invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of two sections of that country and although we all you know run our hands and I guess you know impose sanctions we basically tried to you know just say okay well yeah but you know sakashvili who was then president of Georgia he's kind of difficult so let's not get into it and at every turn Putin thought well hey what more can I do so when um he invaded Ukraine for the first time in 2014 and again sees Crimea seized you know additional territory in the donisk from Ukraine there was a you know a lot of um anxiety and angst about how to deal with him but you know Ukraine yeah complicated Place difficult you know whatever you had the you know the arguments as to why you know Putin might have felt aggrieved um you know I personally have always found the arguments that Putin was motivated because NATO accepted members from the former Soviet Union to be such a losing analysis and it is in part because if you've ever talked to an Estonian a Latvian a Lithuanian a poll or anybody else you know that they didn't just fear the Soviet Union they feared Russia and so everybody wanted to get along with Putin's Russia as Secretary of State I would go to Nato meetings we had a nato-russia dialogue we did everything we could that was a nice thing to do but it didn't make any difference to him because he was going to go as far as he could using the old leninist uh line you know you take the you know you take the uh the saber and you push until it hits bone you go as far as you will be let to go so in my meetings with him I found him aggressive contemptuous of the West uninterested in really finding common ground to work on things toward the end of my time as Secretary of State I watched how he began to forge even a closer relationship with the most conservative elements of the Russian Orthodox church and as part of that relationship to begin going after the lgbtq community with you know crackdowns and you know very homophobic rhetoric uh you know so he was someone who had an idea that the West was weak that the United States was weak that he could sow division within Europe that he could you know basically have a an opportunity to both through intimidation and then were necessary direct action reform a an Imperial Russia with countries along the border who were beholden to it so bottom line I found it you know he He Turned he was extremely unhappy with me on several occasions but the most uh dramatic was in the fall of 2011. he had announced he was going to go back as president and Medvedev who'd been serving as president was going to become Prime Minister again and they had uh uh elections they had Duma elections and local elections all of which were rigged and they were rigged in such a blatant way it was a message to the Russian people because you had video of people throwing away ballots everything that you know it was you know Donald Trump's dream was actually on uh video in Russia and so as Secretary of State you know I made what we do all the time a a statement in favor of democracy I know it's very uh you know novel and so I said the Russian people deserve to be able to elect their own leaders they deserve free and fair elections and that's not what we've seen in Russia now having literally nothing to do with my statement tens of thousands of Russians had already gone into the streets they were protesting because they had hoped for better and it was very clear Putin was not going to permit that so then Putin blamed me for the demonstrations because the one thing he fears is internal uh protests that could lead to his being toppled he saw it in Ukraine he saw it in Georgia he lives in fear of that and so he um blamed me for agitating uh and arranging for people to go out into the streets of Moscow St Petersburg and a few other places so that's really one of his major reasons why he was determined to undermine the 2016 election and he found a willing partner in Trump who you know was very susceptible to the idea that a strong man a a kind of tough man the kind that Trump admires and and wants to be would be paying attention to him and and reaching out through intermediaries I do seem to recall though sorry to lower the tone some incident with man spreading oh look you know okay I'm sorry you know he he he has you know he's a short guy so see you know he does he obviously works out all the time because he you know he's got his shoulder it's about as broad as they can be given his size and and he struts around and he particularly loves to embarrass or you know show his disdain for women leaders you know there's that story of you know he knew Angela Merkel was afraid of big dogs so when he was meeting with Angela Merkel he had this huge Russian wolfhound or some other giant dog in the room to just you know kind of just give her a hard time um he always man spread it I mean you know that's the way he I mean sit in these I don't want to do it but he'd sit in these uh he'd sit in these meetings and you know what would happen um I think the last one on one no second and last one-on-one meeting I had with him was uh at his Dasha outside of Moscow and so he calls in the Press it's just me the Ambassador and my aide and he's got you know two people he calls in the Press he launches an attack on the United States about something and then before I can respond he directs the press out um and but he's when he's when he's talking to the Press he's doing you know his man spreading deal and his kind of you know slouched down attitude so that time I was determined we were going to talk about something because you know everything was on my agenda he wasn't interested in hearing about and he wasn't interested in uh really working with us uh this was by now I think 2011. so he um uh so I I had read that he was interested in um conserving some of you know Russia's uh Wildlife like polar bears and um you know I said to him I said you know I read that you really you know you really are serious about this and I commend you for that I think that's important he said yes and he said come with me and so he jumps up and he leads me out of the room we go down the stairs we go down this long hallway and we go into this secret door and there are these security guys sitting around they're shocked to see him they jump up he goes into another door then we go in another door and then we're in this like inner Sanctum office just me and him and on this wall he has this huge map of Russia and he starts to tell me uh what he is doing about you know saving these various species of animals and he said you know I'm going up here and he points to the far north of Russia he says I'm going up here to tag polar bears and to count polar bears would your husband like to go with me I said well I don't know I don't know his schedule but I'll go with you um I was yeah that wasn't an invitation for me but um so but I mean so you could get him animated about some things the other time he got animated was in September of 2012 um you know Obama's running for reelection there's a president there's a what's called Apec the Asian Pacific economic uh committee meeting in Vladivostok and Putin has spent all this money he's taken this island he's turned it into kind of a university we're all staying on it that's where the meetings are held and by this time he's really unhappy with me because I'm agitating about Syria and what the Russians are doing in Syria and I had reached an agreement with lavrov about a cease-fire in Syria and then Putin had you know blown it up and so he's very unhappy with me um so Obama can't go so I'm there and he won't talk to and Putin won't talk to me but because of protocol you know that old joke like what's the difference between a terrorist and a protocol officer you can negotiate with a terrorist well because of protocol the United States had hosted the event in Hawaii the year before Indonesia was hosting the event the next next year so at dinner Putin had to sit between me and the president of Indonesia he was not happy and so I'd been trying to get a meeting with him about Syria and he wouldn't talk to me and then right before dinner he said he would talk to me for you know like 10 minutes about Syria and then we had to go into dinner so I'm sitting with them and again I'm going I gotta find some way to get him to talk I got to hear you know I got to figure out what's going on so yeah that's how I felt and then so so I um I said to him you know I said Mr President he also was speaking English to me which you know he pretends he doesn't know or understand and he said uh I said you know I was just in St Petersburg and I finally had a chance to go to the museum uh honoring the um the siege of Stalingrad and the heroic efforts of the Russian people to you know prevent the Nazis from going any further and all of a sudden he gets at he gets you know kind of involved again and he says let me tell you a story and it's just him and me and he said you know my father was on the front lines uh during The Siege and he would have to be there for like three days and then they would let him go home for a half a day or a day and then he'd have to go back and he said you know there was no food people were starving to death there were rats everywhere and so he's trudging back to the apartment where he lived with my mother and as he's walking down the street there's a huge pile of bodies because the body collectors would come to try to collect the bodies to prevent the spread of plague and other things and as my father is walking by the pile of bodies he looks down and he sees my mother's foot with a shoe on it I mean I'd read a lot about Putin I'd never heard this story and he he ran over and he was pulling what he thought to be the body of his wife out of the pile and the body collector said go you know stop it go away these people are dead don't touch them because that's my wife that's my wife I want my wife so finally about it fine take her and so he his father took the uh the woman's body and she wasn't dead so he took her into the apartment and nursed her back to house and then after the war Putin is born so Putin tells me this story and all of a sudden I thought wow that says so much about his mentality and who he is and how he sees the world and after it was over you know I got my team after the dinner was over I got my team and I told my team and you know Mike McFall was the ambassador to Russia at the time we had people from the CIA with us we had a whole you know Entourage I told him this story nobody had ever heard it before and so I put it in my book called hard choices and I you know related it as as he had related it to me they never said a word and then since then I've I've heard that you know it's been it's certainly something that he tells people so look he's a complicated um Messianic narcissistic authoritarian and he launched his invasion his second invasion of Ukraine in part because uh Trump lost because he thought if Trump had won Trump would have pulled us out of NATO it would have literally been a cakewalk for him um and so when Trump didn't win uh he figured he had to go forward he thought he had enough chits with the Germans and others to prevent a united front in support of Ukraine against his invasion he turned out to have absolutely the wrong calculation and I just want to say one other thing which was I thought brilliant and I give the bite Administration huge credit for this Putin intended a false flag operation to justify his invasion he was going to set something up that looked like it would give him a it wouldn't be credible to anybody knew anything but it could be used as propaganda as to why he had to go into Ukraine and so when the United States Declassified intelligence showing that he intended to invade that there was no false flag operation and that he was going to invade on a very you know very rapid timetable and people didn't believe it including initially the ukrainians that was an incredibly important unprecedented use of American intelligence to try to put Putin on the back foot you know where thankfully he still is and we hope uh you know finally gets driven out of Ukraine so I think judging from the reaction most people in the audience take your view of Putin and of this war in Ukraine as do I um but a lot of the global South doesn't Brazil you go to Brazil go to India you talk to a lot of people in Africa you talk to people outside of the West and it's not necessarily a shared perspective and it's not that they disagree that what Putin's done is an aggressive action and violation violent violation of sovereignty it's that they point to well what about what's going on in Ethiopia or in the DRC or in Syria so we don't have the global South and in some sort of key respects we are kind of in a bubble about this War I I guess my question is how do we address that I disagree with the premise okay you know the so-called Global South has every reason to have their own views and yeah we haven't done enough in Ethiopia uh the most brutal War of the last 30 years was in the DRC where more than five million people um were killed and the war continues to simmer yeah they're absolutely right about all of that um but that is not a factor that needs to or should influence our policy or our determination and also if you really look closely with very few exceptions um the rhetorical questioning has not been matched by materialistic support for Russia and even India which continues to import from Russia has not dramatically increased and one of the most important meetings that has taken place in recent days with respect to Ukraine took place today in Japan when zielinski showed up and met with Modi and so because of uh you know India's critical you know role in both the global South and its uh its strategic positioning their slow walking is advantageous and look at China you know before I invaded Putin goes to China he meets with she he I think previewed what he was going to do he basically was a a believer in his own intelligence and one of the problems when you're a leader who stays for life and you're surrounded by sycophants as they tell you what you want to hear and what they told him was this is going to be easy we'll be in kieving a week we'll install a puppet regime it'll all be taken care of and so that's what she thought would happen and then that's not what happened and so I think the support that Putin expected from China has not been forthcoming um so honestly it's it's a it's a difficult uh Road for some of the countries you mentioned Brazil you mentioned South Africa uh you know a lot of the people in the current Brazilian government and the people in the current South African government had linkages to uh Russia you know during apartheid in South Africa uh who were who was supporting you know the African National Congress you know people like Fidel Castro uh Yasser Arafat uh the Russians uh so I think there there is a a bit of a balancing act going on but in terms of what matters which is materialistic support um that has not materialized have you met Xi Jinping yes I have and what's your assessment you know I thought originally um he was in the mold of the prior Chinese leaders who understood that there was a consensual uh agreement about the uh transition of power that a leader would stay I can't remember six seven seven years and then they would move on and that that new leader would be in effect um agreed to by the top leadership of the Chinese Communist party and it would be a peaceful transition of power and uh they would move forward like that because it gave them a safety valve you know they don't have a you know a real electoral system it's by favor and and privilege and networking uh and so people you know would rise up through the Communist Party apparatus uh they would prove their their worth and their ability with their peers and then among them would be the next leader so when Xi Jinping broke the agreement um I thought that was a very worrisome sign and when he humiliated huge into hujin Tao at the prior uh the Communist 20th party Congress the 20th Party Conference humiliated him in public and I had more interactions with who than I did with she because that's when I served that I thought was just such a signal that you know I'm in I'm not going anywhere I'm staying for as long as I want to stay get in line or else and it's never a good sign when that happens I mean they don't you know they at least would provide some variation on leadership and you would see some movement on issues between leaders and who was up and who was not and it would give you a sense of how decisions were being made and now it's all him so here's the the positive news about Ukraine is I was of the opinion that he that she would make his move against Taiwan sometime within you know three to four years of really consolidating his power I didn't know whether it be a Cyber attack a blockade Invasion I I couldn't tell you that but I thought he would make whatever movie he was going to make I think Ukraine has really set him back I mean what has happened in Ukraine has had a significant uh impact in my view on the Chinese leadership now I also again give the Biden Administration credit I think their China policy has been quite Adept and by that I mean bringing this so-called quad together India Japan Australia the United States trying to you know when we when I was there I made a speech in Chennai urging the Indians uh to you know understand that they had a big role to play in dealing with uh a potentially uh more aggressive China and I think having the quad concept uh come to fruition uh working with the UK to deliver submarines uh nuclear-powered submarines to Australia developing a closer relationship with South Korea who just was here for a state visit Japan increasing its defense budget in part because of problems not just with China but with Russia over contested territory the Philippines once again welcoming American Military assets being based in the Philippines all that has happened in two years under the bite administration because the Trump policy was you know yelling about trade deficits and doing nothing no infrastructure plan no chips program nothing but yelling about them and talking about them um as a you know strategic risk but no strategy behind it so I actually think that sort of creating this potential uh Coalition re-estab you know reinvigorating prior alliances bringing more people into uh that and there was a recent meeting about a week or so ago between Jake Sullivan and his counterpart I think it was in Vienna which apparently according to the readouts back to diplomacy were constructive and that's like you know the most amazing thing you can say about a meeting it's constructive so I think that um so I think there's a lot of moving parts and I think she to some extent may be re-evaluating exactly how to deal with the United States look Trump was the gift that kept giving to people like she and Putin I mean he it was you know so enamored of authoritarians he was inept in any kind of strategic approach to China and you know he clearly was going to do whatever Putin wanted on NATO and other stuff as John Bolton has told us so I think that you know we are in a better place it's a complicated calculation but I I think that that she has Consolidated power but now I think he's trying to figure out the best way to go from here I mean it's fair just sort of looking slightly higher altitude on the U.S China equation right now that when you were first lady and to some extent even when you were a secretary of state we were in this positive some World mindset that China would gradually integrate and loosen as it developed now we're very much into a zero-sum world mindset that as it develops it becomes more of a threat did we get it completely wrong first time or are we over correcting this time I mean how do you how do you read that look Nations have their own agendas and I don't think we got it wrong I think it was a good bet and a lot of you know a lot of American businesses certainly you know relied on that bet that we could encouraging encourage the opening of the Chinese economy two Investments particularly to American Investments of all kinds um so I think that I think that was a good and smart bet obviously you know putting uh China into the World Trade Organization was part of that uh you know trying to make sure that you know there was at least an alternative approach or Vision that China might pursue uh and I think it it it really worked uh until it didn't work and the part of the reason uh it didn't is if you I think she is Central to this calculation remember she as a Young Man uh actually lived in Iowa he lived uh I don't remember exactly where but somewhere along the Mississippi River he was like he was not a young student but he was an exchange he was an exchange program and he was studying Agriculture and so he he knew America he'd been in America um and you know the gift to these authoritarians in their minds is our divisiveness you know if you're sitting in in Beijing or Moscow or Tehran or Pyongyang and one of these other places and you see how crazy we act and how incapable we seem to be of getting things done anymore maybe he went to a caucus when he was in Iowa well he could have he could have gone to a caucus and thank God they're over at least for the Democrats because they are right deserving to be finished um so and I mean I won Iowa once but still it's not a good it's not a it's not a good idea um you know let my people vote um so look I I think that we have to take responsibility for some of how we are seen which leads to conclusions about what other countries then can get away with because we can't get our own act together to be able to craft and stick with a bipartisan foreign policy now with respect to Ukraine it's been pretty miraculous it's been as bipartisan has I mean they're the outliers and you know these people who say these ridiculous things who I don't think yet have any kind of uh you know sway or majority but if you're sitting in these other countries and you're looking at the United States in the last 20 years where we you know waged two very expensive Wars didn't pay for them first time in American history we didn't pay for going to war where our whole economic system collapsed because we didn't regulate the financial industry which then brought down the global economy where we had to kind of pull ourselves out of that and thank goodness you know the pattern is that you know Republicans you know have these huge deficits and debts and and then Democrats like my husband and like Barack Obama have to come in and try to you know get us back on a a more uh even Keel and and then you've got Trump who is personally responsible for 25 of the entire debt of America this charade that they're playing out on the debt limit is you know beyond uh outrageous so you look though I wrote a piece in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago about the National Security implications of the death because I was in Hong Kong in 2011 when we were going through this again and the Obama Administration and you know I was having a big meeting with you know Chinese business people both Hong Kong based at that point and and China based and then from around the region and all they wanted to do was was get me to reassure them that we wouldn't go into debt and of course you know I'm sitting there going oh no we you know that's not going to happen we will figure it out sometimes we get to the brink but what an absurd position to put the most productive and biggest economy in the world into so if you're sitting there watching so yeah maybe there was a chance if we had had a a different Focus that that China might have said oh wow we can't mess with the Americans I mean you know let's okay let's develop ourselves internally let's figure out what we're going to do with this massive savings rate that our people have and give them a little more freedom not too much but maybe a little more and and let's find some ways to work with you know the Americans on climate change and other stuff but no instead it's like oh my God you know there's an opportunity here and you can't blame somebody for taking opportunities if you open the door to them and now before I mean we're going to have a few minutes for questions from people before I know you've got a flight but let me just squeeze in a couple of domestic 2024 questions and I hate to put you through the thought experiment involving Donald Trump um uh but I'm going to um he um he talks about 2024 being the final battle he talks about being I am your retribution he says America's enemy is within um the thought experiment is but I'm not asking you to endorse this scenario but what would happen if Trump won first of all in Ukraine what would happen to the Ukraine situation look if Trump wins which I do not believe will happen let me just quickly say that if in some scenario that were to happen um it would be the end of democracy in the United States it would be the end of Ukraine it would become a you know we he will pull us out of NATO if he wins again uh just like he pulled us out of the Iran deal he pulled us out of the Paris Accords he will pull us out of NATO um and so when you ask this question I mean the the list of potential uh disastrous outcomes is longer than I have time to uh go over with you but it's why we can't permit it to happen why any sensible person who looks at that former president and says oh let's do this again um needs an intervention um because he's only gotten worse he is so angry that every one of their maneuvers to win the electoral college and remember the Electoral College is terrible anachronism that you know has caused like you know people like me who win the popular vote not to be president but that's beside the point um so think about this I've win by nearly three million votes over Trump in 2016. I lose the Electoral College by 77 000 votes Biden wins by over 7 million votes wins The Electoral College by 100 000 votes it was the mirror image of what happened to me only I was on the losing side and Biden was on The Winning Side and I know from you know people who have reported to me who were talking to Trump and his family during that time they thought they had Georgia totally set they thought they had Arizona totally set they had been you know working hand in hand with Republican Governors and legislatures to limit the vote as much as they possibly could um and they certainly you know thought that Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania were you know potential opportunities for them so he is angry because his his game failed his rigged game to steal the election I mean you could always tell what Trump is really doing because he will accuse somebody else of doing it it's projection unlike anything I've seen in public life they thought they would pull out the lecture College it didn't matter that he was going to lose by over 7 million votes it didn't matter because they don't believe in majority rule they believe in pluralities that they determine and they are going to do everything they can to prevent people who don't vote for them from voting so I don't think he can win but the Electoral College is always a you know a difficult uh outcome to predict so yeah we have to stop that from happening a very brief question then I'll go to the audience um uh now Biden's running again as you say he's had a pretty substantive record in the two and a half years he's in Japan he's at Hiroshima for the G7 now there was that heart stopping moment where he almost fell over coming downstairs a day or two ago he didn't use the railings Jill wasn't there with him every time that happens your heart is in your mouth because these things could be consequential is that a concern well I mean it's a concern for anyone um and we've had presidents who've Fallen before who are a lot younger um and people didn't go into you know heart palpitations um but he his age is an issue and people have every right to consider it but you know he has this great saying and and you know I think he's right you know he you know don't judge him by running against the almighty but against the alternative and I am you know of the camp that uh I think you know he's determined to run he has a good record that three years ago people would not have predicted would have gotten done uh he doesn't get the credit yet that he deserves for what is happening out in the country in terms of you know jobs and growth and and planning for the future with chips and other stuff so I obviously hope he stays you know very you know focused and able to uh compete in the election because I think he I think he can be re-elected and that's what we should all hope for so we have time for two or three very very quick questions um the the um lady in the front row um there's a mic coming and keep it sort of you created the role of special advisor for the children for children's issues and your time as Secretary of State I'm curious to know if there are other ways we could continue to leverage the government to help protect children abroad well thanks for that you know there were many aspects to that there are adoptions trafficking all kinds of issues that the United States has an interest in and that we tried to build uh higher visibility and and understanding for those issues I I think they're trying to reconstruct that I mean basically nothing that we did uh on women and children and trafficking and human rights and all that was a priority for the Trump State Department so we're going to have to rebuild it and and raise the visibility of it so that people uh know it's part of what we care about uh when we talk about human rights uh and democracy that you know children deserve uh as as much you know support and their whether it's you know hunger issues climate issues trafficking issues War issues I mean what Putin has done by kidnapping children out of Ukraine and the latest estimates maybe 200 000 missing kids and I'm really very uh grateful that the international criminal court has indicted him and his main enabler on that but that's the kind of issue that you know the United States needs to have a very very strong position on uh just second row here the thank you so much Stan was doing a lot at this apartment in which as you know is would be very informative to foreign policy with respect to the global South you know what is your perspective on the traction that she's making and what needs to change so that we can increase diversity in the Foreign Service well we were doing a good job under Obama um we you know we had a real problem when I became Secretary of State because the pipeline for Foreign Service officers had dried up during the Bush Administration and so we made a huge effort to reach out and you know we went to uh historically black colleges and universities we we went to a lot of places that the state department had not been before and we did a lot of Recruitment and we really began to increase that pipeline uh and it was a very diverse Pipeline with a lot of first generation Americans whose language skills were really necessary uh and then it all fell apart again under Trump and so Gina and others are trying to rebuild that and I think we're making progress I've had a number of young people whom I have been asked to you know talk to about their interest in going into Foreign Service so I think we're making real progress and I think you're a hundred percent right I mean the you know I I've always believed our diversity is our strength it's one of our greatest strengths I mean there is no country in the world better positioned for the future than the United States and there are many reasons for that um but among our strengths is our diversity so when I see people on the other side of the political divide going right after our strengths I think who the heck are you really representing because you're not representing the future of this country you've got some other agenda you know you want everybody to look like you act like you think like you you know read the books you think are okay to read it's so counterproductive not just here at home but in terms of our uh you know Outreach in the world so I've got my fingers crossed that we you know we will keep building that and not have another Interruption so I think I just want to check how much longer I've got because you're holding up notices and I can't read a thing so oh does that mean but it looks like five yeah it's five yeah yeah um the the lady in the front row there um yeah it could have been either for our country and your incredible service um very grateful I have a real quick question what is the Democratic party doing to prepare and Mentor other Future Leaders like yourself to Future presidents you know future other politicians I think we're doing a lot I you know after uh 2016 um I realized that the you know the Republicans had done much more to build institutions and pipelines um for young people who wanted to get into politics at all levels not just you know the federal level and so I started a group called onward together and we support about 17 organizations of young people who recruit um other young people to run for office uh and who helped train them and Mentor them and take on you know causes on all kinds of important issues and raise money for candidates we've raised about you know 65 million dollars in the last six years uh to you know do this work so I think there's a number of us who are much more focused on doing exactly what you're talking about um and it's important to stress that local elections are often the feeders into you know state and federal elections and so we want more people to run one of the groups we support is called run for something and we want more people to run for city council County Commissioner School Board Library board because those are where a lot of these fights are now taking place you know people are ripping books off of Library shelves because they now control the library board and so all of this is part of you know setting up a a strong alternative to the very well organized movements on the right to wage culture war and to win political uh campaigns and then to you know subject the rest of us to uh their own version of what our society should look like secretary Clinton I'm discovering as we speak that there aren't just fascists in Hungary and Russia or Trump rallies or wherever they might be but they're actually running this conference you know they uh they just wanted no I'm Alec no I went too far I went too far but I'd just like to thank you so much for making the effort to come here really enjoyed that and um thank you

Channel: Financial Times

Views: 62,324

Keywords: business news, finance analysis, Financial Times, finance news, international news, global news, markets, china trade, us economy, brexit, news, business, tech, india, finance, Hillary Clinton, geopolitics, US, US politics

Id: 2TlgDSJS8zY

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/tattoopuzzle]

Her campaign staff always did her dirty by not just letting her be this open, fluid, naturally funny person when she was running for things.

[u/Particular-Court-619]

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