[APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] Whoa! Hi! [LAUGH] Thank you! Thank you! Great. Thank you! Oh, thank you. [APPLAUSE ENDS] ERIC SCHMIDT: Well,
Secretary Clinton, welcome back to Google. HILLARY CLINTON: It's
great to be here, Eric. You've grown a little bit,
since I've been here last. Just a little. ERIC SCHMIDT: Are you
talking about my weight? HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: I knew I
gained some pounds, here. No, the company is much larger
and even more successful. And thank you for
your first visit. We're here to talk about
your book, which, you know, I've actually read. HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. ERIC SCHMIDT: I did
want to present you-- [LAUGHTER] I did want to present
you with my book. And I want-- it's entitled
"How Google Works." And I want you to
notice something that's different between
your book and my book. Now, your book is 600 pages and
very-- lots and lots of words. My book is 37 pages,
and it uses big type. And my book has black
and white photos, and yours has color photos. So, on a pound for pound basis,
my book is more valuable. [LAUGHTER] HILLARY CLINTON: Well,
but there are many things you can do with my book that
you can't do with this book. ERIC SCHMIDT: Such as? HILLARY CLINTON: Well,
you can work out-- ERIC SCHMIDT: Foreign policy? HILLARY CLINTON: No, you
can work out, with my book. ERIC SCHMIDT: You can
work out with your book? HILLARY CLINTON: Absolutely. And if you get two copies-- ERIC SCHMIDT: Weightlifting? HILLARY CLINTON:
--you'll be balanced, while you're working out. You can use it as a doorstop. This would just
slip under the door. You can't imagine using
that as a doorstop. I don't know. I think it's kind of a--
just a draw, don't you think? ERIC SCHMIDT: Well,
at some point, we're going to be
talking about my book. But I want you to
notice that my book is-- [LAUGHTER] My book is so short, you can
read it during this interview. HILLARY CLINTON:
Well, I have to say there is a particularly
attractive picture of you, on page 31, wearing some
kind of ridiculous hat, with some model of an airplane. ERIC SCHMIDT: And a picture
of Bill Gates, in the back. HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: Let's get to work. So, Secretary Clinton, your
book is entitled "Hard Choices." And what we're going
to do is, we're going to have some
questions from me, we have some
[INAUDIBLE] questions-- that is, submitted
from the audience-- and we have some live
questions, as well. And the first
question I want to ask is that you and I had a
very dear friend-- Richard Holbrooke-- who
died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack. And you had appointed him to do
the negotiation in Afghanistan. Do you think that his
death affected the outcome in Afghanistan? As a brilliant negotiator,
did we miss him that much? Did we end up in,
roughly, the right place in Afghanistan, at
the end of it all? HILLARY CLINTON: Well, there's
two parts to that question. Let me address our friend,
Richard Holbrooke, first. He was, in my view, the premier
diplomat of our generation. He was dramatic, when called
for; he was persistent, he was tough-minded, but
he believed, passionately, that you couldn't end
a war if you didn't talk to the people
on the other side. Now, that may sound
simplistic, but, indeed, that's a huge obstacle
for many in diplomacy-- politics, governments--
to get over. How do you end a
war, if you talk to the people you
despise-- who you view as the troublemakers,
the instigators? And Richard came at the
assignment I asked him to take, on behalf of the
President and myself, with that strong
conviction-- borne out of his many years of experience,
and, in particular, his ending of the wars in the Balkans,
when my husband was president. He spent a lot of
time with Milosevic-- a most unsavory character. He drank with him, he yelled
at him, he bullied him, he listened to him
and, eventually, was able to get to the
Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war, even
though it didn't end all of the
political and ethnic and other problems that are,
unfortunately, still prevalent. When I asked him to take
on the task in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he went at it with
his same level of commitment-- even relish. And, as I write in
the book, we were beginning a process of
reaching out to, and responding to outreach from, the Taliban. And I gave a speech that tried
to make the case that that might be distasteful;
it certainly was to me, for many
reasons, as to how they treat people in general,
and women in particular. But there had to be a
political negotiation, in order to try to end the conflict. And literally, the
day he died-- and he suffered a terrible
attack in my office-- we were talking about
the first meeting that we had engineered
between an American diplomat-- one of Richard's lieutenants--
and a representative of Mullah Omar. I guess the short answer, Eric,
is that Richard would never take No for an answer. We had a lot of difficulties,
both with President Karzai-- because he didn't want us
talking to the Taliban-- and we had problems
with the Taliban, because they didn't want to
talk to President Karzai. So we were playing a kind
of multilevel chess game and trying to move
the parties closer to talking to each other. And, unfortunately,
with Richard's death, we kept up the
initiative, but we didn't have that same
overpowering presence that he brought to it. Now where we are with
Afghanistan-- and Pakistan, because we looked at them,
very much, as presenting similar challenges to a
lasting peace and to threats, first of all, to the
region, and even beyond-- is an election that was held
that has been criticized for irregularities
that now, finally-- and I give Secretary Kerry
credit for going there. There's no substitute
for going to these places and staying and trying to
engineer some kind of solution That there will now be a
total audit of all the votes, in Afghanistan, to determine
who the next president is. So things are, kind of, on
hold, until we know that. What I think of as the
three biggest challenges is, number one, getting a
new president in who could keep Afghanistan unified. Despite all of the
problems that many of us had with President Karzai,
that was his primary goal. To try to keep the
country unified, and not fly off in
different ethnic directions. And we need to support whoever
that next president is and do our best to give him the
authority that he needs, to try to keep the
country unified. Secondly, continuing to work
with the Afghan security forces. They have proven to be much more
dependable, effective fighters, taking the fight
to the Taliban-- because the Taliban is
very clear that they intend to reoccupy territory they
lost to coalition troops, in the last several
years, following the surge that
President Obama ordered. So continuing to work and
support the Afghan security forces. And then, finally, being
well aware that so many of the problems in Afghanistan
are incubated in Pakistan. And the Pakistani
government is now facing some of the
most serious threats that it, historically, has,
because, as I say in the book, they had an idea that was
never going to be workable, for the long term,
which is, you can keep poisonous snakes
in your backyard and expect them only
to bite your neighbors. And the Pakistani military
and intelligence establishment have, unfortunately, over years,
worked with-- supported-- lots of the terrorist groups--
extremist groups-- for their own
purposes, some of which was to keep Afghanistan
kind of off-kilter. So there has to
be a lot of effort made to work with the
Pakistanis, as difficult as that is. And that's something that
I spent some time on, in the book, because
I worked very hard to try to have as effective
a relationship as we could. But at the end of the
day, the Pakistanis have to stand up to the threat
from within, which is also a threat to Afghanistan--
and, by the way, a continuing threat to India. So it's a-- we've made
progress, but not nearly enough. ERIC SCHMIDT: I was in Pakistan
a little bit after you were, and I found it incredibly
confusing to figure out. In fact, while I was there,
the president I met with was gotten rid of
by the supreme court over-- something involving
financial and his child. In the book, you spent a fair
amount of time on, I think, one of the significant
foreign policy achievements during your tenure,
involving the pivot to Asia. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: And when
I lay it out-- right, we've got the Pakistan problems. You were the first
person to really open up Burma-- Myanmar-- you met
Aung San Suu Kyi, et cetera. But you start looking
at, like, the-- as an example, the
Spratly Islands, and this line called Line
Nine, between China and Japan and the others-- it's getting
more confusing to an outsider. HILLARY CLINTON: Mhm. ERIC SCHMIDT: You
talk about the pivot. Do you think that we understand
how to navigate, now, between these-- each
of these countries is becoming more nationalistic,
as it becomes stronger. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. Well, that is a trend that I saw
really beginning to take off. And it has a number
of implications, both for the region,
but also for us, and the rest of the world. As China has gotten much
more economically powerful, it's understandable that they
want to project their power. But it's quite threatening,
to the rest of the region. And what I saw as a growing
threat was the increasing budgetary resources going to
the People's Liberation Army, to build up their naval
capacity so that they could project power on the seas. Now, the United
States, primarily, has kept the peace in
Asia, in navigable waters, for the protection of
commerce, and our navy has been a very positive force. But it's clear to
me that the Chinese intend to challenge
American naval superiority. That's their perfect
right, to do so. They are a sovereign
country; they get to make those decisions. But the problems
that Eric alluded to are having a rebound
effect around the region. So that, if you see China
developing its first aircraft carrier, with plans for a
number of more carriers, and you see China
being quite aggressive on territorial claims--
not that they're willing to arbitrate
those claims, but they're merely
asserting them, against the Philippines and
Vietnam and Japan, primarily, now. And you see that this could
lead to increasing tension, and maybe even
conflict, in the region. Then we have an opportunity,
but also a responsibility, to work closely with, number
one, our allies, because we have mutual defense
treaties with five nations in the region. Obviously Japan and South
Korea and the Philippines and Australia,
but also Thailand. So we are treaty-bound to
work with-- and, if necessary, protect-- our allies. Nobody wants to see any kind
of conflict that erupts, but, when you look
at what's happening between China and Vietnam,
and China and Japan, and China and the
Philippines, this is going to take some
very careful management. And so it takes a combination
of America continuing to assert itself as a Pacific
power, but intensive diplomacy, to try to send the
message to China-- why would you want to
disrupt 40% of global trade? Why would you want to skirt the
edges of potential conflict? And you see what's
happening in Japan. Japan is getting much
more nationalistic and aggressive, in
response to that. So this is going to be a primary
obligation and area of concern, for the United
States, going forward. ERIC SCHMIDT: It's
very important that China-- it,
ultimately, does not become China and the people
who are opposed to China. HILLARY CLINTON: Yes. ERIC SCHMIDT: Then
you could set up, for another 100 years, some
sort of a real contest. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, one other
thing-- and I write about this, because I became aware--
you know, China had, when I became Secretary
of State, two issues that they repeatedly stressed,
as their core interests-- Tibet and Taiwan. I mean, that was, every time
you met with a Chinese official, what you would hear, in
addition to everything else. And, you know,
they were confused by our support
for the Tibetans-- our openness to the Dalai Lama. I had a really
vigorous disagreement with Jiang Zemin--
who was president, at the end of the '90s-- over
Tibet, because I kept saying, China is a great country. I mean, you are growing
at 10+% in those years. Why are you so
obsessed with Tibet? And he said, why are you
so obsessed with Tibet? And we had-- [LAUGHTER] --you know, this
big back and forth. And I said, my
goodness, somebody meets with the
Dalai Lama, and you want to write them out of the
global order, practically. But it's very deeply
felt, by the Chinese. And on Taiwan,
obviously you all know. Starting in 2010, I'm in one of
these very long meetings that are made longer because
you have to have consecutive translation,
in many of them. Some of you who've done business
on behalf of Google in China, you know that. And all of a sudden,
it was Tibet, Taiwan, and the South China Sea. And I just sat up,
straight, and I thought, what do you mean,
the South China Sea? So I began to engage
with my counterparts. I heard you mention
the South China Sea. What did you mean? Oh, why-- well, what we
meant was, of course, that we claim the South China Sea. I said, all of it? I mean, this enormous
body of water? Absolutely. It is China's. And then, you know, they began
telling me why it was China's. They found pottery shards on
this island-- or this atoll, or this rocky reef-- that
went back to the Ming dynasty. It, therefore, was China. I said, really? Now, let me say this to you. ERIC SCHMIDT: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] HILLARY CLINTON: Um-- United
States-- and I asked-- ERIC SCHMIDT: You can just
hear her saying that. "Really?" HILLARY CLINTON: "Really?" I actually had a map drawn up,
where the United States claimed the entire Pacific. And I said, look, you
know, you were our ally, but you couldn't have
beaten the Japanese back, and you couldn't have
had the, kind of, economic rise, without
American power. And we have cans-- old
cans of food, everywhere. You may have pottery shards,
but we've left our debris, too, and so we're claiming
the entire Pacific. I said, this is an
absurd argument. Oh, no; very serious. And not only that, we're
claiming the East China Sea. And we're going
after the Senkakus, which the Japanese have claimed. And we're going after the
territorial waters of Vietnam, because, obviously,
they want to drill, to see what might
be off their coast. This was a very well thought
out introduction of a third core interest. And, therefore, we have
to take it very seriously. And what I've argued-- and
I've made this very clear to our Chinese friends-- the
United States doesn't take positions on these islands,
and who should govern them, or who they belong to, but
where there are disputes, we have dispute
resolution mechanisms that China, as a
great nation, should be part of taking advantage of. And so, this is going
to be an ongoing debate between us, and
within the region. ERIC SCHMIDT: So-- to show
you how good this book is-- there's a lengthy conversation
about the origins of this. And the secretary talks about
the original "hide and bide" strategy that Deng Xiaoping
had, and how much has changed. You also spend a
fair amount of time talking about a genuine hero in
the world-- Aung San Suu Kyi. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: And
you described her as "There was a quiet dignity
about her, the coiled intensity of a vibrant mind inside
of a long-imprisoned body." HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: These sort
of glimpses of the way you sort of-- I found it
absolutely fascinating. I'd like to move to an
area where-- you know, you say "hard choices"-- I,
personally, see no choices, and that's Syria. HILLARY CLINTON: Mhm. ERIC SCHMIDT: And
you're famously known for having been--
or at least allegedly being-- in favor of
earlier intervention. And I just want to
review where we are now. 170,000 deaths, 11 and
1/2 million internally dislocated people,
three million refugees. One out of six people
in Lebanon and one out of five people in
Jordan are now refugees. Imagine if that happened
from Canada and Mexico to the United States--
the impact on the economy. If that's not bad
enough, it's the biggest humanitarian conflict
in the world, today. There's no obvious
groups to support. It's a proxy war, involving
Russia, Iran, Syria, et cetera. And now, the latest
is, of course, this ISIS Group,
which has managed to get to some number
of miles to Baghdad. It's not clear what to do. Do you do a no-fly zone? Well, who do you protect? Right? If you're gonna arm somebody,
who are you going to arm? When you think about it, had we
followed what you wanted to do, what would we have done,
and what should we do now-- or what can we do now? You talk about
this, in the book, but, obviously, you don't
talk about the current ISIS situation. HILLARY CLINTON: Mhm. Mhm. ERIC SCHMIDT: I think it's
the biggest current problem in the world, in terms of
just mass death and problems. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, Eric,
I label that chapter "A Wicked Problem"-- which is
a futurist concept, because there really
weren't any clear decisions, with a straight line
to consequences. Even if you made account
for unintended consequences, it was always going
to be a hard choice. What I argued, back at the
beginning of the conflict, was that, in looking at Assad's
crackdown and his alliances with Iran, Russia, and Iran's
proxy-- Hezbollah, in Lebanon-- [HIGH-VOICED SOUND FROM
AUDIENCE] --there would be a
very serious issue. Uh, does somebody need
some help, back there? Can we-- can we help to--
how about some water? There's-- did somebody pass out? Yeah. OK. ERIC SCHMIDT: I
think we're fine. HILLARY CLINTON: You've got
somebody, back there, to help? ERIC SCHMIDT: ERIC SCHMIDT: OK. Let's continue. HILLARY CLINTON: OK. Um-- If you looked at
the level of violence that Assad was willing to
use-- and I was pretty sure, from the beginning,
he would do whatever it took to beat back
the demonstrators and to hold on to territory. His father had done it, before
him, some of you might recall, in leveling the
city of Hama, which had been a hotbed of opposition
and a particular home for Muslim Brotherhood
opponents to the prior regime. So I had no doubt. In fact, one of
the stories I tell, in the book-- I asked the
Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia-- Saud Al
Faisal, who had been in that position
for many years-- whether he thought
there was any way to change the
calculation of Assad and have him either begin
to tamp down the violence or look for a
political settlement. And Saud said, no, because his
mother would never let him. [MURMUR FROM AUDIENCE] And that, I thought,
was very telling-- that there was this family
obligation, enforced by his mother, who
would say to him, every day, here's what your
father would have done. So, given that lineup
of characters, history, and the like, I believe that,
if we had gone in to identify and properly vet members of
the original opposition-- which were not Al Qaeda,
were not ISIS; they may have been pharmacists,
or doctors, or lawyers, or students, before
the opposition rose up against Assad's
brutal crackdown-- that we would get to know
who the likely hard men, on the other side, were. And, perhaps, we
could help to build, from that, a viable opposition
force that could hold ground against Assad and,
at the same time, be the anchor for developing a
more effective political arm. You know, I could sit here,
today, and say I was right. But I can't say that,
because we don't know what would've
happened, had we followed that
particular approach. There were very good
arguments, on the other side. But what I know now is
that what I worried about has happened-- that Assad has
not moderated his behavior. The only good thing that has
come out of the last two years is the removal of, at
least, the known stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, which I do think was an
important accomplishment. But we know that
territory is being taken by extremist groups--
ISIS being the most audacious, with their claim
of a caliphate that crosses the border
between Syria and Iraq. And I think we have a
pretty good idea what that would mean--
what that would mean for the region, where
you could, possibly, have a very extreme,
organized territory that was a safe haven and
a launching ground. We saw this in Afghanistan. I mean, that's what happened
in the border areas, when Al Qaeda decided to ally
itself with the Taliban and set up shop, there. And it doesn't necessarily
mean just misery for Sunnis who are not of their
extreme nature-- and others within Iraq,
and the same within Syria. It can lead to problems in
Europe, where, we think, at least 2,000
Europeans with passports have gone to fight
with extremist groups. And it certainly can
mean more threats to us. So what to do, now? I think part of what we have to
do is what we're trying to do, and that is, to
restabilize Iraq. And the reason it's so difficult
is that Prime Minister Maliki basically reneged
on every commitment he made-- to the United States,
as well as his own people. When he was
legitimately elected, he was able to form a
government, the first time. He was just reelected,
and the problem is that he began governing in
an exclusive, sectarian way, cutting the Sunnis out of
power, refusing to pay the Sunni fighters that the United
States had recruited to get rid of Al Qaeda in Iraq-- which was
one of our major achievements, on behalf of the
Iraqis, before we left-- and refusing to have a
fair deal over oil revenues with the Kurds. So the Kurds and a lot of
the Sunni tribal leaders are, basically, of the mind
that you can't trust Maliki. You can't work with
him, and we're not going to support him, as he
tries to take back territory. So it's a political negotiation
that we and others are engaged in, because, unless you can get
the local Sunni leaders once again to throw their lot in,
on behalf of a unified Iraq, you cannot drive ISIS out of
Mosul and other places that it has seized. ERIC SCHMIDT: And ISIS is very
dangerous, by every measure. HILLARY CLINTON: Well,
they're very dangerous. They're kind of a follow-on
to the original Al Qaeda, but not as based in the
leadership of Bin Laden and Zawahiri. it's now younger people. They're more violent;
they're more aggressive. They're trying to do what has
been the dream of extremist Sunnis caught up in terrorism,
for a number of years, now, and that is to establish--
or, in their mind, reestablish-- a caliphate, and
put one of their own in charge. So yeah, they're very dangerous. And they will not be satisfied
in just governing territory. They will believe it's
both their religious duty and their desire for
greater power, that they have to take this
further afield. ERIC SCHMIDT: So
what I thought I'd do is ask you a little bit
about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'd like to talk to you a
little bit about what you've been working on
since leaving office. And then we'll go to questions. And we have thousands
of questions-- [LAUGHTER] --it being Google. So in the book, you
talk at some length about negotiating and getting
to know Bibi Netanyahu-- who's a charismatic leader, by any
standard-- and the challenges he's faced from terrorism. And in the book, you talk a lot
about Hezbollah and the Lebanon war, and those sorts of things. Israel is, today, confronting
the Gaza rockets-- Hamas, and so forth. Looking at it--
I was just there; Google has a big presence,
there-- it's, to some degree, in Hamas's interest to
have this cycle continue. They get money,
they get resources, they're getting rockets
out of Syria, et cetera. And the rockets can, now,
reach the entire country. And I was thinking about, if
you think about our good friends in Canada. Right? So imagine Canada was
different, and somehow it was raining rockets
on us-- or Mexico, or whatever-- people
here would go crazy. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: Right? HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: And so you
can really understand. In fact, the Israelis have
built this thing called Iron Dome, which actually
has intercepted 80% or 90% of the rockets-- which
is a remarkable technical achievement, and good for them. Do you have a reading of
what's going to happen next? Because it doesn't seem
to be getting better. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you might
have seen the President doing a live press statement, this
morning, from the White House. And he's asked Secretary
Kerry to go to the region, try to reestablish the
November 2012 cease-fire that I negotiated, back
at the time, when rockets were raining on Israel. And I went from
Cambodia to Israel to negotiate what the
Israelis would accept, and then to go to
Cairo, to negotiate with then-President Morsi. And we were able to
reach a cease-fire that held until this month. And I'd make three points. One, Hamas really does have
its back against the wall, and that's always dangerous. You know, they were, basically,
driven out of Damascus, because that's where
they had taken up their headquarters, for years. But when Assad consolidated
the Alawite minority, to go after the majority of the
population, which are Sunnis, it became impossible for Hamas
to maintain its headquarters, there. They moved to Cairo
because, at the time, the Muslim Brotherhood
candidate-- Morsi-- was the president. There was a lot of
sympathy, there. And they began to
try to maneuver to control splinter
groups within Gaza. Because it's not just Hamas. There are some even harder-core
extremist groups, within Gaza. So you have a couple of
different groups, led by Hamas, gathering up more
sophisticated weaponry. So when I negotiated the
cease-fire with Morsi, he had never done
anything like that, but he did have a
relationship with Hamas. So we were able to
come up with a written agreement where Israel
made certain commitments, Hamas made certain commitments,
and, thankfully, it was before there
was an invasion. We were about 48 hours
from an invasion. So what has happened, since? Well, Morsi's gone. Al-Sisi is the president. He, basically, has declared
the Muslim Brotherhood-- and everyone
associated with them, which would include Hamas-- are
threats to the Egyptian state. So Hamas no longer has
a partner in Cairo. The West Bank has remained
fairly secure and stable, in part because of the attitude,
still, in the West Bank, that they'd rather
have a negotiation then go back to resistance. So Hamas-- and its
allies, who have really brought about the importation
of more long-range rockets-- has, for whatever
combination of calculations, decided that it's
in their interest-- as Eric said-- to, once
again, attack Israel, maybe because they believe they
will get more support; they will get more
financial resources. Maybe they think that they will
cause an uprising in the West Bank that would join with them. They have a number of different
reasons why they might do this. So once they began firing
the rockets-- and the rockets have longer range, and they're
somewhat more accurate. But the Iron Dome-- which
the United States funded, but which is
Israeli technology-- has worked surprisingly
well, in intercepting 80%, 90% of the rockets. But there was also the
increasing threat from tunnels. You know, it used to be
that Hamas had tunnels going into Sinai, and those were
both for smuggling weapons but also smuggling
goods that would escape the Israeli embargo. The Egyptians have done
a much more thorough job of shutting those
tunnels down, but Hamas has been busy building
tunnels into Israel, with the primary purpose of
attacking Israelis and trying to spark a very
violent response. I can't believe that the
current Hamas leadership did not know that, if they
kept up their attacks, Netanyahu would be
forced to respond. As I said, when I
got to Jerusalem, for the first part
of the negotiations, they were already sending out
notices for reserve soldiers to begin mustering
up, and that they were going to have to invade. So I believe that Hamas wanted
to provoke this reaction, and I believe that Netanyahu--
at the end of the day-- the Canadian-Mexican example
is not so far-fetched. I mean, any country,
your first obligation is to protect your
citizens, and I believe that Netanyahu knew
that he had to take action, and he has-- and Israel has
the right to self-defense. So now we're into not only
a very unfortunate clash, but a propaganda war. You know, the terrible,
horrible pictures of children who are the victims
of Israeli military action-- which Israel is right to
say is, in large measure-- not completely, but in large
measure-- because of the way Hamas has sited its rockets
and set up its operating centers in neighborhoods,
surrounded by civilians, in houses. The tunnels, where
there was a firefight, with Hamas fighters
coming out of one of the tunnels and
Israeli soldiers-- two Americans, dual citizens--
two young American men, serving in the IDF, killed. So we have to try, if we can,
to negotiate another cease-fire. Egypt declared a cease-fire;
Israel accepted it; Hamas rejected it-- in
part because, I do think, they want to provoke
what we're now seeing. And it's deeply distressing,
but unfortunately, unless there's a
mutual cease-fire, I think Israel will continue
with their military objectives, which are to find and
destroy the tunnels, find and destroy as many
of the rockets as they can. And there will continue to
be a terrible loss of life. ERIC SCHMIDT: And I
agree, and it's very sad. Let's make a context switch. Since you left office, you've
spent a great deal of time on empowerment,
entrepreneurship, the role of women and children. Google has partnered with
you, a little bit, on that. And I think people
will be interested in, what do you think
needs to be done? You've given a series
of speeches about this, the role of women, and so forth. You're, obviously,
committed to it. Take us through your thinking. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I
do want to thank Google as being one of our
partners, in this effort. When I got out of
the State Department, I joined my husband
and my daughter at the Clinton Foundation. My husband had
started it, and I'm very proud of what he built. I had nothing to do with it. I was in the Senate and
the State Department, for those 12 years. But he came up with an
approach that, I think, is fairly called
"entrepreneurial philanthropy," where you bring people together,
through the Foundation, and through the Clinton
Global Initiative, to partner to solve problems. And we have very clear metrics. Are you making progress, or not? And if you're not,
then we're not going to keep doing
what doesn't work, and we're going to do
more of what does work. And we think we're
all in this together. So, both internationally
and domestically, there's a number of
really important projects. Bill just left
Borneo, where we're doing one of our
climate initiatives, trying to save the rain
forest in Indonesia, partnering with a number
of other governments and businesses. So when I got out, in
addition to wanting to work on the Foundation
priorities and CGI priorities, I added three. I added something we
call Too Small to Fail. And that is a program aimed
at persuading families to read, talk, and
sing to their babies, because what we know is, if you
come-- if you're our daughter-- Chelsea-- or our new grandchild,
you are going to be talked to and read to and sung
to until, probably, you just want us to go away. [LAUGHTER] And we're doing it,
both because it's great to build relationships
and connection, but we now know, from brain
research, it builds brains. And when a child from a
family like one of ours goes to kindergarten, that
child will have already heard 30 million more words
than a child from a poor family. Now that does not mean the
child from the poor family is any less loved,
any less treasured, but there's not the time
or understanding, often, so that parents know they can
be their child's first teachers. So we are partnering with the
Next Generation Foundation, in San Francisco, and a
number of other groups, like Sesame Street, to
get this message out. Secondly, we rolled out-- at
the Clinton Global Initiative America meeting, in
Denver, last month-- a program that is aimed at
trying to work with companies, like Google-- we'd love
to talk to you about this, but-- to create
ladders of opportunity for unemployed young people. We have 6 million young
people in America, between the ages of 18 and
24, who are neither in school nor at work. And that's terrible
for them, and it's terrible for us and our economy. And then, finally,
I took with me my commitment to women and
girls-- their empowerment; their full participation. And my jumping-off
point is the speech that I gave in 1995,
in Beijing, which was intended to make
a very clear statement of the global priority that
human rights are women's rights, and women's
rights are human rights. But accompanying that was
a platform for action, signed by 189 countries,
about what they would do to move toward
full participation of women and girls. And we've made progress,
but not nearly enough. So we started a program
called No Ceilings, and it's got three purposes. Number one, we want to be
able-- with Google's help, and others-- to get
the best data possible, so that we understand
where the gaps are. We know, for example, we've
made tremendous progress in getting girls into
primary education; not so good in
secondary education. So what are the gaps? How do we describe that? And how do we
visualize it, so people who may not be experts or
advocates in this field can look and see what the
remaining business is? I have a chapter called
"Unfinished Business," and it's really about
what more we need to do. Now there are big differences
between the developing world and the developed world. In the developing
world, we still have some very clear
obstacles to overcome. We still have countries
that don't even give birth certificates
to girl babies, because they're just not
important enough to register. So when we say to
ourselves, well, how many girls are
in school-- and you know a significant
percentage don't even have birth certificates, and
there's not a good census-- how do we measure that? Or when we look at Asia, there
are three million fewer girls and women than there
are boys and men, because they just
don't-- they're not born, or they don't live to
their fifth birthday, or they are victims of
violence and neglect. And we have this huge gap. And I think one of the
problems that China and India are facing-- and
will face even more-- is the big gap between
marriageable men and marriageable women. And some of the
violence against women is a result of what is
a very big imbalance. Now, in the so-called developed
world, we've changed our laws, but what we have left
are cultural problems. And so, in addition to
getting the data-- where are the gaps-- we want to look
at, what are the solutions. And they will vary from country
to country, region to region. One of the efforts I made,
in the State Department, was to do-- begin to do--
with the IMF, the World Bank, and others-- an economic
analysis of what it means for girls and women to
be left out of economies. Now we know girls and women
are in the informal economy, but that's not counted in GDP. I remember going to
Africa in the '90s, and all I saw were
women working. They were carrying water;
they were carrying firewood; they were tending fields;
they were in the marketplaces. And I asked an economist,
I said, how do you take account of all
this economic activity? And they said, we don't, 'cause
it's in the informal economy. So what I wanted was an
analysis about what difference it would make if we
had girls and women in the formal economy. And it makes a huge
GDP difference. And the person in
the world who has jumped on this,
more than anybody, is Prime Minister Abe of Japan,
because, when he took office, he took office on
the promise he was going to get the economy going. And he looked at
trade barriers; he looked at the lack
of immigration. But one of the
biggest problems was educated Japanese women
were not in the economy. And that, in fact, if they
had greater participation, the projection was, the
Japanese economy could go up to GDP-- that could go up to 9%. ERIC SCHMIDT: So the quickest
way to grow your economy is to use the talents
you already have. HILLARY CLINTON: Use
the talents you have, and raise the talent
base of women and girls, in places where
they're not educated, and take advantage
of those talents, in places where
they are educated. ERIC SCHMIDT: Seems so obvious. Why don't we just do it? HILLARY CLINTON:
[SIGH] Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. And, with Google's help,
we'll get the best analysis to make the recommendations. ERIC SCHMIDT: --we
violently agree with. I want to finish up, with the
book, with the last paragraph. You talk about the
memorial service for your mom, who
passed away, recently. And you said, "I
looked at Chelsea, and I thought how proud
Mom"-- your mom-- "was of her. Mom measured her
own life by how much she was able to help
us and serve others. I knew that, if she
was still with us, she would be urging
us to do the same. Never rest on your
laurels; never quit; never stop working to make
the world a better place. That's our unfinished business." Is that why you work so hard? HILLARY CLINTON: It really is. I don't want to get all
psychobabbly, but, um-- ERIC SCHMIDT: It's OK. [LAUGHTER] HILLARY CLINTON: You know,
I so admire my mother, because she had a miserable
childhood-- I mean, just horrible. Abused, neglected, abandoned. Sent, by herself--
at the age of seven, eight-- in charge of
her younger sister, who was about six-- put
on a train, by themselves, in Chicago; sent to
California, to live with her paternal grandparents,
who did not want her. And just a terrible experience. And finally, having to leave
that home at the age of 13, to get a job working in another
family's home, taking care of their children, in
return for room and board, and the opportunity-- if
she could get her chores done in the morning-- to go to
school, if she could get back in the afternoon. So I mean, when I
was a child, I didn't know any of this
about my mother. I just knew that she was a
great mom, and she was fun, and she took
wonderful care of us. But as I learned
more about her life, upon becoming a teenager
and a young adult, I was just astonished,
because I thought, you know, so many things
could have gone wrong. I mean, she could have given up. She could have been embittered. She could've-- even if she'd
got married and had children, she could've been as
mean-spirited or neglectful as her mother and her
grandmother were to her. But instead, she worked so
hard to be a better person. And she never got
to go to college, but she was always studying
and trying to learn and believed passionately
in education. And I think it did have a lot
to do with my sense of service. Because-- you know,
I remember going to babysit for the children
of migrant farm workers who, in Chicago, you know,
they would come up from Mexico, and they'd pick crops. They'd go through Illinois,
they'd go into Michigan. And our church had a babysitting
program for the youngest children, on
Saturday mornings, so that the school-aged children,
who went to school with us, would be able to go
out into the fields. And so I remember babysitting
these adorable little kids, and my mother learning that
one of the little girls was going to have
her first communion. And, of course, they didn't
have money for a dress. And my mother took the
mother of the little girl and bought a dress. And my mother was always trying
to think of ways that, just through her own efforts,
she can help somebody else-- and encouraging
me to do the same. So there's no doubt
in my mind that she was my biggest inspiration. And her example was a
great, continuing reminder of what can happen. Because, I'd end with this. I asked her, once-- I said,
with all of your-- really-- suffering, what
made the difference? How did you turn
out the way you did? And she said to me, at so
many points along the way, somebody was kind to me. It wasn't my family, but
it was somebody else. And she told me
about-- literally, when she was, like,
four years old, and her parents were teenagers--
totally irresponsible. They'd leave her
for days, they'd give her a little bit
of money, and she'd have to get herself down the
stairs of the tenement they lived in, and go next
door, to a restaurant, and ask for food, with
a little bit of money. And she said-- looking
back, she said, I know they gave me more
food than I could pay for. Or, when she was in school, and
she would never have any lunch, and never had any
money to buy lunch, and the teacher noticed it. So the teacher--
without embarrassing her-- would bring an
extra piece of fruit, would bring an extra carton
of milk, and would say, oh, I've brought too much food. Dorothy, would you
like something, because I just
can't eat all this. Again, not humiliating
her, but making it possible for her to receive
that kindness. And the family that she
moved in-- to work for-- was the first time she was
ever in an intact family that loved each other and
cared about each other and had plans for the future. And she could see all of that. So it was just a great reminder. But you don't have to go
into full-time philanthropy, or charitable work, or
faith-based work, or politics. But there's always something
you can do that helps somebody. And if you do it in a way
that preserves their dignity, and gives them the feeling
that it was kindness, as opposed to arrogance, it
can make a huge difference. So I think that left
a great impression. ERIC SCHMIDT: There is a
very nice picture of you and your mom, Chelsea,
and Mark, in the book. HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah. ERIC SCHMIDT: We have
questions from the audience. Let's get some folks
lined up, here. But the overwhelming-- there's
a ranking system that we use, of questions-- HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: And the
overwhelming ranking, throughout the
company-- and this is being watched all
around the world, in Google-- is a
question about the NSA. HILLARY CLINTON: Mmm. ERIC SCHMIDT: And,
as you know, Google is quite opposed-- along with
the other tech companies-- to what we see as
overreach by the NSA. And we all think, for example,
that bugging Angela Merkel's phone is pretty stupid,
if I could be blunt. HILLARY CLINTON: Mhm. [SOFT RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER FROM
AUDIENCE] ERIC SCHMIDT: What is your
opinion of NSA's spying-- surveillance-- the
domestic spying? You know, this occurred, I
think, after you were there. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. ERIC SCHMIDT: You have
any opinion about this? Number one question from Google. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, yeah. I mean, don't do stupid things. [LAUGHTER] And that doesn't
mean we don't need to have a system of
surveillance, because we do. I mean, I think that
has to be accepted. But how we do it, and
how we explain it, and what we tell our partners,
is incredibly important. I was just in Berlin, on my book
tour in Europe, and, of course, that was the number one issue. And I said, look, Angela
Merkel's a friend of mine, and I apologized to her. It was wrong; it
shouldn't have been done. ERIC SCHMIDT: Well,
I should tell you, I had dinner with her,
and she looked at me, said, what are they doing,
listening to my conversations with my mother? HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah. ERIC SCHMIDT: I mean,
people remember this. HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, absolutely. And, look-- I think we were
beginning to take a hard look at what we did, post-9/11. And that was happening. The President had
actually given a speech, before the Snowden
disclosures, about the need to take a hard look
at the legislation, and how it was
being implemented. So we had to do that,
because I voted for things, and then I voted against
things, trying to figure out how to get the right
balance in security and liberty-- the
age-old question. And we have to do-- we have
to do a much better job, and we have to do
it in a way that doesn't affect our great
companies, like Google, because, clearly, that
would be unfortunate for us. ERIC SCHMIDT: Let's
go-- here, go ahead. You're the first question,
then we'll go over here. AUDIENCE: Secretary Clinton,
thank you for joining us, today. I wanted to get your take
on the state of Congress and internal politics
within the US. It seems like things are
getting increasingly polarized, to the point of dysfunction. I think that the "kick
the can" economic policy that we're building is
really hurting our country. So I'm wondering what you think
needs to be done, to fix it, and who the right
people are to lead that. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I
think your question is exactly on point. I think we have two crises,
right now, in our country. We have an economic
crisis, that has to do with both
growth and inequality. You may not feel
it, here, at Google, but it's real in the
lives of many Americans. And we need to get back
to doing smarter things, in terms of economic policies. And we have a political crisis. I would even argue it's a
crisis of our democracy, because it's not functioning. And I would make
three quick points. First, having been in and
around politics for a long time, please don't get
indifferent or disgusted and walk away from it,
because, truly, the best way of changing what's going
on is through voting. I mean, that may
sound simplistic, but I've been there. I've seen it. I know it can work. And I would have just
a few pieces of advice. Don't vote for anyone who
says he or she will never compromise-- and
does it proudly. You know, they have
all the answers. They even have a direct
channel to the Divine, so they know what
should be done. [LAUGHTER] And therefore, they're
going to Washington, or they're going to Sacramento--
wherever they're going-- and they will never compromise. That is death, to a democracy. I don't know if any of you
saw the great Steven Spielberg movie about Lincoln, and trying
to get the 13th Amendment passed. There was just a
great movie-- I mean, a great play-- in New
York, called "All the Way," about LBJ trying to get
Civil Rights passed. You've got to compromise, if
you're going to make progress. And so don't vote for people--
don't give them money, don't encourage them. You can be
conservative, but find people who understand the
meaning of conservative. It's not radicalism. It's conserving,
and trying to build on institutions that work. And then, finally-- to go to the
final part of your question-- it's not only what
citizens should do, in terms of voting and
contributing and trying to pick people who will be
better partners in solving our problems, but it's
what leaders, themselves, have to do. And Washington is, now,
set up for dysfunction. People are elected, often,
with the best intentions, and then they get there, and
they spend all their time raising money so that they can
be reelected the next time, instead of doing
the work that they were elected to
do the first time. And they also are
rarely with each other. It didn't used to be that way. You met across the aisle. You met across the
ideological divide. And we're not doing that. So people don't get
to know each other. And so I think if
you are running for one of these
offices, you just have to be absolutely
committed to spending a lot of time trying
to build relationships, because, at the end of the
day, that's what it's about. You have to have enough
trust, enough understanding, to be able to make decisions. And you know, that's what
we're missing, right now. ERIC SCHMIDT: I would also
add-- I have to bring your book back-- HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT:
Quote-- "In general, I was surprised how many
people in Washington operated in an evidence-free zone"-- HILLARY CLINTON: Yes. [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: --"where data
and science are disregarded." You then go on and quote
an unnamed senior Bush administration official, who--
I'm dying to figure out who this is-- who said, "'the
reality-based community of people, who believe
that solutions emerge from your judicious
study of discernible reality.' I've always
thought that's, exactly, how to solve problems. The Bush aide went
on, 'That's not the way the world
really works, anymore. We're an empire,
now, and when we act, we create our own reality.' That
attitude helps explain a lot of what went wrong (LAUGHING)
during those years." [LAUGHTER] So maybe the answer
is also, let's go back to the-- we can debate
the principles, and so forth, but let's make sure
the data's correct. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, and what
a place to talk about this. I mean, that's
exactly-- I mean, I used to give speeches about
being in an evidence-free zone, in the Senate. And we've got to figure out
a better way of breaking down the intellectual barriers
that exist between people of different political beliefs. There's recent research
that's been done-- and I would welcome
any of your thoughts on this-- that shows, if you
hold an opinion strongly-- like, let's just pick
supply-side economics-- trickle-down economics--
which don't work; there's no evidence
that it works-- but it is deeply
believed by people. Or that immigration is
bad for the United States. Totally wrong; evidence to the
contrary, going out for miles-- ERIC SCHMIDT: Can we just pause? Like, isn't that amazing,
that we just heard this? HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] [APPLAUSE] I know. ERIC SCHMIDT: This country
was built on immigration. HILLARY CLINTON: 100%. And we know we have
evidence, but oftentimes it's difficult to break through
the psychological barriers to hearing that. So we've got to do a better job. And I think about this a lot,
because of the dysfunction. Some people deny climate
change because they think they are doing it
to protect industries they make money from, or
they get contributions from. Some people deny it because they
don't understand the science, and they kind of, you know,
just throw up their hands. And it's easier to say, oh,
well, it'll all work out. Some of it-- some people deny
it for religious reasons; whatever. That's just one
example of an issue that we are gridlocked over. And thank goodness for
President Obama beginning to do things that will
deal with climate change through executive action. But how do we begin to
have a conversation, again, where we actually
listen to each other? Because, you know, we are much
less sexist, much less racist, much less homophobic, than
we were, a decade or two ago. But, boy, the one
remaining bias we have is, we don't want to
be around people who share a different
political opinion. You know, we just don't
want to argue with them; we don't want to listen to them. And it's on both
sides of the divide. So we've got to do a better job. ERIC SCHMIDT:
Question over here. HILLARY CLINTON: Sorry. AUDIENCE: Thank you,
Secretary Clinton. I was hoping we could use
some of your experience in dealing with rather
difficult international crises and controversies with one
of the deep controversies affecting us. What do you think it
will take to resolve the tension between advocates
of synchronous and asynchronous programming models? [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: Um-- [SCATTERED APPLAUSE] Are you-- are you s-- oh. Would you like to-- HILLARY CLINTON: Well-- AUDIENCE: She's good. HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well-- [LAUGHTER] I mean, I'm no expert. But clearly-- [LAUGHTER] --you know, synchronous models
require lightweight threads. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] ERIC SCHMIDT: Have
you been-- have you been spending some
time in Silicon Valley? [LAUGH] HILLARY CLINTON: I've
been thinking a lot, about Silicon Valley. ERIC SCHMIDT: Did you
actually have a real question? Oh, actually, that was
the right answer, I guess. Right? AUDIENCE: Hey, yeah. Since she's so good at this,
I'm wondering if, maybe, I could even ask you another one. HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] AUDIENCE: Given-- there is
a suggestion that, given increases in productivity,
over the past few decades, that the total number of jobs
that the American economy can even have may be structurally
less than the number of people who are in need of
jobs, and even more so for jobs that can actually pay
enough for someone to live on. HILLARY CLINTON: Right. AUDIENCE: If this is really a
fundamental, structural reality we're going to
have to deal with, how do we adjust
to such a world? HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I'm
really glad you asked that, because I don't have a quick,
glib answer to give you, but I can tell you
that I would love to have any thoughts
from all of you, because you are
making this new world. I mean, Google is a part of
the future that is out there. And, as I look around,
it's a very diverse crowd; a lot of young and youngish
people who have, uh-- [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: I think they
all look young, to you and me. HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, they do. They do. ERIC SCHMIDT: [LAUGH] HILLARY CLINTON: --who have
skills and abilities that are, really, required,
in this new future. There is a serious political
and economic dimension to that. And I don't think it's
enough to, basically, say, everybody
else is just going to have to get used to it--
live with it-- because that is a recipe for, not only
increasing inequality, but what inequality
does to social cohesion, to democratic institutions. So I think it's one of the
most serious questions we have to figure
out how to answer. Now, you know, there are
some obvious, quick answers-- like, you have subsidized
employment for people, in certain areas,
so at least they have something to do
all day, every day. You try to figure out how you
create incentives for companies to keep people employed instead
of making them unemployed-- you know, the German system, where
the government, basically, subsidizes you,
to avoid layoffs, but then you've got to figure
out what to do with people. I mean, there are
no easy answers. And, given the intellectual
brainpower in here, the United States may be
getting to this sooner than other parts of the world. Everybody is going to get to it. I mean, right now,
the Chinese are trying to figure out
how they continue taking tens of millions of
people out of rural areas, bringing them to urban areas,
and putting them to work, when wages are going to rise, when
their economic advantage, then, may be diminished. So this is a huge social,
political, economic issue. And if you've got any thoughts,
I'd love to hear them. ERIC SCHMIDT: Let's have a
quick question, over here. AUDIENCE: Secretary Clinton,
it's an honor to have you here. I saw you on the
"Daily Show," recently, where Jon Stewart preemptively
announced your candidacy for President. HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] AUDIENCE: Now, I
took my daughter-- about six years ago-- to
the Democratic primaries, to vote for you. In the face of so many people
who are interested in-- ERIC SCHMIDT: Is she above 18? HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: She's
old enough to vote? AUDIENCE: She-- she
came to be [INAUDIBLE]. HILLARY CLINTON: I'd love it. I'd love if I could do that. ERIC SCHMIDT: Just checking. [LIGHT LAUGHTER FROM AUDIENCE] AUDIENCE: How do
you-- and I thought you handled it
quite graciously-- but how are you
going to handle it when there are so many people
are, obviously, interested in having you in
this next election? HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. Well, Jon Stewart
was a lot of fun. [APPLAUSE] [LAUGH] And I love the story of
taking your daughter. We always took Chelsea to vote. I mean, really, I think every
18-year-old old should be, automatically, registered
to vote, upon turning 18. I think we need to
get young people-- ERIC SCHMIDT: Yes. Absolutely. [APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] HILLARY CLINTON:
--involved in our politics, making those decisions. This is a very personal
decision, for me. And I don't take
it at all lightly. I'm, sort of, feeling my way
through it and toward it. I think we face some very
serious, hard choices, as a nation. And I have no illusions about
what a president, alone, can do, because it's necessary
to bring the Congress, to bring the private
sector, to get people from all walks of life involved. But I think we're
at a real juncture. And I'm well aware that I
have a lot of experience; I've seen the presidency, up
close-- now, over 20 years, both because of my husband,
and also, I worked closely with George W Bush,
after 9/11, because I was a senator from
New York, and we had to rebuild Lower Manhattan. And then, obviously,
working closely and becoming not just a partner, but a
friend, of President Obama. So I am going to take
my time, because I know that, once I decide if I
am going to run, it's nonstop. And the campaigns are
even more demanding than they were four years ago. And so, I mean, I've talked with
people in the Obama campaign, and they, basically,
say, you know, 2012 was so much more
advanced, technologically-- and in terms of voter
outreach-- than 2008. And we don't even know what's
going to be required in 2016. And I'm sure a lot of you--
because of what you work on, invent, and the like--
will be part of that. So I want to be sure that it's
the right decision for me, and that I will not
just-- I say in the book, you shouldn't ask
somebody, in my opinion, whether they're going to run,
or if they think they can win. Those are the easy questions. And most people who run
for president-- no matter what you think-- think they can
win, or they wouldn't do it. [LAUGHTER] But, really, what's
your vision for America, and can you lead us there? And I think that's
going to require-- and it goes to the great
question that was asked over here-- it's going to require
some really careful analysis and agenda-setting. Because you-- in my opinion,
whoever runs-- and, certainly, if I were to run,
I would want to run on as specific an
agenda as possible. Because I don't want
there to be any illusions. You know, we don't have time
for people to just think in very general
terms, because we have to get a consensus, coming
out of this next election, about what we're going to
do, to solve these problems. And, hopefully,
bring some people into the Congress-- on both
sides of the aisle-- who are willing to compromise
and make those tough calls. So I'm thinking
about it, and I hope you'll say hello to
your daughter for me. [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: So, uh,
so, Secretary Clinton-- [APPLAUSE] --we have a way-- we have
a way of asking people, during the audience, what the
most important question is. And when you became
First Lady, your name was determined by the
tradition of "First Lady." HILLARY CLINTON: True. ERIC SCHMIDT: And Googlers want
to know the following question. They want to know the
name of President Clinton, in a scenario where there's
another President Clinton. HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: Googlers
have indicated that there are two choices. HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: The
first one is "Bill." So it would be "Ms.
President and Bill"-- HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: --which would have
a certain gender equality-- you know, "Mr. Clinton
the First Lady." And the second one
is "First Laddie." HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: So we're going
to-- Google does things by consensus and by votes. HILLARY CLINTON: Aha! ERIC SCHMIDT: So we're going
to determine this for you, now. HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, my. ERIC SCHMIDT: So I need a
sign of hands of all-- those are your two choices. She should call him "Bill?" HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: She should
call him "First Laddie?" HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] ERIC SCHMIDT: The
decision is made. We're announcing it
today, Mrs. Clinton. He's going to be
called "First Laddie." Would you like to respond? [LAUGHTER] HILLARY CLINTON: Oh--
oh, my goodness-- ERIC SCHMIDT: If not, [BOTH LAUGH] HILLARY CLINTON:
That's very good, Eric. Oh. I have to say-- um-- ERIC SCHMIDT: "Bill." I would have voted for "Bill." HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah. You know, I-- there
was one choice that I'm more partial
to-- not that-- uh, this is a hypothetical. Um-- ERIC SCHMIDT: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] HILLARY CLINTON: And
that's "First Mate." I kind of like that. ERIC SCHMIDT: "First Mate"? [LAUGHTER] HILLARY CLINTON: "First Mate." ERIC SCHMIDT: "Ms.
Clinton and First Mate"? HILLARY CLINTON: [LAUGH] [LAUGHTER] ERIC SCHMIDT: Come on! We can do better than that! HILLARY CLINTON: (LAUGHING)
Well, we have to see. ERIC SCHMIDT: I think you
can see-- first place, we're going to have
a book signing, after this, in [INAUDIBLE]. I think you can see, in
Secretary Clinton-- Senator Clinton, First Lady
Clinton-- a person of enormous impact on our world. Somebody who has
spent her entire life with this prodigious
mind, trying to serve us. I'm proud to be
your friend, and I admire everything you've done. And I know people in this
audience feel the same way. HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. ERIC SCHMIDT: And
congratulations [INAUDIBLE]. HILLARY CLINTON: Thank
you all, so very much. [APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] ERIC SCHMIDT: Thank
you very much. HILLARY CLINTON:
(LAUGHING) That was great. That was something! ERIC SCHMIDT: "First Mate!" HILLARY CLINTON:
[LAUGH] That was great. Oh-- [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
