Presidents Bush and Clinton at the Presidential Leadership Scholars Graduation

you know I know two people are glad he's not running for president hey that was my line all right hey I thought you oughta know who were glad he didn't run earlier exactly thank you both for being here I thought you're gonna be the highlight of the program but it's it's debatable at this point I don't think anybody could talk Mark Cuban yeah he was great thank you for being here mark we really appreciate President Clinton uh welcome back to the bush Center we're thrilled you're here and just a quick personal privilege it has been a delight to get to work with the your team especially Bruce Lindsey and Valerie Alexander Stephanie Street in my camp ill we love each other we've had a blast working together I think everybody knows that you were the spark plug that made this happen and we're glad to be asked to hell that's not why and it succeeded beyond my dream so thank you very much giving us a chance to do something that I think is of lasting importance well and we all echo obviously Jake sentiments so without further ado it seems like just yesterday that that Josh Bolten was sitting in my place in Washington launching this program together just last September 10 months ago and so here we are graduating this awesome class so let me start by asking the importance of the two of you working together at that particular feature has meant a whole lot to the scholars and you've both had the opportunity to spend some time with the scholars what have you thought of him as you've gotten to know him what's impressed you about him what surprised you about him what do you think of this generation of leaders first of all well you know Mark said something very interesting in that he runs into pessimistic people about the future of the country and I understand that I do too but when you meet these scholars you can't be pessimistic about the future of the country these are really fine people who you know just inspire hope Clinton our getting a little long in the tooth these days this is the one month of the year when he's older than me so speak for yourself I'm a month longer in the tooth yeah I guess did you get larger the tooth and as society moves on there's a tendency to be for some to be pessimistic and my advice is hang out with the scholars President Clinton yeah I think that were the one thing that I found particularly interesting about this group that I liked him when they were admitted but when I read more about their specific projects and when we were preparing to come here is that they're diverse in every way they don't just look different and think different they have different skills they have different things that to think that we have this much talent and this much innovation going into so many different aspects of our national life I'm like you I don't get people who are down on our future I'd rather be America looking ahead what I think the world would look like in 20 or 30 years I like our chances we are younger than every big country but China if they had changer one-child policy we'd have been younger than China in 20 years and if we get a good immigration reform which you tried to do and which I hope we'll get we'll stay young either that or we're going to have to encourage that young woman who works for you that I met today to keep having more babies having lost it I can tell you youth man youth matters but I like our chances and I think everybody who's seen you got it besides all the other advantages it's the people that matter and as long as this is a free country and people are free to debate and free to be creative and as long as when it really matters we can come together and I have to say this that I almost cried when I saw that picture of the South Carolina legislature yesterday with the Republicans and the Democrats and the African Americans and white people embracing each other and making that vote and seeing the decisive speech made by a woman who is a direct descendent of Jefferson Davis don't tell me that we can't get together across the lines that divide we just have to keep working at it yeah so as you know these scholars have had an opportunity to study your decisions through this case study approach as well as those of President HW Bush and LBJ and so take a minute and talk about your decision-making process President Clinton how do you know when it's time to decide this is these are questions our scholars want to know and how do you move on and you know not get totally tied in knots over of your decisions first of all I think knowing when it's time to decide is a big deal you have to know to answer that question what all is going on and what kind of decision you're making that is if you make a mistake is that irrevocable if so then you maybe ought to take a little more time but there are a lot of decisions where a decision it's on a scale of 1 to 100 70% right today is better than a decision that's 100 percent right six months from now when the train has left the station and so that's what I always ask myself or the consequences revocable I'll give you one example when whenever we were getting ready to bomb somebody sometimes my advisors to say you don't do this today you look weak we'll look so weak and I always said can I kill them tomorrow now you're laughing but think about this is that because I can't bring them back to life tomorrow if the answer is yes I can kill them tomorrow then we're not weak so let's debate whether we should do it today on the other hand there are those decisions that you literally will paralyze yourself if you don't just go in and make because waiting for six months you can get 100% right is foolish and I think to make the best decisions you have to have people that know things you don't know it will tell you what you don't want to hear and you are afraid to debate and you just you have to have a sense when the time has come to decide President Bush well I a lot of wisdom there but sometimes the circumstances the circumstance made it really imperative you decide and decide decisively I guess the thing that dominated my administration was an enemy that wanted to kill again and therefore I had to make decisions that protected the homeland I mean it was a that was my goal and some of the decisions that I had to make needed to be made fairly quickly because the enemy that sadly still exists is doesn't really care about whether a president agonizes over a decision or not and anyway I think the most important point for the scholars is Bill said this is to know what you don't know and find people who do know there's some times when you get to be real powerful the tendency to say I must know everything otherwise I wouldn't be so powerful and you don't and it's essential that you know yourself first and find people who are capable of fighting through all the trappings of power and give you their good advice I got a couple here in this room you Josh and people like that I don't think would have served in my administration if they felt their primary job was to make me look good which was an impossible task to begin with and so I Jake talk about you know strategy and principle are really important that everybody in the team knows and that the environment is such that the sycophants aren't allowed in and I don't that make any sense but President Bush hey Joe told me you use some big words use properly yeah mr. president Bush this is the point where I reach in my back pocket to make sure my billfold still there I don't know any big words on Tamaran portrait artists all right hmm President Bush yes okay so the president the scholars read your your father's book about relationships and building relationships I wish is why didn't they read mine they they did they did they did thank you and but it talked about obviously his letter writing and is development of relationships over many years not just when you need something but right you know over time and so talk about what they should learn from your dad and how you all have developed relation with one of the most remarkable relationships that I described in the book called 41 a lot of copies in the store over here was a relationship that bill had with my dad so losing election didn't fun I've lost one you've lost one he lost one to him and yet they ended up having a friendship so you get asked the question how does it happen how did like what people think are bitter enemies in the political arena able to put aside victory and defeat I think in Dad's case that winning and losing election was not the most central thing in his life the most central things in his life turned out to be his faith and his family and therefore if it's it makes it much easier to deal with disappointments on the daily occurrences of life secondly it helped a lot that bill was so gracious in other words there's it's important to be a humble winner and and I find that relationship to be very instructive that's why I spend a fair amount of time in Chapter seven on so one of my favorite stories for those who have heard this and didn't read the first book I wrote was when I introduced Putin to Barney Barney was our Scottish Terrier and he dis ting basically kind of body language said you call that a dog and it really frankly it to the extent it to hurt my feelings I didn't let him know anyway so a year later Putin says you want to meet my dog and I said sure out bounces giant Russian hound and Putin looks at me and says bigger stronger and faster than Barney now you could take umbrage at something like that but the point of the story is I learned a lot about Putin then like I said my dog is bigger than your dog huh it's instructed that that lesson is listen carefully to what others say don't prejudge their sentiments and let him speak and 41 was a great personal diplomat because he listened to the other person a lot President Clinton when the when you were with the scholars in Little Rock you had a great discussion with him and you said that if you don't have respect for your adversary if you don't believe that the other guy is well intended means to do right then you're not going to get very far with them what are some of the ways that you've worked to understand the other guy's point of view the other person's point of view well I I think I said this when we had the opening of the presidential all these folks I can't remember the pawnch anyway my family raised me to believe in a storytelling culture and I couldn't tell one till I could listen to one and reiterate it and one of the most enduring stories of my childhood was my eighth-grade science teacher who was not an attractive man telling me that none of us would ever remember anything we had an eighth grade science so we should remember this he said every day I get up and I start the day in the bathroom throwing water in my face putting shaving cream on shaving then washing my face off and I look in the mirror and say Vernon you're beautiful and he said you just remember this everybody wants to believe they're beautiful if you remember that it'll take you a long way and I have tried to remember that and I remember it's one other quick example the loss of trust is paralyzing this country in this world 20 years ago this fall Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a fellow Israeli because he presided over the first big handover of land in the West Bank to the Palestinians the whole thing was nearly screwed up because one of the maps they were signing said a road belong to Israel that Arafat thought was his I told him go and fix it figure out what the truth was but we were late and the world.press court was waiting so they walked out ravine says he's right that road should be his who's a road to Jericho around a Christian Monument I said well what are we going to do he said Arafat says we're going to go sign the maps I said you realize we signed these maps they belong to Israel as a matter of international law and Arafat for all of his faults and he had a lot of them looked at me he said all ravines word is worth more than any written contract he said yeah I'm going to give him the road tomorrow and he did now you cannot imagine somebody doing that today over there can you I'm telling you if people trust each other everything else is possible and if they don't I don't care how good our argument they make how many people they listen to it's very hard to get anything done so for both of you in Austin the LBJ library did a terrific job of hosting them and they the scholars had the opportunity to learn about communication of course LBJ is well known for his physical presence and his relentless style and so forth and they listened to the tapes of him talking in real time to Martin Luther King and Everett Dirksen and so forth that's he negotiated the Voting Rights Act so talk about your your persuasive style and how you adapt it to a particular situation when the when to push when to cajole and to hold when to hold President Clinton well sometimes first of all you got to know who you're trying to persuade it when I was working with other world leaders I never consciously at least made an argument for what was in America's interest I always told them why what I thought was right for America was in their interest in other words these other people didn't hire on to help you or this country that hired on to help their people and their perception of it so I think whenever you're arguing with someone else at first it proves you listen to them you have to listen very carefully to other people but if you should always make the argument terms of their interest when I was trying to persuade in Congress I tried to figure out if there was anything they wanted that I could in good conscience given and if there was I did it and sometimes we were right at the border of the definition of in good conscience there's a reason mark twain said the two things people should never watch being made her sausage and laws and i think it was a mistake to get rid of these earmarks because it's harder for the president to to argue and I think sometimes Congress knows better than federal employees what's the best way to spend money is in their districts so anyway I think it's different for different conditions but first you've got to be able to listen who it is you're trying to persuade and see if you can respond on the merits or changing the subject present voice I've watched you do this for years yeah and you're real good at it talk about what how you persuade people you tell me why you think I think I think that it is important to earn capital to spend capital in other words I can remember on the tax cut plan I'm trying to get out of the recession that I would go to a state where I had done well politically and well Ben Nelson he was a democrat senator in Nebraska frankly in endangered species and so I went to his state flew him down on Air Force One as I recall and did a tax cut event with him there and trying to get his vote and we got it I think that some Molly point is you can earn capital all kinds of ways in the political process there are some people just not going to vote with you at all and so that it's frankly important not to waste your time on the other hand I do think it's important to create an environment amongst even those who were like less likely to vote for you to of cordiality I mean one of the most unique relationships I had was with Ted Kennedy a lot of it had to do with you and there were some issues we could agree on a lot of issues we didn't agree on I knew when to try to convince him on on what issues that was you got to know you got to know you're the people you're dealing with Republicans were generally easier for me to work with particularly when I was riding high a little more of a challenge after oh six but it turns out that if you're polite kind considerate to people they're a lot more likely to listen to you give an example of that on the international stage that's sort of persuasive and when we're watching the debate the the negotiations on the on the deal right now but talk about use of that persuasive style in an international setting well by the time the issues get up to the president there's been a lot of persuasiveness going on that's what you have a Secretary of State for International Security Council for and generally the issues are pretty cooked by the time you get there and always well just a lesson and I know Cuba noses never negotiate principle to adviser unless you're the one providing the adviser there was you you always want somebody playing their hand and the person has to go back and say well I got to make sure Bush okay's it and I never got myself in a position where they ate the person said well I've got to get back to my principle so go always go principal to principal if you're negotiating never go you're the principal do it with an on principle number five confuse that or not understand it yeah and the need to understand yeah yeah and so uh I'm kind of avoiding your question okay I'm gonna leave on that if you if you'd like it to so I got to know these look I spent 20 I had 26 meetings with Putin one-on-one more or less I think and I'm executive no Kelly and every one of them started with how's your family so Lauren I went to his house met his little girls and there's you know a dad loves to talk about his kids and his daughters and so I started off how's your daughter's doing no matter how difficult the subject would be the whole purpose was to try to create you know a human bridge connection and then we get to the issues at hand so one of our scholars observes that obviously you all have an authentic friendship you spend time together and really enjoy it and I know you know some of the folks that are running for president and so the question is what are your thoughts on on the way that that they the candidates can elevate the discourse so that it's foundational for governing and then tell a few stories from the campaign trail you've been on it for many years both of you present but you want to start well you know I think the discourse generally is lowered by surrogates and the Internet is a brutal place these days for political figures because there's a high degree of anonymity there's no personal responsibility whatsoever people say whatever they want to say and it kind of becomes currency I suspect I know Jeb and I'm confident Secretary Hillary will you know elevate the discourse I can't attest to their surrogates I'm going to test to this surrogate I'm not gonna be a surrogate but it's uh but you know look I really I think American people expect to be you know some sharp elbows in a campaign I think what really discourages them post campaign that the inability to govern in a way that is you know it's congenial and and hopefully that'll change your tends to go in cycles by the way yeah President Clinton then we'll get to some funny I may be naive they say you get naive when you get long in the tooth but hey you know I think they ought to have these debates both in the Republican primary and the Democratic primary and I think that that I expected to be very vigorous in the primaries and then whoever wins the two primaries will have a hard debate but they need to keep in mind that what we are trying to do is to take the advantages America has and as Mark Cuban said we talked about it we're well positioned but we haven't proved yet that we can solve the problem that's the deviling the world that is that we can create so many jobs that we have a large percentage of our workforce in and we can have shared prosperity and we ought to show respect for the debate by trying to be as specific and clear as we can about the policy choices before us and we can trust the American people and in oval the process just by saying look it's not that simple if it were simple we'd already done it but these are the five things we think are most important and this is what I would do about them I think the more we can keep it on that and the less we can just do what I see in so much in the media today is this sort of culture of anger and resentment we got to reside you know kind of rise above anger to answers it resides above resentment to a real response because if you get this job I can tell you the next a it doesn't matter what was wrong with your opponent in the election next day you're on your own you walk in there and you don't have somebody to make you sitting behind the Oval Office desk with you whichever 2sq picked you got to show up for work and make decisions so that's all i hope i hope we clarify for the american people that this is a big bunch of choices they're not simple but we are we can do it look the quality of these young people proves it and the inherent assets and the system of freedom and choice we have proves it but we got a lot of tough decisions to make that's all I really care about besides I know who I'd like to win but the more important thing for America is that we know what the heck we're deciding on and we make a pretty good decision so this is the we're about to graduate these these scholars what advice do you have for them as they return to their communities and you know obviously you heard Jake's call to action what's your advice for him don't watch a lot of TV read like Mark Cuban yeah actually act you know do things and don't be afraid of failure I'm not worried about this ground presently I agree with that you know the other thing I'd say is if it whatever it is doesn't work out get up I lost two elections I was a youngest former governor in American history after the Reagan landslide I had one guy appointed to the cabinet walk across Main Street in Laurel Rock to avoid being seen shaking hands with me for fear that the guy that beat me would fire him that was a humbling experience and I think you got to realize there's no personal ambition you have which can be extinguished by anybody else only you by giving up your dreams can extinguish them and if it doesn't work out exactly like you intended it'll still take you someplace interesting and you'll make a difference so my advice is what George said don't be afraid to fail but you probably will what are you afraid to or not and it's scary you just got to get up the world belongs to tomorrow not yesterday don't give anybody else permission to take your life away just keep living and keep giving and never make the perfect enemy - good never think that what I'm doing is too little to make a difference that's not true that's not true do something every day someday for all of us it'll be our last day and what will matter with all the steps we took along the way and what they amounted to not the home run we hit on day X I wish you well presently that's it doing I was stuck on that someday maybe your last day line that was pretty damn for so this is maybe a set good setup for this question or our scholars have said that they were surprised by both of you that you are not what they expected because they thought you know what they read what everybody thought I couldn't read the other one thought I could so how do you react to that with respect to the the filter of the media and and how to you know how what that means for them is they try to present their you know true selves and have people understand who they are understand know their heart and so forth you know I don't know I mean I think we're both pretty confident people and if people don't get us what we're all about then you know you just got to keep moving on I mean there's a I try not to worry about it I can't tell you the number of people who've told me that meet me say you're a lot taller than I thought you were I'm not sure that's exactly one thing like five and eleven five eleven says 18 I don't know I mean images image and you just got a got to be confident what you believe and if you have a set of beliefs that you're willing to defend image doesn't matter and yeah you get people say things about you all the time but if that's if that's a criteria for success for you then going to the fetal I would also say you know and if you were you cover political news you have to realize that it's sort of in the nature of things conflict is better news than Concord even though cooperation works better than in conflict if that's all you put on evening news at night you go broke so the nature of evening news will be to make people into two-dimensional cartoons instead of three-dimensional people it's just the nature of the beast and I think so you just need to always keep your little caution light burning in the back your head on that I also think the nature is like if let's suppose we were in a campaign against each other he wouldn't have his narrative and I would have mine and we would try to convince you each of us that our narrative was better than the others that's okay but the people covering the campaign they develop a narrative to a storyline and when it's almost impossible for the real story to be the same as a storyline and it's very hard for the American people to be well informed if the storyline swamped the real story so you just have to keep all that in mind as you try to be good citizens and still show up most important thing is showing up so we want some people to show up for the second class of scholars and we're launching the recruitment today and they people can apply those who are watching live stream at presidential leadership scholars org so for those who are pondering application to this awesome program what advice do you have for those seeking a spot and how to email those that have just gone through it and see whether it see whether it's worth your time I mean there's no better testimony to what's happened and people getting ready to walk across this stage and my advice is I'm sure they'll be more than willing to share their stories with you or go to our web sites don't you think it's a good idea I think that's an excellent idea President Bush President Clinton what do you think what would advice would you have or how should we yes it running out of it no how should people distinguish I thought you're going to have more stories we're at the bottom of the barrel okay why don't just get to graduation okay well but but first I have to ask you about being a grandparent and you're about to have a second grandchild yeah is that right when we did this first time when we started this program he said to me that when you become a grandfather you fall in love all over again and that's what happened we got Hilary and I have our granddaughter for three days and I came down here and left her I'd like to kill me today but Hilary was ecstatic and she wasn't a candidate for anything she was grandmother of the year and last night my granddaughter nine and a half months old for the first time when I walked her room she said oh there's your granddad and she turned around and pointed at me that was worth more than anything anybody had said or done for me or paid to me or anything else and I don't know a month of Sundays everything you said about it is true yeah laughs also last night my granddaughter spoke to me in Mandarin I can't think that's the that's the end of the program I think everybody please join me in thanking the two grandfathers

Channel: TheBushCenter

Views: 308,526

Keywords: Bill Clinton, george w. bush, george w. bush presidential center, george w. bush institute, clinton foundation, presidential leadership scholars

Id: UqTAkYt82xc

Length: 35min 39sec (2139 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2015