Bridget Mulcahy/POLITICO off message Transcript: POLITICO's Glenn Thrush interviews Hillary Clinton

GLENN THRUSH: So, Secretary Clinton, the last time I sat down with you I was working for Newsday. It had to be 8 or 9 years ago. That was a long time ago. I'd like to catch up. Has anything happened in your life?

SEC. CLINTON: You know, Glenn, I've just been kind of hanging around.


GLENN THRUSH: [Laughs]

SEC. CLINTON: You know, it's been an interesting couple of years, but it's all kind of running together now.

GLENN THRUSH: It does, doesn't it?

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah, it does.

GLENN THRUSH: It has a tendency to do that.

SEC. CLINTON: It does. So, you know, I'm just hoping to have some new experiences in my life these days.

GLENN THRUSH: Well, I think you're about to have one now.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs]

GLENN THRUSH: The one thing I will tell you I remember very distinctly about 2007 and 2008 was your airplane--were the airplane trips I took with you. I was not a happy flier, and nothing ever seemed to bother you. I mean, we were in some really hairy situations and you would sleep your way through it.

SEC. CLINTON: Right. That is the answer to everything. When you're facing a difficult issue that you absolutely can do nothing about--in this case--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --I can't fly the plane; I can't change the weather--falling asleep, you'll either wake up and things will be fine or you won't.

[Laughter.]

GLENN THRUSH: Well, I didn't expect you to get existential this quickly.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, but fly on an airplane, the whole thing makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you?

GLENN THRUSH: No. Not at all.

SEC. CLINTON: I mean, how it works, how the whole, you know, science of it, you know, aerodynamics, you know, actually manages to keep us afloat. I'm constantly amazed.

GLENN THRUSH: Were you ever nervous on a flight?

SEC. CLINTON: I wasn't by the time you and I were flying around together. Early on, back in Arkansas, we would fly on anything.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I flew on crop dusters. I flew on planes that were so small they were just two-seaters and you felt like you were--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --putting on a pair of pants. So I've been on planes where doors have flown off. I've been on--

GLENN THRUSH: Is that true?

SEC. CLINTON: --planes where you land in a field. I've had some adventures some decades ago that I think set me up for just knowing that, once I put myself on the plane, I was just going to have to take a deep breath and hopefully enjoy it.

GLENN THRUSH: But, really, but you're not joking. That is a philosophy about--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --just sort of putting that out of your mind and going--

SEC. CLINTON: I find that very true for a lot of life--I really do--because--well, I'll give you just an example--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah. Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --that just happened right now. I was thanking the band. I was taking a picture of the high school band--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --that played with us, and I was shaking their hands, and there was one young man whose head was just down. He looked so depressed, and I thought, "Wow, you know, I guess he doesn't want to shake my hand." Then he kind of lifted his head, and his teacher was standing there, and the teacher said, "Don't worry about it. It wasn't that big a mistake." And I could tell this kid was devastated.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I'm sure it was a mistake that nobody other than the music teacher or maybe some of the other kids would have noticed. So I looked at him and I said, "Don't worry about things, that you can do better next time. Don't worry about stuff you can't control," because it's been my observation that so many people worry about things that they are either ruminating over the past--

GLENN THRUSH: Mm-hmm.

SEC. CLINTON: --which doesn't help you get the focus and energy you need to get up every day and go forward, or they're worrying about stuff that they have absolutely no control over. So I have developed that kind of philosophy in my life over years.

GLENN THRUSH: Well, you were talking about making mistakes, and one of the things I remember about reading Living History when it first came out was how candid you were about the 2000 race right here--

SEC. CLINTON: Yes.

GLENN THRUSH: --how concerned you were, how worried you were--

SEC. CLINTON: Right. Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --when you had your famous, whatever, 5-hour dissertation from Professor Harold Ickes on how difficult New York was going to be. What have you--obviously there's been a lot of road since then, a couple of campaigns, a couple of memorable campaigns. Are you a better candidate now? What if--if you were to boil it down to one or two lessons that you've learned since '00, what would those have been?

SEC. CLINTON: I hope I'm a better candidate. I feel like I am. I mean, I have said, in this campaign, "Look, I'm not a natural politician."

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I'm not somebody who, like my husband or Barack Obama, just--it's music, right?

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I am someone who loves doing the job that I have. I would love having the job of president because I know how to do it. I know what the country needs. But the campaigning part is hard for me. I think I've gotten better--

GLENN THRUSH: Break that down for me a little bit. What about it--

GLENN THRUSH: --what about it do you find a little less natural and fun--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --than other campaigns?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, you know, and some of this may be personal to me--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --and some of it, from all the literature I've read, may be gender-linked.

GLENN THRUSH: Oh, really?

SEC. CLINTON: Yes. So, for example, when I did my announcement with Daniel Patrick Moynihan on his farm--

GLENN THRUSH: Pindars Corners.

SEC. CLINTON: --right?--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --it was incredibly hard for me to say the pronoun "I" instead of "we."

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I had been a strong supporter not just of my husband but other people who I tried to get elected, tried to help in any way I could. I'm very comfortable saying, you know, "he," "she," "we." But when I had to stand up in front of people and basically say, "I'm asking for your vote,"--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --"I'm telling you what I want to do," that took years [laughs].

GLENN THRUSH: Really?

SEC. CLINTON: It absolutely took years. And it was funny because a lot of people picked up on it, mostly my friends and supporters who would say, "You know, you're not campaigning for somebody else. You're actually campaigning for yourself."

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And I had to really work at that. And, even today, I have to remind myself, you know, I'm asking people to vote for me.

GLENN THRUSH: Is that a disadvantage, to some extent?

SEC. CLINTON: Well--

GLENN THRUSH: I mean, the fact that you have got to sort of kind of retrofit your inclination to this profession?

SEC. CLINTON: I don't think so, Glenn. I think it's like learning any new skill. You know, when I was younger, and I was a lawyer and I was learning how to litigate, some of the skills I learned were totally new and took some adjusting to, to feel comfortable with. When I worked on the variety of projects, everything from reforming education in Arkansas to serving on a Legal Services Corporation to--into the years in the White House, there were always new challenges, and I love a challenge, so getting up for it, doing it.

But I was much more comfortable advocating on improving education, advocating for people to get a lawyer.

GLENN THRUSH: And the other thing of--you know, I've interviewed many, many people about your campaigns over the years, probably some people you would have preferred me not talking to.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs]

GLENN THRUSH: But what they've always said, almost uniformly, is put you in a smaller group--and it's been my experience with you, having covered you throughout the years--put you in a smaller group, one on one, several people, that is where you are most comfortable.

When you see someone like Senator Sanders talking to 18,500 people, is that a skill set, these larger crowds, that you wish you would possess? I mean, when you sort of see that, what are you looking at? Is that just something you realize that just isn't as much in your toolkit and you can only focus on the stuff that you're better at?

SEC. CLINTON: No. No. I don't think about it that way at all. You know, I started this campaign the same way I started the 2000 campaign--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --with literally a listening tour, and it has served me really well, because I have been able to hear what's on people's minds, hear about the challenges, and I've talked about this. There were things that I hadn't really thought about, like the opiate crisis--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --that it's only through being in those small groups.

I think that being in politics, being in leadership should be as much about listening as talking. That's how I think you can get the information and sort of pick up the nuance that will enable you to do the best possible job. So, not only am I comfortable with it, I think it really adds value to not only the campaign but how I envision the job I want to get.

GLENN THRUSH: Not a lot of that going on in this campaign, the listening thing, right? I mean, there seems to be a very--this seems to be a campaign about simplifying message. I mean, to me that's also an observation I made when I saw you out in Iowa, and I wrote about it, that you give the most complex speeches.

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm. I do.

GLENN THRUSH: You give a lot of information--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --in those speeches.

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: Your opponent and your potential opponent are people who do not give--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --an enormous amount of granular detail.

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: Have you ever thought about just simplifying it, or do you think this is the path that is an important one to take?

SEC. CLINTON: It's the path that I prefer.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And it's the path that I think leads to a better outcome. So, example, earlier today, here in Syracuse, we had a roundtable discussion about my plan to improve manufacturing by investing and creating more incentives to bring jobs back, reshore jobs, create jobs here. And we were talking to about a half-a-dozen people who I had helped with their businesses when I was a senator, because, you see, I really believe part of what this campaign has to do is rebuild people's faith in our national mission.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: How do we get the economy to work? How do we get the government to work? How do we get our political system to work? And I feel strongly that I owe people a clear set of ideas, and I want to lay those out.

And I know that sometimes I get criticized for, "Oh, my gosh, there she goes with another plan,"--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --you know, "forget the plan, just, you know, do the rhetorical flourish." I really believe that when this is all over--and I will have won, hopefully--in large measure it will be because I came out and told people, "Here's what I want to do, here's how I think I can do it, here are the results I believe I can get, and I want you to hold me accountable for it."

I think that's what politics should be about, so I'm very comfortable doing that.

GLENN THRUSH: So in terms of the--one of the things I think is interesting is your relationship with the press over the years. I've written a bit about it with my former colleague, Maggie Haberman. You have had--I think you've been, again, pretty candid about your apprehension. You did not have a particularly gentle time at the hands of the national press.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughing]

GLENN THRUSH: One of the funniest things in Living History, and it's a joke--I'd like to repeat it--when you were saying--you say in there that my very good friend Howard Wolfson was hired to help you to learn how to relax.

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah. [Laughs] I'm glad you caught the irony.

GLENN THRUSH: That's right. Who are you going to hire to teach him?

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] That's exactly right.

GLENN THRUSH: You have been--I mean, you've talked to a lot of local press.

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: You have not spent an awful lot of time--and I should say, present company, thankfully, excluded at the moment--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: --you haven't spent a ton of time talking to the national press or even sort of your traveling press. Is that going to change over time? Is there a strategy behind it? Talk to me a little bit about that.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, actually, I think that if you looked at all the national interviews we've done, for example, predominantly TV, but also radio, also online, we've done more than maybe is apparent, and I do think I have to keep doing more. And we do talk and have, obviously, tried to pay attention and support the traveling press as well. But I pay a lot of attention to local press, because what I find, in talking to local press, not only do I lots of times learn something, but there is an openness with the local press where, once you get to a national press position, like yours and the others that are traveling with me, you're really under, in my impression, a kind of pressure to produce a political story.

GLENN THRUSH: A headline.

SEC. CLINTON: That's your job. A headline. Right? I totally get it. But what I get when I talk to the local press--and I've done countless local--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --TV interviews, print interviews is that they will actually say, "Well, you know, this is a problem that we're having. What do you think about it?" So there's actually a conversation that goes on, and I find that, you know, very helpful, because, especially in, you know, the early states and some of the states that we've already competed in, it was useful to pick up sort of a cue from somebody in the local press.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And so it's mutually kind of beneficial.

GLENN THRUSH: And it also helps in terms of, like, when you're ramping up and stuff, having fewer opportunities to make mistakes and have them amplified. I mean, it's not a terrible strategy.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I think there's that, but there's also, if you look at coverage, you know, the number of viewers in an area of a state who watch the nightly news still, I bet if you were to divide it up--I haven't done this exercise--

GLENN THRUSH: Yes.

SEC. CLINTON: --but just hypothetically--if you were to divide it up, there's a higher per capita percentage watching than there is if you took the whole country, on, like, national interviews.

GLENN THRUSH: Interesting. Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: So you really get feedback almost immediately from people who are watching. So I think it's a useful way to communicate.

GLENN THRUSH: Well, I had a really interesting interview a couple of weeks ago with Jill Abramson, the former editor of The New York Times.

SEC. CLINTON: Yes. Right.

GLENN THRUSH: Did you--I hope you had a chance to--

SEC. CLINTON: I did. I read it, and I also just read her piece in The Guardian.

GLENN THRUSH: It was interesting. What did you think of it? She--in it--I should say, in it she says--and her words, not mine--that people who say that you have a trustworthiness or lying issue are, in fact, mistaking it, that it has to do with being sort of guarded. That is her kind of general piece.

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah. Well, I really appreciated it, and she actually pointed to PolitiFact, which has analyzed all of the candidates, and those of us remaining in this race on both sides, and, you know, by--you know, by a long shot I am--you know, I've been more straightforward, you know, more likely to try to explain things in a, you know, open and truthful way than my opponent, Senator Sanders, or any of the Republicans. So, you know, that is a--I think she referenced that in her second article--that's not an opinion. That is the way they add it all up and analyze it.

Look, I do think that I am somebody who is perhaps more private, more--not for bad reasons. It's just my personality. It's just my temperament.

GLENN THRUSH: Well, you said--I think one of the things that people talk about, I think it was either in '91 or '92, the famous interview that people remember about the baking cookies.

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: To me, I think the most interesting thing you said at that point was the zone-of-privacy comment--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: Right?

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: And that really is--is that an ethos you still have or has that changed over time?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I think I've understood that I have to do a better job of communicating with the press, understanding their imperatives, because clearly you guys have a job to do and I think the job has gotten--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --harder in the last--in the 25 years I've been involved in national politics. There certainly is a lot more competition coming from many different directions. But I have a hard time squaring the following: You know, a lot of the people in history who I really admire lived before the hyperinformation age we're living in.

GLENN THRUSH: Right. Right.

SEC. CLINTON: Even if they were governing or solving problems in consequential periods, like the Civil War--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --or the world wars or the Great Depression or the Cold War, they had a period of time and space to actually think, to be private--

GLENN THRUSH: Interesting.

SEC. CLINTON: --and you read their biographies, their autobiographies, you know, they had time to think about what was happening and how to respond. I don't think human nature has changed in the last 50--150 years, but the stresses, the demands on those of us in public life have just exploded.

GLENN THRUSH: How do you put that genie back--well, the one thing I would point out is Lincoln did throw a couple of reporters in jail.

[Laughter.]

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah, let's not romanticize the past.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah, yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: I agree.

GLENN THRUSH: But, I mean, is there any way to put that genie back in the bottle?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, the only way I know to do is to try to have some space and time of my own to actually consider and think and not be, you know, reactive all the time, because a lot of the problems--and I think President Obama does this.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I mean, your interview with him was, I thought, excellent. And, in addition to talking about all the issues and saying the nice things he said about me, which I deeply appreciate--

GLENN THRUSH: [Laughing]

SEC. CLINTON: --you got the feeling that, look, he's a thoughtful man, he's highly intelligent. He wants to get it right by however he--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --defines getting it right, and so he knows he's got to have the time and space to think, to read, to consult, and that's really what I see as well.

GLENN THRUSH: How do you do that? How do you--obviously you do a lot of traveling and that's helpful.

SEC. CLINTON: Yeah, we do a lot of traveling.

GLENN THRUSH: But how do you sort of, like--do you ever get sensory overload from reading stuff? Do you ever shut things down?

SEC. CLINTON: Sure, and then you do something entirely different--take a walk, play with the dogs, go see my granddaughter, you know, sit in front of the TV and zone out. I mean, yeah, you've got to do all of that.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And I think that--you got to--that's just for mental health--right?--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --you know, to have that time and space.

But to get back to your question about how you sort of create the relationship with the press, which is so critical--you have a job to do, I respect the job--but sometimes I haven't thought through what I want to say.

GLENN THRUSH: That's interesting.

SEC. CLINTON: I haven't thought through, or I haven't--I've asked for information from, you know, three or four different sources. I haven't had time to digest it. I can't answer the question to my satisfaction--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --but I know you guys are on deadline, you've got to write something--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --you've got to broadcast something. So I do think there's an inherent tension here. And--

GLENN THRUSH: And do you think that's why sometimes you get--is that when you make mistakes, do you think that's what we're dealing with some of the time?

SEC. CLINTON: I think some of the time, yeah. I think that's true for all of us who are, like, in this pinball machine right now, you know, it--

GLENN THRUSH: It is, and it is a pinball machine.

SEC. CLINTON: It is. It is, yeah.

GLENN THRUSH: Let's talk a little bit about 2000. Obviously you dealt with the press in a different way in 2000. One of the things that--you know, I was talking to some people who worked for you in 2000, in preparation for this interview, and, you know, really, when you started out here it was all about Rudy Giuliani.

SEC. CLINTON: Right, it was.

GLENN THRUSH: Tell me a little bit about how--what that was like, preparing for him, a little asymmetrical, and does he remind you of anyone else who might be seeking the presidency this year?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, let me say--

GLENN THRUSH: [Chuckling]

SEC. CLINTON: --that I was, as you know, recruited to run in New York because he was the candidate.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And so I knew what I was getting myself in, although I had refused to commit to doing it because I didn't think I would.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: But I was worn down by my friends and emissaries from New York. So I knew I was walking right into the buzz saw. I knew that he took no prisoners, that he was a tough competitor and was going to come right at me. And I watched it. You know, I got into the race in July. He'd been in it already--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --for a period of months, and I watched how he was conducting himself and presenting his kind of political persona.

GLENN THRUSH: What did you think that was?

SEC. CLINTON: A tough, you know, can-do guy, you know, takes nothing from anybody.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: Stands up to people.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: Pushes through what he believes is right.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: The typical--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --kinds of descriptors that I think Mayor Giuliani has received over the years. And, look, there's a lot of attributes to somebody who is decisive, who is, you know, tough-minded, who tries to, you know, get people to do what needs to be done. I respect that.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: But he would go into being--from being a tough decision-maker into really being a bully.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: And I remember back--I think it was in December of '99--he'd been, you know, coming at me and, you know, pushing me, and I think I said something like, "You know, I'm just not going to respond to his tantrums."

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And I felt like that was the best way to deal with an opponent who would try to drag you onto his turf--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --and then use every advantage he had to, you know, really--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --knock you down. There certainly are similarities, if I'm the Democratic nominee and Trump is the Republican nominee.

GLENN THRUSH: Did that mind-set with Rudy--and, clearly, you know, from people I've interviewed over time and people who talk to you now, this is not a pleasant thing for you to have to deal with. This is not your inclination to want to be put in this position, right?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, because I don't think it's good for our political system, our democracy, or our future, just a couple of things that I care a lot about. No, because--

GLENN THRUSH: But it's also personally, like, I wouldn't want to be in that position.

SEC. CLINTON: But I have obviously thought about this.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: I don't think that, you know, Ted Cruz is any better. I think he--

GLENN THRUSH: Really?

SEC. CLINTON: Oh, I think he is a very, you know, mean-spirited guy. You can see it from how the Republican Party responds to him. It's, you know, a difficult dilemma that they're in, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, some of the things he did, even in his primaries, to fellow candidates--

GLENN THRUSH: You think they will cross the lines on some of these things.

SEC. CLINTON: Well, look, I think that--certainly I wasn't the--you know, the object of it, but--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --the people who were were quite agitated about it. And I don't think that's good for a presidential campaign. We can have differences. Look, I'm well-aware that it's a contact sport.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I understand that. But when it gets right down to it, you've got to offer Americans your credentials, because it's a huge interviewing and hiring process--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --and people have to decide, "What do I know about this person? Is this the person I want in the Oval Office? Is this the person I want to be both President and Commander-in-Chief?" And that requires a level of dialog and debate that is civil, that does have a purpose to it other than just, you know, making a point.

So I feel very comfortable. You know, whoever I run against, if I am the nominee, I feel very comfortable about it.

GLENN THRUSH: Now you knew Trump personally in a different time. Is he different than the person that you encountered? I mean, is this a different kind of a guy? Do you think this process has changed him?

SEC. CLINTON: You know, Glenn, I didn't know him that well.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: But I was around him--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --like a lot of people in New York have been. He was always a--he was always somebody who, oh, liked attention, liked to express his opinion. But I was shocked when he came out the very first day and called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. That just shocked me. I was thinking to myself, "Where did that come from?"

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And then what he has said about other people in the months since have been equally out of nowhere, based on my experience.

GLENN THRUSH: So it is dissonant from the kind of guy that you knew. He was kind of--so he was a little--I interviewed Al Sharpton about this, and Sharpton has known him forever.

SEC. CLINTON: Yes.

GLENN THRUSH: And Sharpton said he was kind of lovable. He doesn't think he's, deep in his heart, a bigot. I mean, as you know this process can change people--it's an incredibly grueling process--and also you start hearing the sound of the crowd, right?

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: Do think he's succumbed to that a little bit? Do you think this is--

SEC. CLINTON: I couldn't say because I didn't know him that well--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --and I would have to let others speak to it, but I believe that what he is saying now is very destructive. It's not only offensive, it's dangerous. I believe it has repercussions for our relations with other countries, how we are viewed, because I learned, in depth, what I had suspected when I was secretary of state. The way that other nations, both people and leaders, follow our presidential election is intense. And so we think of a throw-away comment; they think it's a change in direction.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And what we've been seeing, in terms of response from the European countries, from the Middle East, from Muslim countries--

GLENN THRUSH: But isn't it also because he's more of a European character? I remember in '99--correct me if I'm wrong--you compared Giuliani to Haider, the Austrian far right leader, at one point in time, in terms of sort of the xenophobia stuff. Who would you kind of compare Trump to?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I think it's fair to say there is a demagogic path that Europeans, South Americans, Asians have pursued, and we know where that leads. It uses xenophobia, it uses paranoia, it uses prejudice, it uses nationalism to really stir people up and to, you know, begin an us-versus-them contrast, which is dangerous--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --and is not something we've had in our politics-

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --at a presidential level. We've had a few, you know, local and state leaders over the years who have tried to do that. But when you come to the people running for President, there's been a sense of both decorum and decency and dialog that I think has served us well, and I hate to see us--

GLENN THRUSH: This is outside the American norm--

GLENN THRUSH: --is what you're saying.

SEC. CLINTON: I feel like it is.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: It appears to me like it is.

GLENN THRUSH: A couple of other things. One of the really important moments in your political career, and I think maybe one of the first really big moments you had, was at that debate in September of 2000 with Rick Lazio--

SEC. CLINTON: Yes.

GLENN THRUSH: --right?

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --I just watched a Jon Stewart clip. It's funny. There was a Jon Stewart clip on, and I interviewed a lot of people who had worked with you at the time. They saw it--I think Mandy Grunwald was different and I think Ann Lewis was different. But a lot of the men who watched that viewed that as, like, maybe Rick Lazio won that debate--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: --but a lot of the women who watched it, and the focus groups later showed this-

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --thought that that was a significant invasion of space.

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: When you were in that moment--I'm just fascinated by this--did you realize--were your instincts, as a candidate, finely tuned enough to realize that this was the moment?

SEC. CLINTON: I knew it was the moment, but I wasn't quite sure how the moment would be perceived.

GLENN THRUSH: Really?

SEC. CLINTON: Yes. Because I found it offensive and off-putting, but I often am surprised by how viewers of--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --any television show, not just debates, perceive things differently than I sometimes do.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And your description is right. I got out of that debate, and I do think that most of the men thought it was a real moment, where Lazio, you know, kind of overwhelmed me, and made me look like I was on the defense.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And I know Mandy and Ann Lewis, you know, were of a different opinion. I knew that Mandy and Ann Lewis were right the next day, because when I went to my events for the next day, all the women who I encountered were saying, "I couldn't believe he did that," "I found that horrible." They were just really worked up about what he had done.

GLENN THRUSH: What was going through your mind when he crossed--because it's--look, it's an interesting kind of dynamic in terms of gender. You're clearly a strong person who can defend herself in almost any environment, I think; even your detractors would agree to that, and yet here he is doing something which is--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: So, in terms of, like, the feminism of that moment--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --it was an interesting moment--right?--in terms of the dynamic. What was going through your head? Like, "Get the hell over on your side of the stage, or, like, what are you doing over here?"

SEC. CLINTON: No. I was watching him do it, and I did have the feeling that it had been rehearsed--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --that it was something that was supposed to be "the big moment," and I was more thinking that it would look artificial, it would look--

GLENN THRUSH: Oh, interesting.

SEC. CLINTON: --kind of phony, and I didn't want to, in any way, interfere with a moment that I hoped would reflect badly on him.

GLENN THRUSH: Oh, that's interesting.

SEC. CLINTON: Right? Yeah.

GLENN THRUSH: So it's like President Obama with Raul Castro's handshake, right?

SEC. CLINTON: Yes. Yes, a good analogy.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: Exactly.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And so that's what I thought.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And so when I got off, I thought, okay, it was a moment, but I thought, you know, he had to have looked kind of phony, right?

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: And then, you know, people were telling me, "Oh, my gosh, he looked strong," and all that, and I was waiting to see what the verdict was--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --and the verdict was, you know, first and foremost, that he looked aggressive--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --excessively aggressive, and that it did look kind of staged, and that I was responding appropriately by not, you know, acting back in kind, but, you know, just being calm and letting him--

GLENN THRUSH: Do what he's going to do.

SEC. CLINTON: --let him do what he was going to do, let him finish his performance and then we'll see where we went from there.

GLENN THRUSH: So is this a preview of the way you would deal with--because compared to Trump, he is a lemur compared to a gorilla, right?

[Laughter.]

GLENN THRUSH: Compared--is that generally in the way--because, look, this is--I wouldn't want to have to face Trump on a debate stage. In terms of the way you're going to deal with that--I mean, obviously we have a primary still to be gotten through--

SEC. CLINTON: Yes, we do, and I'm not looking beyond them.

GLENN THRUSH: I know, but it's got to be in the back of your mind. Is that sort of the way to deal with this guy or do you have to hit him just as hard?

SEC. CLINTON: You know, Glenn, obviously we will have to see what happens--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --assuming I get the nomination, assuming he gets the nomination.

GLENN THRUSH: Which is a big if.

SEC. CLINTON: But I actually think that the Republicans who are left, they all agree with each other on issues.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: They have all, you know, taken stands that I vehemently disagree with. I want to keep it on the issues. I want to keep it on the contrasts that exist between me and any one of the Republicans, and that's my preference.

GLENN THRUSH: In terms of--obviously, Trump made some comments recently, the last couple of days, about abortions--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: --and penalizing abortions. You've spoken a lot about--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: --on the trail. But I want to pivot a little bit to this race, to your current opponent. You were pretty hard on Senator Sanders, in terms of his response, where he called it--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: I believe the term was "a distraction."

SEC. CLINTON: That's right.

GLENN THRUSH: Amplify for me why you think it is a good deal more than a distraction and what do you think it says about Senator Sanders that he would describe it that way?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, first let me say I thought what Trump said was really telling, because he kind of broke the fourth wall for the Republicans. They are doing everything they can to make abortion, if not illegal, inaccessible, unaffordable; and, as they close Planned Parenthood clinics, as they keep imposing all kinds of restrictions, as they hold up a nominee to the Supreme Court because their ultimate goal is to, you know, have the Supreme Court dramatically erode Roe v. Wade , what Trump said was deeply offensive, but I keep reminding people, not so far off from what they all believe. You know--

GLENN THRUSH: Your point about Cruz and--

SEC. CLINTON: My point about Cruz.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: My point about Kasich.

GLENN THRUSH: Kasich is not--

SEC. CLINTON: Absolutely. So let's not just focus on Trump. We need to focus on Trump as the tribune, if you will, of the most extreme statements about limiting abortion, criminalizing it, punishing women and doctors. But the--he pulled the cover off of--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --the Republicans' efforts to kind of dampen that down during an election.

GLENN THRUSH: But you don't think this is a side show compared to income inequality.

SEC. CLINTON: Absolutely not.

GLENN THRUSH: And--

SEC. CLINTON: I don't think any--I don't think any right that we have is less important than any other issue. You know, I have said repeatedly, "I am going to attack income inequality and I think I have a pretty good plan to do so. I don't just tell you what I'm against. I tell you what I'm for and how I would do it." But there are other forms of inequality. There is desperate education inequality in America, and I think every kid deserves a good teacher and a good school regardless of the ZIP code that he or she lives in.

GLENN THRUSH: And racial inequality, as you made very clear in the other--

SEC. CLINTON: Racial inequality, sexual orientation inequality, gender inequality.

So when somebody says, "Yeah, yeah, it's important, but let's talk about the really important issues. Don't let us get distracted from hearing the same thing we've heard now, over and over again"--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --"about income inequality," that bothers me, and I did speak out about it, and, you know, it is one of the reasons why Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL endorsed me, because I didn't just vote the right way when the time came to raise your hand.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I've been a leader in protecting women's rights to make our own decisions.

GLENN THRUSH: Now, you've been getting pretty--you got pretty agitated yesterday on the rope line, and you've been trying, I think--it's a good campaign playbook not to say your opponent's name as much--

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: --and on the rope line yesterday you said his campaign by name, and you said it a couple of times today. It seems like you're getting, from my perspective, in the back of the hall, from the cheap seats, that you're getting a little agitated by kind of the tone of this campaign.

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: Do you think things are getting a little bit too chippy on his side?

SEC. CLINTON: "Chippy" is a great word. I haven't heard that word--

GLENN THRUSH: Hockey.

SEC. CLINTON: --in a long time.

GLENN THRUSH: [Laughs]

SEC. CLINTON: I think they're getting more negative.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: I think that there is a persistent, organized effort to misrepresent my record, and I don't appreciate that, and I feel sorry for a lot of the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations.

Take climate change, which is what was raised yesterday. You know, I was a leader on it in the Senate, when I was there. I worked hard to make a difference when I was secretary of state, starting in 2009, with President Obama. I helped to lay the groundwork for the Paris Agreement, which was hard to get, which is so critical. I thought it was a singular accomplishment by President Obama. Bernie Sanders, you know, criticized it and rejected it before it was even finally produced.

So there's a difference between what I did as secretary of state, starting the, you know, Clean Air and Climate Coalition to go after methane and black soot, to go after cook stoves, which is a major promoter of pollutants, by, you know, really upping the Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves. I have a long record of going after the polluters and the big oil interests. I voted against the 2005 energy bill. I've been trying to take the subsidies away from big oil. And when you have supporters of a campaign who are repeatedly given inaccurate information--

GLENN THRUSH: And you think it's not just supporters. You think the campaign is goading this.

SEC. CLINTON: Absolutely. I have no--look, I've been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters. You know, they are intimately familiar with both of our records.

GLENN THRUSH: Things got very tough in 2008. And there was a lot of, you know--I interviewed David Plouffe on this podcast. I asked him, I said, "Will you apologize for any of the stuff--

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs]

GLENN THRUSH: --you kind of did in South Carolina?" He said, "Absolutely not, but I love Hillary Clinton."

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] Yeah, but President Obama made the point--

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: --which I really appreciated, that, you know, they were pretty tough on me.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I understand that.

GLENN THRUSH: Did--I heard that that really--that you had not really heard that in those terms before. Did that really--was that a moving--

SEC. CLINTON: It was really touching to me, and, you know, especially his analogy that he understood. He and I kidded about this when I worked with him, as Secretary of State, that, you know, I had to do everything he did, just like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, only I had to do it, you know, backwards and in high heels after I'd had hair and makeup done.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: So I loved the fact that, you know, he was so open and kind about pointing this out, because it is a difference, and it is a difference that a lot of men in politics either don't even notice or basically ride over.

But, in this campaign, it is important to me that we stay on the issues. I'm proud that we have, largely, up until now, stayed on the issues, compared to the Republicans, who have descended into insults. And I want it to stay on the issues.

GLENN THRUSH: But the things--

SEC. CLINTON: There are legitimate--

GLENN THRUSH: Yes.

SEC. CLINTON: --contrasts, but those contrasts should be based on the facts, what we have done and what we are proposing to do, as opposed to feeding information that is, you know, really inaccurate.

GLENN THRUSH: Do you feel--is there a tenor difference in the way that Sanders is campaigning against you than the Obama campaign against you in '08? Do you think there's a sharper--I see your name on a lot more press releases I'm getting from the Sanders people--

SEC. CLINTON: Right.

GLENN THRUSH: --for instance. Do you feel that there is an acuity to the personal nature of an attack against you by the Sanders folks that wasn't necessarily present during the Obama campaign?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, I can only tell you what we see, and I don't see it as much as my campaign and my supporters and friends around the country see, but there is, as you well know, a very negative, intense barrage of attacks on anybody who supports me.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I did not see that in '08. So, for the Sanders campaign to demean John Lewis, who has been my friend for more than four decades, and is supporting me‑‑

GLENN THRUSH: And who supported and who changed his opinion halfway through 2008 to support President Obama.

SEC. CLINTON: And I totally understood that.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: I called and told him, "Look, if I were facing the difficult choice you're facing, I don't know what I would do. So I--you know, God speed. Do what you feel you must."

And so he's back, and he said, from his own perspective, that he knows my husband and me, he knows we've been on the front lines on civil rights fights and struggles and that he was supporting us. And, when people speak out like that, you can take their opinion, either believe it or discard it, but to engage in ad hominem attacks and harassment, which is what is going on, I just think is out of bounds.

GLENN THRUSH: Two more questions before your people kill me.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] No killing permitted.

GLENN THRUSH: No killing permitted.

The Goldman--obviously you've taken a lot of hits on the Goldman Sachs thing. Can you just sort of explain, in general, as opposed to sort of defending on this, why you chose to do it and why you chose not to undo it? I mean, you've been pretty--I think you've been pretty adamant about not being necessarily apologetic about it.

SEC. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

GLENN THRUSH: I mean, do you think--was it something that you felt you needed to do for your family? Is it something you just wish you hadn't done?

SEC. CLINTON: Look, I have a record when it comes to the financial industries market. I have a long history of opposing a lot of what they're doing, trying to change behaviors, I--and I never voted for a bill that unleashed swaps and derivatives, the way Sen. Sanders did. So my record is actually quite a contrast with his record, when you really look at what caused the collapse in '08, because it wasn't just the big banks. It was investment banks like Lehman Brothers. It was AIG, the big insurance company. It was Countrywide Mortgage.

So I think it's important to, you know, try to put what happened into context, and my plan to rein in Wall Street is far more comprehensive and actually focused on the problems of the future than what he's saying. You know, it took me a while, after hearing him in the campaign, to realize he was talking as though Dodd-Frank never passed. He was talking about "We need to, you know, break up the big banks" and he was saying things like "On my first day, that's what I'll do." And I stopped one day and I thought, "Dodd-Frank was passed, the toughest regulations since the Great Depression, and, in fact, there is now a process to break up the banks if that is what is called for."

So I found it a little bit bewildering that, based on my record and based on, you know, my proposals, that anybody would be raising questions about anything, because people who ask me to speak, whether they're auto dealers or cardiologists or banks, they know where I stand because I've been very transparent and open about that.

GLENN THRUSH: One of the--final question, swear to God. You may question my faith, but I mean it.

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs]

GLENN THRUSH: One of the big differences between 2000 and right now was the relative strength of the parties, and you could argue that your husband's last administration was really the last time that the centralized party structures--I wouldn't say dominant but were powerful, centralizing factors. We've clearly seen, on the Republican side, it's Mogadishu, right?

SEC. CLINTON: Hm.

GLENN THRUSH: On the Democratic side, there's been some weakening of that as well, evidenced, perhaps, by the rise of an independent, self-described Democratic socialist as a serious Democratic contender.

When you campaigned in 2000, you were an ally of Judith Hope. You made down-ballot candidates an important priority. Sen. Sanders said yesterday that he wasn't sure that he would necessarily--I'm perhaps getting the language wrong--that he wouldn't necessarily campaign for down-ballot candidates. So two questions out of that. How important is it that the President of the United States is a, from your perspective should you get elected, is a Big D Democrat, and is Bernie Sanders a Democrat?

SEC. CLINTON: Well, let me say, I think it's very important because, from my first-hand knowledge, a President wants to get things done, and yes, you can work to reach consensus with the other party, but you're going to be wielding a stronger hand the more Democrats you have. And it's also important for your priorities to be implemented, that you have Democratic governors and Democratic state legislators.

Look at what happened with the expansion of Medicaid.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: When the Supreme Court said Affordable Care Act, yes, it's constitutional and legal, but you can't require the expansion of Medicaid, Republican governors and Republican legislators, by and large--not completely but by and large--have resisted expanding Medicaid.

GLENN THRUSH: Kasich being an exception.

SEC. CLINTON: Kasich being an exception.

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: The Republican governor who followed the Democratic governor in Arkansas is working hard to keep the expansion of Medicaid that was extended. But you have huge states like Texas--

GLENN THRUSH: Yeah.

SEC. CLINTON: --which has the highest rate of uninsured people in America, still, even though we're at 90 percent universal coverage, refusing to do that. It's bad for people and it's bad for the health care systems, particularly in poor urban and rural areas.

So is it important that you have a strong leadership for your party? I think it's critical. And think of how much better my life would be, in terms of fulfilling my agenda, if we took back the Senate and my friend and former partner, Chuck Schumer, were the majority leader in the Senate.

So I don't understand how you wouldn't want to elect down-ballot Democrats, starting in this election, which is why I've been raising money for the Democratic Party, because I believe the more we build up our organization, the more prepared we are, it will not only help me in November, it will help lift up and elect other Democrats as well.

GLENN THRUSH: When he puts his head on a pillow at night, do you think he goes to sleep a Democrat?

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs] Well, I can't answer that, Glenn, because he's a relatively new Democrat, and, in fact, I'm not even sure he is one. He's running as one. So I don't know quite how to characterize him. I'll leave that to him. But I know there's a big difference between Democrats and Republicans, and I know that Senator Sanders spends a lot of time attacking my husband, attacking President Obama, you know, calling President Obama weak and disappointing, and actually making a move in 2012 to recruit somebody to run a primary against him. I rarely hear him say anything negative about George W. Bush, who I think wrecked our economy, just not to put too fine a point on it.

GLENN THRUSH: Right.

SEC. CLINTON: So I don't know where he is on the spectrum, but I can tell you where I am. I'm going to do everything I can to get myself elected, but that's not enough. I'm going to try to help move the Senate to be a Democratic majority. I'm going to try to help pick up House seats. I'm going to try to elect Democratic governors, Democratic legislators, and all the way down the line.

GLENN THRUSH: Well, I would hope that would be a recruiting tool to get Bernie Sanders to come do the podcast, too--

SEC. CLINTON: [Laughs]

GLENN THRUSH: --and I was going to call you Sen. Clinton--

SEC. CLINTON: That's good. I loved being a senator.

GLENN THRUSH: It's been a while. I guess right now you'll be honorary senator because you're here in New York. Thank you so much for taking the time.

SEC. CLINTON: Great to talk to you, Glenn. Thank you.