Hillary and Bill Clinton’s highly paid speeches — whose transcripts they steadfastly refuse to release despite pressure on the campaign trail — are cloaked in secrecy.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have both seized on the issue, raising red flags about what the Clintons say behind closed doors to Wall Street firms and other groups that they don’t say in public. By digging in their heels, the Clintons have only drawn more attention to the question: What, exactly, do you get when you pay a Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars for an intimate, closed-to-the-press speech?


In Bill Clinton’s case, it turns out, you get a dose of the full, unplugged Bubba.

A transcript of a private, $285,000 paid speech Bill Clinton delivered last year at the “China-U.S. Private Investment Summit” in Austin, Texas, obtained by POLITICO, offers a glimpse behind the curtain of the Clintons' controversial paid speaking gigs — and some insight into how the former president holds court out of sight of the press.

“Once I got a cartoon in the mail when I was fighting out that Whitewater business,” he reminisced in front of about 60 Chinese investors and 150 American business people gathered to discuss bilateral investment opportunities in late March 2015 — two weeks before Hillary Clinton officially declared her candidacy. “And Jiang Zemin and I are sitting together at a state dinner, and in the first frame, I say to President Jiang, I said, ‘You know, you're doing great economically, but our country has more human rights.’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘Yes, and if you were the leader of China, Ken Starr would be in prison making running shoes.’”

A self-deprecating Clinton admitted of those scandal-tarred days of his presidency: “I saved that cartoon for a long time. I must say there were days when I wondered who had the better model.”

Bill Clinton has raked in close to $3 million in paid speeches since his wife launched her second bid for the White House last April, according to Hillary Clinton's most recent financial disclosure. The enormous fee for the Texas speech — which took place when Hillary Clinton was already scouting campaign office space but had yet to officially announced her bid — signals just how much well-heeled clients are willing to pay to hear from a former, and potentially future, occupant of the White House.

Waxing philosophical at one point, the former president mused: “I learned that the weight, combined weight, of all the ants on Earth is greater than the combined weight of all the people on Earth. That’s sobering,” Clinton said, quoting a fact from microbiologist E.O. Wilson’s book “The Social Conquest of Earth," which he called “the most important political book I have read in the last five years.”

His long digression on insect life was to furnish a broader point about cooperation between nations. At one point, discussing world leaders he has respected, he said emotionally: “I never loved another man more than I loved Yitzhak Rabin. I can't even describe how I felt about him.”

Clinton’s expansive, discursive speaking style is sometimes on display on the campaign trail, where it is criticized as a distraction from his goal of touting his wife’s accomplishments. But the transcript of a private speech shows off a freer, looser Clinton than the one who has been trying to sell a candidate who is seen as the definition of status quo as "the best change maker I've ever known."

The Austin speech also suggests that Bill Clinton's talents might best be used in a diplomatic capacity, rather than in a role designed to oversee economic domestic policy, as the Democratic front-runner recently suggested — which sparked criticism that she was leaning too much on her husband.

In the private speech in front of the conservative-leaning business group, Bill Clinton assumed a diplomatic tone discussing China, displaying a softer edge than his wife shows on the campaign trail, where she typically highlights security issues.

He touted the importance of investment opportunities in China, noting “we all know what the problems are, but I want to talk to you about the opportunities and why I think it’s so important that you’re here.” Extending an open hand, he added: “It doesn’t bother me that we have differences of opinion. And we should not seek to abolish them or sweep them under the rug. We should instead become comfortable talking about them.”

The former president did, however, acknowledge the detention last year of five Chinese women who tried to start a campaign against sexual harassment — which Hillary Clinton denounced on Twitter as an "inexcusable" act that "must end." But he did so in less severe terms.

“I do think that it's too bad these women have been arrested in the run up to the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Conference,” he said. “I think that there's a way to be a strong country and tolerate dissent.”

Hillary Clinton has a hawkish reputation when it comes to China — as secretary of state, she railed against Beijing’s “deplorable” human rights record and even questioned the future of the Chinese regime. But her campaign aides have also suggested China needs to be a partner to the United States in creating stability in Afghanistan. In his speech, Bill Clinton stuck to an upbeat pitch to investors as well as hope for a prosperous future between the superpowers.

“There may come a time when the U.S. and China will become involved in some irreconcilable conflict, as many pessimists believe, but it doesn't have to happen if we work for the best and both plan for our security,” he said. “I think you can make a lot of money if you're Chinese investing in America and I think you can make a lot of money if you're American investing in China. ... I think the Chinese president is doing things that make sense. It's a good time to invest there.”

He emphasized that both sides need each other: “It is very, very important to do what you are here to do. We need more Chinese investment in America, just like we need more American investment in China. ... Nobody is right all the time. Differences of opinion are healthy and debate is important, but it is really important to find a way for what we have in common to trump our interesting differences.”

Still, hiring Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker doesn't mean he will limit himself to the specific topic of the conference.

In a Q&A following the speech, Clinton discussed at length the influence his great uncle had on him growing up, calling him “the smartest person that I ever met in my own family. I believe his IQ was 180 or more. He had only six years of schooling, but he was breathtakingly brilliant. And in his old, old age he could remember the names of dogs he had owned 60 years earlier and things like that.”

The former president said he credits his great uncle for teaching him his good people skills. “I listened and I learned that every person has a story and that every person can be inherently interesting if they're not too shy, or too scared, or too scripted, too controlled to block their own story,” he said.

Clinton also seemed to forecast the divisive election cycle to come, where a brash and bullying candidate has managed to become one of the presumptive nominees.

“In our family when you were a child you could not tell a story until you proved you could listen to one,” Bill Clinton said. “And my aunt, my uncle, my grandparents, they would look at me and say, Bill, did you hear that? And I'd say, yes, I did. Did you understand it? I think so. What did you hear? And you would have to stand up and say what you heard. And I don't think so much of that happens anymore.”

Of those listening skills, he said: "I think that’s why I got elected president."

