>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charley: mr. president, thank for talking to us this monday afternoon. everyone like to know how the secretary is doing. fine. is doing she was doing better last night. messages.d text a friend of ours called and left a message. her husband had been hospitalized for pneumonia and

there's apparently a lot of that going around and a bunch of her staff had gotten sick but she's doing fine. she just got dehydrated yesterday. charlie cole and is that what happened? because when you look at that collapse,. video that was taken, you wonder if it is not more serious. it's a mystery to me and her doctors. more than one occasion, over the last many years, the same sort of thing has happened to her where she got severely dehydrated. she has worked like a demon as you know. charlie: more importantly, she is on a grueling campaign.

>> i think she's fine now. i was glad. today, she made a decision which i think was correct to cancel her campaign day. she looked like a million bucks this morning. charlie: she has pneumonia. sometimes that can take a while, the recovery. is it possible she will be away for weeks from the campaign trial? >> no. i will be lucky to hold her back another day. charlie: but there's nothing else you can disclose about her health? connectnnected to the -- concussion, any other thing that has happened to her? >> as far as we know, she's undergone extensive physical exams since that concussion repeatedly.

charlie: you yourself said it took six months to recover. >> some people are more prone, particularly as you get older, to dehydration. people think at my local rallies all the time and i'm told i'm sure it's not due to them swimming. i would say as long as i'm in politics, well over 90% of the collapse ine seen but it'sical rally almost always because of dehydration. charlie: is it fair to say that if doctors had concerns, they would not let her on the campaign trail and you would not let her on the campaign trial? >> absolutely. charlie: so there's nothing more to know. >> nothing more to know.

her doctor has been in touch. there is just nothing there. all the health indicators are good. she's very strong and has exercised a lot. she sleeps long hours by my standards anyway. charlie: why not release every possible medical record you can? the campaign said they would release some more medical information. charlie: what you encourage her? >> i'm not involved in it. charlie: you were encouraging her to release everything. >> yell. -- yes.

if a martian came down from outer space and watched america unfold the last eight weeks, it would be hard to see these earnest pleas for disclosure which are entirely one-sided. we also released 40 years of income tax information. charlie: people are demanding donald trump releases returns all the time. >> we will just see. i don't know if he's going to or not. charlie: that will put more emphasis on her to release, would it not? >> it would be refreshing if there were one thing in life if he did close more than she had. charlie: why do you think he's not releasing? >> i have no idea. charlie: you have some speculation. would you assume he has something to hide? that.on't want to do i have been on the wrong end of these assumptions before.

because you are on the campaign trail and because it's so -- nuous is drinkou have to do more water. i think she will be doing it a lot more now. you have got to be really disciplined about that. to the falld in allergy season, which i feel too. charlie: charlie: she has allergies. mr. clinton: in the fall she does. she does well in the spring compared to me. but we both have had fall allergy issues. charlie: here is what people are saying. republicans were presenting theories about her health. the concussion.

charlie: conspiracy -- mr. clinton: conspiracy theories about everything. charlie: people say between a cough that she had and having to take medicine for that, and now the discovery, this has made her health a campaign issue. >> they think everything is a campaign issue. i think her lifestyle and her underlying indicators, blood pressure, exercise, everything else means it is almost certain she is in better health than her opponent. we don't know because he hasn't disclosed. charlie: if he does, she would be forthcoming immediately. mr. clinton: she hasn't been not forthcoming. she has disclose more than he has.

i saw the interview with his doctor. they will do the right thing. she is going to be fine. mr. clinton: you understand how they are saying, this is what we have seen in this campaign, whether it has to do with e-mails, questions about that from the fbi report that the secretary of state, the nominee secretary of state, the nominee is not forthcoming and it raises questions of trust among the voting public. you know those polls are high. unpack that for me. mr. clinton: it has been unpacked. the fbi said there was no basis for any criminal activity. >> they said it wasn't even close.

more revealing to me, a very high number of senior military officials and senior republicans who worked in national security have endorsed her for president, if they thought it was a big deal they would not have done it. charlie: but do they know? mr. clinton: some would ask. why don't they ask those questions of mr. trump? we didn't know until recently that he had to pay a penalty for using his personal charity to pay a campaign contribution. later did a fundraiser who mysteriously decided not to pursue actions against trump university like our attorney general did here. you can say that. there has never been a candidate who has disclosed as much information about everything. there has never been a

foundation who disclosed as much as i have. why don't people feel trust? because of the way it is selectively used. if a martian drop from outer space it would be hard to watch our politics unfold. they will say they say they will disclose but they don't really. anybody who contributed to my foundation. they have some influence with hillary secretary of state. ignoring that i organized the foundation in 1997 to prepare for my presidential center in library. many of these contributions were made long before she was secretary of state by people who had been known to both of us for decades.

that is the sort of thing -- it makes me feel bad because the people who are serious about this, who use disclosure to make serious announcements are the major evaluators like charity navigator or charity watch. i know one of the networks the other night, the head of charity watch said it was -- it would be viewed as one of the great organizations of our time. charlie: i have seen those reports and watch the good work the clinton foundation has done in the clinton initiative. i think most people know that. mr. clinton: i think voters heard about us for the first time when they said look how many gave to this money to the foundation. charlie: we know what he has done. mr. clinton: they didn't know

from reading the story. i think that is the real issue here. i have bent over backwards to make sure there's no conflict of interest or appearance of conflict of interest. we reached an agreement with the white house before hillary became secretary of state about how donations, how it would be handled. i have been working ever since hillary declared trying to determine what more we need to do. i said the other day, if she wins i will resign from the foundation board. i won't raise any money. we won't take any foreign money, nor will we take any american corporate money. >> some people say then why not do it now? why not say from now on, not whether she is elected president. mr. clinton: because there is nothing wrong with what we're doing now. i have got to wind it down. it takes time to undo this.

we have a lot of lives on the line. for example, the easiest thing for us to do is make the health operations, which gets the bulk of the foreign government money, from places like norway, ireland, canada, the united kingdom, hardly enemies of the united states, to do work all over the world. i will get off of the board and it will be totally independent. everybody will be satisfied. charlie: if she is elected. mr. clinton: yeah. then the clinton global initiative, we will not have it anymore. unless someone decides to pick up the idea which i would help them do, it can't run without the support of corporate

sponsors and international contributors. that is how we have gotten 3500 commitments that have helped people. we can't do that. so we have said that. i would resign from the board of my foundation. i would not raise money for that. charlie: what happens to your daughter chelsea? will she stay on? mr. clinton: i hope so. the first responsibility is the presidential library center in little rock. which among other things runs a leadership program with the bush library. i might add, i believe when president bush was president, he had family members. he had points of light foundation.

nobody raised a peep. chelsea had three advanced degrees in public service operations. and the things we can do in america if we can do it with individual contributions, there is no conflict. charlie: may i make this point. i don't think people recognize the clinton foundation has done a lot of good work and has spent millions of dollars. mr. clinton: mr. trump called a criminal enterprise. charlie: i'm talking about the american public. they also recognize the clinton global initiative has been a way to talk about how to solve problems. that's a different issue. you can recognize that and say there have been instances in which people have called members of the foundation and said we would like to be at a meeting. we would like to have a meeting with the secretary of state. whatever their motive. they have called from the

foundation to her office, whether it went from doug van to say could we get this on the calendar? or could this person who is a friend of the foundation may have given something come to this event? has that happened? mr. clinton: you know from the e-mails what has and hasn't happened. i think you know what the state department said. there were two instances, one of which they did not get what they wanted. and the other, the request had gone through normal state department channels anyway. that can't happen anymore. that has all been eliminated. >> do you understand how for some people the optics were not good and it had the appearance of influence? mr. clinton: i believe people who know each other and call each other all the time, all i know is what i read in the

paper. the papers indicated there was a presumption of suspicion if hillary gave a meeting to the mohammed younis before trying to find the facts. he won a nobel prize. he has been a friend of ours for 33 years. you can say there were others but that's my point. the presumption of guilt was there on a decent man. they even raised the possibility there was something wrong with elie wiesel. charlie: we are talking about circumstances of people who had not won great awards or who had not called a revolution in africa. but people who were business people who simply wanted to be associated with the clintons.

mr. clinton: and what happened? charlie: did none of them get an opportunity to participate in a meeting? mr. clinton: first of all meetings are set up all the time. members of congress do that all the time. the white house has a political director. they can do it all the time. the secretary of state is is out of elected politics. in every case i read about hillary knew the person involved and had for years. i have no idea why someone called that then. keep in mind, he worked for me in my capacity as a former president. so we realized all that had to be cleared up and we fixed it. the state department has said conclusively and has offered documentary proof that nothing was ever done for anybody because they were contributing

to the foundation. and i might say as paul krugman has pointed out, all of this stuff has been dragged out and not one example, not even one of something wrong happened. millions of dollars gets spent. you were playing the same old game. we have spent the whole interview talking about this. let's just get down to it. charlie: my impression is two things. one, that you want to talk about this because you want to set the record straight. because there is speculation - it is in your interest and her interest to talk about it. second point, with respect to rwanda, you have apologized in terms of your administration, have you not?

>> i have done everything i can to make it up to them. >> when you seem to believe there was a mistake you say it. mass incarceration was another example. in terms of making sure we know what you are saying. with respect to the foundation and whatever might have taken place with the foundation, any access to the secretary of state, there is nothing to apologize for, nothing happened. there were no consequences and we have been as transparent as we should and can. is that what you are saying? mr. clinton: we have been as transparent as we can be and more transparent than any other foundation. more transparent than any foundation has ever been asked to be. certainly more transparent than anybody else in this line of

work. i have said that to the best of my knowledge nobody ever got anything from the state department. because they supported the clinton foundation. if they did i would say that was wrong. i have proved i am not adverse to apologizing for things that i think are wrong. so i'm unaware of that. i believe the state department has forcefully said there is no example of that happening. if you think nobody should ever call somebody they know and say so-and-so would like a meeting, that is the way the national government works. i can say to the best of my knowledge, i know for a fact only from the people i read in the paper that people they accused are implied gave money to the foundation did so, did not do that. that was simply not true.

that is not why they did it. ♪

charlie: david brooks said i understand why donald trump is unpopular. he earned it the old fashion way. why is hillary clinton

unpopular? she was not unpopular as secretary of state. two of the most unpopular candidates for president in the history of american politics. >> if i answered that it will be the only story. we won't talk about my foundation. it won't talk about what i've done for 15 years or cgi. she was popular as first lady. she was a popular senator. the most widely trusted figure in national politics when she walked out of the secretary of state's office. she is popular today among people who know her. there's a big difference between her and her opponent. plenty of people know him and are supporting her. all of the other people are not. let's look at this benghazi

thing, the way it was handled. four americans were killed. there has never been such an attempt to make political hay. first there were six congressional committees who did their job and reached the same conclusion independent commission did. it was a security lapse. the secretary of state never makes those decisions. now, when hundreds of americans were killed when president reagan was in office in four separate attacks. tip o'neill said we don't play politics with national security. they had one hearing. they recommended changes. the changes were supposed to

have been implemented long before the last attack which involved kidnapping and killing the cia station chief. when the president was asked he said it was like repairing your home. if hillary said something like that i doubt if she would have been in this race today. but o'neill refused to play politics. how many times were there reports on this benghazi committee that said this has never been done before? then we have the seventh committee, she endured 11 hours of questioning. she proved to me, she said how do you think i did, i said i'll vote for you. she should everyone she should be president. the republican house leader committed the ultimate sin. why did this happen? he told the truth.

he said when you guys -- what did you get done this year, he said look what the special committee did to hillary. he said it, not me. therefore because he committed the truth, he could no longer be speaker of the house. we live in a toxic atmosphere when people respond to what they read in the press. everyone got the bit in the mouth. charlie: you think this has to do with social media. mr. clinton: a little bit. most is driven by the fact that everybody is under -- let's back up. look at the environment. the political, economic and social order is discredited all over the world. that crash had a long tail. when you go a long time without a pay raise. when you think your future is

bleak, when you worry you can't provide for your children and your borders have negative ways, you have the biggest refugee crisis since world war ii and massive cultural change, you have this disorientation. charlie: why are they attracted to donald trump? who lives above manhattan in a luxury penthouse? mr. clinton: he told them, he's rubbing salt in their wounds. he makes them dislike other people. he says i will fix it all and make it like it used to be. i understand. look at what happened in the brexit vote. who voted to stay? young people. charlie: old people and pensioners voted to leave because they thought they lost control. mr. clinton: scotland and northern ireland voted to stay.

people who wanted to shut the door are doing pretty well everywhere. the ultimate nationalist, more authoritarian candidates. the ultimate nationalist, more authoritarian candidates. charlie: why is secretary clinton who has an agenda, an economic agenda, having less appeal to working-class americans than you did. they were your constituency. she has a program. donald trump is getting more of their vote. why is that? mr. clinton: it has been steadily the case. it started in the 1960's. it started in the 1960's. you go back and look. when president johnson signed the voting rights act he said i think that ended the democratic party in the south. a lot of this is cultural. she's the first woman candidate for major office.

she trying to get a third term for a party -- it is difficult. and the level of difficulty with the economic and social orders all over the world is very high. charlie: you know how to speak to these people. why doesn't she? mr. clinton: she does find much to get such as. -- she's done fine where she to. look what you spent the first time of the interview. charlie: i did that to give you an opportunity. you wanted an opportunity to say if you believe this, this is the truth. that is opportunity rather than me wasting time. i asked about the foundation and what it has achieved and what it had done. let me turn to the election. i'm not flattering you. you have an acute political mind.

tell me how you see this election at this moment as we go into post-labor day, heading towards a debate. mr. clinton: pretty much the way i did a year-and-a-half ago. i said, you know, this is the time where there is a lot of resentment. you are not a demagogue. been thest always grown up in every room. that is why people are loyal to you. you make something good happen. you're going to have to take a big gamble. she has. she's the only person with a coherent economic program. john mccain's economic advisor, who is very respected says her plan would add 10.5 million jobs. when he says what do you have to lose the first answer, 14 million jobs.

all you can do is do that and hope someday you will be heard. if you have to make your living in a new cycle doesn't operate every day now, it is virtually every hour, it's hard to get votes. it's all about images. charlie: do you believe the question of trust has overwhelmed the voters of being perceptive? mr. clinton: that has been the objective of the campaign against her. charlie: to make her the issue. mr. clinton: of course. charlie: is it her campaign to make donald trump seem unfit to be president. mr clinton: mostly by using his own words and actions. that is different. her campaign has a different dimension. she has put out detailed economic plans. she is the first person in this

campaign to come out with a plan to help people in coal country's. -- in coal country. to lift them up. if you can make america like it was 50 years ago have added. but i'm still coming back for you. i want you on the escalator to your future. i think that is admirable. this drug problem, the mental health problem, these police chiefs talking about tensions, they said the think they need most of all, good relationships. adequate mental health facilities for people who need it. she did that. there's a whole -- if she could she would just give a speech of everything she wants to do. charlie: is she on the wrong side of the change conversation? people say it's really not

about donald trump. american voters want change. they do not want a third term of president obama and they view her as a third term. and part of the political establishment. mr. clinton: some of the political establishment is making that argument. they want to get back in. [laughter] charlie: don't you? you want to go back in as the first spouse? mr. clinton: i want her to be president because -- charlie: what about the change element? that it's more effective. mr. clinton: it's a good argument for them to make. she served as the secretary of state. because that relieves them of the obligation of having to deal with specifics. what did she do as rick perry of state?s secretary of

what does she propose, what is he proposed. if you look at her, everything she is ever done, she has been a change agent very everything she has touched she is made better. if a place in the world today. one of the reasons i got into this work, i saw her do it when i was younger. this foundation work. it depends on what she believes in, and what i have tried to to model at the foundation, it's not particularly -- popular today and it is vulnerable to episodic attacks. that what works best is when you get government, the private actor and our foundation to work together. haveworks best is when you a community-based decision-making process.

involving people of both parties and ideological lines. porgramhe leadership with george w. bush's foundation, we have heavily decorated officers and veterans in business people, and leaders of gay rights organizations, all in between, all working together. that is what works best. it's inconvenient for what works best in politics which is slice and dice. so, i think she would be effective at that because she was good at getting republican support for her initiatives as secretary of state. and in the white house. charlie: is that a way she will be different from barack obama? mr. clinton: she has more experience doing that. charlie: she suggested to me she would be inclined to do more hanging out.

that she believes what you believe, that politics is a game of people. mr. clinton: it is. if you read the constitution and look at the history of the way the convention played out, the document, it's amazing. people ask me to sign their copies of the constitution. when i open it i always think there ought to be a subtitle, let's make a deal. because the framers didn't trust concentrated power. i think she is good at that. she has always been good at it. the fact that they have been so mean to her is not part of that. they know we are not like that. neither one of us. in the years before hillary left the state department and after she went there, we had

republicans at cgi. a lot working to support our foundation. then we had people whose party i didn't even know. ♪

charlie: you made the democratic party a centrist

party. there seems to be a consensus that it has moved to the left. people say they have witnessed that in the primaries of this process in which bernie sanders seem to move hillary clinton to the left. mr. clinton: this is like physics. every reaction inspires and opposite reaction. i think there are reasons for good reasons for the democratic party to be more populist than it was. i would like to explain why. >> that is the word they applied. populist. >> there's all kinds of populist. offbeat -- positive and negative. they know nothing movement was populist. it was basically -- it gave

birth to the clan and all that. bernie sanders was a more positive populist. he wanted to do things. he had an affirmative agenda. so did hillary and the argue that which ones were at her. if you go to the beginning of her campaign, when she announced, read her announcement speech. she said that wealth had been more concentrated, income had become more concentrated. corporations were run for the benefit of shareholders than for their customers or their consumers. and therefore we should give tax cut's to corporations that share profits with employees and invest in the future long-term, and tax increases for those who just want to reshuffle the money every year. that is what she said and she made an issue of that. nobody wants to talk about that now because the primary is over but it is a very important issue and one, somebody just sent me a copy of some remarks i made in 2009. one of the last times i spoke there.

i said this is going to happen. having capital and money interests claim a bigger and bigger share of corporate highs, that is the different issue from whether wall street is going to be controlled by the dodd-frank law. this is about american corporations on the primary for the benefit of the activist stockholders. they used to be called raiders. there is a reason, and other words to be more populist. and on the trade issue. i'm a big trade guy. >> and she changed her mind. >> she didn't see the final document until she was already gone. charlie: she was thought to be a supporter.

mr. clinton: she has never denied that it would be good for us to continue to support for the east asians. charlie: here's my question. why is this election so close in your judgment? he just laid out the virtues she has and all the failings donald trump has. mr. clinton: we don't really discuss what it is about. even now. i was trying to explain to you what her position on trade is. the original trade deals were supposed to be both fair on trade and we did not get the money up front from the people who reform these deals. then more and more companies are being pushed by activist shareholders. take this furnace plant in indiana moving jobs to mexico, making money, profit margins increasing.

no one thought that was going to happen. it was being driven by the dominance of short-term investors who want their money back in a year and a day. that is what we have to change. hillary is saying until you get the equities right, every time you do a trade deal there will be too much collateral damage. >> why is this race so close? mr. clinton: partly because of the time we live in. it is hard for any party to get a third term. partly because of the designed clamor of every day which is allow people to -- i hope the debates will cure this. to make a judgment.

if you look at what she has advocated and what he has advocated, she is advocating positive change. how do you build on the good things that have been done in the obama years and go beyond it? he is advocating a return to trickle down economics on steroids which got us in trouble in the first place. he may label it differently. charlie: the reagan administration. mr. clinton: that is where it began. he wants to go back. he says when the republicans have the congress and the white house, under president bush, we had big tax cut. i want bigger tax cut. i want to dramatically increase the debt of the country without investing. that is what he is advocating. i want to send immigrants home and give you their jobs. charlie: i was this morning at the smithsonian museum of american history and culture.

you have always had a great relationship. you have said there were mistakes and we learn. but people now look at the connection between slavery which is on display there, and where we are now and see problems. tell me how you see race in america today and what secretary clinton as president might do from that crucial national issue? mr. clinton: first of all, on the way out the door, there was a laundry list of racial disparities. at the time i did that, african-american family incomes had increased 33%, the highest of any ethnic group followed by latinos at 24%. yet we were all rising together. i thought surely we are not

going to reverse these economic policies and go back to things that make the divide greater. if you look at it, there is still too much economic disparity. there is disparity and access to college and completion. criminal justice issues are troubling. there are too many young black men who are afraid to walk outside at night. i think the answer -- it is embodied in the dallas police chief, whose own son had mental health issues and was killed in an encounter with law-enforcement and devoted his

life to doing it right. that was the ultimate tragedy of those police officers in dallas. if there was ever a community that tried to do it right. what most african-americans want is to know black lives matter and know they have a good police department will keep them safe and respond when they are needed. we need both police reform and we need the police. >> it ought to be a common ground and in some cases it is. mr. clinton: it should be. because the game culture got a hold in chicago quicker than other states, there were turf wars. the murder rate went up there early. then there were race issues as you well remember. i remember being at

african-american church and the pastor told me he had become a chaplain for the police department and that every four or five weeks they had a lunch after church with the police and community leaders. he said you can't do it without them. we don't want our kids killed. i think -- i predict this is one area along with incarceration and what to do about the drug epidemic or we could have an enormous amount of bipartisan cooperation and we need it. i think we may be getting mental health also. president obama announced we were going to build -- he wasn't going to have more private federal prisons. and that they just did not work as well as the ones that the federal government ran.

i think that was well received across the board. my gut is that all of these areas are areas where we can make common ground. >> suppose hillary clinton becomes president. what is the future of the foundation? mr. clinton: i think first it will continue for my presidential center and library. we do a lot of work there, leadership projects. we do president bush's library. we bring in diverse people and they work together. we will continue to do work on child obesity to reduce calories going into schools and drinks by 90%. we have 18 million young people

and 30,000 schools and health problems. hopefully we have these discounts with narcan. their lives were say by narcan. we got the price down and a nasal spray version out to put them in every high school in america. it's a miracle drug. hopefully we will able to do that. we can do that within funding constraints. no foreign contributions. only independent foundations like the carnegie corporation, for example. individuals. i will resign from the board and i won't raise money. i think we will be able to run it in a way -- charlie: and no foreign contributions. mr. clinton: yes.

and continue to report everybody. i feel it will be good. you asked about chelsea. another thing she has done that is important is we have immigrated our service component. we tried not only to empower other people but we do service work. if there is another disaster that is one of the things i am proud of. this soon on the thousand four and katrina, and haiti. we are good at this. we know how to do that. i don't know what the future will bring that we need to be transparent and we need to not proliferate.

we need to recognize even when we are doing good work overseas, if she is the president there is the possibility of conflict. for example, one of the things i'm proudest of, these farmers in east africa that we increase their yields on average two and a half old. their incomes have gone up. what we are doing is sensible

but we can only do it with international contributions. this affects the timetable. as quickly as possible we are going to hand the soft. just like her international working climate change. we're trying to work today, several groups making the caribbean and central america completely independent. we are going to handle all of that off. it will be an american foundation focused on what we do the presidential center and these health-related initiatives. charlie: let's assume you make it to heaven and god says to you, st. peter, whether it is says you spent 20 years the clinton foundation between the election of 2000 and the election of 2016. i don't have a lot of time, so what is the most important thing the clinton foundation achieved? mr. clinton: we got the world's cheapest aid medication and people are alive because of it, two thirds of the kids. we built an organization that helped 380 million people getting people together including organizing the first 500 tons of medical equipment to the ebola epidemic and it didn't cost the taxpayers a penny.

and we made life better for a lot of americans. we created jobs that saved lives. i'm proud of that. ♪

mark: you are watching bloomberg west. president obama and bill clinton hit the campaign trail for hillary clinton, who is recovering from pneumonia. in philadelphia, the president said donald trump is not fit to lead in any way. mr. clinton is attending events in california and nevada. donald trump will visit flint, michigan, on wednesday. donald trump said the 2014 drinking water never would have -- drinking crisis never would've happened if he had been president at the time.