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the one that made it all possible, citizens of the united states. an american citizen privileges of those sacred sheriff's possibilities. the futures with security and the opportunities on the blessings and sources. our responsibilities and truth and what we all do better together. ♪♪ it is in 1782 on humanity and

our responsibilities. this opportunity is one of the great beauties of american citizenship. ♪♪ ♪♪ the title of citizens there ready. there's no limit to what we can accomplish.

>> please welcome former president bill clinton and senator corey booker. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> hello, everybody. this is an extraordinary and you wereea vulnerable and it and the

is a lot that really hit me hard. i want to start with reminding you have a conversation. it was 2006 just elected, i hadn't been sworn in yet and somebodyou said bill clinton. i said yes so i thought it was going to be tall tale about your story and experience but you greeted me at the door and brought me in stepping down because you had a mission which i f am embarrassed now you saidi

want to talk to you about the earned income tax audit. youal spent half an hour talking to me about the earned income tax audit. he said it was theht greatest thing uncollected eit's. i said we are the one of the lowest income cities and america and the former president told me about the earned income taxax credit. set of tax segments over the country and it was going uncollected. people could realize it could be our home and it t was the most informative device in politics.

[cheering and applauding] >> the one i wanted was to make it self actuating. we had to have modest income. i discovered after i left office, 160,000 people in new york city alone eligible for this tax credit so we started working on that. in 2019 there were two articles that were a rapid drop.

and doing things. doing various things in your city. everybody for smart and good-looking, young but proven to do something it is special and sure enough, they did. >> it was pretty extraordinary but is feel like that is one of the exciting things for me that shows what i think is your superpower.

your post presidencies, people often have a vision. but i've never seen before in my life. i was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit because it's really powerful if you don't mind, you have this understanding throughout yourng life. one is us versus them and e other is just and you spend a lot of time throughout the whole talking about connecting people creating community by letting people inform you, listening enough to know what their needs are. and if i can read this to you, you said you you form. i've asked myself and view life through a simple screen will this or that action increase the

positive and decrease the negative forces of our interdependence? or do the reverse. once i could answer that, i determine what i was for, what i was against. and you go on. i've heard you say this in speeches and the first speech i heard it blew me away. i went home and, got this author's book. you quote e.o. wilson and e.o. wilson. this is you say, his rise and fall, the dinosaur argues this is you writing that since the fall of the dinosaurs, six, 6 million years ago, our planet's most durable are ants, termites, bees and, people. because they proved to be the best at adapting to change circumstance is but also by developing life changing enhancing habits of cooperation, humans have that in the best because we have a conscience and a consciousness and so it seems

like you are pushing at a time that there are sheering forces dividing us that your post-presidency is about trying to get people to wake up, that we belong to each other, that we each other. yeah. agree. that's what i believe. and think we may get away with some of this playing we're doing now. imagining that all the different, all it matters are our differences differences. but if we keep on doing it, eventually it'll be our undoing because well, look at the united states. i spend $3 billion a year tax money to to finish the sequencing the human genome and. so what difference it to make. well we knew that it had the

capacity to if we could really understand the differences in all of our biological makeups, solve a lot of health problems that we've been with and all that. but to me, the important political result of sequencing the human genome is the fact that if you at this crowd, every non-major difference, you can see is larger than, one half of 1% of our genome. now since there's, you know, over two and a half million, you know, in everybody's body, think maybe over 3 billion. that's still big number, but it's a half a percent. and almost all of spend nine and a half some of our time focused on that half a percent. and i don't mean just the kind of polarized politics have you walk by and see picture of

yourself reflected in a store mirror you think you know if i'd had lebron james body and i have gone in a different line of work. so we all do that in different ways. but it's a crazy way run a railroad. we ought to spend some time thinking about the nine and i have percent we have in common and understand that our differences are really important. they make all kinds of progress possible and they make life more colorful and interesting but only if they're embedded in our common humanity. and this is where people get in trouble because we're so arrogant sometimes and our intelligence, we think we're smart enough to cut all the corners and we can get all the benefits of our common humanity

while emphasizing only our differences. and sooner or later, it's going to slap in the face hard. so that's how i analyze all this stuff. if you ask me what's your position on x, i'll try to run the probabilities, all these factors in my mind and, tell you what i'm for and what i'm against. but in the end it's well, i'd increase number of us and shrink the number of them or the other way around and and i would dare that. you go ahead applaud that you know. you forget that we come from more of an evangelical baptist tradition where we're used to call and response of church. right. so you don't have to be quiet if you like something can say amen. i meant amen.

you all forget also that, you know, obama was great, but this might be the first black president right here. you know, when friend toni morrison said that that, i mean, if toni morrison said it is true. it when she said it you know, it was about it was it was halfway serious and halfway making fun of me where all talked and kind of laughed around, but i took it as a great compliment. and one that i owed my ancestors because. i grew up in a white southern working family where my grandfather owned, a country store and all of his customers were black, just about.

and he loved and they loved him. and. they couldn't afford food. and there no food stamps. there was no medicare. there was, no medicaid. if they were or actively looking for a job. he told to take whatever they needed because anybody was willing to work desert to feed their children and. he just wrote it down in a book and he said if you can come back and play me someday, do it. and. but it's amazing to coordinate talking about this on the way in because he read a story of my stopping on the way into. a town in ohio that had one of these famous barbershop like you've seen them all the barber shop shows on tv. what goes on the board was on their way. i was going down, visit one and on the way into town and there's

this black minister standing on the side of the road in a nice suit, a big kind of reddish vest and a cross with red stones. so i said to the guy that was driving me on the campaign bus that we were campaigning for hillary in 2016. and i said stop. i need to say out of the sky. i just had a feeling i did. i shook hands. he said, i'll say this one time. he said, i'm for hillary. he said. and he said was for you. and i was even for 2008, when you ran against then-senator obama because he said, i am the proud grandson of luther of hope, arkansas and any proceeded tell me a story about grandfather being the store one

day and my grandfather looking at him long as he stared the food and he said, look, sir, you need to feed the kids and you don't have money. do. and he said, no more scarcity up. i work every week, but i don't get paid every week and keep in mind there were no food stamps and there were no none of that. and so told them that plate of food he needed for his family and signed for it and he said my grandfather said he didn't just do that for me he that for everybody and he didn't have much more money than we did. but he did have the food and he said you have to be for governor clinton because if he's just half the man, his grandfather, he be a great president. and that. it stayed with me my whole life. and so there i and hillary's

getting guy's vote 66 years after. her then four year old husband was sitting his grandfather and his country store feeding this man's grandfather who and we can't forget we you cannot give up on people you know if you scratch anybody long enough, there's usually still a person there. and we overlook the impact of things that. and what did you add, another one or two? yeah. mean i had a well-laid plan on how we were going to go this job and jumping all over the place. so i if you if we were walking in and i was moved by that story in the book but it wasn't the

only example of you that no matter what's going on in the world, forces can't control. but the one thing you can control is to be good to other people. and you have story of story of story. so that's a country store and a white man and a black man reaching across the divide at the time, but just showing human decency here. let's go to another where you say this in the last few days we had begun a friendship that we become one of the greatest blessed of my life, according to his biographer, jon meacham. the barriers between us began to break late one night on a plane when urged former president bush to sleep in. the plane's only in a compartment with, its own bathroom and tv. at the time, you didn't even notice this act to kindness. it wasn't a big deal. you you said i just thought it was no big deal. he was older served as president first and he slept more.

i the air mattress and i slept on the floor. the friend. the friendship was that was easier for me. and you always said i always liked him. and you go just to talk about the human decency between the two of you. in my recount in my life. another great book i become a real fan of his. in 1983, when he hosted the governors kenny bum port at the annual conference in maine. when i introduced him to my then year old daughter, chelsea, the first question she blurted out was, where's the bathroom? and the president united took her by the hand and led her there himself. stopping only wants to introduce her to his mother. and you. i never forgot that small act of kindness and this is the predicate which is amazing in this book because you detail of you and him twice in a way that changed the world a time that the world was on its knees first after the horrific tsunami swept through asia right during

christmas holidays. and another time was when you responded together to with another grievous storm within our land. but the seed of kindness between the two of you across political parties and even though there are challenges, you know you were in a tough race, you found way to start with just human decency build from there. well. it's a good story and true, but i like george bush or h.w. bush. and then later became friends with son. and that a harder hill to climb because. because he had that because disagreed with him on several things and he reversed to giving

you a balanced budget and three surplus in a row and he bagged that he went back to trickle down economics and and he was at me because i beat his dad. so i had this wonderful with george h.w. bush we did things that i wrote about at length in the book about fighting to help people start their lives again after the tsunami and his son son has got the head an american effort there and. then the united nations asked me to stay on as the coordinator for tsunami relief and. i did it. and then we did the thing after katrina and we had an amazing time and we worked together hand

in glove. it was very important, even in the united states, if a natural disaster is big enough, there'll needs that will not be filled by the existing government relief programs. there just always are. so that was and then all my friendship with george w bush to the things that brought father and me together and his mother barbara was a tough case. you know, and i just loved that she would look at you with a steely eyes and i got your number, boy. but i like it anyway. so we had a good relationship. then when haiti was struck by an earthquake in 2010, president

obama asked me and george w bush to try to help haiti and had been working there by then for a year again as a u.n. envoy. but he was great. we got together, we raised all this money and we decided could best help the small reconstitute themselves because they were all wiped out. and we did a really good job of, i think. and then later i was able to. almost $500 million for just all my own through the clinton global initiative, in addition to all the money that americans had given about $1,000,000,000 and that. but if you forget about whatever

you've been fighting about and you all agree the same goal, then it's amazing how often you come to consensus. and you you say that and you i don't want to trivialize these numbers and. i didn't really know them. you put them in detail here, whether it's the tsunami in asia, whether it's haiti whether it's katrina. you teaming up with these other presidents to the clinton global foundation. is is billions of dollars and what i loved about it is, you didn't just raise the money you went to the sites met the people had real deep connections. i mean, i love the story in sri lanka, which was stunning to me. the mother comes up to you and, says, would you please name my will you tell? tell us about that. the young baby that you named in sri lanka. yeah, well they brought her this

mother brought the youngest child in village there who after the earthquake tsunami and said you know would we want you to name this child and i said. do you have a number, a name that means new beginning and. the young woman who was my interpreter. said, we are looking for you in our don't dawe in is a boy's name, not a girl's. and it was a young boy and will name this boy dawn, and he will symbolize a new beginning. so a decade. that guy. later i went back to the same spot and i met the boy who was

there with family and he didn't have a clue. i mean, he was a day old when i met him. yeah. and i mean, i was just another old, gray haired white guy and all the other, but and i thought it was great because that's the way ought to be when you're dealing with a disaster like that, you want to put people's lives together and then let them get on with it, live it, and not in the for all of something that happened, which they can never honestly remember and were entitled to escape, but i was. and so was a marvel to me. and i love that you detailed all of these stories. and so i knew that pettyfer is credited as one of the great achievements an american

president. it was george w and it one of his great legacies. his biographer, meacham, tells great stories about this program. but one of my favorite stories in, the book was you were simon doing extraordinary work on on dealing with the aids virus through your foundation. and because you didn't do the temptation is for a lot of us who in the political arena, which is to demonize the opposition so badly that you can't have a with them. and people often ask me how you deal with a ted cruz or lindsey graham. i say, i've gotten some of my best things in congress with people on side of the aisle because i keep the door open, as you say explicitly in this, towards shared humanity. and i love this. here's george w bush and talk very openly about building trust when he was president w and i would talk once or, twice a year whenever he had the time to

call. he was busier than i was whenever i needed to run something by the white. i just worked with the staff today when we do speeches, he sometimes remarks that the thing that built trust in our relationship is that i never leaked our conversations. and then a little bit later you talk about that relation ship sets up your to make his legacy to take it to a whole another level because he was firmly rooted that we should not use these drugs that are not name brand expensive ones and you were trying to convince them to to to use alternatives that would drive down the cost and it helped more people because. you talk a little bit about that. yeah. the first of all, you may remember this, but president bush had a brilliant slogan when he ran.

for president against al gore in 2000. he said that would be a compassionate conservative. and it was really effective it was like because this unspoken message to swing voters was i give you everything clinton did with a smaller government, a bigger tax cut. wouldn't you like that? and that was the real that was the political message. and then beneath he had a bunch of specifics which were far to the right of the slogan, but knew that there was thing he wanted to do that would lay claim to compassionate conservative, which is to do more than the democrats had been able to pass through a republican congress to help deal the aids crisis. and people were dying like

flies. so i was thrilled. he passed the fab four program. it was called president's emergency plan for aids relief, and he did get more money than the most i could ever get was six out of $2,000 a year for a program that was i mean, people were down by the millions and. bush immediately got like two or 3 billion is because the christian evangelicals for it and the republicans found it easier to vote for him than for me in this congress. but i didn't care. i just wanted the people well. and by then i was out with nelson mandela trying to raise money so john paul the and the president called and asked me if i would like to join his father and other members of the

administration and the official funeral delegation which i was only too happy to do met three or four times with the pope and really liked him and and it's interesting and w met with him three times and. he would both times said he disagreed with me women's reproductive disagree with bush on the iraq war and go start talking about we could work together on and he was a very impressive man so we went his funeral and on the way back the president for me and he said let's talk about your aids problem and. he said, what did you do? how did you get these people, millions of people on aids, drugs? i said i convinced the.

the people involved with donating money to me try to establish a grocery store model run big store. you have low profit margin and you make the money on huge volumes and certain payment and it was being run a little jewelry store model. if you run a store, you've got to give people a lot of choices and, watches and engage, rings and stuff like that. so you have to carry a heavy inventory and on a lot on the sales. you do make and then you have to know that the sales aren't all 100% because somebody is liable to break the engagement ring, the ring. but you led by middle. that's basically what we were dealing with indicted. don't know if the sales were predictable. so i said let's make a grocery

store work and i got five countries to give me $100 million over five years. and then we bargain these drug sellers to give us sell us generic at less and less money because even $500 a person a year, which is what the generics calls made in india. the that was too much with all these countries that were then for cropping was not even $500 a year. when i started. so we got price from 500 to 169 to 160 to 139, all the way down. to $90 a person a year and they're always making because we were always helping them improve their productions and we pay them very promptly and we increase their volumes staggeringly.

so i told all this to bush and he said, but my guys say they're not as good. now the big drug companies had all supported him against al gore. they didn't like gore or me because we were trying to use the generic drugs. but i told them, i said, i know they say that. and i said, of all their mouth off. he said what do you mean? i said, well if you ask he said well how, how effective are these generic drugs. they say they're only 60% as effective as our drugs. and remember the first time one of those guys made this argument to me, i said, i don't believe i'd say that if i were you. and he said, why, i because your drugs are still ten or 15 times more expensive. so if trying to save more lives, you will still buy the generics. and that really him mad. i didn't mean to make him make, but i didn't think talking about

math make anybody mad. but anyway. so i as george. but keep in mind you know you do that to raise money for a campaign and you don't like to use those big donors you don't like to make powerful interest groups mad. and i said to bush i said, look, i know you got to respect these people. so what about this what if i take every drug that our foundation into any human body anywhere on earth and submit it to the food and drug administration if? they say they're safe and effective will you tell the countries you give funding that it's okay with you if they decide to buy the generics. and he said, that sounds a fair deal. i mean, you walk and i'm sure a

lot of his staff members were cursing themselves not being in the room with us but he didn't blink. in other words, he did want to save as many lives as he could. and i said, you're going to save a lot. lives were the same of money. so sure enough, then we submitted and the fda didn't walk it. and pretty soon 22 of the 24 drugs were approved. and today in the pep for countries ones funded by the united states government, 95% of the drugs are generic drugs and immediately after george. okay, the president. and the analysis was done immediately there were. 15 countries and the tab for a

lot not seven. they more than double the number of people who was lives were going to be saved. well that's spending one more red cent and i think. now if elon musk is really serious about this job he's going to do four president elect. that's the kind of thing we ought to be doing and i think. so anyway, what happened and? but it shows you that and and bush and i got so interested in all this that we set up a leadership program. in which our co-sponsor the program with his father's

library and lbj library and we 30 people a year so he picks and i pick 30 and they're all sort of mid-career a lot them are involved in health care, but there are a lot veterans, for example, were involved in veterans support programs. and they come to his library in mine and the other two and they study some aspect of presidential decision and then they break into smaller groups again 5050 and they agree some problem that would be good to solve and they go off meet for the remainder of the three month period and then 70% of the cases they reach consensus and whatever is they're worried about and we do a graduation and starting about five years ago, i noticed that the republicans

were seeking me out and the democrat are seeking him out to thank us because they did the other republicans didn't know that there was anybody like the democrats met and democrats didn't know there was anybody. the republicans, they met. and i know i've gone on long about this, but this is important that i had to i had i had to iraq iraq and afghan war veterans, both of whom had lost a leg, a roadside bomb, one of whom still hadn't had all the shrapnel removed from his face, who had started a veteran's healing and trying to restore them. and they thanked me because. one of the people we put in the mix, it was a five foot ten or 11 inch very foreboding woman

who ran the gay rights movement working for and they said wherever made by and i come before she's got all the skills we need to do what we're trying to do and we just want to thank you i'll never forget. so when they began with the end of my life stop war and about who she went home with it and instead skills she had that could help veterans that had been so badly wounded wounded. she made great. that's great. so that brings me to two of my favorite parts in this book. twice this book you tell a story of getting an apollo from far right republican one was a congressperson and this one came at a time that you made yourself vulnerable in the 911 commission, you opened up and said you said it was a mistake, talked about your mistakes that you made leading being a

president before 911 happened. and you said out by saying you're going to welcome the commission's questions all the members asked good. but the first exchange was the most memorable. john lehman, president reagan's navy secretary, in a strong proto sense conservative, thanked me for being so candid. opening open to criticism, he started out by saying i made mistakes. we're all here to learn and then said something hard to imagine in today's polarized political this is quoting him now since you've been so open i want to start by saying i owe you an apology. i'm a republican and i believed everything party's critics said about you. i have now reviewed about a thousand pages of terrorism security documents. you received your handwritten and questions are all over them. you cared a lot about this, learned a lot. and to make the right decisions. you also wanted to do more against qaeda, but you were

poorly by an unintended consequence of the goldwater-nichols act. you go on to explain. he asked if had specifically asked the chairman, the joint chiefs staffs, where the special commanders agree, whether they agreed with the recommendations. i, i had. lehman said, you have to. but over time, pentagon had grown so comfortable with a new system, they'd stop this potential downside. depriving the president of informed dissenting opinion as they deserved to be heard, lehman said. if i had been told, i might have made the same decision, but at least i would have been better informed. i'm telling you this, you right to make a larger point. no matter how smart you are. and on the level you are. if make enough decisions, some of them will look wrong in light subsequent events and those

errors will happen more often when you base those decisions on unwarranted assumptions or fail to follow up on leads. that's a big reason if they share common goal diverse groups with different backgrounds, knowledge make better decisions than homogeneous ones or lone geniuses. on that day, john lehman was a patriot and recognizing that we shared a common no more 9/11 doesn't matter if you're republican or democrat. we need to make a contribution to that that. that's a that has great relevance the present day right and to be honest with you, mr. president, a little worried about a guy that doesn't read his president's daily briefing. what would you show is your

immense curiosity, sir, you are one of the most curious to learn. people i've known and this republican got to know you and saw that through thousands pages of documents was a real testimony to the truth of who you are but not. but there shouldn't a party issue know. i mean. dwight eisenhower became famous when i was a boy for having warned us about dominance of a military industrial complex and a lot of view of a certain age. we all remember being that in school very few people. however, at least when i was of age were taught his other great warning which more relevance today he was so concerned about what senator joe mccarthy was

doing accusing everybody that disagreed him of being a communist and trying to terrify people and people torn up and upset that he said, i'm i'm not sure we can preserve our democracy there's a reason that we were then closing in. on being the oldest democracy in human history that it requires a lot of mental discipline to learn what the facts are and different circumstances and to try to think through and work with other people who were trying to do the same thing and deal with honest differences and the thing that i have worried most. about in the current environment is that. the it seems that people that are running the current transition quite unquestioned

loyalty with patriotism and questions with this loyalty and with a lack of patriotism. and when i was became president first week i was in office, i brought the young people that had supported me in to the office. i said, if any of you ever comes in here and tells me what you think, i want to. on any of these issues, i might as well shut this place and run it with a computer because because. because the vast groups make better and learn geniuses. you are in because you know a lot about the job which you're then assigned and you will learn better. and i man, i agree with you, but

is ever going to get fired or i out of demoted whatever or disagree me your job to say what you think is best under the circumstances and if the time comes and you can't live with the decision i make the honorable thing to do is to resign and if you i will praise you and recommend you for any you want because. that's that's that's what i think better. so i get the chills and people tell me that we're going to have one set of rules for one crowd and another set for another you know, i have no for people that don't want to be surrounded by people who always say yes and so that's a big difference that we

have now and it's something that we're to have to work our way through. but i hope there'll somebody like john lehman in the other party just say, look. let's get off our high horse. this was not a partizan failure. this was a bipartisan failure. and 911 and we got to fix it. you know, i want people to buy book because it has these moments and i don't want to spoil the second apology. you got, which reminded me of john lewis when when person who beat him. and i think was during his. yeah. freedom ride would later come to his office to apologize so that was a second apology reminded me of that it wasn't physical violence but this was somebody that was involved in your worst tormenting and and then came to you to apologize. it's a really beautiful vignette. i want to use that as a bridge to talk.

you know, we were joking about you being the first black president, but i think for a lot reasons why black folk feel a connection to you is because the african-american experience, unfortunately, this country is often being facing all of this unearned wretchedness from the world that comes with visits in our communities has mass incarcerated our children, a red lined us neighborhoods have pushed us into force policy and yet somehow. we the african-american community keeps this spiritual that doesn't just help them but helps to move the whole forward. and so in this book, you are on on flinching leigh laying it there from your own mistakes. you say word. i made a mistake numerous times, painful. you talk about rwanda and, your regrets there. you also talk about what your went through, which i have to think. it is almost harder than going

through it yourself. it was a nightmare. a nightmare. and and you spell it out here ways that made me just feel like i was taking gut punch after gut punch to see how unfair it all was. and you are interesting to me when you said in your campaign, when i was a young man in i was in oxford, you ran for president. we were all bunch rhodes scholars when you came to visit us in the presidency. and the first time i met rob bryson, you were the man from hope and we were so exciting. but then i would move into newark, new jersey, where i live now, a community below the poverty line, a black community, majority black city and. my definition of hope was, was changed a little bit. but reading this book, it makes me think that you are have the same definition of ms. ms. virginia jones, a tenant president of some high rise projects whose son was murdered in those buildings and yet never stopped ever stopped fighting

for those buildings, didn't move out when she had money to do so. and she taught me and echoes throughout this book is this understanding that real hope is scarred real hope is wounded, real hope has to be time and time again. real is saying that every day i'm going to decide that despair won't have the last word. and you give this really moment that it made me smile because i remember these toys when the going got rough. i tried to imagine that was one of those big inflatable ball toys of cartoon like baby huey or casper. the friendly ghost. they were big favorites of kids. when i was in elementary school, you could knock them down really hard and they'd always right back up. to survive in politics, that's what you have to do over and

over and over again. maybe we should start producing those bossy figures again. as representatives of happy warrior still reaching across great divides, people can keep them at home and at work, starting and finishing every work day by knocking down and smiley when they bounce back up. it might be clear. it might clear heads and help us to get in the building and the cooperating business. you so raw in talking about the times. forgive me, mr. president. get knocked on your --. but what is amazing to me is in every instance you tell stories, how about how you got back up and kept going, your beautiful speeches or when you thought the clinton global initiative was closing horrific things were being said about you books

clinton cash which were so as you document quite clearly here so unfair yet you still this extra ordered resiliency of spirit that just to me is amazing and i'm going to i don't just keep reading your words that you you all better read book but i just want to i just want to read this. this is a pretty low moment. it's 2016. your wife going through it, you're being attacked. and yet you up at the close of what you think, the close of the clinton global initiative having been through a lot of hell, sir. and you look at everybody and you say these words that that i read after this election and really helped. don't be don't deterred or in the wonderful words of my do not grow in doing good deal with the headlines but never forget the trend lines.

the trend lines are better than the headlines. good news about what's going right in this world is hard to sell today, but look to the trend lines. don't ever give up on what brought you here the next 30 years could be the time of greatest discoveries and possibilities and create it to be the world ever. no, but only we get up tomorrow knowing that if just get caught trying and we do it with somebody else, chances are it'll work better than we dreamed dreamed. you know, believe. i think think i still think the united states is the best positioned country in the world. 21st century. i still think. but we're living in a time of particularly savage political

conflict where, i mean, people will say anything and a lot of people will believe it as long as it hits the designated target. and. others said you were kind to read those things i think i need to give where credit is due. nelson mandela probably gave me more help to manage the to drive me from office and second term than anybody. we just became friends and we liked each other. and i ask him questions and so. i was going through a fairly tough time and i said you know mandela you're a great man and all that you're also a shrewd and it was really smart to put your jailers in your

inauguration, put the people they work for and you. but me. the truth when you walking to freedom, didn't you hate them over again? and many blink you said. i absolutely did for about a second. and then i realized if i still hated them. i would still be their prisoner. and i wanted to be free. and so let it go. and he said, so should you. wow. and then i. i ask him. we started talking about about sacrifice and loss. and he said, i said, when did you quit might people who did to you said, i've been little more

than half way in my 27 years and confined. he said i was 14 years in and i was breaking rocks and god was in great shape. i was stronger than ox. i was furious and i said, look what they did to me. they abused me, abused me mentally. they destroyed family life. i never got to see my children grow up. i didn't eventually claim my marriage. i knew every day they wanted to kill me. they could without any whatever. and one day when i was breaking those rocks, i realized they could take everything except my mind and my heart is in those things. i would have to give away.

and i decided not give them away. and then he looked at me and smiled at million dollar smile of his, he said, and later said, wow. and i said, and you know. one of the reasons i love this work that i've done the last 24 years is i'm always seeing people who've staggering. you read the story about the guy who lost his face in the earthquake. the and the the woman. who lost her husband fighting the narco traffickers in colombia and all these stories that are in their and and i always try to remember that there's somebody somewhere right around the corner that has it worse than you do your loved

ones and they still go on they treat every like a gift. they still go on. that's what i think all of us have to do now. and if we think we know something that our adversaries know, we're duty bound to share it with them, even if it's just go on. i mean, it is interesting that i felt like this a free man. a free man. you wrote this in a way with you didn't flinch from talking about chapters to me, i wish american history had gone a different way. and i wondered how you could get over that. and you this pastor so spoke to me. you said when you have more yesterdays and tomorrows living in the present and for the future requires nurturing good memories and making peace with the less happy ones. but forgetting some things is important. a couple years ago i read scott

small's book forgetting the benefits of, not remembering, which explains why as we age, we need to free space in our minds to make better decisions. like many older people, i forget where i put things and i need the things need and i still remember things that i need to let go of. but i'm working on it. it's like you are. this is a this is a meditation and truth telling vulnerability. but loving those who hate you, it is is. it is, you know. but i find every time every little effort i made has paid in some way, even though sometimes it's totally rebuffed. but i remember once at the end of my presidency, i was in a struggle with the republican in

the congress and the senate mar. that was lott of mississippi. i and he and i had a remarkably similar childhood aesc violence. he grew up in a working class home and mississippi and wanted to be in a conservative republican and so one day on one of the sunday morning talk shows shows, he called me a spoiled. and i was in the my second term and so all the young people that work for me were so upset and i said, golly so got on the phone. he said, you come to. and i said, i certainly did. but not for what you think.

he said, what do you mean? i said, you worked hard week. your staff to you and to believe in you had to go on one of these talk shows. i tried to keep my people from even watching them and i so. you went and you had a headache you didn't feel good and they baited with you with me and you took the bait. he said, that's what happened. ha ha ha ha. i said, forget it, but you need to have better sleep on the weekends. and we had incredible weeks where we all these agreements and got stuff. it was amazing. yes because i tried to put myself in his position. and you're really good at this. you know, that's one reason you get a lot of those republicans. i feel better about themselves if they can say they've done a

deal with you and okay that's okay. and john lewis was a genius at it, you know, and he and i were friends from. 1970s until the day he passed and but i remember he just kept being nice and decent to people and even his vicious opponents admitted that they respected him because he was always on the level, was never responding to an interest group or pressure. he a sense of justice, wholeness rose from every time he took a breath. there so i think you know, we should all. try to bring that in people and.

that's why, you know, i've loved doing this work. i've done all this. the clinton global initiative and now we've got 500 million people we can document who have helped the the aids work i've done and all the other care work that's saved millions of lives. and i had a good time doing. and i think most people are happy doing something that's productive. but if we're not careful, we can start keeping score our lives the wrong. and that's the last thing i would say. you know, i kept saying in this thing, we all keep score. what are you all admitted or not right now? every one of you is keeping about your life and some way you. i am i'm sorry that i can't eat as much as i used to without gaining. so i've got to eat as.

i have three choices. i can eat less. more do both or just whine about it. i mean, we all keep score all the time time. and i think one of the things i urge you to do, it drives this whole book is i had to decide why when i got out of the white house, what was going to keep score the way i had in my public life, and if so, how hard it would be to learn to make change without power, but that's what i urge you to think about tonight. you go home. how do you keep score? i have, you know, these three wonderful grandkids grandkids and my daughter and son in law have, you know, the. my daughter just ran the third

new york marathon. and less than 4 hours and at 44 and i've got these three five grandkids and i adore my son in law is a sort of a patronizing, old fashioned to say but i have my. worries are over once i realize how much he loves and their kids and they're all going to take care of each other. but. i think the best way to keep score is whatever, whatever effort you've got or people better off when quit than when you start. the children have a brighter future and are we coming together instead of being torn apart? that's i keep score and other people keep score differently in politics and but that's how i do

and if you can yes. to those three questions then it doesn't matter nearly as much if you lost a few elections or you had a couple of seven backs or somebody mad at you or whatever. and i think that that ultimately that's what this book is about. this book is about how i try organize my life to make the most difference i could saw the most problems i could and leave things better shape than i found them. and and along the way, i talked how our family, even when my daughter was young, hillary and i, we we've had most interesting meals. when she was six years old, she started reading the newspapers and i was at a very tough

governor's race and the guy was i was running against and terrible about me. and she read it. so we explained all the issues. and then i said, okay, tomorrow we're all going to play the these guys, the both and governor. i said, so one of us is going to be me and one of us is going to be each of them. and at chelsea, you're going to i had to fight my opponent's. and she said, no, i want to play you. i can beat him. that ha ha ha. six years old. well, well, let let me say, because this we talked about this right off stage. right. we were coming up and waiting for the voice of god to introduce us and know his daughter. she is one of the more extraordinary human beings i've ever met. just who she is. my mom has a saying about, she says, behind every successful child is an astonished parent. and and but my favorite quote

about what my favorite quote about parenthood comes from james baldwin, who said children are never good listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them. you're daughter. the story we were hearing over there before we in was this moment that i was just a humbled by her humility and that she was considering about going to oxford. you and i had this prestigious experience. we wrote scholars. the people were encouraging her to apply the roads and and in a reflection of the values in which she was growing up in what she say to you. she called me one day late at night because she was at stanford and i was in washington, the white house, and she then i got some good news and bad news and said, well, what's the good news, she said,

stanford wants to nominate me for a rhodes scholarship. i said, that's wonderful. well, it could be bad. she said, i said, no. she said, i'm not going to do it. i don't want to do it. and i said, do you not want to go to oxford anymore? she said, no, i really do she said, can you afford to send. and i said, well, thanks to kenneth starr and special counsel, not today, but i'll be. but i said, i, i said by the time by the time you're done, i will be able to and i would be honored to. she said that's what i want to do. well then i said, why? and she said that that rhodes scholarship changed life.

you were a from arkansas who never would have had a chance to do anything like that. and i said, well, you think you won't win? she said no, i think i probably would. i said, you think you'd just win because of who your parents are? she said, no, i would win because of the life had the experiences, had the people i've met, the things that i did of you and mom. and he said, some people should not get award for the life they've already they get it for the life they could live. and he said so if you can afford to me that's the way i'd like go because somebody whose life will be changed deserves to have this slot. and i've never been more proud her in my life. i just love, you know, it was like, you know, but there her

family, she teaches her kids. my son in law does that they be brave and be kind and as the family motto and get god trying. and that's you had to do you had to just get god trying life is totally unpredictable passes a flash and you know this little planet of ours is 4 billion years old and people have been hanging around on it probably 200,000 or so years. and our pre-human ancestors would take us back to about how old was lucy of mom? two and a half. 3 million years old. i mean, we are just passing through and we have to make the most of it, the good and the bad and we have to keep cells in

perspective. you know, remember, it's a talk in the book about going hawaii and meeting, going up to one of the big telescopes and staff of monarch out and looking at. you can see from there outside our own galaxy, the milky way galaxy and the andromeda. so and i did that in january 88 degrees on the ground and 18 degrees when we got to the telescope. then we went back started coffee with the american scientists who were there and, the german person who was in charge of the group and said, do you guys ever argue about the likely hold of life on other planets? he said, all the time. i said, do you have big differences? he said, huge. i said what are that?

you said, well, some of think it's 85% likely and others think it's 95 or something like that. and he said it, though, with a straight face. i said that balance. i like differences. well, he said there are a billion galaxies in the universe and they're getting bigger all the time. so the 10% difference is a very large real number in terms of all the problems entities. but he said, you know even in solar system, there are several planets or stars around planets, little ones, not our name, but that clearly have the right atmosphere. conditions for oxygen and water. and it's just we think it's highly unlikely that there's no life out there somewhere. well, once you start thinking about, it's hard to believe it matters much. who is on mount rushmore or, any

other human pretense. it's it's the itself. it's the gift. it's the chance to do something kind and good and construct give and to live up to your fullest capacity, knowing that it'll pass a moment. i'll spend half life being the youngest person who ever did what a role was doing for us. and one day i woke up and i was the oldest man. the room. and i have no idea it happened. but i'm pretty sure. it had something to do with. the process that none us can turn back. so we need to embrace. that's what this book talks about. well, mr. president, part of your family motto is to be brave and kind. i will tell you right now, this is a book and it truly does. kindness, decency, an

indefatigable indefatigable, relentless love. thank you. thank. european. thank you. if. well, be merry with little. guys. who. what is.

wrong. it seems seems.