tv Hannity FOX News November 1, 2011 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT
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thanks for watching. i'm bill o'reilly. remember, the spin stops here because we are definitely looking out for you. >> welcome to this very special edition of "hannity." condeleezza rice, since leaving office, has stayed quiet about the years she served at the top levels of the george w. bush white house. all that silence ends now. her brand new book, "no higher honor" a memoire of her years in office. and we are very honored to have with us the former secretary of state, condeleezza rice. great to see you. how are you? >> great. thank you. >> i love this about you. i love the fact that you are a
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pianist, and i watched you play. you are amazing. >> thank you. >> and you also like led led zeppelin. >> i do. >> i have a hard time putting those together. >> stairway to heaven, a little mows -- mezart, it works. and if you had your way you would be the commissioner of the nfl. >> right. i told him when i struggled with the russians every day, his job looked so good but from northern california it doesn't look so good now so i think i will stay as a university professor instead. >> your story is fascinating. i would love to get inside of the minds of the people that were there. it's very interesting. when you made the transition after four years to become secretary of state, you knew this was going to be a tough job. you knew it was going to be a lot of traveling. you tell a story where a person
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that would drive you to the airport, and you would have these long twelve, eighteen hour flights, you would always and that person what are you doing this weekend? >> right. i had wonderful drivers. at the state department it was a man named otis. the only advice i gave hillary clinton really was keep otis because he could make his way, if you needed to get some way in five minutes, and you only had three, he could do it. >> he could get you there. >> but he's one of those wonderful african-american civil servants that did his job. he had been a noncommissioned officer in the military. and i would ask him as we were going out to andrews air force base and very often i had already worked a full day, grabbed my bags and got in the car and i would say otis what are you going to do this weekend? he said i'm going to go to my daughter's basketball game and go for a long run, and i thought i've lost all perception of weekends. >> and when i interviewed the
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secretary of defense, done rumsfeld and over the years collin powell, i don't know if people understand the enormity of sacrifice for public service. and as we are going to get into your story here tonight i'm thinking about all the guys that are running for president. as we discuss this, herman cain is under tremendous fire. an allegation that i don't think should have made it into the press. and, you know, we watched clarence thomas in the hearings. we have an african-american president, and i'm thinking these are great strides for the country, and i wonder if at times we don't take a step back, especially it seems african americans that are conservative are excoriated on a regular basis. i wanted to get your been on that. you served all these years. >> first of all, politics are a little rough. we know that. it's a little bit rough and tumble. when you go into the political arena you can expect it. i know that many, many times i would get up and i would look at the newspaper and i would say is
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that the person that they are talking about? is that me that they are talking about? but you are there because you want to do a job and the people who are running for president i think knew that they signed on for this. so we will get through this. the truth will come out, and hopefully we can get past it so that the very interesting debate that we are having on the republican side about how to think about the size of government, how to think about dealing with our core issues like education and immigration, that we can get back to that. but i'm not surprised. and i will tell you, sean, i don't like to play the race card on either side. i would like to give us more credit than that. >> but there is a demographic issue that we cannot ignore and that is in almost every election african americans, about 90%, vote democratic. and many close friends of mine that are conservative that are african-american are called the most horrific names. what do you make of that
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phenomena? you were called horrific names. harry belafonte comes to mind. >> i always tell people you don't need to tell me what it means to be black, i've been black all my life. and blacks have to think a particular way. you are the one who is actually prejudiced. if you were looking at somebody who was white you would not say well you have to think a particular way. and so if you look at somebody who is black and you say that about them, then check your own prejudice. >> but it was very strong language. herman cain, and i interviewed him, as he has ascended in the policy against all odds, but he's had an incredible life. you have a pretty fascinating family background, so does he. i thought a great book i read was by clarence thomas "my grandfather's son." a great book. he grew up poor and the discipline of a grandfather brought him to be a supreme court justice. both clarence thomas and herman
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cain have used a term "high-tech lynching," a powerful statement by both of them. >> i don't like language that is too evocative. >> too evocative? >> i think the language is extremely evocative. clarence thomas is a very good friend of mine. he was incredibly supportive of me the whole time i was in government. and i think the world of him. i'm sorry that he went through what he went through. but i think we need to get past the language of race on both sides. my view is that i try very hard to give people the benefit of the doubt. if i give them the benefit of the doubt, then i'm actually empowering myself because the minute that i give in to racial stereotype or to your high profile language about me, now i've lost, i've lost control. so i just don't engage in it.
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>> but you work for a very conservative president, and you had nice words to say about president bush in your book during very historically consequential times. but yet other people, if they take a conservative position and they are african-american, why are they beaten up so badly and called these horrific names? you've seen. you've heard it. >> of course, i have. of course, i have. but as i said, sean -- >> doesn't matter. >> no one can tell me how to be black. i know how to be black. i've been black all my life. and again, if you look at a black person and you say that person has to think in a particular way, i don't care if you are white or you are black and you say that, then you've got a prejudice. you can't see beyond race to give that person the dignity, the ability to think as they might. so i really don't engage in this. i simply say to people, you know, i'll think what i think
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and if you have a problem with that, it's your problem, not mine. >> do you have a favorite for president in the gop? >> no. i like where we are right now. this is the best time, actually, in our political system because we have an incumbent in the white house and we have a party -- >> know. i report on him a lot. >> you do. and we have a party who is going to challenge. happens to be my party that's going to challenge. and i think it's a good thing that we will get a chance to watch people over the next several months, we will get a chance to watch them under pressure, we will get a chance to watch them under the lights. i've never actually said that our political system is too tough on people. you learn a lot in these primaries about how people will stand up to pressure. and so, you know, we will have a nominee soon and then i will support that nominee. >> we are going that talk about the high pressure moments that you lived under, and there were many of them in the course of
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your eight years working and serving round president bush. we will also get your thoughts about president obama. and coming up, more of my exclusive interview with former secretary of state condeleezza rice and her book, which is out in stores today. members of our audience will get a chance to ask her questions. there are a couple liberals there, too. that and more straight ahead. [ male announcer ] drinking a smoothie with no vegetable nutrition?
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>> we are speaking with former secretary of state condeleezza rice. you write in your book that you got onboard the bush campaign early, but you thought it was a long shot going up against al gore. >> i did. >> you did? >> i did. we were in peace and prosperity. there was really no hint of what we would experience somewhat later. and i did think it was a long shot. as a matter of fact, i was too polite to say that to then george w. bush of texas but i sure thought it. >> it's interesting because your background is pretty phenomenal. why don't you give a quick synopsis. you wrote touchingly about your father and you thought that may actually prevent you from taking the opportunity that president elect bush was offering you. he got sick, he had a cardiac arrest, and then later in the
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book he was a minister and he called you and he told you i'm going home just before he died. >> right. my dad was a very religious man, as i am. i am the daughter of a presbyterian minister and grand daughter after presbyterian minister. my further was quite ill with a brain injury. he wasn't completely able to communicate, but some. i called him that night and he said i'm going home. and i said daddy, you are at home and he said no, i'm going home. he died a couple of days later. it's always been very difficult for me because i told then president elect bush that i probably couldn't go to washington, this was just after the decision about florida had been made, and my father was still alive and he was very ill and i said i don't think i can go, i can't leave my father this way. he said i'm not asking you to leave your daddy.
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i know how much it means to you. we will make it work. we will let you go back and forth every two weeks. that wasn't going to be workable. my father died, and i always said i know john wesley rice jr., and something inside of me said that he decided it was time to move on. and i hope he didn't do it so i could go on to washington. >> wow, that's a pretty revealing story and obviously a great man. you worked for george w. bush for eight years. i've had the honor of being around him a number of times, including just before he left the white house, i had one of his last interviews and when his book came out we did an interview on this stage and i went to the texas ranch and got to interview him here. i found him in real life, i wish that the person that i met, you know, i don't think tv was his favorite medium. >> no, no. >> you agree? >> i agree completely. >> you talk about him in terms of, like even on 9/11, decisive,
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alert, engaged and passionate in a way that i wish he was able to communicate at times to the american people. >> i think the greatest misconception about george w. bush is he was somehow not interested, not curious, didn't and tough questions. i saw more cabinet secretaries go into the oval office with their presentation was whatever issue, and before they could get to page 2, he would ask the most insightful question that they had forgotten to prepare for. and he was a strategic thinker, always looking at the big picture, always looking at how to think about america's values and america's power in a way that would really progress, make the world more progressive, make the world freer, more prosperous. and he was an exceptional president in that way. and i just loved working with him because he was so insightful. he also read five books for every one that i read. the worst times at camp david would be going around the table
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at lunch and he would say, so, what is everybody reading? and i was busy and reading mostly cables and i would have to say to myself did i say last week i was reading that book? because he moved on this something else. really, really smart, insightful person. >> ments he pushed everybody. you make the claim you think what happened with the arab spring and what's happened with gaddafi -- by the way, were you obsessed to find out gaddafi had an obsession and crush on you? >> yeah, it's a little weird. i learned about it before i went to libya. oh, yeah, a couple foreign minister friends told me about it. >> are you suggesting he was flirting with you? >> i don't know if gaddafi flirted. i don't think that's quite the right way to think about it. all i know is i went there to do a job, he had given up his weapons of mass destruction, he had gottennen out of the terrorist families and he was going to pay the victims family -- >> pan am?
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>> pan am 102 and i thought to myself steady yourself, do your job and get out. >> you know he had this basic shrine to you and a scrapbook. >> yeah, but in the final analysis he left it behind when he ran so i guess i wasn't as important after all. >> if he would have been found in the tunnel with pictures of you -- >> that would have been really weird. >> i want to ask you because you credit president bush with the arab spring and what happened with gaddafi and other issues, but i have questions whether we were strategic enough or whether we made a mistake, and i'll ask you when we get back. and come up more of my cable exclusive interview with former secretary of state condeleezza rice. and our very young audience here, college students, they get a chance to ask questions of their own. you don't want to miss that. that and much more straight ahead. ahead. place look, every day we're using more and more energy.
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but why didn't we know -- we didn't know that the libyan rebels we were supporting would institute sharia two days later. why didn't people say, as bad as it was, the muslim brother hood would likely take over? did you suspect these things would happen? >> i fully suspected that the misplace the extreme efforts might have the upper hand. the sad thing about the arab world, because of the freedom gap, because the authoritarians felt decent politicians out of the area, it was the democrats that had been chased down by the secret police, their internet sites had been shut down, they weren't allowed to form political parties, and the islam efforts, they organized so it's not at all surprising they would
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be stronger. but i think it's a transition we go through for a better middle east because we learned an interesting fact in elections that's been held in places like kuwait and lebanon, the extremists do well the first time around but i would rather have them contesting in politics and have to answer the questions what will you do, and if their campaign slogan is we will institute sharia law and we will make your children suicide bombers, then maybe that won't be so popular after all. >> i hope so but you always wonder if they will fix the elections. look at the stronghold iran has over its people. and i thought we made a mistake has a country, president obama did not support the students when they were -- when there was an uprising. i thought we missed an student. but it seemed like if people desired freedom, and seems like we aren do youd by our creator -- >> it's universal. >> i agree. but once it gets hold, it's almost impossible to get rid of
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it without bloodshed. >> political reform has come very late in the middle east and revolutions aren't pretty. when you have political reform this late you have a lot of anger and it has to work its way through the system. but we ought to be concentrating right now on helping people to create institutions into which that anger can be fed, where people can begin to advocate for themselves. we ought to be concentrating with these folks on what their constitutions are going to look like, what rights are going to be reserved. >> you seem far more optimistic than i would imagine. >> i'm optimistic in the long run. in any case, optimistic or pessimistic, authoritarianism isn't stable because sooner or later people lose their fear of the authoritarian at that consider he can't rule so it's not stable. >> there's 30,000 surface-to-air missiles that were in gaddafi's hands and they are missing. apparently some of them might have been used this weekend against israel.
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could we wake up and some of those missiles cross the u.s.-mexico border and five commercial airliners are shot out of the sky because those weapons got in al-qaeda's hands? >> we are clearly in an unstable and very chaotic time in the middle east. but we tried, with the freedom agenda, to get ahead of this. whole idea with the freedom agenda was to say to friends of ours some of the monarchs who are our friends, to others, to reform now. i said in 2005 the united states had been for 60 years associated with authoritarianism. we had tried to trade democracy for -- and got neither. i remember visiting him that morning and i said, mr. president of grease, need nd
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lead reforms now. they said you don't know my people. it's me or the muslim brotherhood and then he engaged in policies to make that sure, that the muslim brotherhood would be strong. >> you saw this coming? >> we saw it coming. and moreover, it was linked to 9/11 in the following way. the freedom gap produced the hopelessness and the hay tread and the extremists on top that ultimately ended up in the al-qaedas of the world. so reinstituting an american policy in the middle east or instituting an american policy in the middle east, we followed everywhere else. freedom and instability ultimately are friends of one another is posh. >> i were described in the book the bush doctrine and urn asked an important question by the president, should we go after state-sponsored terrorism. and we have approximatecy wars funded fund iran and they would fund
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other groups, they are lighting the fumes everywhere they can, and now the iranians maybe nuclear weapons soon, by all accounts. it seems to me the united states is coming to a very important decision d we join with israel and take out their nuclear sites or is that too aggressive? >> i think there's still room to put enormous pressure against the iranians regime. >> i don't think they fear president obama. >> i hope they recognize whoever the president of the united states is has a lot of firepower at his disposal and will use it. but the way to deal with the iranians right now is continue to put pressure on the regime, on the economy, shut them out of the international system. we ought to sanction the central bank, we ought to shut off oil
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and gas exports, and imports to the iranians. and by the way, we can put pressure on them in iraq. back when they were making a lot of trouble for us and they were killing our troops with the iraqi -- the iraqi bad shia groups were telling our troops with iranian technology. president bush put out an order we would capture or kill any iranian we caught in iraq. and we we captured a commander and kept them, and let them be known he was sing like a little bird, the iranians pulled in their horns for a little while. >> i want to ask you if you support the president's foreign policy agenda? and you said some words about getting bin laden in and the news about that, but you also give credit to the bush administration. i want to get to that when we get back. also, i'll step aside.
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coming up later we will ask our audience to ask their questions of the former secretary. that, and much more on this very that, and much more on this very special edition of "hannity" fore! no matter what small business you are in, managing expenses seems to... get in the way. not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app made exclusively for ink customers. custom categorize your expenses anywhere. save time and get back to what you love. the latest innovation. only for ink customers. learn more at chase.com/ink that's relied on to help bring children holiday joy, and while it doesn't travel by sleigh or reindeer, it does get around... in fact, every year duracell sends loads of batteries to the mattel children's hospital, u.c.l.a. of course, children here and everywhere don't really think about which battery makes their toy run...
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>> welcome back to the special edition of "hannity." we continue with former secretary of state, condeleezza rice. i am going to let people read it themselves in the back, but you describe your day on 9/11. the president shouldn't come back, all of the things that happened, how cool the president was under pressure, and you gave him really high marks. but i want to fast forward to we finally get bin laden. now, if president obama had his way we wouldn't have had those interrogationings, would have closed down gitmo, wouldn't have hoped, and black sites, et cetera. he opposed the very things that got us the intelligence so he could make, i agree with you what you say in the book, a tough decision.
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so you give credit to both president bush and president obama. but we wouldn't have gotten there had president obama and other people had their way. that bothers me. it seems he didn't have the wisdom and understanding that this was a war on terror. >> he wasn't president at the time. and when you sit in the oval office, when you sit in the oval office, you had better be ready to make the tough decisions to defend this country. >> i agree. >> and george w. bush was ready to make those decisions. and, yes, he was criticized for them and, yes, in the campaign people said things about what they would do that they end up not doing when they had suddenly the responsibility of being in the oval office. it's a very sobering thing to be the president of the united states and realize, after you have seen that many people die, after you have seen a state less group of terrorists attack from afghanistan probably with $300,000 to pull off the attack, you better do the tough things to put you in that position.
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>> i agree. i think, for example, maybe it was that president obama was naive. he said he would negotiate with iran without preconditions. he said that early i don't know. yet he did make that tough decision i thought it was a little ill-conceived. i thought he would have known sharia law would emerge two days after they got gaddafi but they got gaddafi. they said it was democracy in the arab spring but i don't think it is yet. >> not yet, but it is at least the absence of an author -- authoritarian. >> but the muslim brothers said at the time prepare for war with israel. and mumbarak, as bad as he was, had peace. >> but it's not stable. so the idea that somehow you have a choice to stay with mumbarak once his people are in the streets, it's not there. so now you have to move on. i'm with you. i think it's going to be a very
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chaotic and unstable time in the middle east but i'm going to give these people a chance to demonstrate that with institutions they can make this work. we have to remember, democracy takes a very long time. in my other book, extraordinary and ordinary people, i recall growing up as a child in birmingham, alabama, segregated birmingham, alabama. my father couldn't register to vote in 1952. i was secretary of state a few years ago. it takes time for democracy to fully prove itself. but people have to get on the road to it or you are simply going to have the kind of chaos. >> you make the most persuasive case that i have heard from anybody to answer that question but i worry is it 42 years to sharia? is if at a point where we are at such a critical crossroads, does the enemy, does al-qaeda, the terrorist groups get nuclear weapons in the time being? i don't know if we have the time
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to wait for this process. >> we're not powerless to effect this. we can certainly work hard to strengthen the resolve and the opportunities for people who are democratic forces. >> i would be negligent if i didn't ask you about the relationship between you, donald rumsfeld, colin powell. >> i thought you might. >> and you write pretty extensively in the book about it. you didn't particularly like one statement when donald rumsfeld said you were bright. you asked with what's wrong with us? >> we were pretty good friends and still are. >> because he supported you very early in your career, you write about that. and then there was some conflict. what did you see, sent out snowflakes, letters? >> right that's correct were critical, shall we say, of things that we were doing. but these were substantive disagreements. and personalities are -- people are people.
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everybody has got a personality. when you are working under enormous pressure practically 24 hours a day, those personalities are sometimes going to express themselves more fully than they might under calmer times. >> seems like you were kind of in the middle of it a lot. >> well, i was the national security advisor. the national security advisor is always in the middle because you are the honest broker and you are trying to bring all views to the table. when i was secretary of state i wasn't in the middle anymore. >> one thing you wrote you thought colin powell if he would have won for president that year, he would have won. >> i do. >> and president bush new there was a lot of conflict within his ranks and you often talked to him about it. >> we did. and i think from his point of view he didn't mind strong opinions. that's another kind of misconception that we didn't have strong pins within, we were afraid to tell the president bad news e could take bad news, he could take debate, he could take controversy. for a long time we were able to work through it.
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but frankly around the issues of iraq it did become very difficult and to a certain extent dysfunctional and that's when it was harder. >> have you read dick cheney's book and donald rumsfeld book and things that were written about you? >> i have been writing this book so i haven't been reading everything. >> you are i wear of some of the comments? >> i am. like i said before, my friend donald rumsfeld gets a little grumpy. >> there's never any backstabbing, political in-fighting? >> and the vice president and i just didn't agree a lot. and i have enormous respect for him, for his storied career. when we didn't agree, we actually did it in a civil way. i never felt it was personal. and i know that he was disappointed in some of the decisions that the president decided to take.
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particularly when i was secretary of state. >> one last question. when colin powell knew that richard armatage was the person that revealed the information about valerie plahn and both of them didn't speak out, was that unfair? >> this is a very murky episode and i suffered some in this episode, too. i wish rich had just said you should have just said it. >> we have to take a break. when we come back, former secretary of state condeleezza rice is going to answer questions from our student audience of liberals. next. capital one's new cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody...
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college and graduate students. it's their turn to ask condeleezza rice about her time in the white house. i was only kidding when i said you were liberal. there are a couple. what is your name? >> i'm a student at the columbia university of international and public affairs. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> my question is dr. rice, you have chronicled your -- what advice do you have for aspiring public officials or diplomats? >> first of all, make sure at some point in your life you do public service. it's very much worth t i call it book "no higher honor" because i don't think there is no higher honor. but before you try to jump into the foray, become good at something. go to school, learn something. i tried to become a good soviet specialist before i went into government the first time and i was known to know something about the soviet union, which is
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why i was tapped for that job. and take your time. not everything is going to happen overnight. but i hope you will take some opportunity to get internships along the ways, there are plenty of opportunities to have a summer internship, maybe even a year long internship and get your feet wet a little bit. and ultimately, and this may surprise you a little bit, sean, you have to get involved in the political process. go work for a candidate that you care about. if you have some specialty that you know something about the middle east or you know something about asia, work on a little policy team for that candidate. that's really how you get involved. >> by the way, i'm glad you are not going to be a talk show host. we have plenty of competitors out there. we don't need anymore. thank you for your question. next? hi. >> hi. my name is eric. thank you for coming out today. actually i'm here with some of
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my nyu friends. we run the republican club and it's an honor to see you. >> that's an a plus there. >> my question is after reading "decision point" i was wondering what are some of your greatest moments and what are some of the most inspirational moment you had with president bush? >> for me anytime i saw people struggling toward democracy, i was inspired. i can remember going to iraq for the first time and standing on the steps where saddam hussein had been in this airport and thinking these people had a chance. i can remember the purple fingered elections in iraq, going to lebanon for the first time of a syrian forces had left. and going to chile and for the inauguration of michelle in a country that just a couple of decades ago had actually been a military dictatorship, and thinking about this
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irrepressible drive to be free. it's the best thing we've got going for us in the world. that people don't want to live in tyranny. and we, as the united states of america, stand for that. whenever a particular secretary of state, i got to go out and represent the united states of america, i felt that i was representing something very, very special and something very, very deep and those for me were the most inspirational times. >> would you like to get into politics? just as an aside? >> yes, sir, definitely. definitely. >> good. good for you. >> okay. you have my vote. one more question. this segment go ahead. >> my name is todd. i'm from columbia university. you were actually my provost back in the '90s. what was the biggest mistake you made while working in the bush administration and what were some of the most surprising and important lessons you learned at secretary of state that you would want to share with future secretaries? >> the most surprising thing about being secretary of state is the degree to which the
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american secretary of state is the in-box for the world. i didn't even understands it as national security advisor. it's almost as if there is no issue that people don't bring to the secretary of state. and so you find yourself sometimes saying, well why is that my problem? and then you realize, you sort of get over your grumpiness about that and you say it's because people really look to the united states to be a problem solver. they understand that we are prepared to do hard things. but i was surprised, even having been national security advisor at the scope and scale of the job of the secretary of state. in terms of mistakes, look, we made our share. whenever you are in con convention times you are particularly going to make them. i think in probably, in iraq, if i had to do it over again, i would try to build iraq from the outside-in. concentrating a lot less on reconstruction and politics in baghdad and working more with
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the tribal leaders in the way we finally got right in the province when we worked with the tribal leaders there. i wish we could have done more, another lost opportunity, i wish we could have done more with mexico. i think one of the costs of 9/11 and having to focus so intently on defending the country is that our great plans that fox and george w. bush as former governors had for immigration reform for securing the border, we really didn't pay enough attention and if i could go back i would do that again. >> we will take a break. we will be back with the former secretary as she takes more questions from our live studio audience. audience. thanks for being with us.host: o really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: do people use smartphones to do dumb things? man 1: send, that is the weekend. app grapgic: yeah dawg! man 2: allow me to crack...the bubbly!
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>> welcome back to this special edition of "hannity." our student audience, who has the next question? >> i'm nick from columbia university. >> hi, nick. >> my question is going to ask you to predict the future a little bit. many see a future of constrained american leadership in the world as a result of ballooning budget deficits at home and competition with emerging powers such as china. so i'm wondering if you agree
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with this view and if you do how do you see that process playing out some. >> america's best days are not behind, it they are ahead of it. but i am a very firm believer that we have a tough job of internal repair to do if we are going to continue to lead. we have to get our budget deficits under control and we have to have an immigration policy that is true to ourselves as a country of immigrants and we have to fix t-12 education we can't continue with circumstances that i can look at your zip code and tell if you are going to get a good education. that is something we can do faster than anything china can in their rise. i don't worry about anybody catching us from behind but i worry about a united states that really doesn't take care of our core problems and it's why i always say let's start with the internal repair. that is the source of american leadership abroad. >> would you of consider running for president? >> i've had my times. i'm a policy person, not a
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politician. i'll let others do that. >> is that a definite no. >> that's a no. [laughter] >> what if anybody came to you and said i really want you to be my vice president? >> sean, i've had my time. i think it's time to move on to somebody else. >> i'll take that as a yes. [laughter] >> our next question. >> hi. dr. rice, my name is garcia from columbia law school. you mentioned that you regret a lost opportunity for immigration reform and i was wondering how you would address immigration today more particularly? >> we have to address it at the federal level. i don't think a patchwork of state immigration reform policies is a good idea. i understand the frustration of the states, but we are a country of immigrants. i look at people like some parents who brought him here at 7 years old and he founded google. and these are the most ambitious
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people in the world. if we don't get our immigration policies turned around, we are going to have the same sclerotic demographics of japan. we better do it and do it quickly. i hope we don't play politics with it. there was a bill in 2007 that george w. bush and john mccain and john kyle and teddy kennedy all wanted and we couldn't get it done. but we are a country of immigrants. that's our strength. and i hope we can get to a place that we remember that. >> my problem with immigration is if we don't control our borders, you know, look, i've been to the border five times, five different places but i'm not worried so much about the person who wants to work and get a better life for him and his family, but somebody can walk across our border wanting a job and so too can somebody who wants to destroy american citizens. >> you are absolutely right about that. borders that are permanentable where you have corruption, and
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it's the same border permeability that allows the trafficking in arms and trafficking in persons. i'm all for border security and doing whatever we can. but while we are doing that, let's not forget that this country was built because people from all over the world have come here from generations to be a part of the belief that you can come from humble circumstances and you can do great things. and if we of lose that, then we have lost the essence of. >> as long as it's legal and we get to vet people, i'm all for it. did you all have a good time? all right. just for a show of hands, how many of you voted for barack obama? how many of you will vote for him again next time? how many of you have seen the light because of me? anybody? okay. >> sorry, sean. >> how many are changing your vote? okay. as we said, that's academia
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