Hi, everyone, It's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Welcome back to work in Progress. I am thrilled. Is thrilled a big enough word for how I feel today? Elated to be kicking off season two with today's guest, who truly needs no introduction, as she has spent five decades now in public service as an advocate, an attorney, the First Lady, a United States Senator, the Secretary of State of the United States, and a presidential candidate. Today we are talking to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and it was my absolute privilege to sit down and speak with her and pick her big, incredible brain. Hillary is a champion of human rights, democracy, and opportunities for women and arles here at home and around the world. She has spent her entire life fighting for equal rights and paving the way for future generations of women to come. Born in Chicago, where she began canvassing the South Side at the young age of thirteen in nineteen sixty, she participated in student council in her high school and seemed destined to be on a path to greatness. That proved to be true when she would eventually become the First Lady and then a new York State senator, then Secretary of State to President Obama, and then the very first woman ever to be nominated for President of the United States for a major political party. Hillary one the popular vote with sixty six million American votes, but as we all know, did not win the presidency due to the electoral College vote. It was certainly not the outcome that I wanted, that many of us wanted, but Hillary's perspective on it has been nothing short of incredible. And if all of her achievements, both personal and political, were not enough, she has the author of nine best selling books and hosts of the phenomenal podcast You and Me Both. I absolutely loved talking with Hillary about her childhood, the first time she heard Dr King speak, her inspirations to pursue activism on social issues, the law, and a public life. We discussed her thoughts on the pandemic, her documentary Hillary, which is now on Hulu, the lessons she learned going to an all women's college and, by the way, the lessons I learned going to an all girls high school, and her learning to live outside the trappings of traditional roles. We discussed how we still have a lot of work to do to keep things moving forward, for democracy, for women, for black and brown people, and marginalized groups of all kinds. We discuss how women's economic prosperity is necessary for national prosperity, and how even though we're still fighting some of the same battles she fought as a young woman, we have to stay strong and keep going, and we have to always be willing to learn. She is such a shining example of this, and she's been a shining light for women and people all around the world. I'm just so excited that I had the opportunity today to sit in that light for an hour, and I know that each of you at home will feel it too. Enjoy Hi Sophia, Hi, good morning. It's so nice to see you. Oh my gosh, where are you? Where are we talking from. I'm in my house in Chappaqua, New York. You are, I was wondering. I'm I'm home in l a. And it's it's kind of wild to still be home. I've never had a year like this, and I imagine you haven't either. I don't think any of us have, and it's it's still is a surreal sense. I I've only left my home to go to Unfortunately, several funerals, um to cast my vote in the electoral College, and to go to Biden's inauguration. That's it. I've otherwise been home the whole time. It certainly is a time in history, and and I even think about the time that we're in currently. You know, we've just finished Women's History Month, and I can't tell you what it means to be sitting down to have this conversation with you, perhaps one of my favorite women, in such an icon to so many of us. Before you jumped on, I was speaking with Nick Lovely Nick who works with you, and we were talking about the last time we all saw each other in person up in Vancouver. For you that are gosh. We just had such a good time and it was such a privilege for me to be able to interview you and President Clinton. And I was thinking about the laughs we had on stage, you know, asking you questions and hearing. I mean, I don't even know. It was an auditorium stadium. I don't know what you would consider the building you were in, but thousands of people just falling out laughing. You are funny, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Oh well you are. Some days are better than other days. But you. You You are this funny, sharp, incredibly witty woman, and and I love that that it seems, at least for me, perhaps because social media has given us more sort of more access and more of a window into your life than we've ever been able to have before. But you really you bring such humor to the world. And I must say, I this is not the point of the podcast, but I was thinking yesterday that you really need to give a master class on the five word Twitter takedown, because you are owning social media. And I have no idea if you have somebody like writing your jokes, or if you just feel incredibly free, you know, clicking away. But god, it's good. Freedom. Freedom is such a gift, isn't it. You know what I remember, Sophia. I remember how wonderful you were on stage with us, and what a great time we had in front of those thousands of people up in Vancouver. But then I remember we all got together for a meal and the laughs continued. We had a big square table, and you know, the people with you, the people with us, everybody just sat around and we ordered all kinds of stuff and we were just talking and just laughing. It was such a happy occasion. Whenever I see a picture of you on social media read about you, big smile comes on my face because, just like you are, time together pre pandemic back in the day, it was just so joyous, and I think we need more joy in our lives. You know, we do need more humor and laughter, but also communion and community, bringing people together and finding, you know, something to share. So you know, you put a smile on my face and I'm so happy to see you, and I love your podcast. It's just it's great. But I think during this last year, especially while we were all apart, podcasting and a few other kinds of connections have really become more and more important, don't you think I do? I do? And the ability to do this. I mean, I think so much about the people who went through the last global, truly global pandemic in and that they couldn't do this. I know, they didn't have this technology available to them to see their loved ones and people they admire and to have conversations like this. So I feel very grateful for these silver linings. Yeah, I know, that's a really good way of putting it. You know, I thought a lot about and I've looked at pictures of people in that pandemic back in nineteen and one thing that struck me. You know, we've had this big debate now about whether kids can go to school, and they were very legitimate concerns that parents and teachers raised about the safety of their children, the safety of the staff and schools. There are pictures from way back a hundred years ago where children are sitting in coats, hats, gloves, and scarves in classrooms with the windows open. So even though they didn't have the access to scientific knowledge that we do, they knew enough to kind of say, okay, if we're outside or as close to being outside as we can, which means in a classroom with the windows open. But so many of our schools don't have windows that open anymore. I was talking to a friend of mine who is retired educator at this point in your life and she gets she said, you know, but the windows don't open, so how do you get the ventilation that was available a hundred years ago. I just find it fascinating to make these comparisons. That is so interesting saying I thinking about how history has changed, and and truly you make me think a lot about this. Really prepping for this interview. Made me think a lot about this because you have these sort of iconic footprints throughout the history. You know that I've looked back at the feminist movement that was well under way when I was born, and civil rights, and you know, the conversations I've had with my parents about the marches that they attended and the and the protests that they went to. And it's been such a treat to watch the documentary on Hulu for everyone listening at home. Hillary is Out. It's a four part series. It's so beautifully done. And again, in the same way that I feel about you having the social media presence, I felt so grateful, especially as a person who knows you in the way that I do, for the access you granted people. I think there's this estimation or assumption that when you've led such a public life, you don't really want people in your space more than they need to be. And you are the person who says, everybody, come in, come around the table, you know, let's have a snack, let's have a talk. And it's so cool too to have the world seeing that in this way, And it really led me into some of the questions which are my favorite to ask people who I sit across from. Everyone knows you as you are. They know you as this impressive woman, They know you as the woman who got up and said women's rights are human rights to the globe. But I love getting to know who you were as a little girl. And I had an AHA moment watching the doc, really feeling this kinship for the moment you spoke at your commencement at Wellesley standing up to those sort of condescensions about gender and women's roles. But my curiosity is, did that spark that desire to defend and stand for and speak up? Did that start when you were a little girl in Chicago? Can you trace when that began? It really goes back to my parents, um And they were very different people. They were both products of incredibly separate upbringings. My mother had a much more difficult, unconventional life, and it was pretty much abandoned as a child, and then took a job when she was thirteen to get out of her grandparents house after her parents basically sent her to live with her grandparents because it was such a unpleasant experience. Um and they were so mean to her, And she basically worked through high school so starting when she was thirteen. She was somebody else's housekeeper, babysitter, but got to go to high school, and you know, she was somebody who um always had to stand up for herself. She always had to claim her space in the world because nobody else was going to do it for her. You know, my father is the middle child of three boys, growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and his parents were really old fashioned, uh in both the best and the not so good ways that you think about that phrase. But you know, he grew up playing sports, playing football. He went on to Penn State in n one to play football. I mean he was a really you know, kind of rough and tumble guy, got through the Depression, went into the Navy during World War Two. But I will say both of them were totally free of gender bias. I mean, I cannot remember either of my parents ever saying to me, you can't do that because you're a girl, or don't do that because you know girls don't do that. You know, my father, who was clueless about girls, um was almost egalitarian because of his cluelessness. So what he cared about was me standing up for myself, doing well in school. And they have gave me a foundation which really protected and provided an ability for me to speak out when I got into junior high in high school and there were all these expectations about what girls were supposed to do and not do, and the way boys treated you, and the way teachers treated you and all of that. So I I give them the lion's share of the credit because they did not impose, you know, artificial constructions and stereotypes. Because by the time I got to high school, my girlfriends were saying things like, oh, I hope I hope the teacher doesn't announce the grades because I I don't want to get a better grade than my boyfriend. I mean, things like that were becoming, you know, so much part of the atmosphere, and I would look like, well, you're supposed to do the best you can. You can't worry about your boyfriend. But I was gifted with that by, you know, the family that I grew up in, but so many other families really were kind of, you know, caught in the gender stereoty types of those years. So when I was able to go to college, which is something my mother never got to do, and it was really important to her that I go I chose to go to an all women's college, Wellesley College, outside of Boston, partly because I'd gone to a huge comprehensive at high school in the suburbs of Chicago. You know, thousands of kids filling the halls every time the class has changed, and I thought, I just wanted to focus on my studies and you know, date on the weekends, but not frankly, worry about what I look like during the week when I was going to class. Things like that saved me a lot of psychic time and space. So I give, you know, I give my upbringing. I give teachers who encouraged me. I had a sixth grade teacher who you know, used to tell the girls, primarily, you know, don't hide your light under a bushel basket, which kind of comes from an old scriptural um saying. And I was lucky I had an upbringing that sort of swam against the tide, and I was able to make decisions that I thought were best for me um and not worried too much about what other people were expecting. And you're right, it's the gift of not being in a cage. It's really the way that I've thought a lot about it. I I sort of had the the inverse experience to you. I went to big coed public schools through sixth grade, and then from seventh grade through graduating high school, I went to a very small, um you know, liberal arts focused all girls school. When I was going to college, I thought, well, I want to have the big school experience. I want to go with thousands of kids. But I really now and insight can look back and understand that simply being given the freedom from those social expectations that creep in from who knows where, gave me the permission to always raise my hand, always have a thought, have an opinion, to love critical thinking, to want to examine nuance because that's what I got to do in class all day. You know, I think, you know, it's not the right choice for everybody, but I do think it should be a choice. And when I was in the Senate, I teamed up with a Republican woman, Senator kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas to pass a law that permitted UH there to be public single sex high schools or schools that could be eligible for federal funding. Because people said, oh, but you know that would be discriminatory, I said no, I mean, what we want is to enable every child to develop to the fullest of his or her potential. And for some children, it's like I'm a I'm a big supporter of schools for the arts. You know, I could never I could never do well you could. I couldn't let that be available for kids, or math and science where kids are really driven to, you know, really immerse themselves. We should be looking at our education system as a network that provides opportunities that fit the needs of different kids. And you know, I think your experience speaks volumes. You know. I did it in college. You did it in junior high, in high school. But both of us took from it that sense of freedom, you know, that feeling that I didn't have to worry that the boys would make fun of me. I remember in high school one time one of my teachers said, you have a lot to say. You should learn how to be a better public speaker. I said, okay, fine. So there was a class that I added to everything else when I was a sophomore in public speaking. But it was also the class that a lot of the big athletes took because the teacher was notorious for giving everybody a good grade as long as you showed up. I was like, as I recall, I may be slightly wrong about this. I was like one of two or three girls in a class of like, you know, twenty, and all the boys were huge. They were all football players and basketball players and all of that. And I remember going to the front of the class to practice my public speaking and the teacher he sat way in the back, and the boys would be up in the front, and I'd be up there, you know, giving a speech about whatever I was supposed to talk about, and the boys would be whispering like, are you're really doing bad? You're really terrible? Stop, don't do that. I mean, I couldn't, you know in those days, you know, you just didn't even know how to respond. You just had to keep going, which is part of my mantra. But I remember, well, okay, that was a great experience for me then, very formative. But wouldn't it be nice to just be in a class with all women, where everybody could say what they wanted to say and the boys weren't you know, the primary actors within the classroom, not being the commentators, the critics, the insulters um that you know, they you know, just naturally as young men often fall into. So yeah, I I am a huge believer in different kinds of public education, and of course private if that's available to you, but public education that meets you where you are and gives kids a chance to really, you know, be everything they can be. M I think it's so important and and I'm curious too. You you had these formative experiences in schools. I just loved you talking in the documentary about even in high school, you deciding to run for student council president. Everyone thinking girls don't do that. You know, boys win the student council, and you talked about how, of course a boy one, it was the era it was. But then he expected you to do all the work, he asked organization committee. That's exactly right. People would actually say that, well, why why do you think you can be president of boys always president? Why don't you run for secretary? No, I want to run for president of the student council. You know, an experience and foreshadowed some of my other experiences down the road. And um, so I lose, of course, And immediately the guy who I knew, I mean, he was a friend of mine, you know, basically says well, you know, I've got this great idea, why don't you do all the work. I mean, you love this work. You you you would be great at it. And you know, we'll have an organization committee and you'll be in charge of the organization committee. And of course, because I am a glutton for work and I love organization, I said, okay. So you know, it was just so you can't make it up. It's so much you know, of the time. And you know, back then, Sophia, we didn't even have the vocabulary. You know, the women's movement was beginning. But by the time you know, I graduated from high school in nineteen, it was really just beginning. You know. I've written about how my mother, you know, always took books out from the library, but she heard about and I saw in the library this book by a woman named Betty free dan Uh and so she actually bought it and how she she underlined it and it was really important to her. There just wasn't the vocabulary yet. It was just beginning to you know, take root, and the women's movement was beginning to have really vocal advocates. But back in those days, I mean, sexism, misogyny, those were maybe words in a dictionary somewhere, but they didn't seem to resonate or fit with who we were. And it took years to feel the confidence and the understanding to be able to, you know, speak out against what was clearly um an environment filled with prejudice. You know. My earliest experience was when I was in junior high and I fell in love with the space program and I wrote NASA and said I would love to know how you become an astronaut. And literally they wrote me back saying, you know, thank you very much, but we don't accept women. And this was, you know, right in the beginning of the space program. And then there were schools I couldn't apply to. There were scholarships I could never have gotten. There were jobs that were in the what was called the classified section of the newspaper, where men only, women only jobs, And that seems like a not just fifty years ago, but a totally different universe for young women today, and thank goodness, thank goodness it is. And something that strikes me about it is it resonates in terms of these conversations we're currently having about privilege and and what privilege is not and this notion that really when you exist in a privileged position, it simply means that there are boxes you are not placed in, or hurdles that are not placed in front of you. It simply means a scholarship or an opportunity, or a job, or a placement or financial aid or a mortgage is not with held from you. And and that feels like a really profound notion because to your point, so many things were withheld, and while we as women still face sexism and misogyny, less is withheld from us. And I believe our goal is to continue down this path so that nothing is withheld from the generations of women who come through the doors after us. I agree with that completely. And that's why we all owe such a debt to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, You know, this wonderful, scholarly, smart, tough minded lawyer, because I again, I had a really incredibly impactful experience when I was, you know, a young, newly married woman. I'd gone to law school. My husband had gone to law school, he had been elected Attorney General of Arkansas. I was working a law firm. I made more money than he did. I applied for a credit card. This was probably I don't know nineteen seventy seven, maybe I applied for a credit card in my own name and was told I could not, even though I made more money, even though I had a perfect credit record, because I've never bought anything. I had didn't have any death And I was so struck when we were all giving, you know, tributes to Justice Ginsburg after her death about how every single woman, regardless of station in life, race, ethnicity, was affected by her successful legal career, you know, for the A. C. L U you know, on the Circuit Court, on the Supreme Court, after my husband, uh, you know, nominated her and she was confirmed. And you're exactly right, Sophia. I mean, part of what we've been doing when it comes to race and gender and every other category that people put themselves into or are is imposed on them, is trying to break all those boxes down. And we still have a long way to go, because even when you knocked down laws or regulations, because we finally did. But let's take a perfect example, Title nine, one of the most re evolutionary pieces of legislation, which basically said women had to be treated equally in academia. And we all think about it as being about sports, but it was also about scholarships and fellowships and lab space and course enrollments. But it's most well known for sports. And look at the trouble that we still have because we have two tournaments going on of the best of men's basketball and the best of women's basketball, and these fabulous women from these great teams show up for their tournament and they are treated like second class citizens. You know. The young men show up and they're given, you know, a beautifully laid out training facility with every kind of weight and other piece of equipment. You can imagine the women this little lonely stack of free weights. They're not given the renumeration. You know. If a men's team wins the n C Double A gives money to the school and the team a woman, well congratulations, thank you very much. I mean, we are still fighting so many of these battles because you can change the laws, you can open up civil rights, you can open up voting rights, you can and there are still forces that want to turn the clock back on you know, black and brown people, on lgbt Q, people on women. You just constantly have to remain vigilant and determined because honestly, you know, the struggle is not over. It goes on. And I wonder if the desire to roll back access is just so rooted in scarcity mentality, this this idea which we know has been disproven, that there is a finite bucket of success, a finite bucket of finance. The truth is, if we invest in people, if we allow people to participate in the economy, the economy grows. I saw an article just this last week, I believe it was in the in the Post about how women unpaid labor annually creates a deficit in the United States of one point for trillion dollars. And that's if that unpaid labor were only paid the current substandard minimum wage of seven And I just thought, imagine how much wealthier the whole country and everyone in it would be if women were hiring fairly for their work. Yeah, and if you knock down the barriers to women's participation in the paid labor force. So it's it's a two part problem. Women's unpaid labor, which, as you rightly point out, literally keeps everything going, and women's paid labor that is either undermined, diminished, or made incredibly hard because we don't have paid family leave. We don't have access to quality, affordable childcare. We still have bias in hiring and promotion and the like. And and I love the way that you connect all of this up because the entire world's economy would increase dramatically. There's something called the gross domestic product, you know g d P. And when I was Secretary of State, I kept making this case because yes, the barriers in a country like ours are are real, and they hold women back, they hold people of color back, we know, But think about how much more the barriers are in places that don't even pretend to try to, you know, knockdown uh, you know, bias and discrimination. And I gave a speech to a international gathering where I talked about how even the so called advanced economies like you know, in the US, in Europe, in Japan, places like that would grow so much if you knocked down these barriers. But think about what would happen if you treated the participation of women in the formal economy in Africa and Asian Latin America with the respect it deserves. You know, I was in Africa years ago when I was first lady, and I was in a I was in a van with a bunch of uh expert type people. And everywhere I looked, you know, women were carrying firewood and water, and they were in charge of the market stalls. They were in the fields, uh, you know, doing the work of agriculture. And I remember saying to this group I was traveling with, Look, if women in the so called informal economy were paid, their families would be better. But not just their families, their communities, their entire societies. And if all the laws were broken down that prevented them from inheriting and being given access to the best seeds and irrigation and all the rest of it. And I remember this one economy is saying, well, how would you ever value that? Well, let's put our minds to work and figure out how we would value that. Because right now we're coming out of a pandemic that has been terrible for the whole world, but it has been especially terrible for women and girls. We've seen a big increase in unemployment for years for women in our country and elsewhere in the world. We've seen an increase in domestic violence. We've seen an increase in parts of the world of child marriage. I mean, we look at all of the indicators that we're going to have to, you know, come to grips with coming out of this pandemic. And one of the biggest problems is what's happened to women and um in our own country. We've got to figure out how we get everything up and going school back, going child care back, going get women back into the workforce because it's not a nice thing to do, it's a necessity for them, especially if they're single parents. Yes, and and that really entrusts me. You and your career really inspired me as a young woman in school. And also you've continued to inspire me as a political activist. And and now it's very surreal to say you inspire me as a friend. I'm like, this is the weird. This is so weird that I can chat with you in tex score as item. I'm like, what is my life? Um? But you as as and you speak about it so beautifully, and you pointed out a lot which I really respect for your audience because you have to know a lot as a human to know how much Hillary Clinton knows, because you are a true expert and not in one arena, in in a multiplicity of systems. And when you talk about the systems that affect us, the systems of the global economy. How we could increase the GDP by allowing women into so many of these systems, by allowing access to people of color and so many of these systems. I'm struck by the early aha moment that I had reading glorious work about how sexism and racism are these inextricably linked evil bedfellows. One can't exist without the other. And and the oppression of poverty is to me almost like the triplet of those two. Those three work in this cohort to keep women and people of color so deeply oppressed and struggling here, as you said, and around the world, and even grosser variations. And when I think about, you know, as you mentioned, being in school pre this women's lib opportunity, uh, not being able to as a young woman, and not just a young woman who was a lawyer, but a young woman who was a partner at her legal firm, give you the snaps you deserve, who couldn't get a credit card. And I think about the sort of mirrored experience we spoke about our our icon r GV. She's on my desk, um her little bubble. Uh. She was told how dare you when she applied to law school? How dare you take a place from a man? And you have the same experience at Yale you talked about how men said, you know, if you get a spot in this school, I'll probably have to go to Vietnam. That's right, That's right. And I guess I see the links between our experiences as feminist leaders and then between this, you know, in the micro, the individual, and then I see in the macro these enormous systems, and I think about the women's movement. I think about, by the way, what a badass you are that you were telling your mom you were going to the movies, but going to protests in downtown Chicago. Here, doctor King speaking high school. Hello, do you think that in terms of your taking up space in an era where that was not so easy becoming a partner in a law firm? Um, when when Bill was Attorney general and then governor taking a stance as first Lady for health care for children? Were you so assured of taking up space which wasn't a cultural conversation then as a woman, because of these environments of change that you were steeped in as you were evolving, you know, through your your childhood and and your education, do you think I do. I think that's a really interesting way of putting it. I became very interested in political change in progress for people, not just in terms of their rights and opportunities, but they're full participation in their societies. So I was drawn to the civil rights movement. I was drawn to the women's rights movement. I was drawn to the anti war movement. And so in college and then in law school, I kind of gravitated to people who shared those views about what we needed to do to be not just on the sidelines complaining or frankly ignoring what was happening, but to be in the middle of it. And when I was in law school, I had a really formative experience because I was the first year law student and I saw we used to bulletin boards in those days, and I saw a notice on a bulletin board that a woman named Mary and Wright Edelman was going to be speaking at Yale, and I had just literally read an article about her. I think of Time magazine. She had graduated from me law schools African American woman who became the first African American woman ever to pass the Mississippi bar She was working for the Double A C p UH and and she was in the midst of, you know, not just the agitation for voting rights, but also she was part of a program to really improved the impoverishment of kids. So she was helping with trying to bring heads start to you know, the Mississippi Delta, trying to bring food stamps, the things that had happened during the sixties under LBJ, which we're still not being implemented. And she was really on the front line. So anyway, I saw this, noticed that she was coming to the university to speak. I went to hear her speak, and I was just, you know, blown away. She you know, it was ten twelve years fifteen years older than me, but boy, I was taken completely. And I went up to her afterwards and I said, I'd like to work for you this summer, and she was great. She said, well, I'd be happy to have you work for me, but I can't pay you because she had just started an advocacy group for poor people and children, which became the Children's Defense Fund. And I said, well, if I can figure out how to get myself paid, can I go to work for you? Said sure, So I got, uh something applied for and got something called the Law Students Civil Rights Research Fellowship, and I got, you know, a small stipend, but I was putting myself through law school, so I needed to get paid. So off I went to work for Maryan. What an unbelievable education. I learned about what happened to migrants in the fields of our country and what happened to their kids. I learned much more were about what was happening in the South because of Marian's connections, and you know, the efforts to basically defy civil rights rulings, you know, the creating a segregated academies so white families wouldn't send their kids to school with you know, black kids. And I mean I just had this front row seat into what was happening and what was you know, the struggle about. So I worked for Marian off and on for a number of years, ended up chairing her board. I found her to be an incredibly impressive and inspiring not just leader, but uh, you know, guide and friend over the time that I worked with her. So yes, as you say, you know, my church set up an opportunity for me to go here. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. My my friend and I my best friend from sixth grade, and I told our parents we were going to the movies, and we went down to Grant Park in nine eight to see the riots and what became known as the Chicago seven trial later than later on. And I mean we we really were in the middle, and I gravitated toward people who shared both my curiosity and my my sense of commitment to making change. And it's not easy, I have to tell you. I mean, here we are. I'm just heartbroken that we're back fighting over voting rights. I'm just heartbroken. I mean, what is wrong that we had a great election? Yes, my side one the other side got a heck of a lot of votes and did better than I thought they would in the House and the Senate. Everybody said it was a fair election. It was a credible election. Everybody who looked at it had to conclude that. And the other side wants to take that away and make it harder for people of color and young people to vote. It's the same stuff, So, Fianne, We're still fighting the same battles, and we cannot get discouraged or deterred. We have to keep getting back up and you know, keep fighting for the rights of everybody. As you said in the very beginning, it almost feels to me that we keep fighting battles we've already won well, but we haven't won them though. That's the problem, and it goes back to something you said. You know, the people who are leading these fights are not the poor, struggling people. They are the privileged people. And it's not just that they don't understand. You grow the pie so there's more room for everybody. They want to remain dominant. They want their interests, their world views, their political beliefs to remain dominant in the culture and in our our political system. What shocks me about that desire for dominance is that it will stop at nothing, the dirtiness with which that side fights, these blatant attempts at oppressing people of color, these blatant conspiracy theories that have been driven up into just scary ah version, whatever the internet version of a household name is. It's it's quite frightening to me. And and I'm curious if you think, because you've you've been in the space for so long, we didn't do enough early enough to stop the permissibility of lying in the public sphere. I think back to you, as you said, you know, making more money than your husband when he was running for office. I love watching the campaign videos from the early nineties, you know, from the election, and and there's people saying, you know, well, Hillary, Hillary Rodham Clinton makes three times as much money as her husband, who's a presidential candidate, and I'm like, yes, girl, you do. Um. But something that I admired so much, which I learned from the dock, was that because Bill was governor of Arkansas, you, as a lawyer, a partner in a law firm that worked for the state, said I will not take a dollar of the money that's divided between the partners and the staff that comes in from the state of Arkansas, simply, and I would say, honorably, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, you chose to take less. And I keep thinking, of course you did, because your Hillary. But there's no man on earth who would have done that. They would have said, well, it's my cut, I'm a partner, I get the money. So I think about you making that decision. And yet during his election there were folks on the right who came out and attacked him and said he was funneling money to his wife, and that was categorically and factually untrue, proven by the receipts. I think about what it must have been like for you, because people forget that, Yes, you're an icon, but you are a woman. You are a human woman. You are one person who, with your incredible education, your experience in time and place in history, said I want to work to change the world for the better. You talk about growing up in a conservative family, you were the president of the Young Republicans your first year at college, and then period of time right, and you said in the doc that you realized very quickly, Oh, this is actually not what I align with in my beliefs, so I have to reidentify politically right. I think about what a gift if people could just acquire more information and change their minds, novel idea. You You have always pursued progress, no matter where it might take you. You know, I never I never did it thinking that I was immune from criticism. You know that comes with the territory when you put yourself into the public arena, whether you do it as an actress like you, or you do it as a political or public advocate like me, you know, you're gonna good criticized for all kinds of reasons, and and that just goes with the territory worry. And I tried to learn to take criticism seriously, but not personally, because seriously in the sense that maybe I could learn something, but not so it would knock me down and keep me down. What I never really expected was the constant torrent of lies and falsehoods and attacks rooted in totally made up nonsense. And that started in the nineties. I mean, one of the things in the documentary on Hulu, which I had forgotten about, is how I was being burned in effigy for trying to get universal health care for everybody, and that was fed by talk radio and shock jocks and you know, these awful, you know, terrible attacks on me. And it only got worse because Fox News got started and talk radio expanded, and then oh my gosh, social media and on the Internet arrived. And I don't think we've yet fully come to grips with how easy it is to plant falsehoods about all kinds of things, and not just an individual you know, like me, but about vaccinations, for example. And I was stunned at how in the election, all of these crazy conspiracy theories about me, Um, we're just attracting hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook in particular, but also the other platforms. So yes, we are living in a time where there's a deliberate effort to misinform and disinform people, to really twist and pervert reality, facts, evidence, truth for an advantage, whether it's a commercial advantage, of political advantage, of religious or ideological advantage, the advantage of a foreign adversary, you know, like Russia and the role that it's played. So yes, I think we're only now coming to grips with it. I was very relieved that in the campaign people were a lot smarter about how they looked at and digested information. But many more people voted for Trump than had voted for him the first time around. Thank goodness that we had Joe Biden and Kamala Harris able to win a big popular vote. But Sophie, if you look at the electoral college, it was just about as close as it had been in my race, where I won more votes but lost the electoral college. President Biden won the electoral college by a thin margin and won a lot more votes in the popular election. So we have a lot of work to do. And it is scary to me that this deliberate misinformation has such a life online and people believe it. I mean, I've looked at some of the anti vax sites and listened to some of the people, and they're they're buying into total falsehoods about vaccinations. Why they would believe somebody who on Facebook is trying to sell them vitamins as opposed to the whole you know, scientific establishment who's only trying to get them vaccinated. I don't understand, but we know it's a real problem community, the whole medical community. Yeah, it's really crazy. But see, but what you're doing, what what everybody's trying to do to sort of bring you know, more I shall we say fact based communications to people. You know, we have to do everything we can, but we also have to reign in the platforms. There has to be a concerted effort to try to uh stop the dissemination of harmful, untrue information. Yeah. I think it's so incredibly important the facts and the way we communicate them, the way that we communicate nuance and experience, the way that we advocate for people as we talk about these things, these movements we are a part of which are having a new life. The fight for voting rights, the conversations we are having about gender and me to the conversations we're having about what race means in America, all of us standing up to say black lives matter. What has been some of your learning in in how to exist in these new versions of conversations you've been a part of for decades. You know you, and you don't say this publicly, which I really respect, But one of the things I know about you is that you have this incredible group of women, your best friends, who have been in your life for a long time, and many of those women who have been in your life for decades are Black women, brilliant, powerful black women. And as an expert in policy who can talk about gender, race, oppression, the economy for women, what has your person all work been as a white woman, as a friend to the black women in your life, as a woman who wants to do her learning to then use your incredible platform and be an advocate out in the public sector. That's a great question. I have been blessed by having the best friends. I could not have probably done what I've done over all these years without having an incredibly supportive network of friends, and among them are some of the most amazing women I've ever known, who are African American and who have such courage and such determination in their own personal lives that I have learned from endlessly. I have to say it is a constant reminder, and it sounds maybe overly simplistic, but when I read about the racial slurs, the dog whistles, the effort to suppress the vote of black Georgians, which is what's going on in the State of Georgia right now, I see somebody like Stacy Abram's just getting up and you know, fighting on. I think a lot about my friends, my friends from college and law school, my young adulthood, my chief of staff in the White House, my chief of staff in the State Department, women who I not only respect, but love, and just It's hard for me to grasp how these amazing human beings can be stereotyped, can be racialized, can be diminished. But I have to say, the most stark thing I've done in the last few months is to read this incredible book called Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. It's so painful to read. I I I love to read, and I do it all the time. I could read about thirty thirty five pages and I'd have to put it down because what she does is something I had personally never adequately considered. And that is make the case that just as we look at India with its cast system that goes back thousands of years, we look at Nazi Germany with the imposition of a caste system that made it illegal to be Jewish and all that we know that came from that. But we did that for four hundred years of slavery, and then we fought a civil war over it, and then we had a brief period where maybe we could have reconciled and come to grips with our original sin. But unfortunately Reconstruction didn't last that long, and when it ended, it was replaced by horrific abuse and oppression of Black Americans, not just in the South but throughout our country and the Jim Crow era and then finally the Civil Rights Legislation, which tried to impose a sense of equality. Um just you know, the efforts to amend the Constitution after the Civil War with fifteen Amendment and all of that you know, it wasn't enough. People kept ignoring it and getting around it. So then long comes to Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and when people thought, okay, we're back on the right track. We're going to forge this unified society, there was this constant undercurrent of no, we're not No, we're turning the clock back. We're not about to accept this. And then we elect a black president and we think, oh my gosh, this is it. We're in the Promised Land. And underneath the surface, as I saw in the ten campaign, there's just so much you know, negativity and reaction. He's a Muslim, he isn't born in this country. He's a communist, He's this, he's that. And what Isabel Wilkerson explains is how deep this idea of cast is. And it goes back to your point about privilege if you are and what she calls the dominant cast, which is, you know, white people just despite whatever our economic standing might be, but all white people. And the great sadness that poor white people were told, well, you may be poor, but you're you know, in the dominant cast. Therefore be grateful and sustain the systemic racism. And now we're back into this debate again, and reading that book is so heartbreaking. She does an amazing job of kind of explaining the inexplicable, but it just shows that this struggle is not over and we all have a role to play. And I I look at my very brave African American friends and how they just put one ft in front of the other. You know, they do their work, they stand up and speak out, they support each other and those in their circles. But they know it's not over. I mean, you know, they lift an eyebrow, they shake their head. They know that you still have to sit your you know, your children down and tell them to be careful when they go out into the world. And we're watching the trial over the murder of George Floyd, and it was heartbreaking to hear the testimony of everybody who witnessed it. And the only defense is to somehow try to paint George Floyd as somebody who, you know, what should have been killed. Is that their defense? That seems to be their defense. And why is that? Because underneath the surface there's this constant drumbeat of you know, dominance. And so yeah, we'll see, we'll see where we end up. But there's a lot for all of us to, you know, try to come to grips with and hopefully be reconcilers, not you know, not dividers. I think something that just constantly strikes me as so inspiring about you is that no matter your levels of expertise, the rooms you've been in, the people you've sat with, you're always willing to learn more, and you share your resources to do so with all of us. And I spoke to you in President Clinton about this near the end of our interview in Vancouver, talking about how you've never lost your willingness to learn for communities, to learn from communities, to change for the better. You are you are geared towards progress. And I think about all the great things you've done in your life, and I was struck by something you said in the dock. You said someone asked you once, what do you want on your tombstone? And you said she was neither as good or as bad as people say, And I, certainly you know, I just loved it. It made me laugh and I and I thought, you've done so many things. You lead the kind of life that makes people think even now about how you will be remembered in history books, you know, in generations to come. Do you feel like you know what that first line of your you know, memorium might be, has it been written, or is the biggest thing that you are ever going to do still ahead of you? Because I feel like you have a lot in store for us. Well, I hope you're right, because I get up every day trying to figure out how I can make a difference, how I can stand up and speak out, where I can use my platform to try to help people. So, yeah, I'm going to keep doing that. I have no idea, and I don't stop to think about it a lot, because it's all a churn and we're living through such unpredictable certain times right now. I don't know how all of it's going to play out. I don't know how we're going to bring our country back together. I don't know how we're going to persuade people who believe the most ridiculous falsehoods that you know, there's something called truth and let's try to find it together. We can still disagree about what we do, but you know, in a democracy, and in such a pluralistic society as ours, you can't have everybody going off in the different directions that is going to weaken us, and it will you know, people worry about all the pie grow. Well, I can tell you one thing. The pie will shrink if we do not unite and if we don't deal with the problems ahead of us, whether it's climate change or public health, or public education, or economic inequality, whatever it might be. And I really give big, big applause to the President and the Vice president. I think, you know, Biden and Harris are trying really, really hard. And I loved somethinging that President Biden said in his press conference because you know, the press, sadly is always trying to pit us against each other, and that doesn't help in this big effort to try to bring people together. So, yes, are the Republicans in office against what President Biden is doing. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately they think that's the only way that they're going to get elected and reelected. But what he said was, yeah, but the people are behind us. You know, we have bipartisan support for the American Rescue Plan. He will have bipartisan support for the infrastructure plan. And what's great is that he's not you know, he's been around a while. He understands, don't get caught up in the small stuff. And frankly, a lot of the games that are played on the other side are terribly small. Aim bigger, have a bigger vision. So I'm really crossing every finger and toe that we're going to get through this and we're gonna show people that guess what government can work. It can help put people to work, It can help lift you and your children out of poverty, it can help you get vaccinated. There are things we can do together, and we are, as I said in my campaign, stronger together. So that's what I'm hoping, Sophia and boy I pray about it all the time. You know, let's get back together. Let's all be on the American team again, not the red team or the blue team or whatever. We divide ourselves and into that. Um My favorite thing to ask everyone who comes on the show, as it is the title of the show, is whether it is something personal or professional, or or political. What feels like a work in progress in your life right now? Hillary Rodham Clinton, That's really a great question. And I want to say every single thing that you just mentioned does so by that, I mean I think all of us have had to really dig deep this past year personally, what's really important to us? How do we keep ourselves going? Where do we find resilience? And I've been facing up to that. I mean, I'm somebody who's constantly on the go. I'm on an airplane all the time, I'm out in public all the time, and no I've been home. And how do I find meaning and purpose? How do I bring you know, that joy to every day? So on the personal level, that's been something I've thought a lot about. On the political level, as we were just discussing, I did everything I could to help elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and other people running for office. I've got a little group that I started called Onward Together, and we support candidates and causes. I am doubling down and I am particularly focused with some of my partners on disinformation, what we do to rain in the overwhelming power of the tech platforms. So politically I'm involved. I'm talking to people in the White House, people in the Congress all the time about um. You know, they call me to ask for advice or I call them to offer an idea because this is such a moment and given our crazy political system, We've got to get a lot done this year. And then I guess, finally on a on a more philosophical level in terms of public what role can I and everybody that I can touch play and trying to get the poison out of the system, and trying to find ways to connect with people we do not agree with. What are the public forums? You know, I have a podcast, and on my podcast, I've talked to a lot of really interesting people and I asked them what can we do to try to unite us? And you know, there's been a thread running through and that is we have to tell a different story about who we are and who America is, and we have to get people to buy into a story about our common future. So publicly, how do we do that? And how do we bring people together and and you know, try to build something stronger because I think young people, you know, whether it was in the Black Lives Matter marches or what they're doing on social media, you know, they don't want to go back. They don't want to live in the world of you know, vitriol and finger pointing and scapegoating. They want something bigger and better. So how do we help get that and move it forward. I love it. I'm here for it in any way I can never help. I know you are, I know you are my friend, you are. You are a wonderful clarion, uh you know voice about how we should be treating each other, and I thank you for that. I'm just so deeply grateful. Thank you for everything, and thank you for what is no doubt ahead. Thank you, my dear. Well, let's stay in touch. I love talking to Take care