Former President Clinton said this turbulent political year feels a “little bit” like the 1994 cycle when Democrats lost control of Congress, that the 9/11 co-conspirators trial shouldn’t be in New York City, congressional Democrats fouled up the health care debate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “really wants to be a grandparent.”
Clinton tried pushing universal health care coverage in 1993 and saw a wave on anti-Democratic backlash propel Republicans into congressional majorities for the first time in 40 years. Clinton said there is one big difference – Democrats know they’re in trouble now.
“Saturday before the election, we were only two points behind in the polls,” Clinton said. But our turnout was low and the Republican turnout was high, and that took a two-point gap to a six-and-a-half-point gap. But they have a lot of advanced notice now. I think the biggest problem that the president’s got is … the danger that people who want health care will be disappointed and stay home; that happened to me.”
Clinton said turnout looms as a huge problem for Democrats and said the party will survive only if party kingpins deliver.
“The problem with all midterm elections is if that there’s a disparity in turnout, then whatever the real difference is is exaggerated,” Clinton said. “We won some seats in 2006 no one thought the Democrats would win because the Republicans were dispirited and Democrats were inflamed, it was just the reverse of now. If we get any breaks on the economy and my party’s rank and file of leaders, you know, kind of keep their heads on straight and keep focusing on the need to show up and get counted, I don’t think it’ll be as bad as ’94. I think we’ll do much better.”
Even as President Obama tries to revive health care, Clinton spoke of it entirely in the past tense, implying along the way that Congress mishandled the process and job-creation should have taken precedence.
“I thought it would happen this time because all the trends that prompted me to act are worse,” Clinton said. “There are lots of things we could do to cut the costs. So I thought it would happen, but.”
Asked if Obama overreached, Clinton said:
“I don’t know if it was an overreach. I think that they either needed to move faster or slower. That is, if they had a bill that the Senate and the House should have reached a grand center and set about implementing it so that all the fears that were raised could either be disproved or if they turned out to make a mistake, they’d have time to start correcting them. Either that or you have to deal with all the economic, other economic issues first.”
Chelsea Clinton turns 30 on Saturday and this summer will wed Marc Mezvinsky, son of former Rep. Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky. Fox asked Clinton if he’s thought much about walking Chelsea down the aisle.
“One of the rare arguments I had with her when she was a child, and they were very rare, I said, you know, you might be right, I might be wrong, but being president’s my second-most-important job, so if I’m making mistakes, it’s a mistake of the mind and not the heart.
Q: Does it make you misty-eyed thinking about it?
CLINTON: “Little bit, but you know, all I’m supposed to do is walk her down the aisle — and pay for the wedding, of course — and that will be one of the great honors of my life. I’m looking forward to it. And you know, I wouldn’t mind being a grandparent and her mother really wants to be a grandparent.”
Clinton also choked up a bit when thinking of the ceremony and what it represents to Chelsea.
“It is a ritual which symbolizes the fact of the passing of the bride out of her family’s house and into her own house,” Clinton said. “It’s a coming of age ceremony. It is a recognizing a passing of a generation ceremony. It’s a profoundly important thing.”
Clinton, whose Clinton Foundation offices are in Harlem, echoed the concerns of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg about Obama’s decision to send the federal criminal trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators to the Big Apple.
“Because it costs so much more to provide security in New York just because it’s big and crowded and densely packed, if they can find someplace else to have it, maybe they should,” Clinton said.
The White House is looking for alternatives to New York and has not ruled out trying the 9/11 co-conspirators in military commissions at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
Clinton also had frosty words for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation uncovered the president’s sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, an affair Clinton initially denied. Clinton’s misleading testimony to Starr’s grand jury led the House of Representatives to approve two articles of impeachment in 1998.
Starr told Fox’s Greta Van Susteren his investigation was conducted with “honor and integrity.”
“I don’t not agree that it was done with honor and integrity,” Clinton said. “Susan McDougal (a figure in Starr’s investigation), they told her (she) should say something that was damaging to me even if it wasn’t illegal, just tell them anything and it didn’t have to be true. Now, that’s not honor and integrity.”
Clinton also called Starr “an actor in a play that had been scripted…to get the exact results it got.”
When reminded that, in a deal cut with Starr’s successor, Independent Counsel Robert Ray, Clinton surrendered his Arkansas law license and admitted knowingly giving misleading testimony about Lewinsky, Clinton said he had no choice.
“Being evasive to them I thought was the only thing I could do at the time, but I regret very much the underlying misconduct which caused it,” Clinton said. “I am sorry about that and I said it many times.”
Unprompted, Clinton said the only bright side of the Lewinsky scandal is the apparent death of independent councils.
“I trusted the justice system and I trusted the press to cover it right, and I didn’t realize what the real game was,” Clinton said. “It was my fault as much as anything else for agreeing to be investigated, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. And so they just kept it going on and on and on. It was a nightmare. And I think, as a result of it, we’ll never have it again. The only good thing to come out of it was, it killed this whole system. I don’t think there’ll ever be another one like this again.”
The nearly 30-minute exclusive interview, Clinton’s first since having a clogged heart artery re-opened, also covered the next stage of relief efforts in Haiti. Clinton, the U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, told Fox he’ll return to the earthquake-ravaged island in a matter of days.
The top priority? Sanitation.
“They have no place to go to the bathroom, and as a result, particularly for little kids, is they’re out there — they may be contaminating every piece of standing water,” Clinton said. “That could lead to diarrhea, it could lead to dysentery, it could lead to cholera, it could lead to tetanus, and we could have a huge second wave of casualties there because of the public health problem.”
The foundation Clinton and former President George W. Bush have established has raised $28 million. Clinton said millions more will be necessary to build usable latrines before the rainy season commences.
“When the rainy season comes, even if there are no tornadoes, there’s standing pools of water everywhere,” Clinton said. “And most of these folks are going to be living outside for some time. We’ve got to solve that problem and that’s the responsibility of the international community. Every day I push on this because I don’t want any children who survived this earthquake to die because of dirty water.”
Clinton also urged Americans considering adoption proceedings not turn to turn away because of the three-week brief legal clash that arose over an Idaho church group’s efforts to adopt 33 Haitian children. Haitian officials held 10 American missionaries on child-trafficking charges. The missionaries were trying to move the Haitian children, 20 of whom had family members who handed them over voluntarily, to a makeshift orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Eight of the missionaries were released Friday.
“There’s still a great need for adopting Haitian children who are unquestionably orphans,” said Clinton, adding that Haiti was home to more than 300,000 orphans before the earthquake struck. But the Haitian government, understandably, doesn’t want Haiti because it’s poor to come up a haven for child trafficking, so they’re super-sensitive to it.”
Clinton said Haitian Judge Bernard Saint-Vil “made the right decision” releasing eight of the ten Americans. Two missionaries from the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, remain in custody. Of those two, Clinton said they “may or may not be released; they’re just asking them questions. But I don’t want people to be discouraged. If you care about this and you’re willing to adopt a child, don’t give up on it. There are lots of people who need a permanent home, little kids.”