Updated November 19, 2024 at 17:03 PM ET
What keeps a president busy after he leaves the White House?
For former President Bill Clinton, who served two terms from 1993 to 2001, it's been philanthropy, family and the occasional foray back into politics.
He dives into the past almost 24 years of his post-presidency life in his new memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House, out now. The memoir takes its title from Clinton's farewell address to the nation.
"I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen," Clinton said in 2001.
The former president writes about his philanthropic work across the globe through the Clinton Foundation, working with Nelson Mandela to get treatment for people with HIV and helping free two journalists jailed in North Korea.
Clinton spoke to Morning Edition host Leila Fadel, who asked him what it was like to transition from president of a global superpower to a citizen.
"You know, I had to learn how to do a lot of things all over again," Clinton said. "And I was determined to keep living in the present and living for the future so that I didn't spend any time wishing I was still president."
Clinton also spoke about life after the presidency, the state of the country, how Democrats can win back voters and his legacy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Leila Fadel: You're credited with breathing new life into the Democratic Party in the '90s, following the Reagan Revolution. What would you say Democrats need to do to start winning again and winning these voters who feel like they can't make ends meet and life isn't great for them?
Bill Clinton: I'd say we can't keep asserting that things are great in the economy. In some senses they are great. But we're saddled with some cost of living challenges, which are not unique to the United States. But it's pretty hard if you're out there in the middle of the country and you're working hard and you've got two or three kids and you have to watch every penny you make. And the economic benefits of the current recovery have been widely shared where it has stuck. But it takes a while for people everywhere in the country to feel the benefits. People are not economic engines alone. There's a lot of identity conflicts racing through our society now, through our world. And these culture war topics still have enormous salience. And we Democrats have to learn to talk to people.
Clinton on addressing some of the controversies in his life in this book, including the way he felt the press unfairly treated his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when she ran for president in 2016 over her handling of official emails.
Clinton: I believe that it's laid out in my book not because I wanted to relitigate it, but because I wanted to let it go and I couldn't let it go if nobody ever collected all the facts and put them in one place.
Fadel: Do you feel like there are lots of moments like that in the book that you felt like, "I need to write this down, I need to talk about this and I need to let it go."
Clinton: Anything that was about anything negative, if I thought there would be questions asked and I would think, "well, maybe I ought not to wait for people to ask questions." I'll just say what I got to say.
Fadel: That included one of the most difficult parts of your presidency where you address the relationship you had with Monica Lewinsky. And you said, "I live with it all the time." What did you mean?
Clinton: It was a terrible time for my whole family, and I'd like to let it go. But I still had to live with it because other people didn't want it to be dropped and because it was a problem. So I just thought, "well, this is a chance to say what I have to say about that." I felt the same way about other issues. If I hadn't said anything, my critics would say, "Well, he didn't say anything about that." But I was afraid all the way along, because look how far we are into this conversation and how little we've talked about, how I spent the lion's share of the last 24 years working with my foundation, working on AIDS and building the Clinton Global Initiative.
Fadel: One of the things that President-elect Trump took aim at was the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some point to as the reason for the widening inequities that the U.S. is in today over the trade barriers and reduced tariffs. What brought the U.S. to this place of this deep distrust and anger over jobs going abroad and feeling like unions are not respected?
Clinton: It's easy to say that NAFTA was wrong. But the truth is, if you look at the agreement we've got today, it's just basically an updated version of NAFTA.
Fadel: The one that Trump renegotiated during his presidency.
Clinton: Yeah, but it was high time. NAFTA negotiated in the late '90s. If you look at what's actually in this deal, they updated it, but it led to today. Who are our biggest trading partners? Canada and Mexico. We still have a high level of hemispheric cooperation and we can't get an orderly solution to the border without cooperation from Mexico. And I feel what really happened with the trade war was that we quit enforcing the agreements as vigorously as I think they should have been enforced. And then we were too optimistic, if you will, about what would happen over the long run with China.
Fadel: Your wife ran for president and lost. We watched Vice President Kamala Harris run for president and lose. Is the U.S. not ready or not willing to elect a woman?
Clinton: I think if Hillary had been the nominee in 2008, she would have won easily as President Obama did, because the Bush administration was at a low point over the Iraq war and other things. I believe that we have become more socially conservative now. The most important thing for people to remember about any political dispute or any global question is something that I'm very proud of, which is finishing the sequencing of the human genome. I spent $3 billion of American taxpayers money to get the first print. And the most important thing we learned is that every non age-related difference, including gender, body shape and size, hair color–you name it–every difference is found in one half of one percent of our genome. And yet we spend 99 and a half percent of our time worrying about that half a percent. You can, you know, decorate it up with anything, but I so hope that we can stop the killing in Gaza. I hope it'll happen. We all have to go on. You have to go on tomorrow. I have to go on.
Fadel: This book is laced with moments you reached across the aisle as president and as citizen. Is that bipartisan work still possible today?
If we live in a world where the only political strategy that works is a polarizing, damning, you-don't-count strategy, where the only thing that counts is loyalty – that is another word and path to total obedience. Don't ask questions. Now it's just a winner take all. Take the blood off the ground. So I keep trying in my limited way as I age and struggle on to make a positive difference. I still am very optimistic. I bet you'll be surprised about where we'll be in eight years.
Fadel: You said you went back to work after the election and you got back to work. What did you tell your staff? And in the 24 years since being president, what would you say is the most important thing that you've done as a citizen or the thing that you wanted to do as a citizen?
Well, first, when I told my staff and my friends that we had clearly lost the election and we wanted to set a good example, but I believe that it would give us a new opportunity to make a difference in the non-governmental sector, because I think the purpose of a lot of this work by ordinary citizens is to fill the gap that is always there between what the private sector can produce and what the government will provide. You got to figure out what are you going to do now? And here's what I think we ought to do.
Fadel: You talked about how you're the longest living member of your family over three generations. You get to be with your grandkids. I wanted to know what it's like to buck this trend in your family.
Clinton: I feel lucky. It's so interesting. You know, other people have a totally different take. I read a wonderful article that Hillary sent me. It was in one of the papers about a marriage of a 98-year old-man to a 96-year-old woman in a senior living center in Austin. They had just gotten married and they were both spry and happy. And I thought, "God, that's great." It makes me feel like I need to keep doing stuff or maybe I need to get out of the way so Hillary can do it. There's an old joke that goes "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would've taken better care of myself." I'm glad that I did. I don't obsess about it anymore. But I have realized that it's been sort of rooting' around in the back of my head and was driving me a lot when I was younger, made me more almost hyperactive.
Fadel: Maybe it was behind some of your ambition, getting things done as quickly as you could.
Clinton: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. It led to a lot of good things. Most of the mistakes I made in my life happened when I was so tired I could hardly lift my arms because I always thought I should do more. And this is something I've learned. I sleep better at night now.
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