Finding Common Ground and Perspective

Diversion Audio Calling all haters, this is going to be so delicious . Have I ever written I James Patterson and written a book that just annoyed the hell out of you? Or maybe several books? Have I killed off a character you loved? Told a joke you found obscene . Now you can tell me directly to me on the James Patterson Hater Hotline. Call six hundred forty six nine eight three four and it's not my home number and tell me a story whatever it is I did that got you to make a phone call in the year twenty twenty six. So anything that pisses you off, you know, go for it. If you make a good point , I will probably play your message on a future episode of Hungry Dogs. That number again , six, four, six , five, nine eight three four . I can't wait to hear from you haters . Let's go. Come on haters, let's do it. Mandela had a huge impact on my life. And he said one of the widest things that anyone ever said to me, he said, you know, when I was in prison all over the years, I realized they could take anything from me. I mean, I was abused physically. I was abused emotionally. I didn't get to see my children grow up. I realized they could take it all, except my mind and my heart. He said, Those things I would dec notided to give away . And he looked at me and he said, Natter should eat it. This is Hungry Dogs. I'm James Patterson. My guest today is the forty second president of these here Un,ited States and a friend , President Bill Clinton. We've written three novels together . You'll get to hear about our process together, our writing process , and what drove President Clinton to pair up with me, silly man? So here's President Bill Clinton . Do you want to be mister President or Bill or just avoid it. I want to be whatever you feel best caught. All right, okay. All right, all right, so I'll avoid it . First little thought and I don't mean this too seriously, but you read more than anybody I know. You just read and read and read. Any book or that stands out just this was just such an important book for you . Anything that not the president is missing, but some other than that. I'm reading a book now that I'm almost done with called the Rise and Rule of the Mammals by a guy named Steve Brussadi. I discovered him. He's from Chicago, but he had an operation in Scotland for many years and then he worked in America . You know, he's an archaeologist and it turns out that some of the best collection of dinosaur bones are both in Scotland and in New Jersey because before the earth split apart , they were joined . I learn a lot from this guy about how you make discoveries and how hard it is to draw conclusions from them. And we're still learning things all the time and it makes you think that we need to take a lot of care if we want people to hang around a long time. You also read a lot of mysteries . Just a couple of your favorite mystery writers. Well, I love the Italian writer who's now recently passed away. Andrea, Camillary . I think he's great. I like Lee Child, as you know . Sure. Yeah, he did one of our events, which was great. He was he was a great moderator. Great moderator. I like Michael Connelly His brother was in the White House communications office when I was president and so I got to meet the LA Airport once. That's the only time I ever met him. Here's another, another thing. Just curious about your react ion to I read somewhere recently that forty percent of young people blame social media for the divisions in this country. Any reaction to that to surprise you at all or no, I think there's a lot of truth to it. You know, first of all, we've had a as you know, a precipitous drop in locally owned newspapers and radio stations with the traditional media in culturally conservative areas that's been taken up almost exclusively by Fox or other, you know, more right leaning television networks . So I used to be able to walk in any cafe in Arkans as and any county Republican or Democrat . And there was a locally printed newspaper and the local radio station was playing in the rest of the cafe . You just don't have that anymore. More and more people however are spending time on their own devices and outrage beats them all for attracting tweets. Yeah. And polarizing. There's no question about it . Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's it. I want to talk a little bit about your book and the idea of you're out there now, you're citizen. You're like the rest of us on some level. You left off as you're fifty four years old and you must have had some idea of my God, you know, what's the post president? What did you think it was going to be the post presidency versus however it's turned out? I thought a lot about it . I decided that I was more or less the same age Carter was when he left office a little younger. I thought that I should set up a foundation and what I really wanted to do was to do things . I mean, I made a living gave and speeches for twenty years , but that was just so I could do my work . I imagined that I would do worthy projects either because I was a former president or because we had this foundation. Now, did it turn out the way I expected? No, in some ways it was better than I ever dreamed. I never dreamed we'd be able to cut the price of AI drDuSgs and then any number of other healthcare items as much as we did and it saved millions of lives. I didn't I'm grateful , but I didn't foresee it. Let's just stop on that for a second because what you all accomplished at the health access initiative in terms of HIV and AIDS and malaria and tuberculosis and touching over thirty million people affecting them . And I don't think people think about that when they think about you or when they think about Hillary as much as they should , which I think is kind of bullshit. The little stuff that people bring up versus, I mean, it's unbelievable what that foundation has done in my opinion . More than half the people in the world with AIDS, even today they have medicine that they get off our contracts , which is the cheapest high quality medic ine you could get in the world . And we worked hard to build those supply chains. We worked hard to negotiate with the drug manufacturers , and we worked hard to get credibility for it . And it's an amazing story and there are lots of stories in the book about you know how it happened. That surprised me happily . Then when I started the Clinton Global Initiative, I had just this instinct that people would like a meeting that might look like Davos , but would be much more diverse and would actually ask people to make a commitment to do something , something very specific . Which is brilliant, which people don't understand how smart and focused that is. I could have been proved a fool. It could have been see people said, you know, I'm not going to spend money to come to New York during UN Week when the traffic's terrible. But it turned out people were dying to do something to make a difference if they weren't full time public employees and they needed a way to do it. And you know, we stopped in twenty sixteen because I knew if Hillary got elected president , we couldn't keep doing it the way we were doing it because I had to have foreign sponsors as well as domestic ones , and I couldn't do that. And I knew if she didn't win that given the climate of the time , Donald Trump would try to make it impossible for us to function. You know, they came out with this ridiculous book attacking the Foundation Clinton Cash and we destroyed it within forty eight hours to the satisfaction of people who rape charities who count. That is , but to other people, it was just another smear . And it hurt us. And so we stopped holding the Clinton Global Initiative for a few years, but we started up again. We just had our third one. Yeah . Yeah, and I think it was the best one we ever had. And it's younger, it's more diverse . We lowered the admission fee and got more people willing to pay it. It was interesting. And we have some really good sponsors who believe in what we're doing and we just having a good time. We're trying to make a difference. Yeah. I didn't foresee doing that I've loved doing his working as a former president primarily on natural disasters. I worked with President George H. W. Bush on the tsunami because his son asked us to. And then when the Haitian earthquake occurred, President Obama asked me to work with George W. Bush. And then the UN asked me to work there . I know this show is called Hungry Dogs, but I also love cats. And if there's one thing I know about cats, it's that they expect to be treated like royalty. You all know that if you have cats. That's where the Whisker Litter robot comes in. This is a great little tool. It automatically cycles after every use. So you're not scooping litter every day. Anything that removes the chore from my list gets my attention. And the Whisker app helps you stay on top of things with notifications about your unit like completed cycles or litter levels , and that's really helpful. I, you know, let the let this machine, let this robot take care of me. 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Just on the book and the writing and process and things like that We've obviously we've written a couple of books together and you wrote some chapters and I wrote some chapters and my process is a lot of outline, outline outline, and then I kind of rock and roll and do whatever the craziness I do, but what's your process in terms of the way you write or first of all I do an outline. I decide what I want each chapter to cover and then I do drafts and then I rewrite almost without exception if I'm just doing a book, a serious book like my life after the White House, which is what citizens about . I rewrite it five or six or seven times. I to got get it as compact and clear as I can . And then I worry about whether I've got things in the right order . That's the busy life, you know, and sometimes you can do everything in chronological order . So I wrestle with all that . And then I try to give an introduction which captures the book enough to keep people's interests and an epilogue which at least says what it all meant to me. You know, just a quick story. Somewhere along the way, I know we were all going to maybe get together for dinner or something. And you called and Sue was on the line and you said to Sue, you gotta you see got what' tos going on here. And you were with your grandkids. And she showed me and there you were full in a full tiger outfit with your grandkids . Which was and I bring that up only because once again getting back to this human being stuff. And in the book , it's a very personal book and you've made the decision to talk about as a father , as a grandfather, as a husband. And that's that was obvious ly a decision decision that you made in terms of citizen. Do I talk about that a little bit? Yeah, because I think if like me, you have a grown child and grandchildren, you want to be very ircumspect in what you say, I think you don't want to say too much . So I drafted what I thought was an appropriate thing to say because I love being a grandfather and great gifts of my last twenty plus years is that Chelsea and her husband, Mark have welcomed Hillary and I to be a part of their lives . Not everybody does. I mean, they ask us to they invite us to go on trips with them and it's a huge part of my life. I realize a bigger part of my life than it is for my grandchildren, but at least they know I'm there . Now they live catty cornered from where our office is. My foundation office is in New York City. So but I ran everything that I propose to say about my family. Ruth Chelsea and yeah and Hillary Uhhuh . Yeah, because I thought they had a right Edit I shouldn't say anything they didn't want me to say. Yeah, one of the treats in citizen you've obviously met a lot of impressive people and it's fun to read about them and some surprising people . Just any body that sticks out in terms of the impressive people that you've met. Mandela had a huge impact on my life. And you know, he's been gone a long time now he died in twenty thirteen while I was president and after I was president a big influence on me . He energized the work I wanted to do on AIDS. He participated in a lot of it. He reminded me that he knew a little bit about political persecut ion Yeah, just a little . And you know, and he said one of the wisest things that anyone ever said to me, he said, you know, when I was in prison all those years, I realized they could take anything from me. I mean, I was abused physically. I was abused emotionally. I didn't get to see my children grow up. It destroyed my marriage . I realized they could take it all except my mind and my heart. He said, Th thingsose I would decided not to give away . And he looked at me and he said, neither should you also in the book is some people that surprised you and are going to surprise readers, just one maybe to mention this where you were just kind of surprised once you got to know the person or spend time with the person. Bob Inglis, I think. Bob Inglis was a conservative congressman from South Carolina who was a devout Christian and was elected Congress in nineteen ninety two and asked to be on the judiciary committee. He said I had decided that I was going to invoke to impeach you before I ever met you and I didn't care what it was for because we had all been told you were the soul of evil. He said, You know, I've now had a dose of that kind of smug self certainty thrown at me because what English Hat did , he promised to only serve three terms and kept he his word and then after he'd laid out for a term or two he ran again. First time he ran he got eighty five percent for reelection. Then the tea party came along. He had, meanwhile, he was he's a really dedication guy. He's fun to be around and he's smart . And he said that he thought it was wrong to deny climate change , but wrong to expect the government to do most of it , that we should construct an economy where we would incentivize saving our planet, essentially. And he said when a fellow Congressman South Carolina screamed that President Obama was a liar during the State of the Union. Do you remember that? He called him out. He said, you know , I think Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. I think he loves this country and I disagree with him about nearly everything , but it's wrong to foment hatred of it. Gowdy, the prosecutor from his district ran against him. English had the support of the NRA and the right to life groups and Gowdy beat him seventy two to twenty nine in the primary because he was only too happy to hate Obama and to deny the reality of climate change. I mean, it was crazy and it was basically , you know, a hate based divisive strategy that worked like a charm. So I got a call from him one day. He said he was going to be in New York and could he come to see me? And I said, sure. And I hadn't seen him since, you know, he was one of the managers of the impeachment . And he said , he came by and I was thanking him because he could continue to argue that we needed market approaches to climate change, not denial . He said , maybe, but he said, That's not why I came . I said, Why don't you come? He said, I want you to forgive me . I said, Why? He said, Because I came to Washington just hating your guts . I was just told how terrible you were and how we had to get you out. And he said , I realized that it was wrong and I was wrong . And it must have caused you great pain , all that stuff. And I said, well, thank you, and I'm grateful. He is now running a little group with a woman he defeated for Congress in ' ninety two, who was a Democratic Congresswoman for South Carolina , and they get people together once a month, more or less evenly divided and they find something they agree on that they think will make life better for their neighbors. Honey, what are you listening to, mom ? Your teen might not share everything with you, but teens share everything with each other, and certain everyday behaviors like sharing food, drinks, or kisses could mean sharing bacteria that can cause meningcocal disease known as meningitis. Although meningitis is uncommon, about one in ten who develop it will die. Ask your teens doctor about missing meningitis vaccinations. Learn more at meningitis. com . Vaccination may not protect all recipients, sponsored by GSK . I'm Jake Halpern, host of Deep Cover, a show about people who lead double lives. We're presenting a special series from Australia. It's all about a family who is conned by a charming American. When you marry someone, you feel like you really know them. I was just meeted as to what's going on here ? Does the name Liz Lee Minukian mean anything to you? Oh, you bet. Never forget her. Listen to Deepcover Presents Snowball , wherever you get your podcasts. Well, speaking of getting people to come together , one of the talents that you had as a president was getting people to somewhat come together in terms of here's some stuff we have in common and we need to move things forward. And that was a gift and which I believe in that that approach to government . Do you think we can and that's not working now? Do you think we can ever get a little closer to that in Washington? Or is the dye cast now with the sort of like I think we could. I mean we had a deal on immigration reform . Right. That's true. Yeah . And Joe Biden let most conservative Republicans draft the measures to reduce the number of people we were taking who were showing up at the border in emergencies and he asked in return that we build reasonable housing and hire enough people to actually handle the people so we could do vetting. We had that and then Trump basically told them to beat their own bill because he needed an issue to keep the country divided and keep you torn up and upset . So I think if people just have to decide whether they want to stay torn up and upset in I think a vain effort to seek social dominance. It just can't work better for us to be a part. It just can't. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. It can't work. George Bush and I, my favorite program, I think now is the Presidential Leadership Scholars progr am Bush and I won because he picks thirty people a year. I pick thirty people. They go to his library and his dad's library in the LBJ library and my library and we meet with them and then we do graduation together and for the last several years disproportionately, the Republicans there have thanked me and the Democrats have thanked him because they did not know anybody like the other party people existed there. They never found out what they had in common. And yeah, I just believe that you can never close the door . You know, I remember one day, Aza Hutchinson , who was Governor of Arkansas later , and his brother , who was a senator then , contacted my office in the White House and said their mother wanted to see the White House and they'd like to bring her on a t our . And they wondered if they could stop by . And you know, he was one of the impeachment managers . So all the young people in my White House were fierce. They said, surely we're not going to do that. I said, Excellent we are. And you're going to act like you don't remember any of it. I said, Look, Ace is a house member . New Gingrich is a speaker. The price of being in the caucus is playing ball with him. He couldn't decline that . And we want it. Don't forget, we want . I said, So just let it go. And brought his mother in and his brother and the whole thing was hilarious . But I loved it . You know, my philosophy was embodied in the now infamous moon rock that when we celebrated the thir tieth anniversary of the Moon Walk in nineteen ninety nine, NASA brought one of the rocks Neil Armstrong had taken off the moon and it was in a vacuum packed laminated clear container and it was carbon dated at three point six billion years old . So we did all the pictures and did all the how great it was thirty years ago. And I said , can I keep that for a while? I said, I promise we'll take good care of it. You see I've got dirty here. Well I really need this rock for a while and I'll give it back to you before I leave. I promise. So they let me do it and I put black on the table the two couches that you see on TV all the time in the oval office where there's, you know, there's the president's desk and everything back here and then on the other end there',s a fireplace and two seats where the president and a foreign dignitary or a local dignitary sit and then couches for the other participants and that . And whenever there'd be a big fight breakout, I'll never forget this. I'd say wait a minute, time out. Look at that rock. That rock is three point six billion years old . Now are just passing through and we don't have a lot of time. Someone say we settle down and get something done and it didn't always work, but it also worked . When did they take the rock back? When I left . Okay, all right. You didn't take it with it forever. Leave it in the bathroom or something, right? Yeah, all right . I love that movrack 'cause it reminded me . Yeah , not to get too huffy, not to get too angry, not to get too arrogant. We're all just passing through here. Yeah . No, there's, I think I mentioned to you this and I don't know where it comes from. It doesn't come from me, but this phrase that I love, which is my time here is short. What can I do most beautifully? And I love that as a motivator and something to focus on. The last thing I just wanted to bring up we have exchanged birthday and holiday, Christmas presents and whatever. One year you gave me a humid or you know I don't smoke. So I called up and I said, do I put bubble gum or chocolate cigars in there? And you said, Oh bubblegum at our age, we got to keep the gums going. But that notion of that and people will ask me, well, what's it like, you know, to write with President Clinton. And I go, I'll tell you what the best thing for me is we have friendship and that's the most important thing to me. It really is more important. I don't care how many books sell or all that stuff. Well, I care a little bit, but mostly there's a nice friendship here and we've done some stuff and it's an honor for me . Well, you know, I feel the same way. I love you and I love Sue. You know, I can't play golf anymore, so I'm humble. I need to humble . We all need to be kept humble . And I love going 'cause you both beat me like a yard dog now. But Sue keeps me humble on a golf course , I'll tell you that. We've had a wonderful time just talking about everything , finding out about each other and how we grew up and I love being upstate New York near your hometown, George Washington's revolutionary war headquarters. That's right, yeah. Well, Newberg. You know, it's been a great gift in my life knowing you and I think I'm a better writer because of it. I think I've got to say better writer than me, you are better writer than me, but that's all another story . And that's what I feel about my whole life since I left office. You know, I was more involved in politics than I thought I'd be because of Hillary's two campaigns and I don't mind doing it. And I like helping other people. I've done a lot of work to help other people , but I'm always glad when it's over if we can return to something that amounts to a ceasefire, you know ? Yeah, well, I hope so. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Hungry Dogs , help me out by liking and subscribing to the show . We want to get these interviews out to as many people as we can. You can help a lot. If you like the interviews, your friends will like the interviews. So help. Also, drop me a comment with any ideas you have to make the Hungry Dog interviews better. I'm hungry to hear what you think. I love new ideas. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Diversion Audio