Hillary Clinton As First Lady | Flashback | NBC News

Long before Hillary Clinton testified at Benghazi hearings or battled Donald Trump, she defied the traditional role of first lady to become a major political player. Anyone who knows my husband and knows me knows that we've been having this conversation about what should be done in this country for more than 20 years. He's the one who's elected. He's the one who has to make the final decision. But I care about what he does and I care about what happens and I want to participate. Her college classmates might have seen it coming. In 1969, Hillary took the stage as graduation speaker at Wellesley College, the first time a student was chosen to impart her words of wisdom to the 400 or so grads at commencement. She is a major in political science and a candidate for the degree with honors. She is also cheerful, good humored, good company and a good friend to all of us and it is a great pleasure to present to this audience Ms. Hillary Rodham. It was a speech that foreshadowed her drive as first lady. Fear is always with us, but we just don't have time for it. Not now. Decades later, she ruffled feathers with her refusal to sit on the sidelines. Bill Clinton is running hard for the presidency, but his wife Hillary, an attorney and an advocate for various causes, seems to be running as hard as he is. I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. She's less a spouse than a running mate. Her assertiveness makes some voters uncomfortable. I feel that she's the power behind the throne. I think she's a very aggressive woman. She's overly ambitious. We elected Bill Clinton, not Hillary. I think she has a little bit too much power for a president's wife. The power that she has bothers me a lot. You do have considerable influence and some people say that there are Americans who don't feel totally comfortable with that because they're not sure how much influence you have, and after all, you were not elected. How much influence do you have? I don't know that I have any more influence than anybody else who is an advisor to the president. As first lady, Clinton tried and failed to revamp the health care system. I know from my own experiences and from the conversations I've been privileged to have with thousands of our fellow citizens across this country that something is wrong with our health care system and that it needs to be fixed. The critics of Hillarycare were just as vocal as those of Obamacare, and Clinton was criticized for trying to engineer her health care reform plan without input from Congress. Health care reform had been on life supports for weeks. Today it fell to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to officially pull the plug. Under constant attack from critics, support for the package dropped steadily. Opposition increased. Key players say everyone is to blame for the death of health reform, the president, Mrs. Clinton, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. Your husband has had a tough time lately in terms of the public perception. There are some people who believe, had you not been in charge of health care, some of these embarrassing fiascos wouldn't have happened. I am very committed to doing what he's asked me to do, which is to work on health care, and a lot of these other matters are ones that, you know, things happen. People make mistakes. She also took her policymaking ambitions abroad, denouncing human rights abuses against women at a 1995 U.N. meeting in Beijing. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights once and for all. But Clinton's time as first lady was also often marred by controversy, and her detractors covered everything from the political to the personal. With all of this talk of subpoenas, a key White House resignation over the weekend, the Republicans suggesting impeachment, the president vigorously defending his wife, the core questions remain tonight. What is under investigation, and why? The committee's report makes it clear this administration believed evasion and obstruction were more important than the truth. The administration was involved in a highly orchestrated effort to keep the facts from the American people in the intricate web of deceit and abuse of power that is Whitewater. I just wanted to comment that there has been one central figure that has been a major player in all three phases of this investigation, from the Vince Foster hours after his death to the Washington investigation to the events in Arkansas, and that one person has been Hillary Rodham Clinton. There was the Whitewater scandal, which led to an investigation by a special prosecutor into a series of real estate transactions long before the Clintons were in the White House. The question now, was it ethical for Hillary Clinton and her law firm to represent the SNL before a state regulator appointed by her husband? Do you know of any money that could have gone from Madison to the Whitewater project or to any of your husband's political campaigns? Absolutely not. I do not. And of course, there was her ever-scrutinized decision to stand by her husband, despite his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. I did not have sexual relations with that woman. So if what you have heard is something you can believe, and if what the president has told the nation is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then you'd have to agree that this is the worst and most damaging smear of the 20th century. The great story here, for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it, is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. In a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky. While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. She has been silent about this topic for months. Now Hillary Clinton is speaking out about the state of her marriage. The first lady blamed her husband's problems on childhood abuse, saying everybody has some dysfunction in their family. They have to deal with it. You just don't walk away if you love someone. You help the person. Democratic pollster Mark Mellman says Mrs. Clinton's popularity has skyrocketed as America watches her handle a scandal that would tear most families apart. She's smiling. She's holding his hand. I mean, that takes a lot. I have a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton. Hillary is hurting right now, and she needs all the support that she can get. Based on what you know now, five years after coming to Washington, the personal attacks, the political attacks, do you sit home at night and think it's worth it? It is worth it. Now do I wish that we didn't live in a time where people were so malicious and evil-minded? Of course, but, you know, that's human nature. So you take the good with the bad, and the good has far, far outweighed any bad at all. Taking criticism from all sides as an unconventional first lady forced Hillary Clinton to develop thick skin, something she's drawing on in 2016 as she becomes the first woman to be nominated by a major party for president. Watch the latest interviews, show highlights and digital exclusives. Thanks for watching.