Hillary Clinton Interview at The Breakfast Club Power 105.1 (04/18/2016)

Morning everybody, it's DJ MV Angela Yee, Charlamagne Tha God. We are The Breakfast Club and we have a special guest with us this morning. And let the record show, when she walked in, I gave her a handshake and she did it the right way. She bought it in, cuffed it and everything. And then she ended like this. Poof. Hilary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen. Hey, great to be with you all. Thanks for having me. And then she told us about a fun game of dominoes. She won, slammed the dominoes down on the table and screamed, dominoes, mother a*****. She said she played dominoes. I did, I did. I played dominoes. I did win. But you know, I didn't rub it in. We didn't know this was going to happen. We know you vetted, your team vetted Charlamagne a lot because he has given you Donkey of the Day. I know, he has. He had a Hillary mask. But I'm equal opportunity though. I've given a lot of the presidential candidates Donkey of the Day. Well, look, I'm a Democrat, so being Donkey of the Day is a little bit of a mixed blessing. Historically, you've always like worn like pantsuits. Yes. Well, yes, I have historically. Is it true Steve Harvey's been your inspiration? I think Steve looks pretty sharp. Yeah, he does now. I have not asked him though who his tailor is. You think I should next time I see him? Yeah, he's better now. He used to have like the baggy joints, the baggy suits. Oh, yeah. He used to look like sweatsuits. Well, I could probably give him some advice because I've had nearly every kind of pantsuit there is, just about. Why is that? Is that by design? Well, you know what happened? I'll tell you. Obviously, I wore dresses most of my life, like most people growing up the time I did and as first lady. And then I just, I was doing so many things and I was running around and I just thought, you know, I'm going to start wearing pants. It's just so much easier. And once I started, I couldn't stop. So here I am. Me too. Yeah, me too. I love a good pantsuit. You know, I wanted to know, my anniversary is coming up shortly. 15 years. How did Bill propose to you? Okay. How much time do we have? Does this go to lunch too? Lunch club? I'm trying to recreate. I want to know. I'm trying to recreate. Oh, you're going to be a presidential? Yes. You'll be a wedding, a presidential wedding archive. Okay. Here we go. So he and I started dating when we were in law school. And there's a long story behind that, but I'll skip it because I want to get to your question. Okay. And so we were living together. Before marriage? Before marriage. Oh my God, Senator. I don't want you to tell anybody. I mean, I'm just talking like one-on-one here, so kind of keep it to yourself. Okay? I'm just trying to help him with his wife. Okay. I mean, really. I got you. All right. So anyway, so we did. And then he moved back home to Arkansas, and he started teaching at the law school. And I took another job, and then eventually I moved to Arkansas, started teaching at the law school. So we were also living there together, too. And he, the first time when we were, right after law school, we went on a trip together. We were in this beautiful place in England called the Lake Country. Okay. Yeah. So we're standing by this lake, and he asked me to marry him. And I said, which I thought was a reasonable thing. Well, let me think about it. Whoa. Let me think about it? That's not good. That's crazy. That's why I got to think about it. Well, how long did it take you to think about it? Well, I'm getting to that part of the story. Let me think about it. So I said, let me think about it, because I wasn't sure what I was going to do after law school. He knew what he was going to do. He was going to go back to Arkansas, and he would eventually run for office, because he just wanted to do that, and he is great at it. So then, fast forward, I moved to Arkansas. So he says to me, he says, well, okay, you're thinking about it, right? I said, yeah, I'm thinking about it. So I went out of town one day. He was driving me to the airport, went by this little house. I said, that's a cute house. Literally, that's all I said. That's a cute house. I'm gone about a week. He comes, picks me up at the airport. He drives me to the house. He said, I bought the house you liked. I said, you bought the house I liked? I haven't even been inside the house. And you still haven't answered him. Yeah, I still haven't answered him. Where the hell was Bill getting all his money from in law school? Well, can I tell you? The house was about $18,000. I mean, those were the days, right? Yeah. So, and you know, he got a mortgage. Oh, okay. I think the house cost $20,000. He's still paying that mortgage off. So anyway, he said to me, okay, I'm not asking you again. You have to tell me when you're ready. And so a little while later, I told him I was ready. So fast forward. I go to see, at his request, President-elect Obama. He asked me to come to Chicago after the election. He asked me to be Secretary of State. I say, you know, I'm really flattered. I'm honored. But I think my best use would be in the Senate. He said, no, I want you to think about it. You go home and think about it, but I want you to say yes. I said, all right, so go home, think about it. I call him up. I say, you know, Mr. President-elect, I just think I should stay in the Senate. He goes, I'm telling you, don't call me again until you're ready to say yes. So I say to Bill, I said, can you believe it? The President-elect has asked me to be Secretary of State twice. I've said no twice. And he says, don't talk to me again until you're ready to say yes. And Bill says, well, that sounds really familiar. So the key here is always answer, let me think about it, and never give an answer right away. Buy my wife another house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Senator Clinton. He's like, you're Mr. Big, kind of. We've had hearty discussions. A lot of black people feel like they don't trust you because you mispronounced Beyonce's name. Have you learned to say it correctly yet? Well, you just said it correctly. Beyonce, right? Yeah. You know what? I was really tired that day. What can I say? It was Beyonce, though. You can't make those kind of mistakes. I know. There's so many important things to think about when you run for president. Yes. I mean, you know, I went to Michelle Obama's birthday party, and Beyonce performed. It was so amazing. We were in the East Room of the White House, and they had, you know, a stage set up and everything, and she had some of her backup dancers. I sat there, and I was just, like, amazed. Because, like, look, I've seen her on TV a million times, but to see her that close and in person. And so afterwards, I was talking to President Obama, and he said, yeah, I saw you over there. Your mouth dropped open. I said, yeah. It was unbelievable. What an incredible performer. He goes, yeah. He said, everybody in this audience had never seen her in person before. They're all saying the same thing, like, I can't believe it. It's just, like, a natural phenomenon. Have you ever mimicked some of her dance moves in the mirror at home by yourself? Single ladies. Totally by myself. Yeah. I'm always in trouble when I try to dance in public. Have you ever seen that? I have no coordination. The real issue with that is that the new dance was to run off on the plug twice. You ever done that? Do you know what that is? No, I don't know what that is. Are you guys going to show me? It's kind of like cardio. You stand up. Oh, cardio. I do cardio. Yeah, I can run in place. Yeah. Do you know what it means to run off on the plug? I can't run in place like she does. You should try it. She has the most amazing stamina, endurance, coordination. You should try to run off on the plug twice. All right. I'll try it, but I'm not trying it in public. Not now. Let me perfect it in private. Do you ever get tired of people asking you to dance? Because I know when you go on these shows like Ellen and they ask you to dab, that's not your idea. But Ellen does that to everybody. You always end up the bad guy. It's not my idea. But you know what? When you go on Ellen's show, it's so much fun. The people who work there are just so happy. It's happy producing, right? So you kind of get into the mood. And then when they ask you to do things, which in retrospect you shouldn't do because you can't do them. I mean, if I could do them, you would not be having this conversation with me, right? It just always comes off like you're trying too hard. Yeah, I'm trying too hard because I am trying too hard. I'm having a good time, and I'm happy, and everybody else is doing it, and I'm thinking, hey, this is really fun. And I forget like millions of people are watching. But you know, sometimes it's worse to just not do it because then you seem like a poor sport. Then you seem like you're really just a spoiled sport. They're like, she's not human. And then people go, oh my God, she has no personality. She doesn't have any sense of fun. She won't try anything. So it's kind of like damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's a no-win. It was better than 50 Cent's though. It was better than 50 Cent's. It was better than 50. Your dad was better than 50 Cent's dad. I'm not going to say that. Hey, that's good. I don't agree with that. If I'm better than one person, that's good, especially somebody like that. So it's not like you're pandering to black people. They're asking you to do it. They asked me to do it. Yeah. That makes sense. Now let me ask you this. If you're president, how would your policies affect the average person like myself? Well, I think that they would be really good for you and for everybody else because what we're going to do is build on the progress we've gotten under President Obama, and I really give him a lot of credit for getting things done in the face of unbelievable hostility from the Congress. But now we've got to go further. So we've got to get more jobs with rising incomes. Most Americans haven't had a raise in a long time. We have to fix the schools so that every kid, no matter where that kid lives, regardless of the zip code, gets a good education. That's something I'm passionate about. I've worked on it for years. We've got to get the Affordable Care Act to work for everybody. That'll make a big difference in a lot of people's lives. We've got to deal with the problems in the criminal justice system and the incarceration system. That was the first speech that I gave. And we've got to stand up for our rights. I mean, all these guys on the Republican side, they want to restrict or eliminate people's rights. Women's rights to make our own decisions, you know, shutdown, Planned Parenthood, which takes care of millions of people. They want to, if they could, do away with marriage equality and let this terrible discrimination like we're seeing in North Carolina and Mississippi and places against the LGBT community continue. And they're trying to mess with voting rights and workers' rights. It's a long list. They want to turn the clock back. So, I will make sure that doesn't happen, but also that good things happen. That's my, you know, my hope to break down all the barriers that stand in the way of people getting ahead. Now, you mentioned education. I know right after law school, you went to South Carolina. That's where I'm from. Where? I'm from, I was born in Charleston, but raised in Moncks Corner, a small town called Moncks Corner. But I did radio in Columbia as well, too. You did? Yeah. So, I was wondering, like, why did you go down there to examine race and education? Well, I went to work for the Children's Defense Fund. And that was started by one of my mentors and great friends, a woman named Marion Wright Edelman, who was the first African-American woman to pass the Mississippi Bar. A friend of Dr. King's, a friend of Bobby Kennedy's, she worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi. And she concluded that there were a lot of people working on the big civil rights issues, but we weren't paying enough attention to kids and what was happening to children and teenagers. So, she started something called the Children's Defense Fund. So, when I got out of law school, I immediately went to work for that. And she's from South Carolina. She's from Bennettsville. And so, she knew, because of her continued relations in South Carolina, that there was a terrible problem of juveniles, predominantly, almost exclusively African-American juveniles, being put into adult jails. Oftentimes, in those days, not even for alleged crimes, but for what are called status offenses, which we've mostly eliminated, which is like acting out or, you know, being not controlled by your family, things that are so, you know, subjective, you can't really count on them at all. Anyway, so, she sent me to South Carolina to investigate and gather information to bring a lawsuit against the state to get them out of, you know, housing juveniles with adults. Gotcha. Does Donald Trump scare you at all? Like, because I know you have a daughter and you have a grandchild. Yes. Does he scare you? Because he scares the ish out of me. I think he's the antichrist, to be honest with you. I think he's the donkey of the decade. Oh, he's gotten the most donkeys ever. He's gotten the most ever. Yeah, right. He does scare me because what he's saying that he would do is wrong for our country. It's not only offensive to people and kind of makes you cringe, it's dangerous. I mean, he's setting people against each other. He's inciting violence. And what he's doing, you know, to basically, in so many ways, play to the worst instincts of people is just in violation of American values and New York values for sure. And he's equally dangerous in what he says about foreign policy and national security. I'll just give you one example. He says, hey, who cares whether more people have nuclear weapons? And let Japan do it. Let South Korea do it. Let anybody do it who wants to do it. That is one of the most irresponsible, reckless, dangerous things ever to come out of the mouth of a guy running for president. So I don't know if he's going to end up with the nomination. Obviously, I want to end up with a Democratic nomination. If he is the nominee, I look forward to debating him. I look forward to taking him on. I've been taking him on from the beginning. You know, the Republicans, they just sort of stood there and watched this train wreck happen and then wonder, hey, how did the guy get to be where he is? I don't think they took it serious. What? I don't think they took it serious. They did take it serious. I don't think he took it serious at first. Well, I don't know. That's a good point, Angela. I don't know if he took it seriously in the beginning, but he sure does take it now. Right, now he does. Because he's going to fight for that nomination. And, you know, when he started going after immigrants and then he went after, you know, people with disabilities, he went after John McCain. After women. He's gone after women, women's rights. He's said we should punish women for exercising choice and gone after Muslims. I mean, it's a long list. So starting last summer, I was like taking him on. And now I'm taking him on even more forcefully. I'm running ads against him because, you know, people say, well, hey, wait, you don't have the nomination. Why are you doing that to Trump? And I say, look, we can't let that stand. That is a cancer. You know, you don't let the cancer grow bigger and bigger and bigger. And then all of a sudden we wake up and we say, what the heck has happened to our country? Everybody needs to be going after him. You guys are going after him. But everybody needs to be. Was he always like that? Because I thought at one time you guys, they always say y'all play golf. No, no. At least, you know, I was not a friend of his, but I knew him. And we, you know, we would run into each other in New York. So y'all weren't friends. There was no relationship. Y'all didn't call each other on Christmas. No, none of that. We knew each other. And, you know, he did. I think Bill played golf with him a few times. This has been a surprise. It's been a surprise to a lot of people who knew him. He's always been kind of, you know, thinks highly of himself. You know, big ego. Speaks, you know, speaks about grandiose visions. Because, you know, a lot of guys who do developer and, you know, building buildings, they think like that. But this prejudice, this paranoia, this bigotry, that I had not seen before. Young Metro doesn't trust Donald Trump either, by the way. Is that right? How come? He doesn't. Nobody trusts Donald Trump. Well, you know, I. And if Young Metro don't trust Donald Trump, he pushes a button. Well, look, I got to tell you. Things happen. I hope that people are going to speak out loudly and clearly. And, you know, not tune it out. Because we've got to repudiate the guy and what he is saying. And everybody. Everybody needs to be on the same page. Now, some people have said that because we're so familiar with you, that's why you've been ahead in the polls. Brand loyalty is what. Right. We had Senator Nina Turner on. She said that it's just brand loyalty. But I also feel like people ask things of you that they don't ask other candidates. Do you think that there's a lot of drawbacks to people being more familiar with you than the other nominees? I worked really hard when I was senator for eight years. And a lot of people do know me. And that makes me happy when somebody who doesn't know me criticizes me. I don't pay a lot of attention. Right. I feel you, girl. Yeah. Right. I mean, you're you're in the media. Right. And, you know, as a woman in the media or, as my case, a woman in the public arena and politics. I mean, you're just, you know, criticized for practically everything. And so you can't take that seriously and personally. But if somebody you've worked with says, hey, you know, I don't know why you're doing that or what does this add up to be? But I have such strong support in New York among elected officials, among activists, among just everyday New Yorkers, because I've produced I've produced results. And I do what I say I'm going to do. I try to produce everything I can. I can't always get the results I want because there's politics involved, but I never give up. And I was the first person who said, hey, our first responders and construction workers and everybody else, they're getting sick from being around, you know, the pile after 9-11. Nobody would listen to me. The Bush administration blew me off. I held a hearing. I had, you know, doctors and researchers saying, well, you know, all this dust, this debris, this these toxins, it's going to affect people. They blew me off. And I just kept going. I never stopped. And we eventually got it. And, you know, I think it's interesting because Nina Turner's from Ohio. I've beat Senator Sanders in Ohio by a huge margin. I'm a humble brag, by the way. Shade, no shade. It's a little equal time. So it's not just people who know me in New York. It's people that I've worked with across the country. Look, it's both my strength and in some people's eyes, my weakness. I have been around for a while. I have fought these fights. I have been on the front lines. I have stood up against all these special interests. I mean, I went for health care, you know, before there was something called Obamacare or something called Hillary Care. And I went up against the drug companies and the insurance companies. And they went after me with a vengeance. And so I know how hard this is. But I think that's why I'm the best suited person to actually get in there and get it done. Because, you know, it's not enough to diagnose the problem. We could sit around here and diagnose every problem we think is facing New York or America. You've got to have solutions. And I'm not going to overpromise, tell people, oh, yeah, I'm going to do this, I'm going to deliver that. I'm telling you what I think we can get done if we work together, if we're unified, and if we never give up. And that's how I think it has to, you know, come down. You think Bernie Sanders is overpromising? Yeah, I do. And I think people, you know, like last night in the debate, and when he went before the New York Daily News editorial board and they grilled him, and they grilled me, they grilled us each for more than an hour. They asked him questions about his key issues, like, okay, you say you're going to break up the banks. How are you going to do it? He couldn't answer the questions. I've been talking about how I'm going to break up the banks, how I'm going to use the law that President Obama passed and signed. I've been really specific. Because at the end of the day, I don't want you just to take me on my word. Look at my record. Look what I've done. Look what I've achieved here in New York. But also look at what I'm telling you I'm going to do to improve your life or anybody else's. And then hold me accountable. I'm not going to disappear, you know, behind the fence of the White House. I'm going to be out here. I promise you, if I'm fortunate enough to be president, I'm going to be on your show again. I'll invite you to the White House. We'll do it from the White House. Because I want to make sure. Now, listen, don't tell us that. I don't do that. Don't lie to me, Hillary. I would never do that. I'll tell you. If he has a criminal record, can he get in the White House? I have one. I'm a super predator. I used to be. Oh, well. I'm glad you've refined yourself. Now, you was in Brooklyn last night. You didn't say rest in peace to Biggie Smalls or shout out Jay-Z. Why not? Yeah, well, you know, it went by so fast. It went by so fast. And I got to tell you, it's hard. There are so many things you want to say, but they get to ask the questions. You got to answer the questions. Then you got to figure out what else you want to say. And then the big red light is blinking like this. And the moderator is saying, I've got something else to ask. But just one big up to Brooklyn. RIP, Biggie. I said I love Brooklyn, but I couldn't get any more. I said I love Brooklyn. You got to say, is Brooklyn in the house? Brooklyn in the house. That's right. Listen to Biggie on the way up. Now, we mentioned the super predator thing. You know, we've had discussions about that. I don't know if the phrasing isn't what bothers me. I think what bothers me is when people talk about super predators but don't address the system that created the super predators. I agree with that. When you talk about the Nixon, you got the aid from the Nixon administration who said the war on drugs was a war on blacks. The Reagan administration, even the crime bill that you signed, we got to address the system. How do we hold the system accountable for that? Well, first of all, I've said that I should not have used that word. And I was talking about drug gangs and traffickers and cartels, but it was a poor choice of words. But that's why the very first speech I gave in this campaign, I went up to Columbia with David Dinkins, who's someone who I really like and admire because he broke down a lot of barriers. And I spoke at a big conference. He was holding about how we do take on the system. And let me make just a couple of quick points because it's a really serious issue. We need criminal justice reform, and it's not enough just to have body cameras, although we should have that. We've got to retrain police. We've got to work with communities. We've got to rebuild respect between the police and the communities they're sworn to protect. And I think President Obama's policing commission lays a good foundation for that, and I've said I will absolutely follow through on it. I've had long conversations with people like Eric Holder and others who have been really on the front lines trying to deal with the systemic problems. And there is systemic racism that has to be called out and addressed. And I believe I'm in a position to be able to build on the work that Eric Holder, President Obama, and others have done by saying this, look, white people have to recognize there is systemic racism. And we have to not only address it in the criminal justice system, where in some ways by changing sentencing, by retraining police, by elevating the visibility of it, we can make progress, but there's still a lot of work to do. We have to address it in jobs, education, health care, everything else, because there is such a level of ongoing discrimination. And a lot of white people basically say, look, that's over with, right? We had a civil rights movement. We've got a black president. Yeah, we've got President Obama. What's the deal? And so therefore I think I'm in a good position to say, wait, there's a lot more we have to do. Absolutely. Do you think it would be difficult to be a president and to be a woman for other nations and for other countries that have issues with women in power? Well, I don't think so. There is a lot of oppression against women that we have to address. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Allergy season. That's a killer. How do you guys do it? You all right? Did you just try to kiss? You coughing like you have some medicinal. Yeah. There's always the threat of sexism and unfair treatment, but you've got to learn to deal with it, which I have over the years. And my voice is failing here, but let me just quickly say, I went to Beijing in 1995 and said, women's rights are human rights. And I've been pushing that message ever since. As Secretary of State, I went to 112 countries, and I can tell you I raised women's issues, the oppression of women everywhere I went. And some of the people sitting on the other side of the table could care less, to be honest. Keeping women down, keeping them backwards, oppressing them is just their culture. It's how they think. It's what they do. But I could feel from time to time that somebody was actually listening, and we would follow up and say, hey, you don't have equal education. You don't have secondary schools for girls. They get out of primary school, there's nowhere for them to go. You don't have health care. You don't have any kind of clinics that are going to take care of women. And women die in childhood all the time. So you can begin to focus that. So personally, they'll treat me fine, but that's not enough. I want them to also treat their own women and girls fine too. I've been reading these horror stories about the women who were abducted by Boko Haram, and I'm wondering why we don't do more about that. Well, we are trying to help them now. And I know that Michelle Obama spoke out about it when it happened, and I know that the president has worked to try to support the Nigerian government and the neighboring governments with more military support, intelligence, surveillance, so they can try to find the girls. And we've got to do that. If you become president, are you really going to tell the truth about UFOs? I am. Because I'm a big extraterrestrial believer. Are you a big guy? Huge. I saw a flying saucer when I was in third grade. He actually got attacked. In South Carolina? And he has some marks on his shins from them. I think I've been abducted a few times. But are you going to tell the truth about aliens? No, no. She promised me. I did. No, these are two separate issues. You definitely are coming. I have said I want to open the files as much as we can. I mean, if there's some huge national security thing and I can't get agreement to open them, I won't. But I do want to open them because I'm interested. Do you believe? I don't know. I want to see what the information shows, right? But there are enough stories out there that I don't think everybody is just sitting, you know, in their kitchen making them up. I think that people see things. What they see, I don't know. But we've got to try to, you know, give people information. I believe in that. What about ghosts? Do you believe in ghosts? All right now. I believe in spirits. Next to Santa Claus. Do you believe in Santa Claus? I'm just wondering. Don't rip them. You don't? I do. I absolutely do. Well, I hope so. I do. I mean, my goodness. I have four kids. I absolutely do. Well, then you know you have to. Well, we appreciate you joining us. No more questions? They said no. She has to go. What's something that you always carry with you? Hot sauce. Really? Yeah. Really? Are you getting information right now? Hot sauce. Hot sauce in my bags? What? Hot sauce. Really? Yes. Now listen, I just want you to know, people are going to see this and say, OK, she's pandering to black people again. OK. Is it working? No, seriously. Hot sauce. I've been eating a lot of hot sauce. A lot of raw peppers and hot sauce. That's why you're coughing. You might need to slow down a little. Yeah, I'm having a rebellion against it because I think it keeps my immune system strong. I really do. I think hot sauce is good for you in moderation. Let's not go overboard. I just like it. My grandmother used to say, go in hot, go out hot. So just be careful. I'm going to tell you how you really get the hood, though. Pardon Max B and Bobby Smurk. I'll put it on my list. Yeah, put that on the list. But please review that. Pardon Max B and Bobby Smurk. Or you can host the club with me tonight if you feel like it. OK, all right. A lot of votes in the strip club, Senator Clinton. In the strip club? Yes. That would actually be something that no other candidate has done, is to really go and... And go to a strip club? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that I'll let somebody else be the president. All right. Hillary Clinton, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. The Breakfast Club. Every weekday morning. Tune in.