'It is too DANGEROUS for us to remain divided': Hillary Clinton on America uniting post-Trump

I'm going to ask you, Secretary, a big-picture question about the country. A lot of us have kids who've grown up only in this Trump era of politics. I have teenagers and I tell them all the time, this is not the way it's supposed to be. It's not the way it has been in the past, and my hope for you is that it won't be this way in the future. We can go down the list. You're supposed to have a Congress that checks the President. You're supposed to have a Department of Justice that's independent. Your personal attorney should not be the Attorney General of the United States. All these things. And since you were at the leading edge in 2015 and 2016, of course, of this era, how do we, when Donald Trump leaves office on January 20th, 2029, whoever's the President, maybe it's J.D. Vance, maybe it's a Democrat. How do we, as a country, and I mean this together, not as a partisan question, how do we begin to sort of put the pieces back together? And again, another big question that's going to take three hours to answer, but what are your thoughts on that? You know, I've thought a lot about it, because I have been, you know, visited by and had conversations with many of the people who potentially might run for President. And I don't know who will emerge. I don't know who will be the nominee, and hopefully who can win. But I think whoever that person is has to take the country on that journey, Willie. I think that person has to say, first and foremost, we've got to unite our country. We all have to be Americans again. It's more important to put country over party. And given the world in which we find ourselves, it is too dangerous for us to remain divided. That only gives aid and comfort to those who wish us ill, from, you know, Moscow to Tehran to Beijing. And then I think that person has to do what successful politicians do today, which we didn't have to do back in the old day. They have to tell that story on whatever social media exists, you know, in two years. They have to really bring people into that conversation. And they have to say, look, it's kind of like a very ultramodern version of, you know, FDR's fireside chats, where the next president, whoever that is, will say, today I want to talk to young people. You know, when I grew up, we revered our leaders. We didn't think of them primarily as members of a party. We thought of them as our president. And of course there were differences. There have to be differences. We don't all agree. But we want to rebuild, you know, your faith in government. We want you to understand that here's how we take care of your grandmother with Social Security. Here's how we take care of your dad who served in the military. We want to get back to taking care of each other again and to literally bring the country on that journey. We're not going to get it all fixed overnight. We have to fix a lot of what's been broken in the country. And we've got to make sure that, you know, our Congress does its work again. It has to start, you know, legislating and helping people and doing the hard work, not just, you know, arguing and yelling and finger pointing. I think if we can have a president who does that, you know, when I was a little girl, we had the presidential fitness contest. And I've been around long enough to actually think that, you know, President Eisenhower was going to sit at his desk and sign my certificate. I did the run. I did the jump. I was going to get a certificate. And I. Well, he was up before you. Oh, no. We had it. Reagan. I mean, I really believe that President Eisenhower was thinking about me. So I think it is doable. It's really hard. I'm not I'm not, you know, unaware of how difficult it is. But if we get the right person elected, I think it's doable. But if we don't separate the hate from the hope and we don't create space for people to talk to each other again and, you know, breathe together and work together, then I worry about my grandchildren just like you worry about your kids. So, Secretary Clinton, a sort of big picture question. I'm with tomorrow being September 11th. I'm reminded that the only time that Article five in the NATO charter was enacted was to help the United States after those terror attacks. And as secretary of state, you know, the importance of alliances and we're seeing them straight now. Trade war with Canada, the trade war in Europe, the ventures on Greenland, you know, of leaving Europe to largely stand up with Ukraine alone. The list sort of goes on and on. President Biden is fought, was fond of telling a story that when he won that he said, you know, America's back. And French President Macron said for how long that has now been tested even more so because Trump's return. Do you think whoever the next president is, can these alliances actually be saved? Can America be trusted again? Well, the first question is, can they be saved? That's going to take a heck of a lot of work. Yeah, I think it's doable. Can we be trusted again? We have to prove, you know, prove it. Yeah. You know, and and we have to get to the trust, but verify and then get beyond it. I think, Jonathan, that it is doable. Look, right now, we're not a serious country. We're a dangerous country. We're causing all kinds of problems in the world. We're making ridiculous, you know, stands. We're picking fights with our best friends. We're threatening our best friends. We're giving passes to those who wish us ill. I mean, we are not a serious country and we don't have serious leadership. If we do again, I think we can actually make progress. I remember when, you know, then president elect Obama was trying to persuade me to be secretary of state. He said, look, I have a financial crisis, which is the worst since the Great Depression. And we have fractured a lot of our alliances because of Iraq and Afghanistan. And the axis of evil and all of that. And he said, I can't do both. So I need to focus on the economy. I want you to be secretary of state and get on a plane and go around and try to start reassuring. And that was primarily in Asia, because, you know, ever. Well, I, you know, I traveled everywhere. I did. And and we needed to. And it wasn't enough to do a zoom. We didn't have zooms back then, but a videoconference. Send a fax. Yeah. You know, we had to show up and we had to like look people in the eye and say, you know, what can America do for you? How can America be your partner? How can we, you know, forge a better future? And we did it and we worked hard at it. And we also produced, you know, some positive results that were then torn up, whether it was, you know, the the Iran nuclear deal, which wasn't perfect. I said it at the time. But by God, it was a great foundation for then going after ballistic missiles and, you know, bad behavior in the neighborhood and all the rest of it. We had the Paris accord. You know, climate change hasn't gone away just because, you know, Donald Trump wishes it away. We actually did things. And part of the challenge now is to rebuild enough trust that we can start to work together. So if you look at Europe right now, Europe has to get its act together and it's very difficult for it to do so. And I think the the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Poland and others are right to be worried about Russia. I think they have every reason to be. If your father were here, he'd be sounding the alarm as loudly as he could. And so they can't do this by themselves, in part because we have capabilities they don't. But we also provide the glue that gets everybody in that room to figure out how we can work together. So I look, it's hard work. It's, you know, the hard worrying of hard boards, as Max Weber used to say about politics. It's going to be hard. But if we get the right president, but we shouldn't wait till then if we win the midterms. What I have urged is that the House and the Senate begin to pass legislation and look for bipartisanship on a lot of legislation. You know, I can't imagine that the Republican governors and senators and House members in our states that border Canada, and there are a bunch of them, are happy about what's going to happen to their economies. So there is the you know, there are the seeds of bipartisanship. And I think a lot of members of Congress who, frankly, know better, but have been intimidated and and gone along with Trump will be relieved. So the right leadership in the Congress, the right leadership in the White House, it'll take time. But I think we can rebuild. Well, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this has been quite a conversation. Great to have your voice at this time. Her new piece, What the Aftermath of 9-11 Taught Me, is online now for the Atlantic. And I'm just thinking about the time you all spent with Gloria Steinem. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for raising that, Joe. At 30, 50. Could you could you could you talk about her and just the beauty of her saying, I've learned a lot in life. But what I guess I've learned in my later years is the importance of laughter. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to know her over a lot of years. And she was so wise, but she was funny. She was a great friend. You know, after she passed away, I thought about how she was such a part of my life. As a young woman, there wasn't I'd never seen anybody like her. I mean, of course, she was beautiful in the aviator sunglasses, but she had a poise about her and a confidence that led her to say things that were really unprecedented about, you know, women's lives, women's rights, women's equality, you know, because, look, there were schools I couldn't apply to, scholarships, jobs. I mean, all that was real. No credit cards, the whole thing that, you know, we lived through. And she played a major role, along with a lot of other, you know, very forward-looking women and men who opened up a lot of doors. And yet she was just so calm. And you know, you'd go visit her in her living room, and she'd just sit there, and she would talk, and then she'd kind of do a zinger, or she'd ask a question. And I'm just so grateful for her life and her leadership. She paved the way for all of us. She really did. Thank you so much for being on this morning. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you all. Hey, it's me, Rachel Maddow. 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