Precis

In a special edition of Four Corners, Hillary Clinton talks with Sarah Ferguson.

This riveting conversation, recorded in New York, takes us into the heart and mind of the woman at the centre of the most stunning election loss in modern US history.

This is a very different Hillary Clinton to the managed political performer. Candid, open and at times angry, the former presidential candidate talks about what went wrong and her fears for the future.

Program titles

00:00

Sarah intro

SARAH FERGUSON: Hello and welcome to Four Corners. This evening we bring you the first Australian interview with Hillary Clinton since her shock defeat by Donald Trump in last year's Presidential Election....and the release of her book "What Happened?"

00:12

Hardly anyone anticipated Clinton's stunning loss, certainly not the candidate herself. She's been grappling with it ever since, watching as the man who openly derided her as "crooked Hillary" has come under scrutiny from multiple investigations into how the Russians attempted to influence the election and whether they acted in collusion with the Trump campaign.

00:26

I've been covering Hillary Clinton since the mid-‘90s in Washington. But the woman I met recently in New York took me by surprise. She is angrier and less filtered than the consummate politician we're used to seeing. As you'll see in her interview, she's not holding back.

00:49

Clinton into interview room. Greets Sarah Ferguson.

HILLARY CLINTON:  Hi, Sarah, how are you?... Good to see you again.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you very much indeed. Your staff told me that you’re on Jimmy Fallon tonight.

HILLARY CLINTON: I am.  I am.  So I go from you to Jimmy Fallon. Pretty good company, huh.

01:06

Clinton sits

I’m looking forward to it.

01:22

Interview commences

SARAH FERGUSON:  Okay. We're going to start by going backwards in time. We've looked at the pictures of you recently about to go onto the balcony for Donald Trump's inauguration. No one could fail to be moved

01:24

Clinton/Obama at Trump inauguration footage

by the pain on your face at that moment. Can you describe that moment to me?

01:40

Clinton interview

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, it was a very painful, difficult time and I decided I would go to the inauguration because at the end I thought it was certainly bigger than you know me and my defeat or even Donald Trump.

01:46

I have to say it was something that I approached with very mixed feelings. On the one hand I was worried and unhappy about having to be there, but on the other I thought okay here's an opportunity for Trump being sworn in as our president to reach out to the country and to begin the process of unifying us. And that didn't happen Sarah.

02:07

That's what was so devastating about the experience. Adding on to my personal disappointment having to sit there and watch him be sworn in. As an American, I was so disappointed because he did not rise to the occasion.

SARAH FERGUSON: It's very unusual to see a politician's pain actually register on their face because of the years of learning self-control, that's an occasion where you can see it. Do you remember

02:34

how visceral it was for you?

HILLARY CLINTON: It was you know very much an emotional gut punch to be there. I did try to find a way to get out of it. I was there not as the defeated candidate but as a former First Lady with my husband. There's a ritual that we try to follow to show continuity. I'd been there when my party had won and I'd been there when my party had lost but this was so different.

03:02

I had tried to warn people throughout the campaign about what I believed then and still believe today, that Trump was, you know, unqualified and unready to be president, but as I say, I was hoping that there would be some, some light that I could see coming from this ceremony and that proved not to be the case.

03:32

SARAH FERGUSON: Now you've described it as the most consequential election of our lifetimes. Do you feel guilty for losing it?

03:59

HILLARY CLINTON: I feel really terrible about losing it and I'm very clear in the book that I feel like I let people down, that there was so much at stake in this election.

04:07

I knew it would be hard, I knew it would be close, but I did not know that I would be running against, not only Trump, but the FBI Director and Vladimir Putin, and at the end of the day I think that we're learning more and more about what actually happened, which is why I titled my book as I did, because it's not only a retrospective, it's an effort to say okay let's learn the lesson so it doesn't happen again.

04:20

SARAH FERGUSON: What role did Russia play in the election?

04:48

HILLARY CLINTON: I think Russia affected the perceptions and views of millions of voters we now know. I think that their intention coming from the very top with Putin was to hurt me and to help Trump. How, how much of that was a

04:52

Photo. Clinton with Putin

personal vendetta by Vladimir Putin against you?

HILLARY CLINTON: Look I, I  mean our intelligence community and other observers of Russia and Putin

05:08

Return to interview footage

have said he held a grudge against me because, as Secretary of State, I stood up against some of his actions, his authoritarianism, but it's much bigger than that. I mean he wants to destabilise democracy, he wants to undermine America, he wants to go after the Atlantic alliance and we consider Australia kind of a, an extension of that. Go after NATO, go after the EU.

05:15

So, this is part of his strategic goal to try to reassert Russian authority, certainly to maintain his authoritarian leadership and to try to hurt the United States.

05:44

SARAH FERGUSON: So, you mentioned before that millions of people were affected, I mean for the time being the intelligence community is saying that the actual voting in the, the election, the election systems themselves were not breached, so how did the Russians affect millions of voters?

05:58

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, propaganda works, and certainly in our election the way that we fund advertising and negative advertising, which has been an important -- unfortunate but necessary part of our campaigns going back for decades now, we do it because it works.

06:13

If you feed false information continuously to people about one candidate versus another, it does have an impact and we now know that the Russians actually paid in roubles for running ads in Facebook and on Twitter making all kinds of accusations against me, working to suppress voters, which is a really important part of the equation. So I have no doubt and increasingly I think the consensus is that they certainly influenced enough voters to say that they affected the outcome.

06:33

SARAH FERGUSON In terms of the specifics, what are we starting to learn?

07:09

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, we're starting to learn not only did they influence voter attitudes, which was their principle goal, but we know that they inserted themselves, they attacked parts of our voting system and we know that one state already -- because of concerns about the insecurity of touch screen computer voting -- has decided to start over and not use that and other states are beginning to look at it as well.

07:12

I believe that we will get more information as time goes on about what the Russians did through cyber-attacks into the actual voting rolls and the conduct of the election, but all I'm prepared to say now is we know they affected the attitudes of voters, which when you really think about it, is equally devastating, because they fed a steady diet of false information to millions of voters.

07:39

SARAH FERGUSON: So, if more information does come out about their incursion into the system, does there come a point where you challenge the legitimacy of the election?

08:07

HILLARY CLINTON: We have no provision in our Constitution or our laws to contest an election.

08:15

SARAH FERGUSON: But you haven't had a circumstance like this before.

HILLARY CLINTON: We never have but I think you know the word you use legitimacy is a very appropriate word because we certainly are already seeing concerns about the legitimacy of the Trump campaign's margin of victory in the electoral college which was very narrow.

08:21

I won the popular vote which is obviously well-known in many quarters, by three million, and I lost the electoral college by about seventy-seven thousand and what we're finding out is that there had to be some very sophisticated help provided to WikiLeaks, which is unfortunately now practically a fully own subsidiary of Russian intelligence, to know how to target both their messages of suppression and their negative messages to affect voters.

08:43

SARAH FERGUSON: Let's, so let's just be clear about that. What we're seeing here as you've described is a very sophisticated form of targeting. We know it goes down to voting districts in swing states…

09:16

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes.

SARAH FERGUSON: …for example. So is it your contention that there were individuals in the United States guiding that work?

09:25

HILLARY CLINTON: It certainly is my belief that there had to be sophisticated advice to guide the geographic and demographic targeting.

09:32

Now we don't know yet where that might have come from but I certainly expect we will learn more in the weeks and months ahead.

SARAH FERGUSON: Jarrod Kushner for one was in,

09:48

Photo. Trump and Kushner

overseeing, was in charge of the Trump team's data analytics, is he someone you suspect who might have been involved in that kind of guiding?

HILLARY CLINTON: I think we have to look at everyone.

09:59

You know, the Trump campaign used Facebook extensively. They actually had Facebook personnel in their data headquarters. They obviously believed that talking about and pointing to WikiLeaks and the theft of John Podesta's emails was to their advantage because Trump himself mentioned it I think 160 in the last month of the election. So, you know I'm not going to draw any conclusions, that will have to wait until we have more information through investigative reporting and perhaps congressional investigations and the special counsel

10:09

SARAH FERGUSON: So where does that end? You say that there is no mechanism for challenging the legitimacy of an election, but what happens if more information comes out, in particular about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence service?

10:46

HILLARY CLINTON: Well it certainly should influence the next elections.

10:59

SARAH FERGUSON: But is that enough? You've just lost an election to a powerful ...

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, personally for me ...

SARAH FERGUSON: ...potentially dangerous man.

11:03

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, personally for me, it's not enough because I, you know, I feel strongly about the wrong direction that Trump is leading our country. But if there are not, you know, criminal and legal actions, and we don't know yet, there are certainly political actions that can be taken. We have a very important election in 2018 where the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate will be up for election.

11:07

And if people are concerned, as they rightly should, regardless of party, about what happened and how there has to have been some awareness of or certainly coordination, cooperation between elements within the Trump organisation and the targeting of this information by WikiLeaks and others, then they have a very, a very good way to react, and that is to vote for Democrats in the 2018 election.

11:34

SARAH FERGUSON: Just to stay with this one for the moment. Now, when you talk about WikiLeaks for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about there is the use of the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and your campaign chair John Podesta. Now as a young lawyer, you worked on the impeachment investigation…’’ HILLARY CLINTON: I did...

SARAH FERGUSON: ... of Richard Nixon.

HILLARY CLINTON: I did.

12:06

Photo. Hillary with John Doar. Watergate impeachment

SARAH FERGUSON: That was about an actual break-in in the DNC. Do you think it's possible

12:22

Return to interview footage

that this virtual break-in could lead to the impeachment of Donald Trump?

12:26

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, we'll have to see. But I believe it was actually more significant then Watergate. Watergate was a very clear physical intrusion by people associated with the Nixon campaign to steal information that might be of use to Nixon in his re-election.

12:30

We've got to get used to the idea that cyber-attacks are a really sophisticated and very difficult new form of theft. You know, when people say hacking, you know, they think, okay, fine, people hack. This is theft. They stole information, private information.

12:51

They then put it out into the public arena and they then began to mischaracterise it, to make up totally whole cloth lies about it.

13:12

So, I think that in many ways, it's a precursor to what we will see continuing to happen in our politics or your politics or any democracy's politics, unless we figure out how to get ahead of it, both to prevent it and mitigate it.

13:22

SARAH FERGUSON: So, impeachment isn't a word that you're really considering at this moment?

13:37

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you know, if you have a Republican House…

SARAH FERGUSON: Sure.

HILLARY CLINTON: …which is where processes such as that begin, there certainly is…

13:40

SARAH FERGUSON: Not very likely.

HILLARY CLINTON: …no option, unless there's a very clear criminal trail that is finally revealed. If, however there's a change in control in the House in 2018, then you know, cooler, more objective heads may decide either to pursue it or not.

13:45

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you Donald Trump, is too clever to have had his fingerprints actually on this kind of activity?

14:04

HILLARY CLINTON: I don't really know. We keep turning up links between what his family members and associates did, but I'm not going to speculate as to how far that goes.

14:08

SARAH FERGUSON: Should President Obama have told the American public about the attack on the American system before the election?

14:24

HILLARY CLINTON: I think he faced a very difficult predicament. Obviously, I wish he had, because I was, you know, emired [sic] in this ongoing email controversy, which was, you know, really in my, in my view, not, not significant at the end of the day.

14:30

So, it's painful and it's difficult, but I would've at least been able to make my case against the backdrop of an active investigation that was currently going on that nobody would admit.

14:50

SARAH FERGUSON: You said just now that the emails were insignificant.

15:02

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah.

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you mean by that that their content was insignificant because the way they were used was certainly not insignificant?

15:04

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, I mean that the content- I mean look at the- I got the endorsements of, you know, all but maybe, five or six, you know, papers and magazines and outlets in our country, and of course they had that information before them.

15:10

And as the New York Times memorably said, it's like an issue for the IT helpdesk. It turned out to be way overblown and hyped up, which I knew at the time and I said, look, I made a mistake, it was dumb; I made a dumb mistake. But it was a dumber scandal.

15:23

And we got through it in July, it was behind us, our convention was very positive; I was certainly judged to have won all three debates. We were, you know, really moving with a lot of optimism about the election.

15:39

And then bang, out of nowhere, comes this inexplicable letter even today in my thinking. And what made it even more difficult is now post-election when Jim Comey has been asked why didn't you talk about the Russian investigation, he said, well, it was too close to the election.

15:56

SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just go to Jim Comey, just for the sake of our viewers.

16:12

Photo. James Comey

James Comey, the head of the FBI, was investigating your use of a private email server while you were at the State Department.

16:15

Return to interview footage

Now in July he made an announcement saying there were no grounds for prosecution, then nine days out from the election he said he was reopening the investigation.

16:23

Fox News report. Super:
 28 October 2016

NEWS READER:  We have a copy of the letter, I have it right here, from James Comey, the FBI director, sending this to Congress, that the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, is back on.

16:31

Return to interview footage

SARAH FERGUSON:  Now, you use very strong language in your book. What were the words you used about him?

16:42

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I use a lot of words! And I devote a whole chapter. If you have any questions, and I don't answer the questions in my words, I use the words of Jim Comey. I use the words of the current Deputy Attorney-General.

16:47

SARAH FERGUSON: What's the expression you use about Jim Comey, because it stands out?

16:59

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I don't remember which one you're talking about.

17:02

SARAH FERGUSON: You say Jim Comey shived me.

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh he did. Well, he did shiv me, yeah.

SARAH FERGUSON: Explain what that means.

17:04

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, what that means is that there's never been a good explanation as to why he did what he did.

SARAH FERGUSON: And I should explain to anybody who doesn't know, forgive me for interrupting, but a shiv is a metal object sharpened for use in prison, usually for murder.

17:08

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well but it's a matter of…

SARAH FERGUSON: Do go on.

HILLARY CLINTON: ... I was using it metaphorically, obviously!

SARAH FERGUSON: For sure!

17:20

HILLARY CLINTON: But we also know that opponents of mine, like former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, knew something was coming. So, there was clearly a, you know, an effort to derail my campaign at the end. He was either the willing or unwitting vehicle for that.

17:25

SARAH FERGUSON: Just to stay with the use of the private email server, you said before it was a, it was a dumb mistake. Now, given your history in politics, you and your husband have been subject to years of investigations, special prosecutors, some wild conspiracy theories, but really decades of the most minute details of your financial and professional lives being gone through.

17:45

Did that create if you like, a paranoia in you or a sense of secrecy that you decided to go with a private email server to protect against the kind of investigations that you'd undergone in the past?

18:06

HILLARY CLINTON: No, I mean it was so much simpler than that. It's what I had done as a senator and, you know, I'm no, I'm no, you know, tech wizard, using one device, sending all of my email and receiving all my email that was work-related on government accounts, which is what I did.

18:17

It just made sense to me. And so, I made that choice and there was no law against it, no regulation against it and nobody, you know, was concerned about it at the time.

18:36

SARAH FERGUSON: Although I'm right in saying that the, the security officers at the State Department, didn't want you to use your Blackberry.

HILLARY CLINTON: No.

SARAH FERGUSON: That's right, isn't it?

HILLARY CLINTON: No, no, nobody ever- No, no.

18:47

I mean you can see very clearly with all of the investigations that they've changed the law since. But they certainly had to admit that at the time, there was no such provision.

SARAH FERGUSON: I appreciate that other secretaries use private emails.

But isn't it the case that you were, you were told that there were security concerns around using your Blackberry, particularly in Mahogany Row

18:54

up in the top level of the State Department?

HILLARY CLINTON: ... Yeah, but that's, but that's- But that was, that was true of everybody. And you know, the- Look, I mean this is all water, water under the bridge. But if you, if you look at it, if I'd had two devices, people would've said I may have had work-related information on the other device.

19:16

I mean they- You're right that they were going to go after me and make up stuff and I point that out in the book, that you know I gave them that option. But if it hadn't been that, it would've been something else.

19:35

And the terrible tragedy in Benghazi was another big drum that they were beating and I testified for 11 hours; there was nothing there. But, it is true that when you are attacked as consistently and avidly as I have been over all these years, it lingers in people's head.

19:45

You know, people say, well you know, I like her, but hey, there must be something there. And that's what happened to me at the end.

20:01

People were ready to vote for me, particularly women, and Jim Comey comes and says, oh we're reopening it, and you know, all of this fanfare, huge headlines, only to say the Sunday before the election, just kidding. But the damage was done. And so that ah, you know, that was the opening that they had, but they never should have been able to use it under any fair reading of the investigation which was completed. It was over, there was no there there, and then they brought it back when it was too late to really combat.

20:06

SARAH FERGUSON: So, when Jim Comey says after the election, when he's testifying that it makes him mildly nauseous that he might have influenced the election, how do you respond to that?

20:42

HILLARY CLINTON: That it makes me sick and he clearly ah, either if he doesn't know now, he certainly had every reason to know that it influenced the election and I have, you know I have evidence, I could have stacked the book with all kinds of polling about before and after but I'd put enough into prove the case I'm making.

20:49

SARAH FERGUSON: I read this week that Jim Comey is considering a run for President, what do you think about that?

21:08

HILLARY CLINTON: I have no way of knowing whether that's, you know, even a…

21:12

SARAH FERGUSON: Is he suitable?

21:16

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh I certainly wouldn't vote for him [laugh].

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you actually agree with Donald Trump that he's a bit of a showboat?

21:17

HILLARY CLINTON: No, what I say in the book, which I think is an important point to make, is you've got to keep two thoughts that are somewhat contradictory in your mind at the same time.

21:24

What he did with regard to me was against precedent, against protocol, against the advice of his higher ups in the Justice Department and really inexplicable in October.

21:33

But the Russian investigation which pre-dated the election, even though we didn't know about it, was important to continue and that's what he was fired for and that's why this is such a big part of the ongoing investigation into Trump.

21:44

SARAH FERGUSON: It's a near impossible irony, isn't it, that Trump could get away from underneath the Russia investigation by claiming he fired Comey not for, not out of obstruction of justice but for the terrible things that he did for you.

22:00

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, but everybody, everybody knows that was just baloney, he just made it up and he, who did he admit it to, he admitted it to the Russian Ambassador to the United States and the Russian Foreign Minister in the Oval Office when he basically reassured them that he'd gotten rid of Comey, so the Russian investigation would be over and thankfully that wasn't the case.

22:13

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you ever think you're dreaming when you recount things like that?

22:32

HILLARY CLINTON: I think that we were living in a reality TV show that had never been imagined in American politics before, and my fear is that this is going to spread, you know, it worked once, why wouldn't it work again. Hopefully whoever tries it will not be as inexperienced and temperamentally unqualified to be President, but if you can keep the attention of the press by saying outrageous things, so many of them that they're hard to keep up with, and you have a base of people who respond to your racism and sexism and everything else that Trump was appealing to, you can at least get the party nomination and with enough help from the Russians and others get elected.

22:34

SARAH FERGUSON:  Millions of Americans responded to Trump's racist, sexist and bigoted appeals during the campaign by voting for him, can you forgive them?

23:21

HILLARY CLINTON: Absolutely. You know, I think they made a terrible mistake.

23:32

I think there are some among his supporters, such as David Duke the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Clan, a you know, a virulently white supremacist group and others who supported him to drive a white supremacy agenda, they need to be isolated and exposed, but for many people it was a choice that corresponded with their party identification.

23:36

He got 90% of the Republican vote, I got 90% of the Democratic vote and it was also a reaction to the grievances, the anger and frustration that people felt.

24:07

Now I don't think there's any excuse for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, the other anti-immigrant plays that Trump was making, but I also know that people who were voting were legitimately confused about what he would do.

24:21

I think a lot of people said well he won't be as bad as president as he is being as a candidate. And I think there was so much misinformation, weaponised information by the Russians and others supporting his campaign that it created a great deal of uncertainty in parts of the electorate.

24:43

SARAH FERGUSON: We leapt forward to talk about Jim Comey and I feel sorry for the audience sometimes because...

HILLARY CLINTON: It's hard, hard to track it all...

SARAH FERGUSON: …this entire campaign is emails here and emails there.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, yeah.

SARAH FERGUSON: And of course, in the end, they became just one giant problem.

25:05

But just to go back to what you describe as the weaponisation of the material that was stolen from the DNC and from Podesta, the other key player in that of course is Julian Assange. As well as Putin and Trump, you faced an Australian nemesis

25:15

Photo. Julian Assange

really in Julian Assange. How much damage did he do personally to you?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I had

25:32

Return to interview footage

a lot of history with him, because I was Secretary of State when WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive information from our State Department and our Defense Department.

25:38

And you know, I think that whatever claim to transparency and openness that he may have started with, I can't judge. But now I think he's very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence. And he has done their bidding.

25:50

You don't see damaging negative information coming out about the Kremlin on WikiLeaks, you didn't see, despite some reports that the Russians also stole information from the Republicans. You didn't see any of that published. So, I think Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator.

26:06

SARAH FERGUSON: Lots of people, including in Australia, think that Assange is a martyr for free speech and freedom of information. How would you describe him? Well, you've just described him as a nihilist.

26:31

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, well and, and a tool. I mean he's a tool of Russian intelligence. And if he's such a, you know, martyr of free speech, why doesn't WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia?

26:40

SARAH FERGUSON: Isn't he just doing what journalists do, which is publish information when they get it?

26:51

HILLARY CLINTON: I don't think so. I think for number one, it's one stolen information, and number two, if all you did was publish it, that would be one thing.

26:55

But there was a concerted operation between WikiLeaks and Russia and most likely people in the United States to, as I say, weaponise that information, to make up stories, outlandish, often terrible stories that had no basis in fact, no basis even in the emails themselves, but which were used to denigrate me, my campaign, people who supported me, and to help Trump.

27:02

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, along with some of those outlandish stories, there was information that was revealed about the Clinton Foundation that at least in some of the voters' minds seemed to associate you…

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, but it was false!

SARAH FERGUSON: …with the pedalling of information.

HILLARY CLINTON: It was false! It was totally false! And you know, that's a perfect example.

27:33

You know, having, having the claim made that the foundation, which has the top rankings from every charity watchdog in America, whose tax returns are public information, and to have people being told that the foundation paid for our daughter's wedding. A total outright lie!

27:49

So, I think that, you know, I have no objection to accurate information being published; I mean that's what a First Amendment, that's what freedom of information is. But this was much more than that, and the worst example was something called Pizzagate.

28:12

So, in an innocuous exchange, John Podesta talks about going to a little pizza parlour in Washington DC for pizza and maybe they want to do a little fundraiser - nothing to it. And the next thing you know, John Podesta and I are running a child trafficking ring in the basement of that pizza place. Totally made up!

28:28

And then we now know that Russians posing as Americans began demonstrating. They demonstrated against me, they demonstrated against African Americans, they demonstrated against Muslims.

28:51

So all of a sudden, demonstrators show up in front of this little pizza place. And all of a sudden, there are threats to the people who work in that pizza place. And all of a sudden, the entire street of these stores are under threat because there are so many of these, you know, quite dangerous appearing and acting demonstrators.

29:04

And it goes so far that a young man, influenced by this, to go back to the point of influence, gets his automatic weapon, drives from North Carolina to Washington to liberate the children in the basement of the pizzeria. What does he find out? There is no basement, and of course there are no children.

29:21

Though that what we're talking about here is a very nefarious, insidious coordination between, you know, WikiLeaks being, you know, used and perverted for use to make all these claims against all kinds of people.

29:40

SARAH FERGUSON: As I say, the excesses are well known. But at the same time, do you understand how difficult it was for some voters to understand the amounts of money that the foundation is raising, the confusion with the consultancy that was also raising money, getting gifts and travel and so on for Bill Clinton, that even Chelsea had some issues with, that for the public these are hard things to separate?

29:57

HILLARY CLINTON: Well you know, I'm sorry, Sarah, I mean I, I know the facts and so I'm maybe disadvantaged here, because I do know the facts.

30:18

And you know, private consultancies, there were so many corporations, there are Australians who supported the Clinton Foundation, there were people all over the world because of the work that was done. So to try to pervert that and make something of it was very hurtful.

30:27

And do I blame voters? No, I don't blame voters because they were being barraged with false information. And what we know is that the false information was aimed at Wisconsin and Michigan and parts of Pennsylvania, to do exactly what was intended, if not to persuade them that terrible things were going on, which there was no evidence, at least to confuse them.

30:44

And so we know that people said, oh my gosh, the foundation paid for the wedding, we can't vote for, you know, vote for her. How do you fight that? How do you fight that?

31:07

SARAH FERGUSON: I want to go one of the strangest days of the campaign, which is um, it's the 7th of October.

HILLARY CLINTON: Right.

SARAH FERGUSON: It's the day that begins with a statement by Jim Clapper about senior Russians being involved in, or organising the hacking of the DNC.

31:16

Then the Access Hollywood tape gets published and then five o'clock that evening, WikiLeaks publishes a huge batch of emails. Just starting with the tape:

31:26

Archival. Trump bus. Super:
Date: September 2005

(Date: September 2005)
Donald Trump: I moved on her, and I failed. I'll admit it.

Unknown: Whoa.

Donald Trump: I did try and fuck her. She was married.

Unknown: That's huge news.

31:35

[Trump footage continues]

Donald Trump: I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn't get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden, I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything. She's totally changed her look.

31:40

[continues]

Yeah, that's her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Billy Bush: Whatever you want.

Donald Trump: Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.

HILLARY CLINTON: The Hollywood Access tape was

31:49

Return to interview footage

devastating for the Trump campaign.

SARAH FERGUSON: Why not fatal?

32:13

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I think for two reasons. One, it was covered dramatically and wall to wall for about 48 hours.

32:16

WikiLeaks, which in the world in which we find ourselves, promised hidden information, promised some kind of secret that might be of influence, was a very clever, diabolical response to the Hollywood Access tape. And I've no doubt in my mind that there was some communication, if not coordination, to drop those the first time in response to the Hollywood Access tape.

32:26

We charted Google searches. So, Hollywood Access, you didn't need to Google it, you could watch it on your TV over and over again. He was a sexual assaulter and that was clear.

32:51

But WikiLeaks, you know, maybe there was something that, you know, a voter could find out that maybe wasn't on TV. That was the genius of the weaponising of WikiLeaks and the absurd false stories that were made up and propagated.

33:03

SARAH FERGUSON: When you look at the Access Hollywood tape by itself though, I mean how is it that a majority of white women voters still voted for someone who spoke like that?

33:20

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you'll have to ask them! Here's what I believe. You know, I won a majority of women, but I lost white women, but I lost white women, a little-known fact, at a smaller percentage than Barack Obama lost them in 2012.

33:30

Democrats have had a problem with white voters, including white women, for a number of elections now. A lot of white women identify with Republicans for all kinds of reasons and they kind of go home at the end. But I think Jim Comey's letter stopped the movement toward me by white women.

33:47

SARAH FERGUSON: But do you get- Are you still angry with the idea that women could hear that tape and hear that language and behaviour and still vote for him?

34:06

HILLARY CLINTON: I'm really disappointed. Michelle Obama said something the other day which I thought was, you know, very much on point - why would any woman give up her own self-respect to side with someone who is clearly sexist and misogynistic, and by his own words, guilty of sexual assault?

34:13

SARAH FERGUSON: That tape was a couple of days before the second debate. At that debate, Trump brought to the debate women who'd accused your husband of sexual misconduct. He even gave them seats in the debate.

34:38

Archival. Trump/Clinton debate. Super:
Date: 9 October 2016

Donald Trump: So, you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them here tonight... And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it's disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.

MODERATOR: Can we please hold the applause.

34:49

Return to interview footage

SARAH FERGUSON: They were sitting out in front of you. How did you manage to blank that out that day?

35:23

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I knew that it was an awful stunt. You know, that had all been litigated years before and I was determined that I would be as calm and composed as I could. As I write in the book, we practised him stalking me, which we thought he would do and indeed he did.

35:25

SARAH FERGUSON: Should your response to him have been more visceral that day?

35:40

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, it's not easy for women to be passionate, even angry, in public; you know that. I mean it's, you know, we train ourselves to be as, you know, as calm and together as we can and when any woman expresses her feelings and her emotions as, you know, your former Prime Minister Julia Gillard memorably did, you know, it produces mixed reactions by people.

34:43

SARAH FERGUSON: In fact, it reminds me of what happened to Julia Gillard. You had people at Trump rallies, he was encouraging them to 'Trump the bitch' was one of the-

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, that's right.

SARAH FERGUSON: …the expressions that was used. Why are women politicians still treated like this in the 21st century?

36:09

HILLARY CLINTON: Because we still have endemic sexism and misogyny, and anybody who tries to claim otherwise is either blind or disingenuous.

36:24

And that's why I have a chapter called 'On Being a Woman in Politics', because I want people to understand that we've made progress and I can speak for my own country, we've knocked down discriminatory laws and obstacles that stood in the way of, you know, when I was a young woman scholarships I couldn't get, jobs I couldn't get, things that were blocking women's full participation.

36:32

But the attitudes are still there. And despite the progress, we still see a lot of sexism, not just in politics, in business, in the media, elsewhere. And I want to bring it out into the light of day and make it clear, it wasn't just about me. You know, people say, oh well, we don't like that woman. Well, now they are being, you know, critical of Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and others who are stepping up into that bright spotlight.

36:53

SARAH FERGUSON: Was that a day, the day when we see

37:18

Trump stalks Clinton during debate

Trump lurking around you during that debate after the stunt that we just described, was that a day to call it out?

HILLARY CLINTON: It might well have been.

37:20

Return to interview footage

But I had another experience 17 years prior when I was running for the senate and I was in a debate and my Republican opponent invaded my space and made a very big deal out of demanding that I do something, and I didn't respond, and it really worked to my advantage.

37:29

Now, 17 years on, maybe in the world of reality TV presidential campaigns, that doesn't work as well. But I thought and, you know, I was judged to have won the debate, despite his behaviour, and I thought, you know, at the end of this very gruelling process, people are going to say, hey, you know, we want the calm person.

37:47

We don't want the, you know, the yelling person, we don't want the insulting person in the Oval Office. And I think they would've, but for the interventions that we've been discussing.

38:05

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, you've taken some trouble in the book to describe what went wrong and people will criticise it and say you haven't been tough on yourself enough, but you talk about the tremendous pain it is to learn that millions of people don't like you.

38:16

So, I think there are moments of great candour in the book. But in the end, I wonder whether, like many politicians, you end up being too soft on yourself? I'll just give you one example.

38:28

The expression that you used, that you could put half of Trump's supporters into what you called the 'basket of deplorables'. That had serious consequences, didn't it?

38:40

HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I- Sure it did among people who supported Trump. But I don't think it did among the general electorate. I don't count it as one of the, you know, top reasons why I didn't win. I regretted giving him any gift by saying anything that could've been used.

38:47

But look, I think he's behaved in a deplorable way and I think he has sided with deplorable people, like we saw in the streets of, you know, Charlottesville.

SARAH FERGUSON: But that was, you're saying half of Trump's supporters, that's 30 million Americans.

39:05

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I'm just telling you that his base is about, you know, 40 percent of the electorate. He's dropped in support since the election.

39:16

And he has sided with people, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and others who I frankly think are deplorable in what they say and what they do.

39:25

But to get back to the point about being hard, I think I've been harder on myself than anybody I know who's ever lost an election! In my country, anyway. And I did it because I wanted to be as candid as I could be about, you know, where I fell short and why I think that, you know, maybe some other approaches could've worked better.

39:34

SARAH FERGUSON: One of the things you said that's interesting is that when people are angry and looking for someone to blame, which was obviously a theme in the US but also a theme in Europe, a theme in the UK under BREXIT, they don't want to hear your ten-point plan to create jobs. Is it the case that you missed the fundamentally angry sentiment in the US last year against globalisation?

39:53

HILLARY CLINTON: I didn't miss it. I'm, I'm very well aware of it and-

SARAH FERGUSON: Or made enough of it or approached it sufficiently?

40:14

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I don't think, as I say in the book, I don't think I did a good enough job in connecting with it before I said, look, anger is not a strategy, here's what we need to do to deal with it.

40:19

And look, I think that, you know, my preparation to be President, my ideas for being President would've helped a lot more people than are being helped currently under this President with all of his, you know, bluster.

40:28

So yes, I understood there was a deep, visceral anger on the part of many people. But I did not believe and sitting here today, I do not believe that it's responsible of any leader to stoke that anger, to you know go into demagoguery and to try to create a viciousness in the electorate.

40:41

SARAH FERGUSON: But wasn't there a place halfway where you could find a better way to…

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, that's what I'm saying though, but that's what I say in the book.

SARAH FERGUSON: …represent that anger?

41:03

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, no, no I'm sure there might have been a better way before I said, look, here's what we're going to do in coal country and here's what we're going to do to close the income gap and all, you know, making college more affordable, all the things that I was prepared to do, there certainly could've been. But let's not forget, I won three million more votes and I will go back to saying it, I was on my way to winning.

40:08

And so, you know, everything now in retrospect, yeah, of course, how could I have gotten 39,000 more votes in three states and not lost in the electoral college? Of course I think about that.

41:27

But that is not what defeated me, and so I have to-

SARAH FERGUSON: You maintain it's…

HILLARY CLINTON: Absolutely, I maintain it…

SARAH FERGUSON: …it's Comey's letter?

HILLARY CLINTON: Comey's letter combined with the lies that were part of the weaponised targeting of voters in those states that were at risk.

41:37

SARAH FERGUSON: Was it in some ways your links to big money politics that made it difficult for you to be the representative of that anger?

41:54

HILLARY CLINTON: No, not at all! I mean I was elected twice to the senate in New York. I spoke out against the excesses that led to the financial crash. I had the toughest programs. You know, when I was in the primary, Bernie Sanders couldn't explain his programs.

42:02

I was the one who was saying here's what we're going to do to the banks, here's what we're going to do to, you know, wealthy people, raise their taxes, all the rest of it, all of which I believed. So no, that had- You know, look, I can't, I certainly can't argue with the fact that that was part of the attack against me. But you know, that wasn't the case.

42:16

SARAH FERGUSON: Just a couple of questions on Australia. This, this is a combination question, fake news obviously played a huge role in this campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, yes, it did.

42:34

SARAH FERGUSON: I just wondered to what extent Rupert Murdoch and his Fox network created the circumstances that were able to lead to the fake news that was so dominant in this campaign?

42:40

HILLARY CLINTON: I think Fox News has been a pernicious influence on our elections, ever since it came into being back in the, you know, early '90s.

42:50

And I think that they're, they're an advocacy outfit; they're not journalism anymore. And I say that with regret, because there's a real opportunity to have a good debate that is fact-based, that looks at evidence, that makes the case, and that's not what they've become. And I think it has really had a bad influence on our politics.

43:00

SARAH FERGUSON: You've described Trump as a clear and present danger to the US. Is he also a clear and present danger to Australia?

43:22

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, he certainly is to the rest of the world, including Australia, because of his use of Twitter, his conducting diplomacy or the lack thereof on Twitter, his being played in my opinion by Kim Jong-un and not having any clear strategy for dealing with the threat posed by North Korea in its missile development and nuclear program.

43:27

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you think there are enough checks and balances in the US system to prevent him launching a pre-emptive strike against North Korea?

43:52

HILLARY CLINTON: I think that we have to hope there is and that the group of people around him, particularly in the Defense Department, will consistently present to him the, you know, terrible downsides of taking such action.

43:58

SARAH FERGUSON: Is he the most dangerous President you've ever had?

44:15

HILLARY CLINTON: I think he is, because he is impulsive, he lacks self-control, he is totally consumed by how he is viewed and what people think of him.

44:18

He is vindictive, he goes after people like the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, desperate to get help and calling him out for the very slow response of the federal government.

44:30

So, his behaviour traits and his lack of knowledge about how government works and his very, you know, limited curiosity about how to educate himself to actually make better decisions, are quite worrisome.

44:40

SARAH FERGUSON: Should we be worried in Australia?

44:57

HILLARY CLINTON: I think, I think the whole world should be concerned and I think western democracies, you know, need to learn lessons. I mean I wrote this book not just to talk about what I believe happened, but to try to sound some alarms so that it doesn't happen in Australia or Europe or anywhere else.

44:59

SARAH FERGUSON: I want to go back to the night of the election. You, you said that obviously you had to make that very difficult call to Trump, you had to make a call to Barack Obama, which you say was even harder because you let him down.

45:15

Photo. Hillary and Bill Clinton

It takes us back to the balcony, which is where we started and a photo of you that I have in my head, which is of you as a Wellesley graduate

45:28

Photo. Young Hillary in graduation gown

singled out by Time Magazine that year or Life Magazine that year...

HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, Life Magazine.

SARAH FERGUSON: …as an icon of your generation.

45:34

Photo. Young Hillary

Full of expectations about what your generation could achieve. That's how your career started. Do you feel sorry for the destiny unrealised

45:41

Return to interview footage

for that young woman in the photo?

HILLARY CLINTON: No. I feel very lucky. I feel very grateful. You know, I've had the most amazing life.

45:51

I'm very proud that I was the first woman nominated to be President from one of our two major parties. I'm proud that I served as Secretary of State, that I got to represent New York for eight wonderful years in the senate. I feel like a very lucky person.

45:58

Now, I, as, as an individual, I feel, you know, very blessed. As an American, I'm really worried.

46:13

I'm worried about the direction of our country. I'm worried about the divisiveness that is being fomented within our country and the lack of a strategic approach to the rest of the world.

46:20

But personally, you know, I have nothing to complain about.

46:34

SARAH FERGUSON: Can you get over the loss?

46:38

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you know, I think about it every day, because it was, it was a horrible loss. And if I had lost to a normal Republican, I would've been disappointed, but I would not have been so deeply worried, as I am now.

46:39

SARAH FERGUSON: Thank you.

46:52

HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you.

46:53

Credit start

46:57

Outpoint after credits

47:19