Hillary Clinton has one question for Melania Trump—as Donald Trump faces investigations and possible criminal charges: “How’s your summer going?”
And for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wants to take aim at marriage equality following the court’s demolition of Roe v. Wade: “Don’t you want to retire?”
For Mark Zuckerberg: “Do you let your kids go on Facebook?”
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In a candid, barnstorming appearance on Andy Cohen’s Bravo chat show Watch What Happens Live alongside daughter Chelsea Clinton (who sits on the board of IAC, The Daily Beast’s parent company) to promote their new TV show, Gutsy, the former secretary of state held nothing back, in talking about the “captive cult” of the Republican Party still in thrall to Trump, fighting bigotry, and why she does not regret her “deplorables” line.
As a former senator herself, Clinton was asked which senator is or was the biggest blowhard. “Oh, too many to count. I would have to have to say Ted Cruz is the eternal blowhard,” she replied.
Asked by a viewer how many times a day she says to herself “I told you so,” having seen how the Trump presidency unfolded, Hillary Clinton said: “It does cross my mind honestly… but it doesn’t provide any kind of solace to me. I am so sad, I am so distressed that everything that happened during the time that he was there, and then his refusal to accept the election, and inciting violence, is heartbreaking. I hope people (of whatever party) will just say, ‘No, enough! We are not going to let that kind of divisiveness and disruption exist in our country any longer.’ It’s so important to stop it.”
Women, especially young women, were registering to vote after the Roe v. Wade ruling “in unprecedented numbers,” said Clinton, “because they understand this is a serious challenge to their rights, choice, and health.”
To fight back, she added, “You defeat the people who are trying to strip your of your rights.” Those on the Supreme Court and in Republican-led state legislatures attacking civil rights and freedoms “are being motivated by cultural religious, ideological, partisan and financial interests—and so they’re trying to impose their views on everybody else even though most of us don’t agree with them. You’re not going to be able to hope it goes away. You have to win. You have to defeat them. Then maybe we get a Republican Party back again that is not a captive cult of Donald Trump and people like him.”
Cohen asked Clinton if she believed there should be term limits for Supreme Court judges. “I never did before,” she replied. “I would like to see the Supreme Court be repudiated by electing a Congress that codifies gay marriage, codifies a woman’s right to choose, codifies a lot of these important issues of rights in law that the Supreme Court can’t do anything about.”
“To be a woman in America is to be political because politicians are trying to make decisions for us that we should make for ourselves,” said Chelsea Clinton.
She condemned Trump for “the mainlining of hate in our country” and said she did not recall, as per an anecdote in Jared Kushner’s new book, being invited to dinner by Ivanka on behalf of her father.
“It is true that I spoke to Ivanka in November 2016, the last time I have spoken to her. I do not recall being invited to dinner,” Chelsea said.
Cohen asked about the women’s friendship. “I would say we were friends,” Chelsea said. “She is not a person I would call...if I was debating a life decision, but we were definitely friends, and then she went to the dark side.”
Cohen asked both women if they had read Kushner’s book.
“No, we missed that,” Hillary Clinton replied, drily.
“And we’ll keep missing it,” added Chelsea Clinton.
Hillary Clinton told Cohen she did not regret calling Trump supporters “deplorables” or the even more historic, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession.”
“People take things wrong or mishear it, or don’t get the full context,” Clinton said. “I regret that either people didn’t get the full story of what I said or didn’t understand the full context of what I said, but not that I said it.”
Trump’s possible 2024 rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, infamous architect of that state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law as well as other legislative attacks on trans youth, is, said Hillary Clinton, “waging a cultural war, and becoming more and more extreme.” She said she thought he “knew better” and “should be an independent Republican,” but had “decided it’s just easier to go along with the most extreme views of the party.”
Cohen asked Clinton what her biggest gaffe had been. “Oh my gosh, I’ve made a lot of gaffes. When you’ve been in the public eye for as long as I have you misspeak, you’re tired, you say something that turns out to be a little bit off. So I just can’t think of one that pops out.” Her daughter recalled that her mother had avoided making a gaffe once by volunteering her, Chelsea, to dance while on her Senate campaign trail in Buffalo in 2000, saying, “My daughter would love to do that.”
“I have not watched any of them. I’ve lived it. There’s no reason to watch it,” Clinton said of the many TV shows and films made about the Clinton White House.
In a game of “agree, disagree”—after Hillary Clinton had expressed surprise at Cohen’s fulsome backing of tequila/Fresca as a drink (she apparently didn’t know Fresca was still on sale)—both women said cannabis should be decriminalized, and Hillary Clinton agreed, contrary to Michelle Obama’s famous words, that when “they go low,” sometimes it’s OK to respond by going lower. Socks, mother and daughter both agreed, was the most iconic White House cat.
Cohen also revealed he had a “wonderful secret liaison” with one of Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service agents in the 1990s. “TMI,” she replied laughing. Cohen added that the agent only had the nicest things to say about the Clintons, just as he, all these years later, had only the nicest memories of the agent.
