May 26, 2022 • 47 mins
Leadership matters. And while it’s easy to take a cynical view of government and politics in today’s world, it’s important to remember that public service can and should still be an honorable endeavor - and responsible leadership, working together, and putting people first are still fundamental to effective government.
In the season finale of Why Am I Telling You This, former Prime Minister Tony Blair joins President Clinton for a wide-ranging discussion on the conflict in Ukraine, the future of Northern Ireland, how to create a vital center in politics, and the work of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
In two thousand four, three years after I left the
White House, I started the Clinton School of Public Service
and Little Rock. I wanted to encourage more people to
pursue paths in public service and to prepare them to
do it so our students are not simply required to
learn in the classroom, but also to participate in actual
(00:21):
service work in the field in Arkansas and the rest
of the United States and all around the world. Every
time I'm around these students at the Clinton School, including
at their recent commencement, they seem to me to be
the perfect antidote to the poisonous politics of division and
polarization that we see all too often in the US
(00:42):
and now around the world, where everything is zero sum,
you only win and someone else loses. So why am
I telling you this? Because leadership matters, And while it's
easy to take a cynical view of government and politics
in today's world, it's important to remember that public service
(01:03):
can and should still be an honorable, rewarding endeavor. For
our season finale, I have the honor of speaking with
a former leader and colleague who is also my friend,
Tony Blair, and I've worked together on both political and
philanthropic causes over the last twenty five years since he
(01:24):
was first elected Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
A decade later, after he left office, he established the
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to work on some
of the most difficult challenges in the world, including how
to create a vital center in politics that ken re
(01:44):
knew itself with practical policy solutions. Tony, thanks so much
for being here, Bliss an absolute pleasure to be on
the your your podcasts, and you know you taught me
an enormous amount And for any student of that history
of the Labor Party, that time when you were empowered
(02:06):
really inspired us after a long period of opposition to
go win those elections. This month is also the anniversary
of NATO's vote to expand to include the Czech Republic
and Hungary and Poland, and of course now it's back
in the news because of Sweden and Finland's petition to join.
(02:32):
So Tony, I'd like to just start by saying, first,
thank you for doing this, and what's your take on
where we are now with the war in Ukraine, what
is most likely to happen, how do you think it
will end, and what do we do then, I think
with Ukraine the risk is now you get into a
(02:56):
long drawn out conflict we which to some degree will
be in Putin's interest because his original ambitions for you
praying have failed, and failed pretty dramatically. He wanted to
topple the government, replace the president. All that's gone. His
ambition is now to keep that southern corridor between the
(03:19):
western part of Russia and and Primera De's a possibly
to go out and into Transnistrium and essentially just paralyzed
the country of ukrain not by occupying all of it,
but by occupying enough of it to keep it in.
As I say, this kind of frozen conflict. So his
original ambition to topple the government failed. His ambition to
(03:43):
stop DAT having a role as backfired spectaculated because now
countries are wanting to join. However, I think the way
the Ukrainian leadership has handled this has been very courageous.
I think everyone knows, but also quite wise in the
(04:03):
the Ukrainian leadership itself recognizes that there may come a point,
an optimal point for a negotiated them to the crisis,
which allows therefore some stability to be put into the
situation for them to get back control of their country
and go on the journey they really want to go on,
which is to become, you know, a modern European nation,
(04:24):
joining the European Union, but also reforming their own economy,
giving their young people the chances they need. So I
think what we've got to do is two things. We've
got to keep up the pressure on Russia by giving
the Ukrainians what they need by way of weapons and
support and training and finance. And then we've got to
be prepared. Secondly, when that optimal motion moment comes for
(04:48):
a negotiation, the Ukrainians want to get behind them and
support what they want. So I am you know, iha
in between simism that Putin will succeed in pulling this
into a long drawn out conflict and optimism that the
success of the Ukrainians in the field will open up
(05:09):
that optimal moment. Because I'm naturally an optimist, I tend
to the latter notion. But it's going to be very
critical that we in the West keep the support strong
for them. I agree with that. And if it looks
like it's winding down to the kinds of alternatives you suggested,
I think one challenge that we will have to help
(05:31):
them meet is we have to make them strong enough
so that they don't have to give up so much
of what is in the East that they become almost
a basket case economically. I mean, an enormous percentage of
Ukraine's wealth, at least in today's economy, is concentrated in
the East. You know, they're between Russia and Ukraine. They
(05:54):
produce thirty percent of the world's white and a lot
of that is in the area that Russia is trying
to dominate. They produce a lot of minerals and rare
earths and including about of the world's manganese, and it's
over there. So I think the world needs to to
(06:15):
think about that. I think President Biden has done a
great job of uniting Europe with the US and Canada
and other allies and you know, giving them the help
they need to defend themselves. But we have to think
about now. We need a plan now for what we'll
do at the end of hostilities when they have to
(06:36):
make ends meet and have to feed their children and
educate them and build their economy. Yeah, for sure, I
think that's that's um complete, right. I think I mean
part of the trouble is what one of the things
the Russians are doing is actually torturing some of the
supplies of grain Ukrainians have, trying to disrupt their agricultural production,
which of course the enormous problem for the world. I mean,
(06:58):
the African presidents you and I will both be speaking to,
will be telling us and are telling us that food
shortages again become a major problem in the developing world.
But it's it's exactly to the point that the Ukrainians
will want back control of their essential territory and they'll
want to be able to do that in a way
(07:19):
that allows them them to rebuild. And we've got this
sphace which is helping them get to that point, and
then the next phase, which is then helping them on
their journey not just to recovery, but a progress because
we all know in the passions of elation over either
a military victory or a successful peace process pass then
(07:43):
you're left with the details and the consequences, the choices
which had to be made to put an end to
the counculut, which may be huge barriers to development. We
see that in Bosnia even today. You know that if
anybody ad told me twenty years ago when we stuck
with the Kosovo and save them from I think a
(08:05):
terrible faith that they would actually be somewhat better off
in terms, at least politically than Bosnia. I never would
have believed that. Yeah, you know, one of the things
we should just spend a moment on is the relevance
of that cause of experience to today, because you know,
(08:28):
it taught me two things that are very important. The
first is it taught me that the advantage of that
relationship between the UK and the US, because I will
say to people, your leadership at the time, because of
it was what made the difference ultimately. So you know,
we we could from the UK side, we could and
we did. We tried to rally European opinion. We tried
(08:50):
to make sure that we keep up the pressure because
there was terrible slaughter of innocent people happening. But it
was when you were prepared to just hint at the
possibility of direct American military intervention um and that you
remember all the stuff about boots on the ground, Just
that hint brought Milosovich's campaign of of you know, frankly
(09:16):
obliteration of the cause of the people to an end,
and you had to do that in circumstances where I
think I'm right saying at the time there was no
great movement in America. Was actually unlike Ukraine in the
sense of negreating movement in America to do this. But
you did it, and the thing it taught me was
without it, we couldn't have solved that problem. So I
think that you are that that Ukraine has brought back again,
(09:38):
and I agree. I think President Biden has done a
great job of bringing the West together, giving it to
reduced sense of mission and purpose. But the other thing
I learned is that you you have to be you know,
for all the difficulties, and there are difficulties and I'm
you know, no a lot of that post nine eleven. Uh.
(10:01):
This relationship in the end is about making sure you're
prepared to stand up strongly for not just the interests
you have, but the values you have because there are
large parts of the world that are looking to us
for that leadership. Let me take up a little pivot
on that. I want to come back to that. But
we are next year going to celebrate the twenty fifth
(10:21):
anniversary of a Good Friday accord. I know we can
spend five hours on this, But what's your take on
the state of the Irish peace political process now and
the difficulties has still remained because of unresolved questions caused
by Broxit. My views that the Good Friday Agreement in
(10:44):
the end will hold because it's put down deep roots
and I don't think there is any desire on the
part of the vast majority of people on the island
of Island or in Northern Ireland to go back of violence. However,
(11:05):
brags it because it meant Britain or the UK leaving
the European Union and for the first time therefore being
in a different relationship to Europe than the Irish Republic
in the South of Ireland. What that meant was, for
the first time, the border between North and South and
Ireland became the external border of the European Union. And
(11:26):
you know, leave aside whether you like brakes or don't
like brags, and that pretty well known for not liking it.
The fact that's a fact that for the first time
because the Republic of Ireland and the North of Ireland,
North of Ireland being part of the UK, had always
been in the same relationship. You know, when the European
(11:49):
Union was founded, we both stayed out. In three we
both joined together, so that border never really matter until now.
And the result of that is because Britain, as you're
the UK, has got out of the single market of
the European Union, is that that external boarder between North
(12:13):
and South, unless you make special arrangements, means that you're
it's no longer open because it's a it's a you're
putting the trading arrangements between the two bits of the
North and the South. You're putting those trading arrangements um
into a situation where it's they're in they're operating in
(12:34):
different systems, so you have to have a whole lot
of checks and balances that are inconsistent with an open border. Okay,
it gets all very complicated at that point, but to
try and simplify what it means today is we've got
a situation where the UK agreed something with the European
Union back in to resolve this problem. It didn't really
(12:57):
resolve it. We've now got a big and off and
it's putting the whole of that shared community government in
the North of Ireland at risk because the Unionists don't
want any form of checks, and yet since we're now
operating in different spheres of the market, that's bound to
(13:18):
be check. So it's a very very difficult situation. I
think it will still hold, but I think that if
if we don't find a practical way through, it is
going to undermine the relationships between the communities and Northern Ireland,
and that over time could put the Good Friday Agreement
in peril. At the moment, I think there's still a
(13:39):
huge desire to keep the things strong and intact. But
if this goes on and say ends up the worst
case scenario in some trade war between Europe and the UK,
it would it would be Yeah, it would be a
very very serious thing. Indeed, what do you make of
strong performance Marsha and pain and the more frucent works. Well,
(14:01):
it is really interesting. And of course you were absolutely
instrumental in helping us guide the Good Friday Agreement through.
And you know, I remember when I first came into power,
uh and I decided I would go for this peace
process in Northern Ireland. A lot of people said to me,
I wouldn't touch that. You've got absolutely no chance. People
(14:22):
thought it was much more like you get peace in
the Middle East than you would get peace in Northern Ireland.
But when we got into the negotiation and you you
really helped us pull people together and we're an amazing
store wards. But when that happened, shin fayne and it's
a really interesting thing. So they came from being outcasts,
(14:46):
you know, the British state used to stop them even
being broadcast right, and then they came into a peace process,
at first very reluctantly. Then over the years as they
gave up violence and engage in politics, they're now in
the position where the largest party in Northern and actually
they're doing well down to the south of Bible. Now,
(15:08):
you know, there's bits of change pain politics and frankly
aren't my politics at all, of course. But the interesting
thing is as well is that a group that was
on the fringe engaged in violence, once they opted for peace,
managed to obtain significant political advance. And that, funnily enough,
(15:28):
I think isn't isn't a lesson for the peace process
of the Middle East today. Um So I think chin
fain No, it's been an extraordinary change in their position.
Um but it's partly I'm afraid because as a result
of the disagreements over this Northern Ireland protocol. They've they've
(15:52):
got a match stronger position and for the first time,
really in my political lifetime, are United Island is on
the agenda in a way it's not been before. We'll
be right back. Let me ask you about the whole
(16:20):
globalization project. You know, uh, you and I supported more
trade ties, but we also supported active government to try
to make the most of them and take care of
the adjustments that had to be made if people were displaced.
Now there's a movement, uh that is sort of part
(16:42):
protectionist economics, but a lot of it is ethnic and
cultural protectionism that I think threatens the whole enterprise to
which we gave so much of our lives and politics.
And one thing that strikes me as really ironic today
as I look around the world is that people who
(17:04):
actually governed from what I would call a vital center.
That is, they're not centrists in the sense of a
little bit of this, a little bit of that, don't
do much. There are people that actually find solutions that
can command the support of a majority of the people
and move the voters seem to like it once they
(17:25):
get in. But increasingly in countries with a lot of
political polarization, they won't They can't bring themselves to vote
for what they say they want. And I think that's
that's a a serious problem, particularly in the information ecostructure
we live in a day. So what's what's your take
(17:48):
on that. Will a parliamentary system like the U K's
have an easier time adjusting to that and overcoming it
than a system like the one we year? Um So,
I don't think it makes a difference if you have
a parliamentary system or not. Everywhere in the West right now,
(18:10):
you've got this polarized politics, and it's partly because the
political activists in the mainstream parties have become quite radicalized,
either on the nationalist right or or on the the left,
around issues like to kind of identity politics and so on.
And I still think and it would be interesting actually
(18:37):
there you think about this, But I still think this
is basically a supply side problem. In other words, when
when you present people with what you call a vital center,
and I sometimes call it a radical center or a
more muscular center in other ways, we're not splitting the
difference between left and right, but you're trying to understand
the way the world's changing and apply it terms are
(19:00):
values to a changing situation. I think that's the best
position for progressive politics, and I think it usually wins
when it offers that. And you know, the truth is,
for the people doing the nationalists and right wing politics,
it is populist and it therefore is to a degree popular,
(19:23):
but it's much more about writing the anger than providing
the answer. And in the end, I think it's you know,
there is a desire amongst the population at large in
all of our countries to have a reasonable politics, but
it's often not on offer. You know. So if you
(19:43):
look around Europe, you know mac cron gets reelected, Schultz
was elected in Germany. Really is the successor to mercle
In Italy, drag is that having been the head of
the European Central Bank is now the prime minister. You know,
President Biden was in many ways elector because there were
independents who said, look, it's not for me, just about policy.
(20:04):
I don't like the way the previous president has been
handling the issues, and we need to bring people together.
So I think there's a that the desire is there.
I think the challenge for us is to realize the
world is changing, and the world is changing very very fast,
so you have a technology revolution is changing everything. And
(20:25):
respect of globalization, I still think the process of globalization
in the sense of the world moving closer together and
being interdependent, I think that's still completely valid. But I
do think, for example, you will find situations where people
think they're vulnerable unless they onshore or re shore, where
(20:50):
for example, people I think it's sensible as technology developed,
to do more in your own country, But I don't
think that alters the basic point, which is the world
is going to be interdependent, needs to work together on
its problems. And if that reversal of globalization or movement
(21:11):
against globalization ends up in things like protectionism, it's just
going to damage people and lose jobs that am I.
You're am I right in thinking it's a it's a
supply problem, not a demand problem. Or do you think
actually what people want is that more populist politics Until
(21:34):
they get it, I think that they have been preconditioned
to want it by various changes in the information ecostructure
and and the fact that at least in the United States,
the the ride has been more adept at organizing in
local elections and taking over state legislatures and things like that.
(21:57):
But it's interesting to me, and I was a governor,
for example, back in the late seventies and throughout the eighties,
there was a general consensus that state government was primarily
about schools and jobs. We provided a lot of social services,
(22:18):
a lot of particularly in mental health, and there were
other things that were really legitimate issues and could become
big issues if there was a problem and delivery. But
by and large there were these dueling notions of the
government's role in providing an educated electorate and then developing
(22:40):
an economy that maximized their potential. Now, if you try
to have that conversation in the hard rights States, they'll
simply say, well, we just don't believe that whatever that
is two and two A is for as an opinion,
that's the education establishment. You call everything you don't agree
(23:01):
with an establishment. And it's very deeply troubling to me,
because there is uh it's difficult to get people just
to think and to feel free to do that. It's
it's really I realized it's probably much more pronounced in
the United States than anywhere in Europe. There was a
(23:24):
recent analysis that said it was But I'm concerned about
it because I think I'm with you, whether you like
it or not. The world is interdependent. We can't escape
each other. So this whole deal is an argument about
how to define our interdependence and how to make it
(23:45):
as positive as possible and reduce the negative consequences as
much as possible. For people who deny our interdependence, they
guarantee that the negative side will defeat the positive side.
So with the long run, I think it's really bad.
But it sure seems to be working well in elections. Yeah,
(24:06):
I guess. So you've got social media that is a
new revolutionary phenomenal changes the way politics works. Because look,
you and I both know that one of the first
lessons you learn in politics is that those that shout
louders don't deserve to be heard most right. But social
media is the very opposite of that, right. It's the
it's the you know, it's the platform, frankly of the
(24:28):
very loud loud people. So I think that is a
huge problem. I think, my my views, the populists exploit grievances,
but they don't necessarily invent them. In other ways, there
is a kernel of genuine anxiety, you know, So whenever
I'm debating issues of immigration this side and water, I say, no,
(24:50):
there is a real issue, but we can deal with
it through proper rules that don't descend into prejudices, right,
And I think you know, there is a way of
of creating This is why you need a center that
that's that that is radical and vital, because you've got
to show it can deliver solutions to those grievances. And
(25:13):
if it's you know where where I always find our
side of politics very weak is when we give people
a choice that's essentially moderate and dull or exciting and extremes.
Because you know, that's a pretty grizzly choice to make,
especially if you're a young person. You want to be inspired.
You want to be inspired by something that's exciting but
(25:34):
also sensible. And I think that's our biggest challenge, and
you're going to do that in a world of social
media where that that type of rational discussion is often difficult.
My point is there, when you really drill down, Okay,
you do have these very loud voices, but in the end,
you know, I still have faith that if you offer
(25:57):
something that is a movement for change from the center
and not a management the status quoted you could win
through more after this, Can you give us some examples
(26:21):
of governments that you've worked with that our listeners may
not be all that familiar with, and you think are
successfully taking on the challenges facing their countries. Yes, so
we we we work with governments that My institutes are
not for profit and basically we put teams of people
in to help governments make change. And that could be
you know, everything from way government's organized the center to
(26:44):
how you deliver a proper maternal and child mortality program.
For example, in COVID, we help countries register vaccinations use
the data in order to gain a better understanding of
the health care system. We've helped do energy projects where
there's a real need for energy and power, but you
(27:04):
want the developing world to develop in a way that's
that's clean, you know. So it's everything. And by the way,
one of the things comes very specific from something you
and I once had a conversation about when I was
leader of the opposition. I went to visit you in
the in the White House. Um, and I remember you.
I came to see you in the White House and
(27:25):
I was leader of the opposition. We were doing well,
but obviously I wasn't Prime minister. You were in your
in your second term as president, and you said to
me when I went into the White House state there,
you said, remind me before you leave, I've got to
tell you something really important. And I was convinced you
were going to tell me some great state secret. You know,
(27:46):
you were going you were going to say, look, there
really is there's a Western Plan, and it's in the
vault of the White House, and I'm now going to
share it with you. He said. I was quite I
was quite enthralled by this. Anyway, you didn't say the
thing to me, and as I was leaving, I said
to you, so, what was it you have to tell me?
And you said, oh yeah. You said, You've got to
(28:07):
organize your office around you very very carefully. You've got
to make sure that you retain time for thinking that
you're actually got a political strategy and not just a
series of disconnected tactics. And I confess at the time
I was little underweld because I thought that this was
short of, you know, the great World plan that you
(28:29):
were about the Gidney. But when I'm working with governments
today around the world, I often tell them that story,
and I say as a result of that, when I
came into power and was governing, I suddenly realized it's okay,
you win power on being a great persuader. You get
into power, you've got to be the great executive. You've
(28:49):
got to make things happen. And how you organize your
infrastructure around you. You know, if you've got the right
people advising, if you've got your just managing your diary
in the ist effective way so that you're meeting the
right people, thinking the right things, spending time in your priorities.
And I think you know this is one of the
(29:10):
things that fascinates me is that all of these things
which are about the practical ability to govern, well, all
of it should be driven by values, but very little
when you're rich actually in government should be the product
of ideological preconception. It's often about practical solutions, and it's
(29:33):
as much about an understanding the world in order to
change it as it is about conventional policy. Thanks for
saying that. I agree with that. And I think that
one of the things that people who have your philosophy
and learn have to keep in mind is that the
people who wanted to feed us have to make elections
(29:55):
about something else, not about those people and about their empower,
but about whether you're too far left or not left
enough for you know, your second cousin stolely used car,
whatever it is, anything that you know to make it
about you, to make it about representation, destruction, operation, and
(30:20):
so keeping having the discipline and picking the people necessary
to have an outer focus and utter focus the people
focused administration. I think it's very important. It doesn't mean
you shouldn't answer legitimate criticisms about you or questions people
may have. But the general thing I find is if
(30:42):
you spend too much time a day playing defense, you know,
especially against very sort of personal sneering attacks, you're losing
even if you're winning. I mean, I used to tell
people when they talk to me, and they said, why
don't you talk about all this whitewater business. I said, well,
(31:02):
we do answer it every day. The lawyers answered, and
I said, you know, if if they're making ground on something,
we monitor and then we go after that. But if
I in this climate get asked a question about whitewater
and I give an answer on the scale of one
attend to attend, that's not nearly as good as giving
(31:25):
a six answer two, are we going to grow manufacturing jobs?
What are we doing with a human genome? What do
you name it? Anything? Because sooner or later people will say,
if all you do is answer questions about from your critics,
shouldn't you resign the office? And do You're doing a
great job of it, but you don't have any time
(31:47):
for me. Because one of the most stunning thing that
happened to me and my first six months as president
was we did something that had never been done before,
and I don't know if it's been done since. We
had a town hall meeting in effect with let's say
(32:07):
a hundred and some people in the rose Garden of
the White House, picked from the line that forms the
tour of the White House every day. Totally, we had
no idea what the profile was. We just you come in,
ask your questions. So this guy said, uh, you know,
I voted for you because you promised to focus on
(32:30):
the economy like a laser, and all you've done since
you've been in office is trying to get gays in
the military. He said, I'm not I don't know that.
I'm how I feel about that, but I'm pretty sure
it's not the most important thing we're facing. And I
said to him, you know, it's interesting. I just passed
the six months, uh mark. So I had an analysis
(32:53):
done of my time, and I spent sixty percent of
my time on the economy and four two percent on
foreign policy, and in the national security foreign policy and
national security. And I said, in the national security category,
I had a meeting at their request with the Joint
(33:14):
chiefs of Staff about gays in the military. I didn't
have the meeting until nine at night, so we wouldn't
spend all day talking about it, and I wouldn't say
much about it because I couldn't tell which way this
was going. And I said, otherwise, I have spent a
grand total of thirty minutes on this in six months.
(33:35):
And he looked at me and he said, I'm sorry,
but I just don't believe you. And this is even
more hypercharge now than it was then. That whoever is
going to run today, if you seek to do what
you talked about, you know, to govern in the space
of creativity and even sometimes radical change, but one that
(33:56):
can bring people together around values. It takes an extraordinary
amount of discipline and an interesting team, a team of
people whose warning lights go off if they think you're
about to be caught in essentially being your own defense
attorney and a defamation trial, because no matter how good
(34:17):
you are, it doesn't work. Now that's a hundred cent
I mean, I think the thing is, I always think
that the right wing politics are just infinitely more ruthless
than than than our side, and they have absolutely no
compunction about coming after you on anything they possibly can,
(34:39):
anything that is personal, because they also think it's a
destabilizing thing. They try and destabilize the team around you.
And the other thing is they do defend their own
whereas the progressive or liberal side you tend to sort
of join in there, you know, once they get into
(34:59):
govern but they always feel kind of guilty that they're
there because surely they must have done something unprincipled to
arrive at this position in government, because you know, they
are a naturally you know, anti establishment view. And the
point is it therefore means that what you've got to be,
you've got to have that iron discipline. And I often
say to people in the Labor Party, we've suffered now
(35:21):
and another four election defeats. There were four election defeats
before my time. There have been four election defeats since
that time. Sometimes with people in the Labor Party, they
say to me, you know, would tell us how to win?
And I start by saying, would tell me, is your
priority winning? And they kind of go, you know, of
(35:42):
course it's winning, and I say, no, it's not, of course,
because a lot of the progressive side of politics, it's objective. Yes,
it's to win, but it's primary purposes to make itself
feel good about itself, right, is to convince itself that
it's principle right. But that is, in the end, something
(36:03):
that leads you to self indulgence. In the end, if
you really believe in what you believe in, you don't
have to convince yourself because you know you believe in it.
The important thing is to get into power to do
it and to be able to implement. And I think
what it means is you do have to play defense.
Not in the sense you're talking about the personal attacks,
but for example, if your opponents are going to come
(36:26):
after you, let's say, all of this stuff on culture
and the culture wars at the moment, if if you
want to if you want to win, you've got to
be in the center of gravity of opinion on these things.
You cannot be in the situation where some loose remark
from someone's going to be taken as indicative of the
whole political position you've got, and then you just hammer
(36:46):
day in day out that that's just that's just not
competent politics. So you've got to be able to build
your defensive capabilities against the onslaught that comes from the right.
But then of course you you you use that not
in order to play defense. You use that to be
able to project a vision of the future that is
one that's optimistic and that allows people to think, well, yeah,
(37:08):
and these guys are gonna make my life better. But
you know, we we we constantly, our side of politics
has this constant desire to get to do this introspection
on itself to examine whether you know, it's portraying its
own cause, and it really, I mean, I don't know,
(37:33):
maybe it's a little different with the Democrats, but the
British Labor Party, you could in a hundred and twenty
years of history, this has been our you know, this
has been our our fully, our perennial fully, and you know,
we end up losing to conservatives and persuading ourselves that
we lost because we weren't left wing enough, which is
I always say to people, is a you know, it's
(37:53):
an odd assessment of the British people ahead the vote
conservative because you weren't wing enough. Yeah, you know, it's
like people said to me, you know, people really wanted
Jeremy Corbyn and you know who's leader of the Labor
Party where we suffered the last election de feat which
is terrible. And I said, what what makes you think
if they've been voting conservative the three elections what they
(38:16):
want is a really left wing Labor Party when they've
been rejecting a moderately left Labor party. But anyway, the
point is, to your point, you've got to if you're
going to defeat this populism, because it's a very virulent
thing on the right now, you have to be really
(38:37):
tough minded about it because the truth is, if you
end up allowing the right to retake power. Yeah, there
are elements of the right today which aren't like the
right wing that we were growing up with. The right
wing that I grew up with. There a lot of
things that didn't like I post them a lot, but
(39:00):
they were basically quite practical people. What happens somewhere in
the last twenty odd years is the right wing got ideology.
They got the ideology bug, and that ideology is quite
frightening at points. I completely agree with that, and I
don't think you can, you know, win it back by
talking down to people or you know, actn like they
(39:21):
don't know what they're doing. The Republicans of in America
found out that, well, maybe they'll go along with these
radicals in the Republican Party and taking the election away
and making it harder for some constituency vote or whatever.
But we have now made it easier by letting the
loose lips sink ship syndrome for them to win a
(39:48):
legitimate election, by just scaring the living daylights out of
anybody that's got something to lose. That's what no one
seems to understand. I mean, the the the average person
has a limited bandwidth for Paul six. But they know
if they're generally doing better or not. They know if
they've got a chance to raise their kids well or not,
and so, and they'll listen if you want to do
(40:10):
something that they think will help them on their life's journey.
But but you cannot. I completely agree with you that
you I don't think you can let charges that affect
the way they think you would affect their lives. You
can't let those things go. You have to answer those
(40:30):
but it always has to be thrown back to the people.
I told people, you know, you sometimes the Democrats look
bad because they were afraid. They were, like you said,
had a guilt complex about whether they were perfectly progressive.
But it was also they've a lot too much on
(40:52):
poles in this country in the sense that it's like
they're afraid to get beat. And I think one of
the ways you won elections is by talking straight with
people and giving them permission to vote against you. I
think that's an enormous power, in the fact you don't
say I give you permission to vote against it, but
you you talk about it in a way that will
(41:14):
this If you really disagree with this, that then you
will go out and take another choice. But here's why
I think it's better for you. And we have to
learn to talk to people quite apart from the specifics,
in a way that they can relate to. You know.
(41:34):
I worry sometimes we sound like, well, of course everybody
knows I saturday other thing. Well, of course they don't sure,
So what what makes you optimistic? Why do you think
that what we believe is important will catch on enough
to basically avoid the worst consequences of climate change, deal
with this massive migration problem. Uh'll answer the legitimate questions
(41:58):
about the quality of opportunity and maybe start this assault
on the very idea of education. There somehow an establishment plot.
What makes you optimistic about it? What makes me optimistic
is that even though I think as as as the
world has developed, we have the means of destroying ourselves,
whether through nuclear proliferation or through climate change, we also
(42:22):
have the means of getting a better future. And actually,
wherever I go, we we work in about thirty thirty
five different countries. Wherever you go, people are very different contexts,
need different lives and so on. But they basically all
of them want the same thing, which is, believe it
or not, they aspire to, you know, getting on in life,
(42:44):
raising a family, living in peace and security. You know,
they want to live in a community of people and
not just as an individual. You know, all of the
things I find most people in the end are open minded,
not close minded. You just need to create the world
in which they feel confident in doing that and that's
(43:07):
our task. So the reason for my optimism is that
virtually everywhere I go in the world today, I'm seeing
those types of people. Now in the end, that is
also the future success for their country. So if you
if you, if you want to succeed as the country
that it's all about being connected, it's all about your
people being educated, it's all about open mindedness, it's about
(43:30):
crossing the boundaries of faith and race and culture and nation,
and those are the people that are going to succeed.
So I think this is why I think, you know,
if we've focus on what are the things necessary to
create that sense of hope and optimism because the world
(43:51):
is moving towards a more open minded view despite all
the forces pushing against that. Ultimately there's a very strong
human force pushing in favor of it. Then I think,
you know, we will succeed, and I don't. There's no
reason for us. I mean, we started with Ukraine and
we can, in a sense bring it full circle. It's
(44:14):
an amazing thing. Those people were invaded. They're fighting for
their country, but they're not just fighting for their their
their homeland. They're fighting for an idea of what their
future can be as a as an independent country coming
within the European family, offering their young people hope for
the future. And I think that human spirit, which I
(44:38):
believe is basically benign, even though people of course can
behave very badly, that human spirit is what we'll see
us through ultimately. But it's you know, in these agency
and needs us to get behind it and do it.
I always feel better when I talk to you. Likewise,
when I talk to you, well, I just hope now
(45:02):
that we're at the grandparents stage of life, that we
are leaving things in a manageable way, and that our
grandchildren at least will confront new problems and different problems
and have new horizons. And uh, I think there's a
good chance we will if we avoid this sort of
(45:23):
negative populism where everybody thinks their victimhood is greater than
everybody else's. There are real victims in life, and we
should focus on them. But for the rest of us,
we should focus on empowerment, not victimhood. Well, I'm into that.
Thank you very much, Tony, and thanks for the court
(45:45):
of century of friendship. Okay, thanks Bill, thank you very much,
absolute pleasure. Why am I telling you this is a
production of Our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at
Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian and Will Manati.
Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sarah Harowitz,
(46:06):
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Josh Farnham. Original music by Wat White. Special thanks to
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thurm Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners
at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill, Director
(46:31):
of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, one of a kind
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George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton
often says that the key to great leadership is in
finding our common humanity, something that's needed now more than ever.
That's why each year we bring together a dramatically diverse
(46:53):
group of leaders, from doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists,
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in service of a greater good. Today, presidential leadership scholars
(47:15):
across the country are working together and actively applying the
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see how you can get involved by visiting www dot
Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast
In two thousand four, three years after I left the
White House, I started the Clinton School of Public Service
and Little Rock. I wanted to encourage more people to
pursue paths in public service and to prepare them to
do it so our students are not simply required to
learn in the classroom, but also to participate in actual
(00:21):
service work in the field in Arkansas and the rest
of the United States and all around the world. Every
time I'm around these students at the Clinton School, including
at their recent commencement, they seem to me to be
the perfect antidote to the poisonous politics of division and
polarization that we see all too often in the US
(00:42):
and now around the world, where everything is zero sum,
you only win and someone else loses. So why am
I telling you this? Because leadership matters, And while it's
easy to take a cynical view of government and politics
in today's world, it's important to remember that public service
(01:03):
can and should still be an honorable, rewarding endeavor. For
our season finale, I have the honor of speaking with
a former leader and colleague who is also my friend,
Tony Blair, and I've worked together on both political and
philanthropic causes over the last twenty five years since he
(01:24):
was first elected Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
A decade later, after he left office, he established the
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to work on some
of the most difficult challenges in the world, including how
to create a vital center in politics that ken re
(01:44):
knew itself with practical policy solutions. Tony, thanks so much
for being here, Bliss an absolute pleasure to be on
the your your podcasts, and you know you taught me
an enormous amount And for any student of that history
of the Labor Party, that time when you were empowered
(02:06):
really inspired us after a long period of opposition to
go win those elections. This month is also the anniversary
of NATO's vote to expand to include the Czech Republic
and Hungary and Poland, and of course now it's back
in the news because of Sweden and Finland's petition to join.
(02:32):
So Tony, I'd like to just start by saying, first,
thank you for doing this, and what's your take on
where we are now with the war in Ukraine, what
is most likely to happen, how do you think it
will end, and what do we do then, I think
with Ukraine the risk is now you get into a
(02:56):
long drawn out conflict we which to some degree will
be in Putin's interest because his original ambitions for you
praying have failed, and failed pretty dramatically. He wanted to
topple the government, replace the president. All that's gone. His
ambition is now to keep that southern corridor between the
(03:19):
western part of Russia and and Primera De's a possibly
to go out and into Transnistrium and essentially just paralyzed
the country of ukrain not by occupying all of it,
but by occupying enough of it to keep it in.
As I say, this kind of frozen conflict. So his
original ambition to topple the government failed. His ambition to
(03:43):
stop DAT having a role as backfired spectaculated because now
countries are wanting to join. However, I think the way
the Ukrainian leadership has handled this has been very courageous.
I think everyone knows, but also quite wise in the
(04:03):
the Ukrainian leadership itself recognizes that there may come a point,
an optimal point for a negotiated them to the crisis,
which allows therefore some stability to be put into the
situation for them to get back control of their country
and go on the journey they really want to go on,
which is to become, you know, a modern European nation,
(04:24):
joining the European Union, but also reforming their own economy,
giving their young people the chances they need. So I
think what we've got to do is two things. We've
got to keep up the pressure on Russia by giving
the Ukrainians what they need by way of weapons and
support and training and finance. And then we've got to
be prepared. Secondly, when that optimal motion moment comes for
(04:48):
a negotiation, the Ukrainians want to get behind them and
support what they want. So I am you know, iha
in between simism that Putin will succeed in pulling this
into a long drawn out conflict and optimism that the
success of the Ukrainians in the field will open up
(05:09):
that optimal moment. Because I'm naturally an optimist, I tend
to the latter notion. But it's going to be very
critical that we in the West keep the support strong
for them. I agree with that. And if it looks
like it's winding down to the kinds of alternatives you suggested,
I think one challenge that we will have to help
(05:31):
them meet is we have to make them strong enough
so that they don't have to give up so much
of what is in the East that they become almost
a basket case economically. I mean, an enormous percentage of
Ukraine's wealth, at least in today's economy, is concentrated in
the East. You know, they're between Russia and Ukraine. They
(05:54):
produce thirty percent of the world's white and a lot
of that is in the area that Russia is trying
to dominate. They produce a lot of minerals and rare
earths and including about of the world's manganese, and it's
over there. So I think the world needs to to
(06:15):
think about that. I think President Biden has done a
great job of uniting Europe with the US and Canada
and other allies and you know, giving them the help
they need to defend themselves. But we have to think
about now. We need a plan now for what we'll
do at the end of hostilities when they have to
(06:36):
make ends meet and have to feed their children and
educate them and build their economy. Yeah, for sure, I
think that's that's um complete, right. I think I mean
part of the trouble is what one of the things
the Russians are doing is actually torturing some of the
supplies of grain Ukrainians have, trying to disrupt their agricultural production,
which of course the enormous problem for the world. I mean,
(06:58):
the African presidents you and I will both be speaking to,
will be telling us and are telling us that food
shortages again become a major problem in the developing world.
But it's it's exactly to the point that the Ukrainians
will want back control of their essential territory and they'll
want to be able to do that in a way
(07:19):
that allows them them to rebuild. And we've got this
sphace which is helping them get to that point, and
then the next phase, which is then helping them on
their journey not just to recovery, but a progress because
we all know in the passions of elation over either
a military victory or a successful peace process pass then
(07:43):
you're left with the details and the consequences, the choices
which had to be made to put an end to
the counculut, which may be huge barriers to development. We
see that in Bosnia even today. You know that if
anybody ad told me twenty years ago when we stuck
with the Kosovo and save them from I think a
(08:05):
terrible faith that they would actually be somewhat better off
in terms, at least politically than Bosnia. I never would
have believed that. Yeah, you know, one of the things
we should just spend a moment on is the relevance
of that cause of experience to today, because you know,
(08:28):
it taught me two things that are very important. The
first is it taught me that the advantage of that
relationship between the UK and the US, because I will
say to people, your leadership at the time, because of
it was what made the difference ultimately. So you know,
we we could from the UK side, we could and
we did. We tried to rally European opinion. We tried
(08:50):
to make sure that we keep up the pressure because
there was terrible slaughter of innocent people happening. But it
was when you were prepared to just hint at the
possibility of direct American military intervention um and that you
remember all the stuff about boots on the ground, Just
that hint brought Milosovich's campaign of of you know, frankly
(09:16):
obliteration of the cause of the people to an end,
and you had to do that in circumstances where I
think I'm right saying at the time there was no
great movement in America. Was actually unlike Ukraine in the
sense of negreating movement in America to do this. But
you did it, and the thing it taught me was
without it, we couldn't have solved that problem. So I
think that you are that that Ukraine has brought back again,
(09:38):
and I agree. I think President Biden has done a
great job of bringing the West together, giving it to
reduced sense of mission and purpose. But the other thing
I learned is that you you have to be you know,
for all the difficulties, and there are difficulties and I'm
you know, no a lot of that post nine eleven. Uh.
(10:01):
This relationship in the end is about making sure you're
prepared to stand up strongly for not just the interests
you have, but the values you have because there are
large parts of the world that are looking to us
for that leadership. Let me take up a little pivot
on that. I want to come back to that. But
we are next year going to celebrate the twenty fifth
(10:21):
anniversary of a Good Friday accord. I know we can
spend five hours on this, But what's your take on
the state of the Irish peace political process now and
the difficulties has still remained because of unresolved questions caused
by Broxit. My views that the Good Friday Agreement in
(10:44):
the end will hold because it's put down deep roots
and I don't think there is any desire on the
part of the vast majority of people on the island
of Island or in Northern Ireland to go back of violence. However,
(11:05):
brags it because it meant Britain or the UK leaving
the European Union and for the first time therefore being
in a different relationship to Europe than the Irish Republic
in the South of Ireland. What that meant was, for
the first time, the border between North and South and
Ireland became the external border of the European Union. And
(11:26):
you know, leave aside whether you like brakes or don't
like brags, and that pretty well known for not liking it.
The fact that's a fact that for the first time
because the Republic of Ireland and the North of Ireland,
North of Ireland being part of the UK, had always
been in the same relationship. You know, when the European
(11:49):
Union was founded, we both stayed out. In three we
both joined together, so that border never really matter until now.
And the result of that is because Britain, as you're
the UK, has got out of the single market of
the European Union, is that that external boarder between North
(12:13):
and South, unless you make special arrangements, means that you're
it's no longer open because it's a it's a you're
putting the trading arrangements between the two bits of the
North and the South. You're putting those trading arrangements um
into a situation where it's they're in they're operating in
(12:34):
different systems, so you have to have a whole lot
of checks and balances that are inconsistent with an open border. Okay,
it gets all very complicated at that point, but to
try and simplify what it means today is we've got
a situation where the UK agreed something with the European
Union back in to resolve this problem. It didn't really
(12:57):
resolve it. We've now got a big and off and
it's putting the whole of that shared community government in
the North of Ireland at risk because the Unionists don't
want any form of checks, and yet since we're now
operating in different spheres of the market, that's bound to
(13:18):
be check. So it's a very very difficult situation. I
think it will still hold, but I think that if
if we don't find a practical way through, it is
going to undermine the relationships between the communities and Northern Ireland,
and that over time could put the Good Friday Agreement
in peril. At the moment, I think there's still a
(13:39):
huge desire to keep the things strong and intact. But
if this goes on and say ends up the worst
case scenario in some trade war between Europe and the UK,
it would it would be Yeah, it would be a
very very serious thing. Indeed, what do you make of
strong performance Marsha and pain and the more frucent works. Well,
(14:01):
it is really interesting. And of course you were absolutely
instrumental in helping us guide the Good Friday Agreement through.
And you know, I remember when I first came into power,
uh and I decided I would go for this peace
process in Northern Ireland. A lot of people said to me,
I wouldn't touch that. You've got absolutely no chance. People
(14:22):
thought it was much more like you get peace in
the Middle East than you would get peace in Northern Ireland.
But when we got into the negotiation and you you
really helped us pull people together and we're an amazing
store wards. But when that happened, shin fayne and it's
a really interesting thing. So they came from being outcasts,
(14:46):
you know, the British state used to stop them even
being broadcast right, and then they came into a peace process,
at first very reluctantly. Then over the years as they
gave up violence and engage in politics, they're now in
the position where the largest party in Northern and actually
they're doing well down to the south of Bible. Now,
(15:08):
you know, there's bits of change pain politics and frankly
aren't my politics at all, of course. But the interesting
thing is as well is that a group that was
on the fringe engaged in violence, once they opted for peace,
managed to obtain significant political advance. And that, funnily enough,
(15:28):
I think isn't isn't a lesson for the peace process
of the Middle East today. Um So I think chin
fain No, it's been an extraordinary change in their position.
Um but it's partly I'm afraid because as a result
of the disagreements over this Northern Ireland protocol. They've they've
(15:52):
got a match stronger position and for the first time,
really in my political lifetime, are United Island is on
the agenda in a way it's not been before. We'll
be right back. Let me ask you about the whole
(16:20):
globalization project. You know, uh, you and I supported more
trade ties, but we also supported active government to try
to make the most of them and take care of
the adjustments that had to be made if people were displaced.
Now there's a movement, uh that is sort of part
(16:42):
protectionist economics, but a lot of it is ethnic and
cultural protectionism that I think threatens the whole enterprise to
which we gave so much of our lives and politics.
And one thing that strikes me as really ironic today
as I look around the world is that people who
(17:04):
actually governed from what I would call a vital center.
That is, they're not centrists in the sense of a
little bit of this, a little bit of that, don't
do much. There are people that actually find solutions that
can command the support of a majority of the people
and move the voters seem to like it once they
(17:25):
get in. But increasingly in countries with a lot of
political polarization, they won't They can't bring themselves to vote
for what they say they want. And I think that's
that's a a serious problem, particularly in the information ecostructure
we live in a day. So what's what's your take
(17:48):
on that. Will a parliamentary system like the U K's
have an easier time adjusting to that and overcoming it
than a system like the one we year? Um So,
I don't think it makes a difference if you have
a parliamentary system or not. Everywhere in the West right now,
(18:10):
you've got this polarized politics, and it's partly because the
political activists in the mainstream parties have become quite radicalized,
either on the nationalist right or or on the the left,
around issues like to kind of identity politics and so on.
And I still think and it would be interesting actually
(18:37):
there you think about this, But I still think this
is basically a supply side problem. In other words, when
when you present people with what you call a vital center,
and I sometimes call it a radical center or a
more muscular center in other ways, we're not splitting the
difference between left and right, but you're trying to understand
the way the world's changing and apply it terms are
(19:00):
values to a changing situation. I think that's the best
position for progressive politics, and I think it usually wins
when it offers that. And you know, the truth is,
for the people doing the nationalists and right wing politics,
it is populist and it therefore is to a degree popular,
(19:23):
but it's much more about writing the anger than providing
the answer. And in the end, I think it's you know,
there is a desire amongst the population at large in
all of our countries to have a reasonable politics, but
it's often not on offer. You know. So if you
(19:43):
look around Europe, you know mac cron gets reelected, Schultz
was elected in Germany. Really is the successor to mercle
In Italy, drag is that having been the head of
the European Central Bank is now the prime minister. You know,
President Biden was in many ways elector because there were
independents who said, look, it's not for me, just about policy.
(20:04):
I don't like the way the previous president has been
handling the issues, and we need to bring people together.
So I think there's a that the desire is there.
I think the challenge for us is to realize the
world is changing, and the world is changing very very fast,
so you have a technology revolution is changing everything. And
(20:25):
respect of globalization, I still think the process of globalization
in the sense of the world moving closer together and
being interdependent, I think that's still completely valid. But I
do think, for example, you will find situations where people
think they're vulnerable unless they onshore or re shore, where
(20:50):
for example, people I think it's sensible as technology developed,
to do more in your own country, But I don't
think that alters the basic point, which is the world
is going to be interdependent, needs to work together on
its problems. And if that reversal of globalization or movement
(21:11):
against globalization ends up in things like protectionism, it's just
going to damage people and lose jobs that am I.
You're am I right in thinking it's a it's a
supply problem, not a demand problem. Or do you think
actually what people want is that more populist politics Until
(21:34):
they get it, I think that they have been preconditioned
to want it by various changes in the information ecostructure
and and the fact that at least in the United States,
the the ride has been more adept at organizing in
local elections and taking over state legislatures and things like that.
(21:57):
But it's interesting to me, and I was a governor,
for example, back in the late seventies and throughout the eighties,
there was a general consensus that state government was primarily
about schools and jobs. We provided a lot of social services,
(22:18):
a lot of particularly in mental health, and there were
other things that were really legitimate issues and could become
big issues if there was a problem and delivery. But
by and large there were these dueling notions of the
government's role in providing an educated electorate and then developing
(22:40):
an economy that maximized their potential. Now, if you try
to have that conversation in the hard rights States, they'll
simply say, well, we just don't believe that whatever that
is two and two A is for as an opinion,
that's the education establishment. You call everything you don't agree
(23:01):
with an establishment. And it's very deeply troubling to me,
because there is uh it's difficult to get people just
to think and to feel free to do that. It's
it's really I realized it's probably much more pronounced in
the United States than anywhere in Europe. There was a
(23:24):
recent analysis that said it was But I'm concerned about
it because I think I'm with you, whether you like
it or not. The world is interdependent. We can't escape
each other. So this whole deal is an argument about
how to define our interdependence and how to make it
(23:45):
as positive as possible and reduce the negative consequences as
much as possible. For people who deny our interdependence, they
guarantee that the negative side will defeat the positive side.
So with the long run, I think it's really bad.
But it sure seems to be working well in elections. Yeah,
(24:06):
I guess. So you've got social media that is a
new revolutionary phenomenal changes the way politics works. Because look,
you and I both know that one of the first
lessons you learn in politics is that those that shout
louders don't deserve to be heard most right. But social
media is the very opposite of that, right. It's the
it's the you know, it's the platform, frankly of the
(24:28):
very loud loud people. So I think that is a
huge problem. I think, my my views, the populists exploit grievances,
but they don't necessarily invent them. In other ways, there
is a kernel of genuine anxiety, you know, So whenever
I'm debating issues of immigration this side and water, I say, no,
(24:50):
there is a real issue, but we can deal with
it through proper rules that don't descend into prejudices, right,
And I think you know, there is a way of
of creating This is why you need a center that
that's that that is radical and vital, because you've got
to show it can deliver solutions to those grievances. And
(25:13):
if it's you know where where I always find our
side of politics very weak is when we give people
a choice that's essentially moderate and dull or exciting and extremes.
Because you know, that's a pretty grizzly choice to make,
especially if you're a young person. You want to be inspired.
You want to be inspired by something that's exciting but
(25:34):
also sensible. And I think that's our biggest challenge, and
you're going to do that in a world of social
media where that that type of rational discussion is often difficult.
My point is there, when you really drill down, Okay,
you do have these very loud voices, but in the end,
you know, I still have faith that if you offer
(25:57):
something that is a movement for change from the center
and not a management the status quoted you could win
through more after this, Can you give us some examples
(26:21):
of governments that you've worked with that our listeners may
not be all that familiar with, and you think are
successfully taking on the challenges facing their countries. Yes, so
we we we work with governments that My institutes are
not for profit and basically we put teams of people
in to help governments make change. And that could be
you know, everything from way government's organized the center to
(26:44):
how you deliver a proper maternal and child mortality program.
For example, in COVID, we help countries register vaccinations use
the data in order to gain a better understanding of
the health care system. We've helped do energy projects where
there's a real need for energy and power, but you
(27:04):
want the developing world to develop in a way that's
that's clean, you know. So it's everything. And by the way,
one of the things comes very specific from something you
and I once had a conversation about when I was
leader of the opposition. I went to visit you in
the in the White House. Um, and I remember you.
I came to see you in the White House and
(27:25):
I was leader of the opposition. We were doing well,
but obviously I wasn't Prime minister. You were in your
in your second term as president, and you said to
me when I went into the White House state there,
you said, remind me before you leave, I've got to
tell you something really important. And I was convinced you
were going to tell me some great state secret. You know,
(27:46):
you were going you were going to say, look, there
really is there's a Western Plan, and it's in the
vault of the White House, and I'm now going to
share it with you. He said. I was quite I
was quite enthralled by this. Anyway, you didn't say the
thing to me, and as I was leaving, I said
to you, so, what was it you have to tell me?
And you said, oh yeah. You said, You've got to
(28:07):
organize your office around you very very carefully. You've got
to make sure that you retain time for thinking that
you're actually got a political strategy and not just a
series of disconnected tactics. And I confess at the time
I was little underweld because I thought that this was
short of, you know, the great World plan that you
(28:29):
were about the Gidney. But when I'm working with governments
today around the world, I often tell them that story,
and I say as a result of that, when I
came into power and was governing, I suddenly realized it's okay,
you win power on being a great persuader. You get
into power, you've got to be the great executive. You've
(28:49):
got to make things happen. And how you organize your
infrastructure around you. You know, if you've got the right
people advising, if you've got your just managing your diary
in the ist effective way so that you're meeting the
right people, thinking the right things, spending time in your priorities.
And I think you know this is one of the
(29:10):
things that fascinates me is that all of these things
which are about the practical ability to govern, well, all
of it should be driven by values, but very little
when you're rich actually in government should be the product
of ideological preconception. It's often about practical solutions, and it's
(29:33):
as much about an understanding the world in order to
change it as it is about conventional policy. Thanks for
saying that. I agree with that. And I think that
one of the things that people who have your philosophy
and learn have to keep in mind is that the
people who wanted to feed us have to make elections
(29:55):
about something else, not about those people and about their empower,
but about whether you're too far left or not left
enough for you know, your second cousin stolely used car,
whatever it is, anything that you know to make it
about you, to make it about representation, destruction, operation, and
(30:20):
so keeping having the discipline and picking the people necessary
to have an outer focus and utter focus the people
focused administration. I think it's very important. It doesn't mean
you shouldn't answer legitimate criticisms about you or questions people
may have. But the general thing I find is if
(30:42):
you spend too much time a day playing defense, you know,
especially against very sort of personal sneering attacks, you're losing
even if you're winning. I mean, I used to tell
people when they talk to me, and they said, why
don't you talk about all this whitewater business. I said, well,
(31:02):
we do answer it every day. The lawyers answered, and
I said, you know, if if they're making ground on something,
we monitor and then we go after that. But if
I in this climate get asked a question about whitewater
and I give an answer on the scale of one
attend to attend, that's not nearly as good as giving
(31:25):
a six answer two, are we going to grow manufacturing jobs?
What are we doing with a human genome? What do
you name it? Anything? Because sooner or later people will say,
if all you do is answer questions about from your critics,
shouldn't you resign the office? And do You're doing a
great job of it, but you don't have any time
(31:47):
for me. Because one of the most stunning thing that
happened to me and my first six months as president
was we did something that had never been done before,
and I don't know if it's been done since. We
had a town hall meeting in effect with let's say
(32:07):
a hundred and some people in the rose Garden of
the White House, picked from the line that forms the
tour of the White House every day. Totally, we had
no idea what the profile was. We just you come in,
ask your questions. So this guy said, uh, you know,
I voted for you because you promised to focus on
(32:30):
the economy like a laser, and all you've done since
you've been in office is trying to get gays in
the military. He said, I'm not I don't know that.
I'm how I feel about that, but I'm pretty sure
it's not the most important thing we're facing. And I
said to him, you know, it's interesting. I just passed
the six months, uh mark. So I had an analysis
(32:53):
done of my time, and I spent sixty percent of
my time on the economy and four two percent on
foreign policy, and in the national security foreign policy and
national security. And I said, in the national security category,
I had a meeting at their request with the Joint
(33:14):
chiefs of Staff about gays in the military. I didn't
have the meeting until nine at night, so we wouldn't
spend all day talking about it, and I wouldn't say
much about it because I couldn't tell which way this
was going. And I said, otherwise, I have spent a
grand total of thirty minutes on this in six months.
(33:35):
And he looked at me and he said, I'm sorry,
but I just don't believe you. And this is even
more hypercharge now than it was then. That whoever is
going to run today, if you seek to do what
you talked about, you know, to govern in the space
of creativity and even sometimes radical change, but one that
(33:56):
can bring people together around values. It takes an extraordinary
amount of discipline and an interesting team, a team of
people whose warning lights go off if they think you're
about to be caught in essentially being your own defense
attorney and a defamation trial, because no matter how good
(34:17):
you are, it doesn't work. Now that's a hundred cent
I mean, I think the thing is, I always think
that the right wing politics are just infinitely more ruthless
than than than our side, and they have absolutely no
compunction about coming after you on anything they possibly can,
(34:39):
anything that is personal, because they also think it's a
destabilizing thing. They try and destabilize the team around you.
And the other thing is they do defend their own
whereas the progressive or liberal side you tend to sort
of join in there, you know, once they get into
(34:59):
govern but they always feel kind of guilty that they're
there because surely they must have done something unprincipled to
arrive at this position in government, because you know, they
are a naturally you know, anti establishment view. And the
point is it therefore means that what you've got to be,
you've got to have that iron discipline. And I often
say to people in the Labor Party, we've suffered now
(35:21):
and another four election defeats. There were four election defeats
before my time. There have been four election defeats since
that time. Sometimes with people in the Labor Party, they
say to me, you know, would tell us how to win?
And I start by saying, would tell me, is your
priority winning? And they kind of go, you know, of
(35:42):
course it's winning, and I say, no, it's not, of course,
because a lot of the progressive side of politics, it's objective. Yes,
it's to win, but it's primary purposes to make itself
feel good about itself, right, is to convince itself that
it's principle right. But that is, in the end, something
(36:03):
that leads you to self indulgence. In the end, if
you really believe in what you believe in, you don't
have to convince yourself because you know you believe in it.
The important thing is to get into power to do
it and to be able to implement. And I think
what it means is you do have to play defense.
Not in the sense you're talking about the personal attacks,
but for example, if your opponents are going to come
(36:26):
after you, let's say, all of this stuff on culture
and the culture wars at the moment, if if you
want to if you want to win, you've got to
be in the center of gravity of opinion on these things.
You cannot be in the situation where some loose remark
from someone's going to be taken as indicative of the
whole political position you've got, and then you just hammer
(36:46):
day in day out that that's just that's just not
competent politics. So you've got to be able to build
your defensive capabilities against the onslaught that comes from the right.
But then of course you you you use that not
in order to play defense. You use that to be
able to project a vision of the future that is
one that's optimistic and that allows people to think, well, yeah,
(37:08):
and these guys are gonna make my life better. But
you know, we we we constantly, our side of politics
has this constant desire to get to do this introspection
on itself to examine whether you know, it's portraying its
own cause, and it really, I mean, I don't know,
(37:33):
maybe it's a little different with the Democrats, but the
British Labor Party, you could in a hundred and twenty
years of history, this has been our you know, this
has been our our fully, our perennial fully, and you know,
we end up losing to conservatives and persuading ourselves that
we lost because we weren't left wing enough, which is
I always say to people, is a you know, it's
(37:53):
an odd assessment of the British people ahead the vote
conservative because you weren't wing enough. Yeah, you know, it's
like people said to me, you know, people really wanted
Jeremy Corbyn and you know who's leader of the Labor
Party where we suffered the last election de feat which
is terrible. And I said, what what makes you think
if they've been voting conservative the three elections what they
(38:16):
want is a really left wing Labor Party when they've
been rejecting a moderately left Labor party. But anyway, the
point is, to your point, you've got to if you're
going to defeat this populism, because it's a very virulent
thing on the right now, you have to be really
(38:37):
tough minded about it because the truth is, if you
end up allowing the right to retake power. Yeah, there
are elements of the right today which aren't like the
right wing that we were growing up with. The right
wing that I grew up with. There a lot of
things that didn't like I post them a lot, but
(39:00):
they were basically quite practical people. What happens somewhere in
the last twenty odd years is the right wing got ideology.
They got the ideology bug, and that ideology is quite
frightening at points. I completely agree with that, and I
don't think you can, you know, win it back by
talking down to people or you know, actn like they
(39:21):
don't know what they're doing. The Republicans of in America
found out that, well, maybe they'll go along with these
radicals in the Republican Party and taking the election away
and making it harder for some constituency vote or whatever.
But we have now made it easier by letting the
loose lips sink ship syndrome for them to win a
(39:48):
legitimate election, by just scaring the living daylights out of
anybody that's got something to lose. That's what no one
seems to understand. I mean, the the the average person
has a limited bandwidth for Paul six. But they know
if they're generally doing better or not. They know if
they've got a chance to raise their kids well or not,
and so, and they'll listen if you want to do
(40:10):
something that they think will help them on their life's journey.
But but you cannot. I completely agree with you that
you I don't think you can let charges that affect
the way they think you would affect their lives. You
can't let those things go. You have to answer those
(40:30):
but it always has to be thrown back to the people.
I told people, you know, you sometimes the Democrats look
bad because they were afraid. They were, like you said,
had a guilt complex about whether they were perfectly progressive.
But it was also they've a lot too much on
(40:52):
poles in this country in the sense that it's like
they're afraid to get beat. And I think one of
the ways you won elections is by talking straight with
people and giving them permission to vote against you. I
think that's an enormous power, in the fact you don't
say I give you permission to vote against it, but
you you talk about it in a way that will
(41:14):
this If you really disagree with this, that then you
will go out and take another choice. But here's why
I think it's better for you. And we have to
learn to talk to people quite apart from the specifics,
in a way that they can relate to. You know.
(41:34):
I worry sometimes we sound like, well, of course everybody
knows I saturday other thing. Well, of course they don't sure,
So what what makes you optimistic? Why do you think
that what we believe is important will catch on enough
to basically avoid the worst consequences of climate change, deal
with this massive migration problem. Uh'll answer the legitimate questions
(41:58):
about the quality of opportunity and maybe start this assault
on the very idea of education. There somehow an establishment plot.
What makes you optimistic about it? What makes me optimistic
is that even though I think as as as the
world has developed, we have the means of destroying ourselves,
whether through nuclear proliferation or through climate change, we also
(42:22):
have the means of getting a better future. And actually,
wherever I go, we we work in about thirty thirty
five different countries. Wherever you go, people are very different contexts,
need different lives and so on. But they basically all
of them want the same thing, which is, believe it
or not, they aspire to, you know, getting on in life,
(42:44):
raising a family, living in peace and security. You know,
they want to live in a community of people and
not just as an individual. You know, all of the
things I find most people in the end are open minded,
not close minded. You just need to create the world
in which they feel confident in doing that and that's
(43:07):
our task. So the reason for my optimism is that
virtually everywhere I go in the world today, I'm seeing
those types of people. Now in the end, that is
also the future success for their country. So if you
if you, if you want to succeed as the country
that it's all about being connected, it's all about your
people being educated, it's all about open mindedness, it's about
(43:30):
crossing the boundaries of faith and race and culture and nation,
and those are the people that are going to succeed.
So I think this is why I think, you know,
if we've focus on what are the things necessary to
create that sense of hope and optimism because the world
(43:51):
is moving towards a more open minded view despite all
the forces pushing against that. Ultimately there's a very strong
human force pushing in favor of it. Then I think,
you know, we will succeed, and I don't. There's no
reason for us. I mean, we started with Ukraine and
we can, in a sense bring it full circle. It's
(44:14):
an amazing thing. Those people were invaded. They're fighting for
their country, but they're not just fighting for their their
their homeland. They're fighting for an idea of what their
future can be as a as an independent country coming
within the European family, offering their young people hope for
the future. And I think that human spirit, which I
(44:38):
believe is basically benign, even though people of course can
behave very badly, that human spirit is what we'll see
us through ultimately. But it's you know, in these agency
and needs us to get behind it and do it.
I always feel better when I talk to you. Likewise,
when I talk to you, well, I just hope now
(45:02):
that we're at the grandparents stage of life, that we
are leaving things in a manageable way, and that our
grandchildren at least will confront new problems and different problems
and have new horizons. And uh, I think there's a
good chance we will if we avoid this sort of
(45:23):
negative populism where everybody thinks their victimhood is greater than
everybody else's. There are real victims in life, and we
should focus on them. But for the rest of us,
we should focus on empowerment, not victimhood. Well, I'm into that.
Thank you very much, Tony, and thanks for the court
(45:45):
of century of friendship. Okay, thanks Bill, thank you very much,
absolute pleasure. Why am I telling you this is a
production of Our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at
Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian and Will Manati.
Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton, Sarah Harowitz,
(46:06):
and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Rafferee and
Josh Farnham. Original music by Wat White. Special thanks to
John Sykes, John Davidson, on hell Orina, Corey Ganstley, Kevin
thurm Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and partners
at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill, Director
(46:31):
of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, one of a kind
partnership between the presidential centers of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. President Clinton
often says that the key to great leadership is in
finding our common humanity, something that's needed now more than ever.
That's why each year we bring together a dramatically diverse
(46:53):
group of leaders, from doctors to teachers, elected officials to scientists,
active military, arian veterans, all of whom have a passion
for making the world a better place. We create a
culture of collaboration that transcends partisan divides and ideological differences
in service of a greater good. Today, presidential leadership scholars
(47:15):
across the country are working together and actively applying the
lessons learned in our program to help tackle today's most
pressing challenges. You can learn more about this work and
see how you can get involved by visiting www dot
Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast
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