FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

Remarks of President Clinton at an HFA Fundraiser

At the Home of Patti and Mike Miller
Chesapeake Beach, Maryland
October 19, 2015
PRESIDENT CLINTON: (Applause.) Well, thank you. Mike and Patti, I wanted to come here
and talk about Americas economic distress, but its kind of hard here. (Laughter.) I want to say
that everything the two previous speakers said, notwithstanding the fact that they have been in
politics a very long time, was true. (Laughter.) I did force Steny Hoyer to play a round of golf in
temperatures that were 35 and below all day. But I was younger then. (Laughter.) Now, I never
cease to be amazed Hillary and I live in this little town thats about 20 miles north of New
York, and I go down in the late fall, the winter, to the local coffee shop to get a cup of coffee, and
Ive got three sweaters on and the kids are in T-shirts. When I was a boy I could never
understand why anybody retired to Florida; now I dont know how Im going to live through the
next winter. Its fascinating. (Laughter.) But we had a good time; we had a lot of good times.
And what Mike said about his mother was true. I took one look at that woman and I said, I
want to be her 11th child. I can be president if I can just be her 11th child. (Laughter.) So Im
glad to be here.
I thank you for coming here to support Hillary. I dont know if Im any good at this anymore. I
havent run for office in 20 years, and yet every election I feel like an old horse that once won a
bunch of races and somebody comes to the barn, gives me an extra bale of hay, hauls me on the
track and slaps me on the rump, just to see if I can get around one more time. (Laughter.) But
Im not very well-suited for the current era because Im not mad at anybody. And I watched five
hours of those two Republican debates and I thought, my God, Id be lost as a duck in a hail
storm in this debate I wouldnt know what to say. These people actually think they can insult
their way to the White House, or compete with each other for who can say the most politically
correct things. And I think it says something profoundly troubling about our politics Steny will
tell you this if the speaker of the House were willing to bring bills to the floor of the Congress
that had the support of at least 60 percent of the House, if they would cut those 50 loops on the
far right, our Democrats would vote with them because we think we got hired to do something.
We think we got hired to show up. We think when somebody (applause) pays your salary,
youre supposed to do something besides pontificate.
And I thought it was I suggested Steny, I called about five of your colleagues who were in
the most recent contact with me, and said after Kevin McCarthy announced he would not run for
speaker, that we should get up and take those one-minute opportunities and cry crocodile tears
and say that we all wanted to vote for him and we didnt realize that you would be eliminated
from being considered for speaker in the other party for telling the truth. (Laughter.) And make
no mistake about it, thats what happened to him. They even tried to they were prepared to
wreck his family life just because he told the truth. He told the truth when Fox News baited him
and they said, Well, you really havent done anything you havent repealed the health care

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bill, you havent shut the government down over the Planned Parenthood controversy. What
have you done? He said, Well, our special Benghazi committee drove Hillary Clintons
numbers down. (Laughter.) Which was the truth. I took no offense at it. When I was dealing
with the same thing with Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and all those guys, the real fanatics
(inaudible) they wouldnt let Gingrich come to the White House alone because they knew if I
could get him alone, he would tell me the truth. I might not like it, but I could deal with it.
Dont you agree with that? If somebody will just tell you what the deal is, itll be alright.
So thats a setup for why I think this election is important. When I took office, the country had
more than quadrupled the national debt in the previous 12 years. Incomes were stagnant then.
Inequality was growing then. We had the only eight years in more than 50 years when all
income groups grew together. It was the single most important thing that happened in America
when I was President. We had (applause) and Im telling you this not to look back, but to
look forward. The most successful president in the last on the Republican side in the last 35
years, since we were told the government would mess up a two-car parade and the number one
obligation of any good Republican was to tear it down and to badmouth it and hope nobody was
looking when you actually tried to get some money to do something, was Reagan. Why?
Because we had never before run big deficits in peacetime. Ever. It was like when the second
President Bush came in, we had never before cut taxes in wartime. Ever. But it fit with
ideology, though not with evidence. So we reversed it by one vote and lost the Congress doing
it.
But in the Reagan years we had about 16 million jobs; in our eight years, nearly 23 million. The
most important thing is this: in the Reagan years the top 20 percent of the electorates incomes
went up 22 percent in eight years, but the bottom 20 percent went up seven-tenths of 1 percent.
When I was there, that same bottom 20 percent, their incomes went up 23.6 percent, the same as
the top 5 percent. (Applause.) And everybody else did better. The only people that did better
under Reagan than under me were the top 1 or 2 percent, and they did just fine when I was there.
My point is we proved America could grow together. Then, when the second President Bush
came in, it was the first time we ever had a chance to try trickle-down economics with no brakes.
And a lot of people have forgotten this, but before that financial crash he had a chairman of the
FCC that actually posed by a pile of regulations, financial regulations, with a chainsaw. A
chainsaw. So what happened? Poverty went up, incomes went down. Before the crash before
the crash, the median income of Americans, the one in the middle, was lower than it was the day
I left office. All of our growth was due to consumer spending and finance and housing. So what
happened? If your growth is choked up in debt, three things happen. Number one, pretty soon
peoples credit cards get maxed out and they cant buy squat. Secondly, conventional banks get
nervous and make home loans to people who shouldnt have them. And thirdly, the people in
finance dont have traditional investment opportunities where they start new businesses or help
good businesses expand, so they play financial games with each other trying to earn money
anyway and the crash came.
Now, I happen to think that President Obama has done a better job with the economy than a lot
of people give him credit for, because we got all the jobs we lost back in less than eight years,
and typically it takes 10 full years after a financial crash to recover your job loss. But in a global

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economy, we have not recovered our income losses. Even today, the median income, the one in
the middle, after inflation, is lower than it was on my last day in office. So theres nothing he
can do about that, especially after Republicans won the Congress. We restored the auto industry
and theyre humming again, and were in pretty good shape, and the annual deficit is down about
70 percent from its high. Were moving.
But the job of the next president is to bring America back, an America where if people work
hard, they can get rewarded; where if you do what youre supposed to do, you can send your kids
to college and they can look forward to having a decent future; where its possible if you work
hard to raise a family and succeed at work and at home in the most important job of any society,
raising children. Its not complicated. Thats what I believe the job is. And to do it in a world
that we still have to lead even though we dont control it. Lead in an interdependent world where
borders look more like nets than walls, where we worry about cyber terrorism as well as people
setting off bombs. So we have to take the lead in trying to stop big, bad things from happening,
and trying to make good things happen. Thats what I think the job of the next president is.
The world is interdependent. America is interdependent. Id rather be America right now
looking at the next 40 years than any other big country on Earth. Why? Because were a lot
more diverse. Look at this crowd today. Just look around at each other. If we had had this event
on this piece of ground 30 years ago, most of the people in this crowd would look like me old,
gray-haired white guys in suits. (Laughter.) I was just going to say, I am grateful (laughter)
wait, wait, I am grateful that my demographic has not been entirely eliminated from this crowd.
(Laughter.) And I can see Tom McMillen from a distance, so that makes me feel good.
But we are now younger than any already wealthy country in the world except tiny Ireland, and
were more diverse in a global economy. If the Chinese hadnt changed their one-child policy,
we would have been younger than China within 20 years. They had to do it. But we have some
significant challenges facing us, and I think Hillary should be president for a simple reason: I
think shes got the best plan to restore broad-based prosperity, and I think she is by far the most
likely person to lead us in a world where we have to do things with other people, but we have to
be strong to do it, and were going to have to stop some big, bad things from happening and try
to make more good things happen. Its a job. It is a job. (Applause.)
But Im telling you, we can do this I know we can do it. And whether its her plan for an
infrastructure bank or for having universal broadband access in rural areas I was down in West
Virginia the other night. Do you know there are two counties in West Virginia where the number
one source of monthly income for non-college-educated men is a disability check? Because
nothing has happened there in decades. Now, the Republicans have convinced a bunch of those
people that its because of our so-called war on coal, but coal employment peaked in 1920; coal
production peaked in 1950; 20,000 coal jobs were lost when President Bush was in office
because of natural gas. Thats just not true. The world has passed it by, just like Indian
reservations without gambling and they need solar and wind and lots of other things to
diversify their economy.
If we had affordable, universal broadband access, we could bring back the coal country. We
could bring back the inner cities. We could bring back the people that have been left out and left

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behind. But you cant do it by giving a speech; youve actually got to have a plan and execute it
and get something done.
So I think shes got a good plan for that. I think her plan for alleviating the college debt problem
for families, working families, is good. And I like the fact that she wants young people who
want to graduate without any debt from tuition and manageable debts from other college costs to
work 10 hours a week in college. That wont kill anybody. I had six jobs going through law
school. And I think its a good thing, and I think every young person who does it will be more
grateful for their degrees. I was. And I think her plan to bring women into the workforce and to
help families mothers and fathers succeed at home and at work are an economic strategy, not
just a strategy for social justice. And Ill just give you an example.
When I was President, America ranked sixth or seventh in the world in the percentage of women
in the workforce, which is very high for us because we have a lot of mothers with young
children. And the only countries that were higher than us had smaller families, so there were
fewer the women were not as encumbered with young children. Were now down to 20th. Its
killing us economically. Why? Because were one of only nine countries in the world without
paid family leave. Because there are too many working families that have no access to
affordable childcare, and because we dont have universal access to preschool, prekindergarten.
Weve got to do that. Its an economic strategy. Equal pay, childcare, pre-K and paid is an
economic strategy. You get our workforce participation up, itll lift and let me just say one
other thing to make sure everybody understands why this is so.
Were going to bring back a lot of manufacturing jobs in the next 10 years, but it wont be
enough because manufacturing is the most productive part of every economy. That is, every year
fewer people will be able to produce more things, whatever those things are. Thats a good
thing. But 66 to 68 percent of our income as a nation is driven by consumer spending. Thats 10
points higher than France, than Germany, than a lot of other wealthy countries. You cant do that
if people dont have any money to spend. Weve got to do that. Weve got to have a government
thats got enough investment money to make sure we can fund the Small Business
Administration. We can start businesses and diversify them. Community banks need to know
that theyre not going to be judged by the same rules that investment taking big risks are, if
theyre making money loans to people in their communities who they know. (Applause.) I
mean, look, I come from Arkansas, and sometimes you can still hear it in my voice probably.
But we still have we have almost no corporate farms in my state. So if somebodys tractor
breaks right before harvest time, or before planting season, and they go in to a banker they know,
and because their family famers they dont have a lot of money in the bank, I think a banker
ought to be able to make a loan to give him a tractor. Dont you?
Okay, so weve got to theres a lot of very practical things we have to do. And she gets that.
When Hillary was elected Senator from New York, Ill never forget this, nobody had ever there
was no governor at the time. Andrew Cuomo has done a good job at this, but there no
governor in 30 years had tried to develop New Yorks economy outside the city and the collar
counties around it. She went to the farmers on Long Island, she went to small manufacturers in
upstate New York. She started in effect becoming their de facto governor. She got people into ecommerce before it was fashionable in little towns. Ill never forget, I met this guy who was

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making the best fishing rods I ever saw, with three people. All of a sudden he had 12 employees
because he quadrupled his orders and 100 percent of his customers were from Norway. That was
a big deal in 2002. She did that.
You watch before this is over, youre going to see all the Republican farmers from Long Island
going to Iowa, New Hampshire, campaigning for her because they will tell you, Nobody ever
helped us before she did. People running these vineyards in upstate New York for the first time
had somebody organizing their sales of wine to New York restaurants. That had never happened.
They dont have to export any wine out of New York; all theyve got to do is sell to the
restaurants in the city.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.) (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: So Ill tell you what we need your help for. Ill tell you in a
minute. (Laughter.) But the point is youve got the have somebody that has some idea about
how to do this, and shes good. I know something about producing broad-based prosperity. Ive
read everybodys plans. Hers are far more likely to produce the results you want.
This health care bill has done a world of good, but there are some problems with it. The small
business exchange is not working quite as well as it should. There are still people that are paying
too much because there arent enough people offering plans, mostly in rural areas. We can fix
that. Theres nothing wrong with it that cant be fixed.
And I just want to say something about the rest of the world. I got tickled the other day watching
one of the either the first or second Republican debate, when Mrs. Fiorina said that if you want
to stump a Democrat, ask them what Hillary did as Secretary of State Traveling is an activity,
not an accomplishment. And I thought, oh, throw me in that briar patch. (Laughter.) So she
becomes the Secretary of State, which was a remarkable thing for her and for the President after
the fight they had. And heres just Ill just tell you four things quick off the top of my head.
Even the people that dont like this Iran nuclear agreement like the sanctions that were imposed
on Iran. She did that, and she got Russia and China to go along. I never thought she could do
that. And everybody admits that its good. Now, whats the relevance to the election? Because
you dont know yet whether this Iranian thing is going to be good or bad. It depends on whether
we enforce it. And youve got to have somebody in there tough enough, with enough
connections in these other countries, to enforce the trigger that will re-impose the sanctions if
they violate the rules. Thats a huge deal.
(Inaudible) Israel and Hamas were about to engage in a shooting war in Gaza, which is the last
thing we need with all the trouble were having in Syria. She went to Egypt and made a deal and
got a ceasefire and it never happened.
Thirdly, we had a reset with Russia once. You remember, and everybody says, Oh, it failed.
The Republicans kill me. They blame President Obama if somebody gets a cold in Indonesia.
(Laughter.) Somebody got a cold in Bali last night I told you Obama had no leadership ability.
(Laughter.) As if we were masters of the universe down to the last (inaudible). Thats not true.

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But this deal with Russia, called the New START Treaty, reduces warheads and missiles. With
all the tensions in the world today and all the trouble in Ukraine and all these places, I dont
know about you but Im really glad that its far less likely that there will be an accidental or
intentional nuclear exchange. The world is better off. She did that. Her team negotiated it, she
got it through the Senate had to have 67 votes, lots of Republicans. She sold them. Now, they
say bad things about her now, but if youre ever in Brooklyn, go by Hillarys headquarters.
Theres pictures of all these guys running for president and their past nominees, Romney and
McCain, with all the things they said about Hillary before she started running. (Laughter.) At
some point, well have a chance to say, When were you telling the truth, then or now?
(Laughter.) She could get that done.
These things are important. Something thats really important to me my foundation does a lot
of work on AIDS, fighting AIDS, TB, malaria. And we lowered the price of AIDS medicine.
When Hillary become Secretary of State, she inherited President Bushs best accomplishment,
the PEPFAR program fighting AIDS around the world. At the time, your tax money was saving
1.7 million lives. She immediately ordered them to go to 100 percent purchases of generic
drugs, and in 15 minutes we went from saving 1.7 million lives a year to 5.1 million tripled the
number and it did not cost you one red cent. (Applause.) You got it for nothing, just by doing
what had to be done.
And those are just four reasons why when she left office, the approval of the United States
around the world was more than 20 points higher than it was when she took office.
So if you believe thats what (inaudible), then youve got to help us win. And I appreciate your
contributions, but we need you to talk to people about this. The purpose of this, as Congressman
McCarthy and the congressman said, the purpose of this assault on her this is the eighth
committee to look into Benghazi, plus the best commission that was appointed was the one she
commissioned with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Americas most
distinguished living diplomat, which said here are 29 things you ought to do to make sure this
doesnt happen again, and she had them all being implemented by the time she left office.
When Ronald Reagan was President, we lost over 220 Marines at a barracks in Lebanon when
they didnt have the gates locked. Then there were three attacks on our diplomatic corps, all
within about 14 months right after that. Tip ONeill was the Speaker of the House we had one
hearing. The Democrats did not play politics with it. They made recommendations about what
should be done. All those recommendations are supposed to be implemented months and months
before they were.
So the fourth thing that happened was they kidnapped the CIA station chief and murdered him,
and when they asked President Reagan he said, Well, its kind of like repairing the home
sometimes they just dont repair them on time. If she had said that, she wouldnt be in this race
today, would she?
So theyve politicized this, but there is a reason, and you should take heart from it. Theyre
saying to all of us, Please dont nominate her. We do not want to run against her. Just pick

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anybody else. Just not her. And we just have to decide whether were going to let them tell us
what to do or not.
Because, dont be fooled: these guys do a lot of serious psychological studies. And they know
that if you badmouth somebody enough in the press, day in and day out, especially if youve got
your own microphone with Fox News, even if every single charge turns out to be false, you can
hurt them. I know, Ive been there; they tried it with me. And so what we have to do is not give
them permission to tell us whats best for America. And I dont care what they tell you once
she wins this race, shes proved she can work with them and get something done. And we need
your help in doing that.
Im very proud of her and Im proud of the way she (inaudible) under these last two months
because all of her life, shes been the person and this is another thing they do whose friends
and families depended on her to be the rock, her to solve problems, her to get things done, her to
take care of things. And here theyre telling you shes fast and loose in the secrets of the United
States? Ill give you one example.
The night Osama bin Laden was taken out, President Obama called to tell me. Parentheses: all
living former presidents have lifetime security clearance. I could take CIA papers every day if I
wanted to. I dont, because of Hillarys jobs in the Senate and Secretary of State, because I give
too many public speeches and Id hate to accidentally say something that I read in a government
document. But she can tell me anything, dont you think? So he calls and says, Im sure
Hillarys already told you, but we got bin Laden tonight. I said, No, this is the first Ive heard
of it. He said, Oh, come on. I said, You told her not to tell anybody, didnt you? And he
said, Sure. I said, She didnt tell me. (Laughter.)
The idea that somebody whos spent a lifetime doing the right thing in the right way would do
some of the things theyve accused her of is inherently ludicrous. Leon Panetta, our former CIA
chief and Secretary of Defense, told me the other day he said, This is ridiculous. Theyre now
trying to classify a memo she got from the late Richard Holbrooke with a newspaper article on it
about Pakistans drone program. At the time, I, Leon Panetta, had given a public speech about it.
Senator Diane Feinstein had talked about and there had been a dozen newspaper articles. And
the intelligence agencies said, It doesnt matter, we never said it was alright so we want to
retroactively classify it. It is ludicrous.
Just remember this: When I met Hillary, she was working with the legal aid clinic at our law
school. Next summer, for the Childrens Defense Fund, she went to Georgia and Alabama to
visit 14- and 15-year-old African American kids that were in grownup jails to try to get them out
of those jails and have them properly processed. When she got out of law school, she didnt take
any of these big law firm jobs; she went to work for the Childrens Defense Fund. When she
came to Arkansas, we were both teaching school and making about $15,000 a year as I
remember, and she started a legal aid clinic. And President Carter put her on the Legal Services
Corporation board; at 29 she became the youngest person ever to chair the board, to this day.
When I was governor, she headed our education standards program when an expert said we had
the worst schools in the country. When I ran for president, the same guy said most improved
schools in America: Arkansas and South Carolina. She did that.

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Whether in office or out of office, she has consistently gotten the job done in an honorable way.
She deserves this (inaudible). And she will not disappoint you. But to get there, we have to not
disappoint her. And there are lots of people in the Democratic Party and lots of working people
all over the world who are sick and tired of working their heart out and never getting a pay raise.
And so they think the political system is rigged against them, which it is to some extent, and they
think it doesnt make any difference anyway, so they want to vote for whoever they think will
raise the most hell. I want to vote for whoever I think will make the most difference, and thats
what you have to talk to people about. If the issue is who will make the most difference, its not
a close question. Please go tell people that, everybody you can find.
God bless you. (Applause.)
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