Original subtitles

What do you think?-

Anyway, we um, lots of, lots of adventures.

So, after everything

you went through in the '90s,

most people would stay out of politics but you didn't.

Absolutely, yes. -And you

eventually ran for president. - You know, look.

I think I felt compelled to kind of get up and keep going

and not to get knocked down, you know,

you can literally pull the covers over your head

and say my gosh I can't deal with this

or you say screw you, you know what,

I'm getting up, I'm getting dressed, getting my hair done,

putting my makeup on and going out there.

- Hello.

- I won't.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Good luck in the election.

- Thank you.

- My God, my god.

- You can take criticism seriously,

because you may actually learn something right.

I say that all the time.

But don't take it personally.

Because it can knock you to your knees

if you take it personally,

and you begin to doubt yourself.

Everybody has a motivation.

The motivation can be petty, it can be ideological,

in my case it could be partisan.

But that can't affect your core about who you are.

- You being a a woman president,

I've heard it before said about you,

what if she makes decisions based on emotions.

- A lot of people don't even think

I have any emotions!

I love that.

Thank you.

You people are here, even the lady from Alabama.

- No kidding. - Love you girl.

- How are you my dear.

Ta da! - Look at our night.

- How are you?

- I am here, Amy was amazing.

I don't know how many trips she made,

she spoke at Democratic centers.

These women, they were great to have around

and they were people that I identified with.

You know they got it.

- You know we as women have a lot of things in common.

There's always a message we get

about we're too this or too that.

Wait your turn, you smile too much you must not be serious,

you don't smile enough you must not be friendly.

You talk too much and you're too serious

and you know I wouldn't want to have a beer with you,

or I would want to have a beer with you

but you can't run security for our country.

Your hair, you know, Donald Trump's hair,

what about that hair?

- We would get all sorts of advice

about how Hillary should be presenting herself.

What she should wear, what her voice should sound like.

The kind of words she should use.

How she stands at a podium, how she modulates her voice.

- Hey guys.

- I will.

- Thank you, thank you.

- We like sat through presentations,

we brought people in to meet with her.

And I'd say if you could tell her,

a woman on the world stage who does it perfectly

then she could emulate that person.

And no one ever had an answer.

No one ever had an answer for who that woman is.

- This is the moment,

when folks talk about a revolution?

The revolution is electing

the first woman president of the United States.

- One of the most interesting stories

in the primary was this generational divide

between young women and their mothers,

and young women were supporting Bernie

and their mothers were saying how could you do that,

Hillary has to be the first woman president

and young women just had no reflective gender allegiance.

- Hey Marge how are you?

- I saw you, I love you.

Interestingly, the women who were excited about

the first woman president

were either much older or very young.

- Little girls were so mad that there

had not been a girl president.

They would come in,

they would come in with, there's like this place mat,

that has all of the president's faces

and they would bring their place mat to their Hillary event

and they'd be like where is the girl president.

Girls were really into her,

they loved her and they had their little pant suits

that they would wear.

- They had to make a presentation.

- My gosh Sammy that is so neat.

I hope, did you get a good grade?

- Yeah.

- Good.

The democratic race is just about over.

Hillary Clinton has 92 percent of the delegates

that she needs for the nomination.

Hillary Clinton,

last night when you took the stage,

there was a woman standing next to me

who was absolutely sobbing.

She said you know, it's time, they get tears in their eyes.

- Right.

Do you feel the weight of what this means?

- I do, I do.

And it's really emotional,

and I am someone who has been

really encouraged by this extraordinary conviction

that people have that's predominantly women and girls

but not exclusively,

men bring their daughters to meet me

and tell me that they are supporting me

because of their daughters.

And I do think it will make a very big difference

for a father or a mother

to be able to look at their daughter

just like they can look at their son.

And say you can be anything you want to be in this country,

including president of the United States.

- Howard loves you.

Howard loves you!

- Thank you so much.

- Take care now, goodbye.

- Nice job.

Democratic primary

is drawing to a close tonight with--

California goes to Hillary Clinton.

With victories in four primaries.

New Mexico, South Dakota.

- Tonight, Hillary Clinton burst at least part way through

that glass ceiling she's always spoken about,

becoming the first woman to clinch

a major party's nomination for president in this country.

- The first thing I did as I came in

was sort of huddle with my team about the speech

because it was a historic moment,

and it had never happened before,

and we wanted to capture that.

That would mean these two here are ready to go.

And I wanted to link it to the past

and everything that people had sacrificed

and worked toward which in many ways was culminating.

I mean Shirley Chisholm was the first person

on the Democratic side to run

and I thought about you know, Gerri Ferraro,

the first woman on a vice presidential ticket

of a major party.

I was just on the brink of tears,

I thought wow, this is more than

I could have ever imagined.

Right as I was ready to go off, you know into the room,

I remember Kumar grabbing me and saying,

you know just take it all in, just take it all in.

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.

- Thanks to you, we've reached a milestone.

The first time,

the first time in our nation's history

that a woman will be a major party's nominee

for the president of the United States.

I know then you had to pivot

to campaigning against Donald Trump.

- Right. - If you could just

talk about that experience. - Right.

Well he entered the campaign with such negative energy,

so much vitriol.

- I think the only card she has is the woman's card.

She's got nothing else going,

and frankly if Hillary Clinton were a man,

I don't think she'd get five percent of the vote.

The only thing she's got going is the woman's card

and the beautiful thing is, women don't like her.

- He clearly felt comfortable attacking women,

relished in denigrating women.

Then he's turning on me saying that I'm running as a woman

or I'm using the fact that I'm a woman,

and so we wanted to lean into it.

I wanted to say yeah you're right, I am.

We're ready.

We've got to get her out before the culprits.

Yeah.

- We need to go guys. - Yup.

- Now the other day,

Mr Trump accused me,

of playing the, quote, woman card.

Boo.

- Well if fighting for women's healthcare

and paid family leave and equal pay

is playing the woman card then deal me in!

Donald Trump joins us now on the phone.

Well I haven't quite recovered,

it's early in the morning, from her shouting that message,

the way she shouted that message was not ooh.

- If you go back and look at some

of Donald Trump's comments,

she wouldn't even be allowed to run if she weren't a woman,

you know, which is crazy given her experience and his.

But nobody really blinked at those kinds of statements.

- Hillary was a leader of the feminist revolution.

People forget it.

You know in the '90s there was an element

of radicalism to her feminism.

You know, she was too right too soon.

at the White House,

Hillary Clinton seems very much the traditional first lady,

not the barnstorming brains

behind national healthcare reform.

- I want to welcome all of you to the White House.

We, this year, chose the theme

of the twelve days of Christmas.

After the failure we had in universal health care,

I felt terrible, I felt like okay,

can't take on another project,

I gotta figure out what I can do that makes sense.

So I did regroup with my staff

and we had a series of meetings that you know,

were painful and tearful and difficult.

- We all discussed kind of

how are we going to go forward here.

And we decided that you should go overseas.

Pursue this passion you have on women's rights.

- In other news the first lady's good will visit

to South Asia has taken her to India,

the second leg of a five nation South Asia tour

for Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea.

- I thought "what a great

experience it would be for Chelsea

if she could go with me."

I had never been to any of those places

so it was all new to me.

This is the first time a US first lady

has visited this region

since Jackie Kennedy visited in 1962.

Mrs. Kennedy handed out lollipops to children

and rode an elephant side saddle.

Mrs Clinton is seen as more a woman of substance,

campaigning for better education

and healthcare for women and children.

- I remember being in this remote part of India

and women walked thirteen hours

to see and meet with Hillary Clinton.

- I agree with all of you

that women no longer should be silent.

Is this the one I worked on?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have to go guys get in.

- I was alone on that trip.

You know we had the first lady's press corps.

And we land in Pakistan,

and she went to a school for girls,

and they wanted to be doctors

and they wanted to be lawyers

and they wanted to be teachers,

just like any smart young women,

but in a country that didn't allow that.

- So you have two of your daughters

who graduated already, from this school,

but now they have no further opportunities.

- I remember she was blown away by that.

And it was something that,

was very close to the core of her soul.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton

continues her twelve day tour

of South Asia today with a stop in Bangladesh.

What does it mean

to have Mrs. Clinton come here?

- Nobody came into this village.

This is a part of the village

that nobody will ever dare to come.

Now comes the first lady of the world to visit us,

the first lady of the world is coming here.

So we are important.

And now they're standing tall

because all of the world is watching.

Her international travel becomes a balm.

Everywhere she goes, they greet her rapturously

and it's healing I think, in some ways,

for her because suddenly she's not being told

she's a liberal shrew who is outside of her lane.

- Hi, fancy meeting you all here.

We had a great group of reporters with us,

and they had a lot of interaction with her,

you know saw her let her hair down.

And a lot of them said to me on that trip,

she should do more of this, I mean,

people should see what we see.

She was much different on this trip

than I'd ever seen her before

because the plane was off the record,

we would get into all kinds of conversations

and Chelsea was there,

I got to see her be Chelsea's mom

and she's a really great mom.

- Certainly growing up I had seen out of personal attacks

about my mom for her appearance,

her working, her presumably also like

not being a very good mother,

like poor Chelsea she must like

have no time with her mom,

and I thankfully remember that being like

just totally ludicrous

like, to tell me anything about my mom

who is this like super present, super warm like amazing mom.

And from a very early age I just realized what people say

or assert you know,

maybe like not even remotely reflective

or related to reality.

- It was an amazing trip, and without knowing it,

very serendipitous because when I was asked to speak

at the Beijing women's conference,

I had this very recent real world experience

about what was facing women in places like South Asia.

- So Hillary's invited by the secretary general

of the United Nations,

to speak to the fourth UN world conference on women.

- You're honorary chair

on the international conference on women,

they've got a September meeting scheduled for Beijing.

- -

Will you go there?

- I don't know yet.

Well the White House did not want me to go.

The State Department did not want me to go,

because of China's human rights abuses.

So there was almost a wall of opposition to my going.

Conservative leaders are still unhappy

with the whole idea of the United Nations conference.

- There's no interest in Hillary Clinton

going to this women's conference,

it's not an important conference,

I mean that's the great myth about this.

I think she should not go for all the reasons,

the awkwardness of her political and diplomatic position

in this in this funny office,

we keep saying first lady capital F and L as if it exists.

And that's a fairly new invention of the American media.

- No, no, no,

come, come, come. - But Harry S Truman

would never have sent Bess Truman to China.

- Seriously. - But...

- This does have a useful. - Eleanor Roosevelt

would have gone.

- It does, precisely.

- At the same time we're working on her speech,

and there's tremendous speculation about her speech,

that speech was shown to no one.

- It was a very small group of people

who worked on it, really small.

And we did not have it vetted

until we were on our way there.

I think that was important because otherwise

it would have been diluted.

And we were determined and she was determined,

not to dilute it.

- I said "I wanna push the envelope

as far as we can push it."

- First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived

in Beijing tonight for the largest UN gathering ever.

The fourth world conference on women.

She landed right in the middle of a controversy

over stifling Chinese security measures

and over demands that she speak out about human rights.

- We worked and finalized a speech,

didn't get much sleep at all.

Did not know what to expect.

Those of us who have the opportunity to be here

have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.

- And it starts out very slow.

- Yet much of the work we do.

- There was no response

as Hillary started delivering it

and Melanne and I suddenly panicked.

- And we kind of look at each other thinking gosh.

- Like we totally misjudged this, we misread this occasion,

we are going to get her in big trouble.

She's going to create an international,

because nobody was reacting,

they were all just sitting there stone faced.

- Families flourish, communities--

This crowd was all listening to translations,

so there was always a delay,

they weren't reacting immediately

and I kept waiting for it.

Here in Beijing.

- And she begins to go into this crescendo.

- For too long,

the history of women has been a history of silence.

- And goes through a litany

of what is happening to women around the world.

- It is a violation of human rights

when women are doused with gasoline,

set on fire and burned to death

because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

- Honor killings, dowry burnings,

girls who have their life snuffed out.

- Simply because they are born girls.

- Domestic violence, rape as a tool of war,

Human trafficking and as she's going through this,

for each of them she's saying

and this is a violation of human rights.

And you could see the audience begin

to come completely enveloped into her speech.

- If there is one message that echoes forth

from this conference,

let it be that human rights are women's rights

and women's rights are human rights once and for all.

- She declared that women's rights are human rights.

It redefined human rights around the world.

- You know, I've traveled with her for many years after that

and people would run up clutching copies of that speech,

reciting that line from it, like it was the manifesto,

a validation of so many tens of millions of women,

hundreds of millions of women around the world

who have nobody speaking for them, no one ever,

had spoken for them.

- The whole thing was just extraordinary.

There's a picture of Hillary and Melanne Verveer and me

on the plane going out,

and I remember it was a women's moment.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the president of the United States,

the First Lady and Chelsea Clinton.

- Today the American people have spoken,

they have told us to go forward.

Today our economy is stronger, our streets are safer,

the world is more secure

and thank God our nation is more united.

- By the time '96 came around,

the economic plan was working,

people saw it and the economy was booming.

- The economic bill was the most important thing,

it reversed trickle down economics,

or what they called Reaganomics.

Went back to arithmetic, invest and grow and be prudent,

and it sparked the longest peace time recovery in history.

- After the failure of the Clinton healthcare plan,

Hillary spun immediately into getting healthcare

for working class kids.

The children's heath insurance program.

- Senator Teddy Kennedy said to me,

well I think I might be able to get Orrin Hatch,

a Republican senator from Utah to work with us.

We were able to get it through the Senate,

get it through the House and pass the Chip program

that literally provides health insurance for kids

about ten million a year.

We didn't get to universal healthcare coverage,

but you know I think the debate we sometimes have,

all or nothing is the wrong debate.

How do we get something done in an environment

that's very partisan,

filled with powerful special interests and then keep going.

- Serious crime has dropped five years in a row.

The key has been community policing.

We must finish the job

of putting a hundred thousand community police

on the streets of the United States.

- Now Bill Clinton came back

to where he should have been all along.

And that was in the center of the spectrum.

He was elected as a moderate.

He was elected because the American people

were very concerned about crime.

Going back you know, the late 1980's early 1990's.

We were having a crack epidemic at that point.

Typical scenes in America's big cities.

There's a tidal wave

of juvenile violent crime right over the horizon.

- The less we deal,

with the ravages of crime and drug and violence,

none of the other things we seek to do

will ever take us where we need to go.

- Crime was rampant, drugs were rampant,

in particular in communities of color.

The president was hearing from mayors,

he was hearing from the congressional black caucus,

and they were saying please do something.

President Clinton signed a crime bill into law,

30 billion dollars for more police,

new prisons, harsher penalties.

It includes President Clinton's

three strikes and you're out provision.

- It becomes critical to Bill Clinton

to come up with a sort of centrist set of policies.

And things like mandatory sentencing

had strong support on both sides of the aisle.

I think that people were not cognizant

of the fact that you would essentially be filling up

the country's prisons with a lot of non-violent offenders.

- Were there parts of it that should have been revisited

and that you know, had unintended consequences,

absolutely there were.

And I think Bill has said that and you know,

people who were involved in it have basically said it.

So there's criticism and I understand that.

I also think that people were then

taking out of context things that I said and did.

We also have to have an organized effort against gangs.

We need to take these people on,

they are often connected to big drug cartels,

they are not just gangs of kids anymore.

They are often the kinds of kids

that are called super predators, no conscience, no empathy,

we can talk about why they ended up that way,

but first we have to bring them to heal.

- In the 1990's there was a lot of hysteria

about the idea of super predators.

It was on magazine covers and she was responding

to what was being talked about at the time.

Now, what may have seemed like a reasonable thing to say

in the 90's in the light of 2016, did not look good.

- I was talking about gang members.

I was talking about vicious gang members,

you don't hear me putting race on it at all.

But did you have to then apologize

during this election for that?

- I don't remember, I mean I was always saying,

trying to explain things

that people didn't want to hear, so.

- We are all in this together,

as we Methodists like to say,

do all the good you can to all the people you can

in all the ways you can.

How are you my friend?

- I'm doing real good.

-

Please join me in welcoming

congressman John Lewis and secretary Hillary Clinton

as we at Clark Atlanta University,

continue mobilizing for the future.

- The leaders of the civil rights movement had it right.

Using nonviolence, using the power--

- Black lives matter!

- Yes they do!

- Yes they do and I'm going to talk a lot about that.

We need you.

We need the promise of a rising generation of activists

who are fearless in your advocacy and determination.

Let her talk, let her talk, let her talk,

let her talk, let her talk, let her talk.

- I don't have any bad feelings at all

about the Black Lives movement,

about what they did and how they did it,

and how they tried to express themselves.

The cry to be heard, to be seen, was absolutely appropriate.

The rash of killings of young unarmed black men

was so outrageous and painful,

and there needed to be a reaction to that.

People are crying out for criminal justice reform.

Families are being torn apart by excessive incarceration.

Young people are being threatened

and humiliated by racial profiling.

They're trying to tell us we need to listen.

I talked about it a lot, taking on some really tough issues,

particularly around gun violence.

But by the time we got to the general election,

much to my surprise actually, it didn't matter,

because I was running a kind of textbook campaign.

Meanwhile, my Republican opponent

was just ranting and raving

and it just sucked up all the oxygen.

- Hillary Clinton is a bigot

who sees people of color

only as votes not as human beings.

- Trump is so out there, how do you deal with this,

this is not a ordinary candidate.

- Get 'em out,

I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you.

There are so many things that are controversial

and out of the norm.

- Crooked Hillary Clinton, she's crooked folks,

she's crooked as a three dollar bill.

Now she's got bad temperament, she could be crazy,

she could actually be crazy.

- He's got a bullying style, and will say anything,

and she is the candidate of control,

a school yard rumble isn't exactly her,

her normal, you know, venue is in her strength.

- This was one of the biggest debates

that I had with myself, and that I had with my campaign.

What do you respond to, and what do you ignore.

I mean I saw what happened to the other Republicans

that were running against him.

They tried all kinds of tactics, to respond, to out shame,

to try to out-insult, none of it worked.

- He seemed almost impervious to it.

- Most of what Donald Trump does is the same thing

why a dog licks his balls.

Because he knows he can.

- The problem with Trump was his utter ability

to drive the news.

Donald Trump effectively decided what was talked about

in the news every day.

- Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able

to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

- That was during our convention,

so what do you think drove news that day.

Our convention or Donald Trump telling Russia

to hack Hillary Clinton about her emails.

Someone like Hillary Clinton,

she can't compete theatrically with that, she just can't.

- Hillary Clinton always has been and was

throughout the campaign, deeply suspicious of the press.

- Thank you everybody.

Trump exists because of the press.

- Hillary at that point said I think

this is going to come down to debates.

Those three debates are going to be the ball game.

- I thought they were gonna be determinative.

I thought that the contrast between me and Trump

would swing a lot of votes, that's what I thought.

- We were only a couple points ahead and the expectations

for him were so low that if he had come close

to beating her, the race could flip

and he could take the lead.

- He had learned already in the campaign,

he wasn't gonna be held accountable,

nobody was gonna held, hold him accountable except for me,

I was going to be the one who was going to have to try.

So how does he figure that out?

- Haha.

- Do you want one?

- Yeah thanks Donald, that's really nice of you.

- I had the honor and the misfortune

of playing Donald Trump in her debate prep.

- Philippe immersed himself in acting like,

looking like, talking like Donald Trump.

- He would be unafraid to push back at me,

to say and do things that were really

offensive and annoying.

- Are you gonna share your 33,000 emails.

- I made a mistake in using a private email,

I've said this before.

- Breaking news.

- The other thing we really wanted

to accomplish was to trigger him.

You know we knew he was a narcissist,

and so if we could get him flying off the handle,

that would show who he really is,

that would show his temperament.

- Just over the next segment.

- You go to her website, and you take a look at her website,

she's gonna raise taxes $1.3 trillion,

and look at her website, you know what

she's telling us how to fight ISIS,

just go to her website, she tells you how to fight ISIS

on her website, I don't think General Douglas MacArthur

would like that too much.

- All right the next, the next segment will continue.

- Well at least I have a plan to fight ISIS.

No, no you're telling the enemy

everything you want to do.

- Well Donald I know you live in your own reality

but that is not the fact.

- You know to take on this bully, this nasty bully

and to stand up to him, he really was disoriented,

it was great.

- This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs.

One of the worst things he said was about a woman

in a beauty contest, he loves beauty contests,

supporting them and hanging around them.

And he called this woman Miss Piggy,

then he called her

Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.

Donald she has a name.

- Where did you find this?

- Her name is Alicia Machado-- - Where did you find this?

- And she has become a US citizen

and you can bet she's going to vote this November.

- Really? Okay, okay good.

Let me just tell you.

I was looking to get.

- I'm proud of you, I'm proud of you.

- I saw you smiling and I saw your dad

sometimes leaning forward and putting his head in his hand.

God, I'm proud of you.

- I just kept smiling, I just kept smiling,

you were so good. - That was great.

- She went into that first debate prepared

to make Donald Trump look inexperienced.

- They had this idea that if they could get him

to be inappropriate or say inappropriate things,

to to act out, that it would hurt his candidacy.

But that's what he was selling.

- Mr. Trump how do you think you did tonight.

- I thought it was great, I mean I got everything I wanted

to say I got it out, other than the transgressions of Bill,

I didn't want to say what I was going to say

with Chelsea in the room.

She's married to a man who was the worst abuser of women

in the history of politics.

She's married to a man who hurt many women,

and Hillary, Hillary was an enabler,

so just remember that folks.

- Sunday morning I get a call from my editor

and she says there's this crazy story out there

about President Clinton and an intern

and we need you to chase it.

I'm like,.

How on earth am I going to ever write a story, you just,

this is a dog assignment because

how can we ever prove something like that.

At that time, we didn't write stories like that,

it wasn't what the mainstream press did.

Paula Jones filed a lawsuit she says

the governor of Arkansas made a pass at her.

- It's just humiliating what he did to me.

- A judge had ordered the president of the United States

to give testimony in response to Paula Jones' allegations.

I was a junior guy on the beat and nobody wanted

to touch the Paula Jones story.

It just seemed icky and and not going anywhere.

Good morning Mr. President.

- Good morning.

My name is Jim Fisher...

- What we learned later is

the president is asked during his deposition

about a young woman at the White House

named Monica Lewinsky.

At any time were you and Monica Lewinsky

together alone in the Oval Office.

- I don't recall but as I said when she worked

at the legislative affairs office,

they always had somebody there on the weekends,

I typically work some on the weekends,

sometimes they bring me things on the weekends,

she, it seems to me she brought things

to me once or twice on the weekends.

Did it ever happen that you and she went

down the hallway from the Oval Office

to the private kitchen.

Your honor, excuse me Mr. President,

I need some guidance from the court at this time--

- Now Clinton knew he was going to be asked about her

because her name had been on the list the lawyers submitted.

But what he wasn't expecting was they would ask him

so many very specific questions

about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Have you ever given any gifts to Monica Lewinsky.

They clearly knew something and he didn't know

how they knew it, they knew about gifts

that he had given her--

- I don't recall, do you know what they were?

A hat pin.

- I don't, I don't remember.

Did you have a extramarital sexual affair

with Monica Lewinsky?

- No.

If she told someone that she had a sexual affair

with you beginning in November of 1995, would that be a lie?

- It's certainly not the truth.

It would not be the truth.

- And what we learned was that Ken Starr was looking

into it, that the independent counsel was looking

into whether President Clinton had lied under oath,

had tampered with witnesses, had obstructed justice

by trying to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky

in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit.

And I remember sitting in our national editor's office

and there's a whole scrum of us,

there's no question in our mind to publish the story.

But I remember walking home that night around two

in the morning just thinking my god, you know

what's going to come now, what have we unleashed here.

And sure enough five in the morning,

the whole thing just blew up.

Allegations of sex

in the White House, taped conversations.

An amazing day in Washington.

A sexual affair with a-.

White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Mr. President's special behavior.

The keyword there is if the allegations are true.

- Bill came early one morning into the bedroom,

I was not up yet and he sat on the side of the bed

and he said I have to tell you something,

there's a story that's gonna be in the newspaper.

That, it's about an intern who worked

in the White House and claiming

that I had a relationship with her.

You know I was just like waking up, I didn't,

I was like having a hard time processing it, and I said

what are you talking about, what, what, what is this,

what do you mean?

He said well there's nothing to it, it's not true,

you know I may have been you know too nice to her,

I may have you know paid her you know, too much attention

but there there was nothing, and he was adamant,

and he was convincing to me.

- I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Miss Lewinsky.

- He publicly denied it, and privately denied it to Hillary,

to me, to everybody else.

Face to face, eye to eye.

- And he said just don't quit on me,

I'm telling you it's not true, don't quit on me.

And I said okay. Yes sir.

And walked out, that was a 10 second conversation.

- You've got a White House in total paralysis.

At the same time, Hillary had made a commitment

to being on the today show.

- And good morning--

And she didn't want to cancel.

- The last time we visited a subject like this

involving your family was 1992.

And the name Jennifer Flowers was in the news

and your husband admitted that he had quote caused pain

in your marriage.

If he were to be asked today Mrs. Clinton,

do you think that he would admit

that he has again caused pain in this marriage.

- No, absolutely not.

And he shouldn't.

You know we've been married for 22 years Matt,

and I have learned a long time ago that the only people

who count in any marriage are the two that are in it.

- Now this is in a way shades

of the 60 minutes interview right, she's saving him again.

It's her validation that allows him to keep going,

because otherwise the pressure for resignation

was already rising, the anger within the Democratic party

not just the Republican party was enormous.

- You know the president has denied these allegations

on all counts, unequivocally, and we'll-- we'll see

how this plays out, you know I guess everybody says to me

how can you be so calm, or how can you

just you know look like you're not upset

and I guess I've just been through it so many times.

I mean Bill and I have been accused of everything,

including murder by some of the very same people

who are behind these allegations.

That's what I believed, I believed it was part

of the whole Starr investigation

and I was absolutely persuaded because of my own experience,

not what anybody else went through but I went through

that this guy would make up stuff.

If they could make up something,

if they could lie about something they were so partisan

that they would do it.

- You have said I understand to some close friends

that this was the last great battle,

and that one side or the other is going down here.

- This is, the great story here for anybody willing

to find it and write about it and explain it

is this vast right wing conspiracy

that has been conspiring against my husband

since the day he announced for president.

Facing the cameras for the first time

since he began an investigation of the alleged affair

and cover-up, prosecutor Kenneth Starr's dismissed charges

he is out to hurt the president.

- I have a very strong belief in facts and in truth,

and that the facts will come out

and the truth will come out, eventually.

- I believed Lewinsky.

From the beginning and I think all of us did.

Not that we had inside information, but that

it just didn't seem far from the person that we knew.

And I hugged her and wanted very much to comfort her,

but it would be like a mask would come over her

in those days.

That was in between the disclosure,

the public disclosure

and the time that he admitted that it was true.

Monica I love you. -Monica!

- So Monica was my intern.

She um,

she was this was when I worked for the White House

Chief of Staff, she did a really good job, very diligent,

easy to work with pleasant, nice, smart.

- Day 13 of the federal budget crisis and the shutdown

that's brought parts of the government to a dead stop.

- Today as of noon, almost half

of the federal government employees are idle.

- During the government shutdown,

we set a very skeleton staff, but we were allowed

to use interns, so I asked her if she would come over

and you know answer phones and just help me

around the chief of staff's office.

I think that maybe she had had seen the President

a few times before at events or something, but she met him,

he came down, it was my birthday.

And he came down to cut my birthday cake

and that was when she met him.

It was a very unusual time, you know normally

you don't see the president very often, so in that way

it was unusual to have that kind of interaction.

After a few days Evelyn Lieberman

who was the deputy Chief of Staff at the time

pulled me aside and said I think you should tell your intern

that she can go home for the day.

And I was like, I think, she's like no,

I think you should do that.

And so, so I told Monica,

you know look it's Saturday, you know it's a beautiful day,

you don't need to be here, and she fought me a little

but she eventually left.

But you know, I didn't think anything of it

because of course who would think

that Bill Clinton could be that stupid, right.

- Bill Clinton, the first president ever subpoenaed

to testify before a federal grand jury

in office will do so tomorrow.

He may in the process become the first leader

in the history of this republic to admit

to an elicit relationship with a young coworker

while in office.

- When the president finally comes around to concluding

that he has to tell the grand jury

that there had been a relationship,

he goes to his wife, and fesses up.

- I went and sat on the bed and talked to her.

I told her exactly what happened, when it happened,

I said I feel terrible about it, I said you know we've been

through quite a bit in the last few years, I told her

I have no defense, this is inexcusable what I did.

- I was just devastated, I could not believe it.

I was so you know, personally just hurt,

and you know, I can't believe this,

I can't believe you lied,

you know it just anyway was horrible.

And I said if this is gonna be public,

you have got to go tell Chelsea.

- She said well you have to go tell your daughter,

she said that's worse than me.

And so I did that.

Which was awful.

Justifiably, what I did was wrong.

I just hated to hurt her.

But you know, we all bring our baggage to life

and sometimes we do things you shouldn't do,

and it was awful what I did.

Five seconds.

- Good evening.

This afternoon in this room, from this chair,

I testified before the Office of Independent Counsel

and the grand jury.

I answered their questions truthfully, including questions

about my private life, questions no American citizen

would ever want to answer.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky

that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

It constituted a critical lapse in judgment

and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely

and completely responsible.

Why do you think you took

that risk with your marriage and your child

and your country, what do you--

When you look back--

- Nobody thinks about that, nobody thinks I'm taking a risk,

that's not why people do stupid things.

That's not what happened, nobody sits down

and thinks I think I'll take a really irresponsible risk.

It's bad for my family, it's bad for my country,

bad for the people who work with me,

that's not what happened.

That you you feel like you're staggering around

and you've been in a 15 round prize fight

that was extended to 30 rounds.

And here's something that will take your mind off it

for a while, that's what happened.

Because there, whatever life, not just me,

everybody's life has pressures and disappointment

and terrors, fears of whatever.

Things I did to manage my anxiety for years,

I'm a different, totally different person than I was,

a lot of that stuff, you know 20 years ago,

maybe it's just getting older, but I hope it was also

going through a lot of this but whatever.

But I did it, it was bad, but it wasn't like I thought,

let's see how can I think about the most stupid thing

I could possibly do and do it.

It's not a defense, it's an explanation, it was awful.

And I feel terrible about the--

- The president's extraordinary speech tonight

could have a huge impact on the country.

He has lied to the American people

for seven and a half months.

He let down his family, he let down the country.

The morning after, people are wondering--

- I wanna get away, I want to get out of Washington.

We did have plans to go to Martha's vineyard.

I had some really good friends there.

Chelsea put herself between us and held both our hands,

that was not anything other than her just

trying to keep us together.

And when she did that my gosh, I thought,

that's just that's just so incredible.

So strong and so wise.

She was filling in our empty space there.

The picture is worth a million words.

There's a fairly large crowd.

Now you hear the applause, and the president emerges

along with Chelsea and behind him Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Clinton turns 52 tomorrow.

Normally there is a party or some sort of celebration

on the island, the question is

just how public the president will be this time.

I think he and his wife are keenly aware of the fact

that they're being watched.

They're in a glass bowl here.

- I still didn't talk to him.

I didn't want anything to do with him.

He spent a lot of time just playing golf

and talking to a couple of his friends.

- I don't even know how in the world she managed through it,

'cause she had to do it on the public stage,

not like a normal person who has the misfortune

of going through something like that.

Every time they appeared publicly it was

are they wearing the wedding rings, are they holding hands,

what's the body language, that's all they analyzed.

- I can tell you this.

Insofar as I've ever known anyone well,

those two people love each other, if they didn't

it would be so much easier.

- She's been a figure of controversy,

which is why her current standing is so fascinating,

because now what may be the low point of her time

in the White House, public approval

for Mrs. Clinton has never been higher.

But even as a victim, Mrs. Clinton, still raises doubts.

In the latest ABC news poll, 79 percent say

they think she's known about the affair for months.

- I think people don't really understand what,

how hurt she has been personally by him, you know

in the Monica Lewinsky case, it's because she's so smart

people always believe there is some deviousness,

that she must have known about Monica Lewinsky all along,

and been out there lying to protect him.

And you know I always thought that would be so much better

than the truth that he really lied to her

and she really was devastated, and I think to this day,

people don't understand that.

- After investigating the president for four years,

Ken Starr's office has finally delivered

a report to congress.

A report that could pose the most serious impeachment threat

to a president since the days of Watergate.

- They come back from those couple weeks

in Martha's Vineyard and she was,

a ferocious opponent of impeachment,

which wasn't just personal, it was really her conviction

about the fact that what they were doing was wrong

and they needed to stand up against it.

- I had the extra burden of having been

on the impeachment staff back in 1974.

I had done the research about

what is a high crime or misdemeanor.

I knew what the standards of impeachment were,

I knew this did not meet it.

You know he shouldn't have done what he did,

he shouldn't have tried to hide it,

but it was not an impeachable offense.

- What I always found the most amazing is that she could

in her mind, or she chose to compartmentalize,

to say I might want to kill my husband,

but I don't want the country to have to lose their president

because I want to kill my husband,

and most people can't do that.

I couldn't.

I would have, I know I would have been small.

I would have said you know what, haha.

You do this to me, I can take your presidency.

And I have admired her a lot for making that hard choice.

- Once he admitted that he had lied, I was beyond furious.

I was crushed, I loved this man, so believed in him.

And really thought about quitting.

And not longer after, I said I would.

And within minutes, I got a call from the first lady,

she said I'm not quitting, you're not quitting.

That really meant a lot.

And I thought I gotta get out of my own head

and realize there's a lot more at stake here.

I swore an oath to the Constitution,

not to Bill Clinton

and I thought it was a very easy call then,

because it didn't merit impeachment at all.

The gavel falls on this historic debate

to begin impeachment hearings for only the third time

in our nation's history.

This time against President Bill Clinton.

- I was carrying on my schedule,

because I felt it was important, I didn't want,

I didn't want to frankly be portrayed any more as a victim

than the situation called for.

So, I was getting up every day and going out

and doing what I could.

- At that point, her approval ratings are

as high as they have ever been.

So come the fall in what should be a really difficult

midterm election for the Democrats,

Hillary Clinton is suddenly the most sought after,

surrogate speaker for Democrats around the country.

- Well I certainly feel welcome.

Bill Clinton is too toxic

to leave the White House, but every member of congress

wants Hillary in their district campaigning for them.

- Thank you!

And then the election came, and Democrats won.

- The American political landscape

looks a good deal different tonight

than it did just 24 hours ago.

Defying history

and what a lot of people expected, Democrats make gains

and declare a major victory.

- We gained seats, no one had ever done that,

it's impossible, and we did.

Not because people thought it was a really good idea

to have this really inappropriate affair,

but because they thought the response was crazy,

and they wanted to send a message hey cut that crap out.

And they didn't like Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich trying

to overturn a national election for something like that.

- Today the impeachment hearings began

and the star witness is Ken Starr and today he will say

for the first time that the president

did not commit impeachable offenses

in the Whitewater Filegate and Travelgate investigation.

- After the congressional election, Starr sent a report

to congress and said by the way, in addition to arguing

that he should be impeached because of Lewinsky,

we wanna report that with regard to Whitewater,

we found nothing abusive, nothing whatsoever.

- Judge Starr, you did release what amounts

to an exoneration of the president with respect

to the Vince Foster matter, is that correct?

- Yes, with respect to the cause of death,

it was a suicide by Mr. Foster.

- You felt comfortable in exonerating the president.

Yes.

- I was on that committee, Kenneth Starr

exonerated the Clintons on everything but Lewinsky.

- You tell us that months ago, you concluded that no,

that the president was not involved in the FBI files,

and you've never had any evidence he was involved

in the travel office, yet now several weeks

after the election is the first time you're saying that.

- They were a little embarrassed to say politically

that they were going to impeach the president

purely because of the sex.

They wanted to say that there was a pattern of corruption.

Well there was no pattern of corruption.

- After endless suspicion and hunting,

Ken Starr never alleged any criminal wrongdoing

by either Bill or Hillary Clinton in connection

with Whitewater, and in connection

with any of the different investigations.

- Good evening, well after all of this,

more than a year of sex, lies, and videotape,

the second impeachment trial of an American president

ended today and the vote wasn't even close.

Not guilty.

- The said William Jefferson Clinton be

and hereby is acquitted of the charges in the said articles.

- It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt

know that the sorrow I feel is genuine.

First and most important my family, also my friends,

my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family.

- I defended and stood by him because I thought

the impeachment process was wrong,

but that wasn't the necessary answer to what I would do

with my marriage, it was not to me the same.

I still had to decide, you know whether I wanted to stay

in the marriage, whether I thought it was worth saving.

We saw a counselor, I mean painful, painful discussions.

The counseling was one of the hardest things

I've ever had to do.

But it was necessary,

- She deserved it.

Chelsea deserved it and I needed it.

I feel terrible about the fact that

Monica Lewinsky's life was defined by it,

unfairly, I think.

You know, over the years, I've watched her

trying to get a normal life back again.

But you gotta decide

how to define normal.

- I made a decision to stay with my husband.

Look, I think that some people

thought I'd made the right decision

and some people thought I made the wrong decision.

And so I have gotten both

affirmation and

criticism for the decision I made.

And that was true, you know,

from the very beginning

of deciding that.

And you know, it's a funny time we live in.

The kind of public opinion shifts,

and people say, "So noble she stayed in the marriage,"

to, "It's so...

incomprehensible that she stayed in the marriage."

You know that there's forces at work in the society

that people are working through themselves.

- I was so grateful that she

thought we still had enough to stick it out.

God knows the burden she paid for that.