On Domestic Issues
RD: Okay. First question, you discussed a number of domestic issues that are important to you, today.
MRS. HILLARY CLINTON: Mm-hmm.
RD: But in order to try to get a sense of priorities, let me ask, what would the first 100 days of the Clinton Administration look like?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, it depends upon what I inherit. If our troops are still bogged down in a civil war in Iraq, I will summon my Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and my security advisors to begin the process of getting our troops out of that civil war.
I will also commence a very robust diplomatic effort, not only with respect to Iraq, but on so many of the issues that have been neglected and frankly, gotten quite dangerous over the last six and half, by then, eight years. Because I think it's important for a new president to send a message that we want to start building partnerships and alliances again. That, yes, we do have real threats and we will take whatever measures are necessary to protect America and our allies, but that we want to get back to the bipartisan foreign policy approach that worked so well for America for so long.
Here at home, I will be working very hard to partner with the Congress on healthcare that will be affordable and accessible and guaranteed for every American, an energy policy that will get us on the right track to not only wean us from our increasing dependence on foreign oil, but combat global warming and put millions of Americans to work by being innovative and creative, acting like Americans again. And, of course, I have another, you know, long list of domestic priorities but, you know, these are several things that I would work on as soon as I got there.
RD: And obviously, to accomplish a lot of these, it would be very helpful not to have the polarized environment that we have now. Current president said he would be a uniter, not a divider, hasn't worked out that way. Could you be a uniter and how would you go about that?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, in fact, I have been. You know, when I got to the Senate, a lot of people were curious about what I would do there, to say the least. And my view is when you're given a position of trust, as I was, being a Senator from New York or certainly as president that I want to find common ground. I want to bring people together. I think there's so much work for our country to do. Polarization has driven politics, because it's worked. In fact, with Karl Rove retiring, there are a lot of articles being written about how he elevated polarization to a winning political theory, but it wasn't good for the country and we have to move away from that.
Now, obviously, where we can find common ground, I will more than reach out and look for ways to do that. I want republicans in my cabinet. I want republicans in my government. I want, you know, the voices of, you know, positive policies from foreign policy to domestic. New ideas, creative approaches from, you know, the private and the public sector to be considered when I'm president. And where we have to stand our ground, as I did on the issue against privatizing social security, I will do that.
I think America works better when we set some big goals. Part of the reason that the polarization took hold in the last six and a half years is that the goals were divisive. You know, tax cuts for the very wealthy and a war in Iraq that wasn't paid for and wasn't executed effectively, by their very nature will polarize people. I think we're better when we look for ways that, you know, nearly every American can feel that he or she is part of our society and making progress, that the American dream is real. So that's what I'll intend to do.
Dealing with Iraq and Iran
RD: Let me move back to Iraq for a second. It seems that so much the debate now, perhaps because of the tugs that candidates have during the primary season, tends to go toward the ends of the debate. We've got to clear out of the region, or we have to surge, whatever, militarily, diplomatically. How do we correct mistakes without creating new and perhaps even bigger mistakes?
MRS. CLINTON: There are no good solutions. It is an incredibly complex and dangerous situation. Everything from how we withdraw our troops safely, which is not easy to do and will be fraught with danger, has to be carefully planned and executed, to what kind of message we send to Iraqis in general and specifically Iraqis who sided with us with our translators and our drivers that we're on America's side. What we do about the effort against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is central to America's security. How do we protect the Kurds who have behaved well and are the target of both Sunni and Shiite violence? I mean, those are all issues that the president's going to have to contend with and my problem among others with this administration is you don't get a sense that they're really aware of the complexity. That, you know, they seem to think that by saying something, it's going to result in a change in reality and if that were ever true, it is not true today in the 21st Century. The world is much too complicated.
So we have to be as conscience as we can of all consequences intended and unintended. I have no capacity to foresee the future, but I think we can manage this draw down in Iraq while maintaining our position in the region if we are smart and focused on doing that.
RD: What would you like the American people to know about you that they either don't know or that, in your view, has been misrepresented?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I have a lot of trust in the American people and, you know, in this campaign I'm just reaching out and letting people get to know me aside from all the caricatures and the stereotypes that have been quite prevalent in the last years. And I feel very optimistic that people will judge me for who I am, not who they heard I was or some, you know, sort of cartoon of me. And at the end of the day, I have a very deep and abiding faith in this country and a real sense of the confidence and optimism that I want to see evidenced again and I think that will be attractive to voters in this election.
So that's what I'm doing every single day, trying to just present myself. People in a democracy are free to vote for or against anyone based on any reason that they choose, but I want people to make an informed decision about me and that's what I'm trying to do to convey in this campaign.
RD: Okay. Do I have time for one last--
MRS. CLINTON: Sure. Sure.
RD: Because Iran and Pakistan both present such dilemmas, but let me just ask about Iran. This administration has said that the diplomatic rhetoric is we will not tolerate a nuclear Iran with it being unclear what that means we'd be willing to do. Do you support that statement that we will not tolerate a nuclear Iran or is it perhaps inevitable that we will tolerate a nuclear Iran? What would you be willing to do to prevent it?
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I have said that for years. I gave a speech several years ago in, I think, Princeton where I said, you know, we cannot and will not permit Iran to become a nuclear power. I think the ambiguity is part of the strategy, because we have not had a serious engagement vis-à-vis Iran under this administration. In fact, I think outsourcing our policies as the administration did for the first five and a half years to Great Britain, France and Germany was a mistake and we saw that it didn't result in any tangible benefit.
So we need to operate on several levels at the same time. We do need a very tough sanctions program and we're making some progress on that, but it has to be enforced. We should look at disinvestment here in this country as both a public and a private sector strategy. We should certainly do everything we can to begin engaging Iran at the lower levels of our diplomatic missions, because we don't know very much about Iran. We don't really know who makes decisions there. They have a parallel government. They have the allegedly democratically elected president at this point, Mahmoud [phonetic] [phonetic] Ahmadinejad and then they have the clerical leadership with a supreme leader who is the head of the clerics.
And I think it's hard for us to know how best to deter and contain Iran if we don't have better information. That's why all during the cold war we talked to the Soviet Union and they actually were a nuclear power and had tens of thousands of missiles pointed at us. We never stopped talking when they said they would bury us and they waged proxy wars and invaded countries and I think it was smart. You know, that didn't mean the president met with them all the time. That took a lot of preparation and you had to know what you were going to try to get out of it, but we had constant back and forth and we picked up information. They spied on us. We spied on them. We made alliances with people inside the Soviet Union who wanted democracy.
We have got to figure out how to do that with Iran and one of the reasons why I'm pushing that especially hard is that Iran is a very young population and it has, until recently, been quite a pro-American population. They love our music. They love to be on the Internet. They are looking to the West. We should be feeling that, not by saying we're going to change the regime, which causes then the Iranians to crack down on people. Be subtler. Be smarter. Be more effective. So I think we could have a multi-prong strategy with respect to Iran while staying with my principle that we cannot allow them to become a nuclear power.
RD: Excellent.
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you.
RD: Thank you, very much.
MRS. CLINTON: Good to see you.
RD: It's good to see you.
MRS. CLINTON: Well, see you around Washington.