ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのA conversation with former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

FREDERICK KEMPE: Hello, I’m Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, and welcome to our viewers from around the globe. We are delighted today to have Hillary Rodham Clinton, former secretary of state of the United States, for all of our global viewers.
Secretary Clinton’s been responsible for many breakthroughs, many first in her life. She was the first woman to be the presidential candidate of a major US political party. She is one of only three women who have served as secretary of state. She was the first lady. She’s been a US senator. And so we’re delighted that she’s also going to have another first with us: She is going to be the first speaker in our brand-new series Elections 2020: America’s Role in the World, Powered by Samsung.
This is also at the same time part of the Atlantic Council Front Page Series. This is our premier live ideas platform for global leaders. We’ve had heads of state and government of Colombia, of Afghanistan, of Venezuela… and Singapore. We’ve had the head of NATO, the secretary general of NATO, and the executive director of the IMF. So we’re delighted to add former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Between now and November, we will feature the most prominent voices shaping the international dialogue to explore questions regarding US leadership and interests in the world, alongside our friends and allies. And that’s, of course, always the focus of the Atlantic Council.
Secretary Clinton knows that this is a time of geographic distance, but at the Atlantic Council we don’t believe so much in social distance. We have a huge audience across multiple digital platforms, and you can all comment about this event by using Atlantic Council Front Page hashtag #ACFrontPage.
So with that I want to turn to Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton, thanks so much for being with us to launch this important series. We’ve got—

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Thank you very much, Fred.

FREDERICK KEMPE: It’s wonderful to see you even though it’s against a screen and you’re somewhat distant from us here.
This is an historic moment and an unusual year. It’s the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the most significant racial upheavals in 50 years. And some are saying this may be the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.
I wonder if you can speak first to that. You know a lot about history. You’ve been a presidential candidate yourself. What are the stakes this year?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, I agree with that assessment, Fred, that this is the most consequential presidential election in a very long time, and for all the reasons that you just pointed out, in addition to the challenges that we face, both domestically and internationally, in trying to chart a better, stronger approach toward the future, which I believe is at stake in this upcoming election.
Just very quickly, we’ve seen a real failure of leadership here at home and abroad by the current administration. We’ve seen real disregard for institutions such as NATO, but also institutions here at home; an undermining of the rule of law at home and the rules-based global order abroad. We’ve seen a failure to respond effectively to the pandemic. And, of course, there are many other challenges that have been either ignored or made worse in the last three and a half years.
So this is a moment of reckoning not only for the United States, but, as you rightly point out, the international community also has a lot at risk in the outcome of this next presidential election here.

FREDERICK KEMPE: So, moment of reckoning. If you look at the challenges for the next president of the United States, they’re going to be enormous. And always setting priorities is one of the hardest things to do in leadership. If you’re looking at the challenges you’ve outlined and the problems we’re facing internally domestically, and in the world, where do you set the priorities? If you’re setting priorities one through three, one through five, what are they?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, it’s interesting, because I’ve had this conversation with the vice president, the vice president’s campaign, now increasingly with those in the transition effort that is underway. Because this is not an ordinary time, there will have to be a concerted effort to move on several fronts at once.
It reminds me a little bit of when then-President-elect Obama asked me to be secretary of state. And he said, look, our economy is in a terrible great recession, which, of course, it was back in 2008 and ’09. I have to deal with the economic crisis, but we also have problems around the world. We have neglected our leadership and our alliances in the prior eight years.
Well, I think you just have to quadruple that to understand what President-elect Biden might be facing. And so I think there has to be a full-court press, as we say, both on the economy at home, dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, because I don’t think it will be over by the next inauguration; making sure that we have a strong response to people’s losing jobs, as well as health care, because in our country, as you know, health care is often attached to employment, something that we are trying to change.
And then abroad we’re going to have to quickly move to try to regain leadership and rebuild our alliances and make clear to our competitors and adversaries that, you know, the vacuum is no more, that the United States is going to resume a position of global leadership and bring people together around common threats, whether it be climate change or the global pandemic.

FREDERICK KEMPE: So as I said earlier, you were the third woman—after Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice—to be secretary of state, the 67th secretary of state. Foreign policy usually doesn’t play as big of a role in presidential elections. And I wonder what role you think it will play this year—whether it will be any different because of the situation we’re in.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well I think it should and I hope it will. We have some very serious challenges internationally. And I think the press and the public should be demanding answers from the incumbent, Donald Trump, and the challenger, Joe Biden. And I have a lot of confidence in Joe Biden’s experience on the international scene. I worked with him in the Senate for eight years. I worked with him in the Obama Cabinet for four.
So just take a quick look at what we face. We face this global pandemic. We’re going to eventually—I hope after only it’s proven safe and effective—have a vaccine or more than one vaccine. Then we’re going to have to figure out how, working together in a cooperative way, the world can distribute and deliver that vaccine globally so that we really do tame the virus.
We’re going to have to deal with the continuing interference in our election by Putin and the Kremlin. This is an ongoing threat to our own democracy, but also to other democracies, and it needs to be addressed firmly and finally rather than allowing it to fester, because we know from recent intelligence reports that the Russians are once again trying to favor and help elect Donald Trump.
We need to have a stable, consistent policy toward China, the most consequential of our global relationships. I don’t blame the Chinese for filling the vacuum left by the incoherent and inconsistent policies of the Trump administration, but we can’t permit China to dominate the Pacific region and beyond and try to substitute its own power and influence for a rules-based global order.
And there are many other issues, whether it be climate change or the renewed effort by Iran to get a nuclear weapon or the unchecked efforts by North Korea and so much else that we’re going to have to pay attention to.
So I hope that the incoming Biden-Harris administration will be prepared to move on a number of fronts, domestic and international, simultaneously, because the work is rather overwhelming that needs to be done.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you, Secretary Clinton. Because you’ve mentioned the Biden-Harris ticket, let’s deal with a couple of issues that have been in the news in the last few days that are quite a bit of importance.
As you said, Vice President Biden has named Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Vice-presidential choices are sometimes written off as not being all that important. Some people are saying it should be and will be more important this time for two reasons—many more as well—that she is a woman of color and Vice President Biden, if there were a second term, he were running for a second term, would be 81 years old. How important is this vice-presidential pick, do you think?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, I think it’s important and it is significant. Having gone through this myself, I mean, you want to pick someone you believe can become president, if necessary; someone that you feel would be a good colleague that you can work with and can give increasing responsibility to, and someone, obviously, who can help you win. And the vice president concluded that Senator Harris checks all those boxes.
I think that her incredible energy, her experience, her story, life story, will be very compelling in this election. And having both campaigned with her and for her, I have seen first-hand how thoughtful and focused she can be.
So I think it’s an important and significant choice. I think that the country would be in very good hands with a Biden-Harris administration. And now, you know, we have 80-plus days to try to make sure that we have a free and fair election without foreign interference so that the maximum number of eligible Americans are able to vote, and their votes be counted, so that we are confident in the outcome of the election in November.

FREDERICK KEMPE: History has shown that an international event, like COVID-19—you really have to go back to the Spanish flu to think of something that consequential—can have huge geopolitical implications. You’ve talked a bit about how we should respond to it. But in a geopolitical sense where do you see the opportunity that could be seized, but also what’s the danger? Could this accelerate history in a way that many have said, which would actually accelerate the relative decline of the United States?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, I think that’s really up to the United States. And that’s why this election is incredibly important in every way I can imagine. You’re right, Fred, about the history of pandemics—whether it be, you know, the Black Plague in the Middle Ages or the so-called Spanish flu 100 years ago. We’ve seen the failure of governments to deal with the pandemic. And that is a wake-up call for everyone to understand that we need to both take a hard look at public-health processes and institutions within countries, but also internationally.
I thought it was a grave error for Donald Trump to attack the World Health Organization, and to act as though he could pull the United States out of it, something that is more complicated than he lets on. We should be buttressing the World Health Organization. We should be buttressing Gavi, the vaccine institution that has been set up internationally. We should be having intense diplomatic conversations with health experts, logistics experts, and others about how we are going to finally get to a safe and effective vaccine, or perhaps even more than one, and then manage the distribution of it so that we try to bring the world together around defeating the pandemic, not permit the vaccine nationalism that is taking place right now.
So there’s a lot of really important work that needs to be done. And the United States has to be in the middle of it. It cannot sit on the sidelines being indifferent or even contemptuous of international efforts and expect that we’re going to benefit ourselves, as well as lead the world. Because a final point is, you know, we saw a virus jump from Wuhan, China to the United States, and Europe, and now literally the entire globe. And to think that we can, you know, shut ourselves off and pretend as though we can deal with it on our own is both scientifically and politically, and strategically I would say, false.
So I would wish that rather than the behavior we’re currently seeing from the Trump administration, we would see a more thoughtful, smart, engaged, cooperative effort. Because that’s what it’s going to take. It took that to eliminate smallpox. We’ve been working for decades to eliminate measles and polio. It has to be a global effort. And the United States must assume a leadership role, both politically and financially.

FREDERICK KEMPE: So something a little bit more like 2008-2009 in response to the global financial crisis, where the G20 was created. There was a lot of US leadership in cooperation with others. At that point the UK-US relationship was pretty crucial, but so were many others. Is that a parallel one can point to, but do it around public health rather than global finance? Although this could also be a global financial crisis.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Yeah I was going to say, Fred, I think that we’re also going to have lingering financial ramifications from the pandemic. We’re obviously seeing very slow economic activity, some of the worst in the last fifty years in parts of Europe. And we know what the impact has been here in the United States. And we don’t have good data from the rest of the world, but obviously it’s had a global impact.
So yes, I think that there very well could be a role for the G20, working in conjunction with the UN, with the WHO, with Gavi, with others that are major players in the public-health arena, to try to learn from the mistakes that were made. Yes, I think it’s fair to say China was not as forthcoming as it needed to be, as transparent and open in the beginning. We also had an unfortunate lack of preparation or even understanding in several countries, including our own. The guidebook, the blueprint for dealing with global pandemics that the Obama administration had left for the Trump administration was disregarded.
So let us hope that individual nations will learn lessons. But let us also hope that collectively we can put together a more robust and quick international response, and get every nation to buy into it, so that you don’t have the role of any nation in the midst of a potential pandemic be to, you know, shut down and exclude investigation from international experts. We need to be more open and transparent because I fear, Fred, that, you know, this is not the last of the viruses that the world will face. In fact, I think that there’s a lot of very thoughtful analysis pointing toward this being perhaps the beginning of a continuing public-health threat that we should be better prepared for internationally. And we need to do that as quickly as possible.