Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine (27 page)

Somehow none of that record seemed to tarnish Hillary Clinton.

On February 1, 2013, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left office the most popular actor on the American political stage. And with a new best friend.

8

The Deal

“I think there’s probably more animosity there than people will care to report.”

—a well-connected Clinton aide on the Obama-Clinton relationship

“This was the biggest political payoff in American history!”

—a former Biden advisor on an Obama-Clinton deal

Joe Biden was mad. Not just mad.
Pissed.

Those who followed Biden closely, and worked with him, saw the fury firsthand. He had worked hard at the job of vice president. He had basically been successful—in his eyes at least, very successful. He was always, to use Washington parlance, “in the room,” offering opinions, helping the president see his options, making a difference. His extensive foreign policy expertise and wealth of close relationships with world leaders—honed during his time as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—had been indispensable to Obama. In his thinking, at least, he’d done more for the administration than its celebrity secretary of state ever did.

But Joe Biden wasn’t being rewarded for being the
last man
in the room before President Obama made the most important decisions America faced. He wasn’t being rewarded for giving it his all and doing everything he had been asked. Instead his boss was there, on his television screen, rewarding
Hillary Clinton
, a largely absent cabinet member, whose contributions, in Biden’s mind, didn’t come close to measuring up.

The event that really drew his ire—and renewed D.C. gossip about the Obama-Clinton relationship—was the president’s joint appearance with Clinton on CBS’s
60 Minutes
in January 2013, as she departed her position as secretary of state. In the Democrats’ world, no media forum is more influential or important than the long-running, usually Democrat-friendly CBS News program. Obama had come to rely on the show a number of times to help define himself and certain issues he felt passionate about.

Perhaps more crucial,
60 Minutes
was an important fixture to the Clintons, who grew up in politics when network television mattered much more than it does today. It was how to reach an audience, the largest audience, of mindful Americans interested in politics. It’s where President Clinton in 1992 “acknowledged wrongdoing” in his marriage (he was responding, if obliquely, to questions about his relationship with Gennifer Flowers). And, during his presidency, he sat for at least two interviews for the TV program. Indeed, so important was the TV show that Clinton himself briefly worked for the program in 2003, offering commentary in a short-lived “Clinton/Dole” series, where the pair who went head-to-head in the 1996 election would offer perspectives from the left and right, respectively. It didn’t last long because it wasn’t good TV—Clinton and Dole were too nice to each other, and the producers from
60
Minutes
didn’t have the guts to do what they really wanted: to pit Clinton against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
1

When the January 2013 Clinton-Obama interview aired and raised questions about Obama’s 2016 loyalties, the White House’s official explanation for offering Hillary the honor of a joint interview was deceptively simple. “I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we’ve had,” the president said on
60 Minutes
, with an endearing glance over to Mrs. Clinton. “It has been a great collaboration over the last four years.” The president even let it be known that the decision to depart was not his, but hers.
2

In fact, the hyperconfident president, sitting with his right leg crossed over his left, wearing a finely tailored dark suit, a blue tie, a matching purple shirt, and an American flag pin, seemed unusually deferential. He leaned back as Mrs. Clinton spoke, at times stared down at the ground between him and interviewer Steve Kroft, and at other times interrupted to offer uncharacteristically gracious compliments. But for the most part, he let Clinton carry the interview while he positioned himself as a cheerleader, or even understudy. He sat by her side, offering fulsome praise and reassuring looks throughout the entire thirty-minute interview.

Kroft, the longtime, slightly shlubby CBS correspondent, sat across from the two. Despite the program’s reputation for fearless reporting and nonpartisanship, he was solicitous and supportive, careful not to offend his hosts at the White House. “I spent time with both of you in the 2008 campaign. That was a very tough, bitter race,” Kroft recalled, as the camera focused on a wide shot of Clinton, who vigorously nodded her head, and Obama, who stoically stared him down. “And I’m going to spare you reading some of the things that you said about each other during that campaign.”

“Please do,” Clinton pretended to implore, letting out a laugh. It wasn’t necessary; Kroft was going soft. “But how long did it take you to get over that? And when did it happen?” he asked.

Obama took this one. “You know, the—it didn’t take as long as I think people would perceive it. As I said, once the primary was over, Hillary worked very hard for me. Bill worked very hard for me. So we were interacting on a fairly regular basis. I think it was harder for the staffs, which is understandable,” said the president in an unusually soft tone.

But the really interesting question was the simple one asked of Hillary earlier. “What did he promise you? And has he kept the promises?” It was a question many had asked. And the two seemed to have trouble answering it, stumbling in the interview.

“It was going to be hard. But, you know—” Clinton started, before being gently cut off by the man by her side. “And I kept that promise,” Obama said.

“Welcome to hard times,” Clinton continued, leaning her right elbow on the arm of her wooden chair. “I mean, because the one thing he did mention was he basically said, ‘You know, we’ve got this major economic crisis that may push us into a depression. I’m not going to be able to do a lot to satisfy the built-up expectations for our role around the world. So you’re going to have to get out there and, you know, really represent us while I deal with, you know, the economic catastrophe I inherited.’ But, you know, we’re both gluttons for punishment. And, you know, my assessment was, ‘Look, we are in a terrible fix.’ And, you know, I felt like this president was going to get us out of it, but it wasn’t going to be easy. And it was going to need everybody, you know, pulling together.”

By sidling up to Hillary, Obama had dissed his own man, his own choice as running mate, on national television. “The president and his outgoing secretary of state were so laudatory of each other on the CBS news program that they were practically cuddling,” the
Daily Beast
would observe.
3
And for all the world to see. A
Gawker
headline screamed, “BFFs Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Say Giddy Goodbye on
60 Minutes
.”
4

Whether intended or not, and it’s hard to believe the overly cautious Obama did many things without careful consideration, various media outlets thought the president was sending a fairly obvious signal. “Obama and Clinton chuckled as they described their partnership and stoked speculation that Obama may prefer Clinton to succeed him in the White House after the 2016 election,” noted the Associated Press, which also noted that the appearance “teetered on an endorsement of a 2016 presidential bid.”
5
“Hillary Clinton 2016: Obama Basically Endorses Clinton for President on ‘60 Minutes’ ” was the headline on one blog.
6
“Obama Delivered a Not Too Subtle Hillary 2016 Endorsement in
60 Minutes
Interview,” wrote another.
7
Few seemed to think much of what this meant for Joe Biden, though
Politico
was one exception. “Jiltin’ Joe?” it asked in a headline, noting that “it is also the first sit-down television interview that Obama has given with anyone other than first lady Michelle Obama.”
8
As
Gawker
reported, “Clinton refused to speculate on a possible 2016 run—‘You guys in the press are incorrigible,’ Obama said when Kroft asked—but it was hard not to look at the appearance as a kind of pre-pre-pre-endorsement.” The
Examiner
website also chimed in: “After Obama made a statement of support for Hillary Clinton in her job as Secretary of State, the interview invited speculation that Obama might be favoring Hillary for President in 2016.”
9

In other words, media outlets across the political spectrum were in effect asking variations of the same question: Considering their once-notorious rivalry, what gives?

In the more than two dozen years since Bill and Hillary Clinton came onto the national scene, conspiracy hung on their every action. As Mrs. Clinton left office, a new conspiracy made the list: that Barack and Hillary had made a secret deal—the Clintons’ support for his presidency in return for his support for theirs. Like so many activities surrounding the former first lady, it can be difficult to support the speculation from facts, myth from reality. What is clear is that President Obama, contrary to his public and occasionally private assertions, has clearly expressed a preference for Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States.

As for the conspiracies, some are more persuasive than others. Perhaps the least persuasive of the arguments is that a deal was struck in the aftermath of the 2008 campaign—that Hillary would support Obama if Obama would support her eight years down the road. For one thing, Obama was in a powerful position—at the height of his power, beloved by his base. He didn’t need to make such an overt arrangement—one that would be radioactive if the news ever leaked—with a family he did not trust.

Still, some observers wonder what motivated her to have a change of heart in 2009, when she already had drafted a press release dropping out of consideration for the position of secretary of state. “I spoke this morning with President-Elect Obama to convey my deepest appreciation for having been considered for a post in his administration,” the draft stated. “[I]n the end, this was a decision for me about where I can best serve President-Elect Obama, my constituents, and our country, and as I told President-Elect Obama, my place is in the Senate, which is where I believe I can make the biggest difference right now as we confront so many unprecedented challenges at home and around the world.”
10
According to this version of events, in a midnight phone call, President-elect Obama had said something to change Mrs. Clinton’s mind. What else, one wonders, would explain Mrs. Clinton’s sudden, eleventh-hour reversal of her decision to serve? Obama had wooed his former rival for weeks, even flying her to Chicago for a full-court press. Nothing seemed to work. Did Obama offer to clear the field for her in 2016 if she decided to join the team?

“I’ve never heard, never seen anything in print that suggested there was any pledge of support if she were to run for president,” Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia professor who has been a well-connected observer of presidential politics for thirty years, says in an interview. Then he adds, “I’ve always wondered. It would be the only thing that you would think of politically that would matter to her. The arguments to me were always stronger for her to stay in the Senate. She had her own independent base from a major state right in the heart of media-dom. She could have run a parallel administration, and gotten in a position to run either in 2012 or, if she’d prefer, 2016 on her own terms. And instead, she basically gave up her independence and signed on to his record, whatever it might turn out to be. And she had said, I think she believed it, in 2008 in the primary campaign, that [Obama] would not be a successful president for the reasons she outlined.”

In fact, there were many reasons for Senator Clinton to take the State Department job, without an explicit “deal” with Barack Obama. By many accounts, Hillary was done with the U.S. Senate by 2008. She sure as hell didn’t want to go back to a Democratic caucus that embarrassed and betrayed her, to be one of the crowd rubber-stamping Obama initiatives lest she look like a bad sport.

The State Department job offered Hillary credentials she lacked for another presidential run—foreign policy gravitas, the chance to be photographed with important foreign leaders, an opportunity to look above partisan politics. The job also offered Hillary the possibility of being a constant thorn in Obama’s side.

For a moment, she dwelled on the chance of primary-ing Obama in 2012. Even to Bill Clinton, that notion seemed insane. “Bill’s the one that told her you got to be crazy, you’re not going to run against him,” an observer says. He urged her to take the job as the best possible option. “Everyone’s going to look to [Obama],” he said. “You’ll be nothing.”

“Look, serving as secretary of state is a much more important job than simply being one of a hundred in the Senate,” Karl Rove said in an interview for this book. “And look, it’s hard to go back to the Senate after you’ve run for president, I mean if you’ve, you know, it’s hard for anybody to go back to doing what they were doing before when they thought they had a chance at moving up in the scheme of things.”

“She enhanced her political position significantly,” John McCain tells me. “I think it catapulted her from probably the favorite for 2016 to an overwhelming favorite for 2016.”

Of additional note, the negotiations that led to Clinton’s acceptance of the job were, according to sources, “adversarial” rather than cordial. They were negotiated on the Obama side by John Podesta, the former Clinton aide. The Obama team demanded what one participant described as “chickenshit small-ball” concessions, such as releasing the list of donors to the Clinton Foundation. Team Obama’s demands were all but laughable to the far more calculating Clintons. In exchange, Mrs. Clinton got exactly what she wanted.