Will Hillary Run? TJMS Gets The Scoop On That And More

Hillary Rodham Clinton has meant many things to many people. The wife, mother, lawyer, First Lady, Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State and soon to be grandmother, shares much of her journey in the book Hard Choices, a memoir. She talked to the Tom Joyner Morning Show today and while she didn’t share any future presidential plans, she did have a lot to talk about.

Read the entire interview below:

TOM JOYNER:  Here to announce that she’s going to run for President on The Tom Joyner Morning Show.  (Laughs)

SYBIL WILKES:  (Laughs)

HILLARY CLINTON:  (Laugh) Hi, Tom. How are you?

TOM JOYNER:  Thank you so much for giving me the honor of taking my airwaves for you to announce that you are running for President in 2016.  Thank you so much. And you know you got my support. Thank you.

HILLARY CLINTON:  Well, you are incorrigible, my friend.  (Laughter) I love talking to you this morning.

TOM JOYNER:  Thank you so much.

HILLARY CLINTON:  Oh, my goodness. Well, and I just heard the news that you’re coming back to New York.  That is fabulous.

TOM JOYNER:  Yes.  Yes, yes.  We start, actually it starts Friday, the 4^th of July, and then DL and I are on the air on Monday the 7^th. (Editor’s Note: They will be on the new New York station WFAS, Radio 103.9)

HILLARY CLINTON:  Oh, terrific. Well, we’re glad to have you back.

SYBIL WILKES:  So great is it that Tom is back…

HILLARY CLINTON:  But it’s great to talk to you today.  (Laughs)

SYBIL WILKES:  … is coming back to New York and you’re going back to the White House. How great is that?

TOM JOYNER:  (Laughs)

HILLARY CLINTON:  Oh, listen, me too. I’m flattered and I’m really excited about talking to you. But I’m going to be a grandmother first. Let’s talk about what’s really important here.

SYBIL WILKES:  So what is your name going to be, Mrs. Clinton?

TOM JOYNER:  Yeah, what are they going to call you?

HILLARY CLINTON:  You know, I am soliciting suggestions to be honest, because I’ve got two groups of friends. One group says you got to get in early, decide what you want and just make this poor little kid call you that. And the other group says, no, no, it has to be organic, it must evolve and, you know, let the child make up his or her mind. So do you two have any suggestions?

TOM JOYNER: Yes, Mrs. President.

J. ANTHONY BROWN: Mrs. President.

(Laughter)

TOM JOYNER: Grandma President. How about that?

HILLARY CLINTON:  You know, it’s so funny, I’ve been travelling around the country doing book signings and events about new book. And literally, the most common thing people say is that when you start the show with Tom that it’s ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad that you’re going to be a grandmother.’  (Laughs)

TOM JOYNER:  Awww.

SYBIL WILKES:  So is that the hardest choice? Coming up with the name?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s a hard choice I’m glad to make. As I was writing the book, I had personal hard choices. I’ve been involved with the President and the hard choices we face as a county.  But this one is a really, really easy choice.  It’s such a, you know, wondrous experience for our family.

SYBIL WILKES:  Okay, so if you’re not going to announce, and if you don’t, who would like to see as President in 2017?

HILLARY CLINTON:  Well, that’s a very good way of asking the question.

TOM JOYNER:  Yeah, I could see it, I like it, I like.

HILLARY CLINTON:  Yeah, that’s real good, I love that.  You know, at the end of my book, in my epilogue.

SYBIL WILKES: Right?!

HILLARY CLINTON:  Here’s what I say. I say; Look, the most important questions for anybody thinking about running are  ‘Are you going to run and can you win?’  But really, what’s your vision for the country and can you lead us there? And, you know, part of what I learned over eight years in the Senate and four years working with President Obama, is that you really have to know where you want to lead the country.

That doesn’t mean you’ll get it done easily, because as we’ve seen with the President, there are all these obstacles and obstinance and just plain paralysis that the other side has employed to prevent him from doing what, I think, you and I would agree, he should do for all of us.  And he keeps on plugging along and keeps pushing forward.  So you have to know where you want to go, even though you might have to take some detours; maybe you go over the pass instead of under the pass.

But I think that for us we have two big crises. We’ve got a crisis in our economy, it is not working for everybody, and it needs to start working again for every single person who is willing to work hard and be responsible, and that’s the vast majority of Americans. And secondly, we’ve got a crisis in our democracy because it’s not working the way it should work.

SYBIL WILKES:  And so how do you change that, given what the President has? And let’s say you are President in 2017.

TOM JOYNER:  I see that.

SYBIL WILKES:  And you do have the same type of makeup in the Congress, for the House and for the Senate, how do you change all of that paralysis with such horrific negativity?

HILLARY CLINTON:  Yeah, the negativity is so, to me, foreign to America.  I mean we’re, at root, optimistic people, and we like to get out roll our sleeves up, solve problems together. I think, look, if you look at the President’s first term, in my opinion, and obviously, I’m biased because, you know, he and I not only were partners, but became good friends. He saved the economy.  People now act like, ‘Oh, it was a walk in the park.’  Yeah, it was terrible, but I mean, really.

No, I mean the economy was on a downward slide, not only in our country but around the world.  And his action to boost it up preserved the opportunity for us to climb out of the deep hole that we were in.  The Affordable Care Act is starting to help tens of millions of Americans. We have to stay on course. There will have to be some amendments to it to make it work better. But look, as somebody who worked hard for healthcare reform twenty years ago, I applaud our country getting it done under the President’s leadership.

And I think in, you know, in lots of areas of foreign policy, the world is never going to be easy. It’s going to constantly be forcing us to make hard choices. I try to pull the curtain back so people can look at the book and see what we had to struggle with. But, you know, [President Obama] said he would get us out of Iraq. It’s been the Iraqis who are the ones who have, in my opinion, squandered the opportunity to have a unified country with everybody building a better future for the Iraqi people.

And with Afghanistan, the President has said and he followed through, that we’re going to do everything we can to help the Afghans build up a security force, so that then we can also be exiting with our combat troops.  So if you look at what he said he would do and what he’s gotten done, yes, there are many more things, like immigration reform, like working to make sure that we have a fair shake for everybody in the economy, that he is still fighting with the other side about.

But he got a lot done for the good of the country. And I think that’s the attitude you have to go into it with, Tom. You got to say, look, you know, this is a ground game, maybe you can control a long pass every so often, but get up every day, suit up and go to work for the American people.

TOM JOYNER:  We got some more suggestions here. First Grandma.

HILLARY CLINTON:  (Laughs)

J. ANTHONY BROWN:  You like that one?

HILLARY CLINTON:  That’s a good one.

TOM JOYNER:  Nanna President.

(Laughter)

SYBIL WILKES:  Congratulations to you.

TOM JOYNER:  Congratulations, Mrs. Clinton.

HILLARY CLINTON:  Awww, thank you.

Read an excerpt of Hard Choices here.

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