Hillary Clinton on the Dangers of Dysfunction to Democracy

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Madam Secretary, welcome back to our program.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Thank you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Here we are in Washington, D.C. amidst another malfunction. The whole world is looking at what’s happening in the House and the historic ouster of a speaker. Is American democracy in trouble?

CLINTON: Yes, absolutely, it’s in trouble. It was in trouble before this latest incident. This just makes it abundantly clear to anybody paying attention that we have one political party that unfortunately is in absolute hostage situation with its most extreme members. And Kevin McCarthy, who, you know, I have no, you know, relationship with of any kind. But when he actually did the right thing for the country and kept us from going into a government shutdown, he was punished. And he was punished because he worked with Democrats. He worked for the good of the country. He was not continuing to be captive to the far-right extremists. So, they toppled him. It was a very small number, as you look at the vote, but now we’re, you know, reaping the consequences of their misbehavior.

AMANPOUR: It said that the main contenders for his position are Jim Jordan, who you know very well from Benghazi —

CLINTON: Well, I don’t know him well. I watched him and, you know, stared at him for 11 hours while he made stuff up about me. So, I don’t know him. But I’ve seen him in action.

AMANPOUR: So, what will it mean if he gets the speakership?

CLINTON: Well, I mean, he is one of the principal ringleaders of the circus that’s been created in the Republican Party for the last several years. I have no inside knowledge about what the Republicans will do, who they will end up voting for. But when do they put the contrary first, they do not represent a majority of even the Republican Party. When you look at the extremists in the House, they certainly don’t represent a majority of the country. And, you know, somebody has to stand up and say, enough. You know, we could have disagreements. I’m all for that. I was in the Senate for eight years. I worked with a lot of Republicans and, you know, oppose them when I didn’t agree. But at some point, there needs to be a backlash against the control that this small group of extremists have. And I don’t know who will lead that. But let’s hope whoever becomes the new speaker will.

AMANPOUR: So, for those outside this country who may not know, it is not so much a fight between two different parties. It’s an internecine warfare within one party, the GOP.

CLINTON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: So, when you look at how to go forward for the country, as you say, is there any area of coalition building that could happen? There are pragmatic Republicans, as you say. Could there be a new — a whole new way of trying to, you know, get legislation going and cross-party governance going by Democrats and certain Republicans forming a coalition?

CLINTON: Well, you saw, the number of Republicans who voted along with Democrats to keep the government open. So, there’s clearly a common sense, you know, sane, part of the Republican caucus in the House. But I think they are intimidated, they oftentimes, you know, say and do things, which they know better than to say or do, and it will require us defeating those most extreme measures, and the people who promote them in order to try to get to some common ground where people can, again, work together. That’s the way it used to be. I mean, we had very strong partisans in both parties in the past. And we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things, gun control and climate change and the economy and taxes, but there wasn’t this little tale of extremism waving — you know, wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today. And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump who has no credibility left by any measure. He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.

AMANPOUR: And how do you do that? Because you said you have to defeat them by defeating their leader. Their leader is Donald Trump. Even you have said that you expect him to be the Republican nominee. How does this change at all?

CLINTON: At this point, I think, sadly, he will still likely be the nominee, and we have to defeat him, and we have to defeat those who are the election deniers, as we did in 2020 and 2022. And we have to, you know, just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican Party.You know, Nancy Pelosi had a majority of five votes when she was speaker. Kevin McCarthy had a majority of five votes. Nancy Pelosi passed consequential legislation. And she clearly had members within her caucus who, you know, ranged across a spectrum of political beliefs and ideology, and she kept everybody together. And she kept everybody focused on the future. He couldn’t do that. ?And so, he paid a price, but more importantly, the country paid a price.