Hillary Clinton has criticized Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance for suggesting that families could ease the financial burden of child care by tapping grandparents for more help, saying that the Ohio senator is “just not in touch with what goes on in the lives and the working careers of the vast majority of Americans.”
“It’s almost impossible to understand his worldview. Where is he coming from? Where does he get these ideas?” the former secretary of state said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that aired Sunday as she promotes her new book, “Something Lost, Something Gained.”
Clinton described the comments Vance made about child care in a recent interview with conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, as well as his recently unearthed 2021 remark about the United States being led by “childless cat ladies,” as the latest example of decades of opposition from Republicans in Washington to child care policy proposals that would provide government assistance to working families.
“It sounds to me like these are maybe personally connected to his own background, but also, it’s feeding into that same ideology: ‘Stand on your own. You’re a rugged individualist,’” she said.
But “families need support,” and relatives aren’t always nearby and available, Clinton said.
“I’m a grandparent. I’m also a very active person. I love being with my grandchildren, but I also have interests of my own,” she said. “And so, it’s not either-or. Obviously, I want to help my daughter and son-in-law with these three wonderful little kids. But they’re very active. They go to work. They need child care support, especially when the children were very young.”
Harris and the ‘relay race’
Clinton said that when President Joe Biden exited the 2024 race and Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket, she wasn’t sure how she would feel, “because obviously it was a huge disappointment not to win in 2016.”
However, Clinton said, she found it felt “exciting, exhilarating,” when Harris emerged as the party’s new standard-bearer – and the next woman with a chance to shatter what the former New York senator called the “glass ceiling” of American politics and become the first to win the presidency.
“It’s a relay race,” Clinton said. “People do their part. They try to open doors or break through ceilings in order to make it possible for somebody to come after them.”
She said Harris has brought “a level of energy, even joy,” to the 2024 presidential race.
“The contrast is the Trump campaign – it’s dark. It’s dystopian. It’s filled with attacks on different kinds of people, finger-pointing and scapegoating. That’s a very different view of who we are as a people and what we should aspire to,” she said.
Rosalynn Carter’s funeral
Clinton recalled being surprised that former first lady Melania Trump attended the funeral of another former first lady, Rosalynn Carter, last year.
She said presidential grandson Jason Carter had told her it was important to former President Jimmy Carter’s widow that all of the first ladies – part of what he described to Clinton as a “sisterhood” – be invited.
“I’m not sure that’s exactly the right word, but I understood exactly what he meant, and I knew the motive behind Rosalynn’s wishes that we cross party lines, everybody be there,” Clinton said.
She said she flew to the memorial service with Joe and Jill Biden, as well as Michelle Obama. There, they met Melania Trump and former first lady Laura Bush.
“We had no idea she was coming, but our sort of first lady protocol kicked in and, you know, Michelle gave her one of her Michelle hugs, and Jill touched her cheek, and I shook her hand, asked her how she was,” Clinton said.
She added: “I thought it was an important gesture, that she actually came. She looked a little nervous, obviously. But she was embraced. We all went into the service together. … It was just one of those moments that is unique to being a sitting or former first lady.”
Campus protests
Clinton, who teaches an undergraduate class called “Inside the Situation Room” at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, said she’d led a class immediately in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, and “the questions were really raw.”
“It was a respectful, informative, open dialogue,” she said. “And literally at the end of it, the students applauded.”
However, she said, days later, campus protests had erupted – including at Columbia, where Clinton said she was “screamed at” and “called all kinds of names.”
She said she was frustrated as protests morphed “into something that was not student-led, even though students participated, but which had outside funding, outside direction, and I still to this day am not quite sure of all that was going on with it. And a lot of students were caught up in that.”
Clinton said those protests were “distressing” because she couldn’t engage in conversations with students whose opinions lacked historical grounding.
“I would be met with slogans. I would be met with attacks, and very inflammatory language,” she said. “And when I would ask, ‘Well what about, do you know what happened in 2000 at Camp David?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know what happened in 1947?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know how difficult the relationships have been?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know that there are Arab Israelis and some of them are serving in the IDF?’ None of that.”
“And this whole chanting of, ‘From the river to the sea,’ well, what is that? What river, what sea? That’s what bothered me,” she said. “This year has been, you know, much quieter, much more educational environment, where people can have these conversations.”
Marriage to Bill Clinton
In her interview with Zakaria, Clinton also discussed her marriage to former President Bill Clinton, including surviving the “dark periods” when her husband’s affairs became public and he was impeached by the US House.
“Nobody really knows what happens in a marriage except the two people in it, and every marriage I’m aware of has ups and downs – not public,” she said.
Clinton said she would never tell anyone else to stay in a marriage or leave it.
“For me and for us, I think it’s fair to say we are so grateful that at this stage of our life, we have our grandchildren, we have our time together. I write about how we start the morning playing ‘Spelling Bee’ in bed, and, you know, Bill is such a great player,” she said.
“We just have a good time. We have a good time sharing this life that we’ve lived together for now nearly 50 years of marriage,” Clinton said. “That’s what is right for us, and that’s really my message.”
It’s a stark contrast to a period in the 1990s when Clinton said she was deeply hurt and confused but also opposed to the Republicans who were seeking to remove her husband from office.
“I had a different kind of set of challenges. I mean, it’s always hard if there’s a problem in your marriage. You feel like it’s the entire world, but in my case, it was the world,” she said. “I had to go through it at my own pace, on my own terms, according to my own values, and I’m very grateful that we are where we are.”