 We're back. We're live. We're here at four o'clock. I'm J. Feidele with Governor John Waihe and this is his show. He's the host of Talk Story with John Waihe. I am a guest host if you will. You are a guest host. You're the guest interrogator. I am the person that you are now interrogating. So I get to sit on this seat. You're not going to believe what we're going to talk about, but I'll give you a hint. It was in the newspaper. Among other things, we're going to talk about a friend of mine. Thank you. And I thought it might be more appropriate if you ask the questions than if I just talk about it. Well, as people are finding out, we, J. President Clinton, is in Hawaii. One of his favorite places in the world. He's told me more times than I care to count. But he just came in. It's a surprise to me. I got an email on Thursday night. I'll be in Hawaii tomorrow morning. Are you up for anything? Like let's go golfing or something. It didn't turn out, by the way. He found out landing in Hawaii the same day as you don't necessarily want to. He came in from Columbia, where he's doing one of his projects. And he came to address a conference of travel agents. And the, I don't know if people realize this, but the Clinton Foundation has sort of strategically adopted, really, the travel business as an important development tool for various countries all over the world. And for two reasons. One, because it actually economically works. And people are interested in learning about other cultures and so forth. But also because it is, in his opinion, and I find that very compelling, that this, that kind of business actually facilitates cultural understanding. And so the entire speech that he gave, and he walked in a room, I don't know. I don't know how many thousand people there, but they were in the thousands and it was packed. It was the stancherof center, completely packed. And nobody expected them. And so it was kind of fun to watch that, yeah. But hanging out was great, you know. You know him. I've known him for what? 30 something years. And we grew up, I mean, we came up the political ladder, so to speak together. We were governors together. And one of my political moments was when he ran for president of the United States, I was chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. So I had the privilege, really, of organizing Democratic governors for his election in, oh boy, those were exciting times. Yeah, wow, wow. That's a whole new experience. And it should come back and quote, visit you this way. Yeah, and actually, we will have him on this show in the future. And I wish we could have done it today. And so you wouldn't be there having to grill me, you know. And but it just, it just the logistics just didn't work out, unfortunately. But he wants, he's been here, he's very interested. We had a chance yet to visit the Hokulea, for example. You know, the idea of the Hokulea was to promote not only the Hawaiian or Polynesian celestial navigation voyaging, but also to spread the message of what it takes to live on an island and so forth. And so when they were presenting this to the president, he was so fascinated, as he always is. He's one of the most intensely focused person when he has a subject. You know, he loves new things. He loves learning. And so these young people that had actually sailed, every one of them who had at least sailed a thousand miles, was there yesterday, and they had a chance to talk to them, to tell them about what it's like to live on a ship, and what the lessons that might have for living on a continent, for living where others live, how to get along and the rest. It's been a real experience. It's a microcosm for human relations in general. Right. And of course, he and I talked a lot about the political situation in America. And you know, I don't want to be here talking about him, but Jay, if you want to talk about anything, I would like to touch on a few things. I mean, you know, like after the election, everybody was stunned, just fallen down, stunned. And I'm sure that Hillary Clinton was fallen down, stunned. And Bill had to be fallen down, stunned. Yeah, I guess so. Although a number of us, myself included, and apparently some of the Hillary campaign people actually began to see, I mean, everything seemed to be going correctly. And we would be now a much different country than we would want. But right about the time that Comey made his announcement, things started to go south. And one of the good things that are going to happen that people can look forward to is Hillary's writing a book. And I don't know whether that's something that should be announced here, but definitely she's writing a book. I think that's kind of expected. And I hear from the president and from others that it's going to be a blockbuster. It's going to be a book that all of us would like to get our hands on. In fact, one of the things that the president is doing, President Clinton, is actually as part of his trip, is daily, I should say, as part of his daily routine on this trip, is to read chapters of the book helping the publishers and Hillary finalize it. He told me that actually Hillary was supposed to be with him on this trip. They both love Hawaii. And they were going to, you know, making a speech and having a chance to spend a couple extra days hanging out here would have been one of the few times that they had a vacation or would have taken a vacation. But then the publishers wanted this book done. So we're going to hear it all. I know I intend to get a copy of it. But you and I have had a number of shows just talking about where this country is right now. And it is frightening to me and obviously in the course of just discussions, not only with Bill, but with anybody connected, you know, there's like a new normal going on and it's frightening. It's like these kinds of crazy type situations are happening so often that we seem to be getting used to. Right. I agree. And people are becoming complacent about it already. They said, I'm so tired of this. I am just going to disengage from it. I'm going to ignore it. This is maybe the worst thing they can do because going forward we need to pay more. And it was interesting because we actually, you know, and what we taught, you know, he and I share some views on the freedom of the press and how important it is that the press actually focus on substantive issues. And there has been analysis made of this past election, not only the very last one, which happened to have been the worst in this sense on this issue, but the trend over time on various elections of having the media focus in on sensationalism as opposed to the issue. That's what happened. And so, you know, you have hundreds of minutes of time talking about Hillary's emails. And one of the things I'll probably let out of school, you know, much of what we discussed was obviously in confidence. But what I will let out is the idea that she was told more times than once after the election by various reporters that they were actually apologizing. And they said, you know, we didn't think you were going to lose, number one. And number two, what sold the papers was the sensational issues. What's the name of those trash magazines? It's the tabloid type news. And so even the mainstream media did it. Now it's tabloid every day. And the media is actually put themselves or this country is in the situation where the media now has to try to try to bring everything back to issues. But it's hard to do because Trump is still doing the same thing. And he's still doing the same thing. And it's still becoming, and in his case, you know, it's like a daily situation. So I worry about the freedom of the press. I agree. And I can tell you that that's something that even somebody like Bill Clinton's worried about. I mean, we all are worried about where this country goes. Yeah, so I've had some really good, obviously good conversations. Oh, that's great that you have the time with him and you can sort of catch up with him because, you know, it's, I mean, I know they've been around and there have been some stories about them since the election. But really, it's been quiet from them. Well, you know, and a lot of what happened in the election, in some respects, we as a Democratic Party have to blame ourselves for. I mean, I think there's been a lot of soul searching. We talked about, for example, a lot of our friends who are Republicans in the Senate right now. And these are honorable men, you know, Lamar Alexander, Orrin Hatch, or even McCain, John McCain, and wondering when, when and at what moment do they decide as people that we know they are, you know, and the President knows they are, when they decide that, look, the country is more important than my party being in power, and begin to, you know, start to guide this presidency a little bit more, take some responsibility for what's happening. That's obviously an interesting conversation because we know the same person for the same people for the same number of years. And, but, I mean, he's a, he is a complete insider. He knows the inside. Well, he also is. He's also the kind of person that likes to make friends with people who don't agree with him. I mean, he, I mean, really, one of his closest friends right now, and he's actually, he actually talks about it, he's kind of proud of it, is the, are the Bushes, both George Bush, the father and George Bush, and George W. And part of what his work on the foundation has been doing things with their foundation, with their work, and, you know, and demonstrating that, that you don't have to agree on anything. In fact, you can be miles apart in some very strong political situation, but you can all, you can treat each other civilly, number one, number two, you can actually work on where you have a common interest. And for example, he, we were discussing the story of a saving Lake Tahoe, you know, and he said, as long as we, and it's surrounded by politicians and others that have completely different viewpoints, but as long as they focused in terms of George W. and his dad, when they focused on saving the lake, maintaining the lake, making sure that his purity level was, you know, great things were done. Great things can happen. And so his message today is, you know, we need to do some of that. He's an elder statesman now, don't you think? Yeah, but he's also a shrewd politician. So I will tell you that this is not a person that doesn't have insights. This is not a person that doesn't have instincts. I mean, I've seen him, you know, and he is, I wouldn't mess with him, in other words, on one hand. But on the other hand, this is a person that always tries to find common ground. And, you know, and he had his own criticism for our party as well. One of the problems Democrats have as just statistically across this country is the fact that we don't seem to vote in non-presidential elections, which by the way, you must compliment the Republicans for nationally, because they come out, may come out and they vote in the dull catcher elections and the local sheriff and local mayor and the like. And we have a tendency to stay home. Yeah, too bad. John will take a short break. This is Governor John Whyhey. We're talking about his friend Bill Clinton, who's here in Honolulu right now, and with whom he spent some time. And we'll talk about his reflections. They're both reflections. Reflections are both John and Bill. Well, I wish that he were here, and he has promised us the show. If there's any consolation, is it fair chance he's watching now? Well, yeah. Well, he's actually on the phone to some prime minister right now. Otherwise, he'd be talking to us. But I'm sure he's going to see this. His staff, if we mention his name anywhere in the world, his staff will run it down. So we'll be right back after this break. I'm going to the game and it's going to be great. Early arrive and for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. We're back with John Whyhey. He is the true host of the show. I'm the visiting host and the reason is we're talking about a friend of his who was in town with whom he spent some time, namely former president Bill Clinton. And I'd like to get to his reaction to the election, if you will. I'd like to get his reaction to what Trump has been doing because if it bothers me and it bothers you, it must bother Bill too. Oh, it obviously does. It obviously does. And oh, by the way, people should know that the reason why Jay's here is because we do this. Like he's done this to me. He pulled me off the street. But anyway, yeah, of course. Of course, the election was, you know, and one of the main things that, one of the most main upsets is not unique to Bill, but it's something that he obviously was much more knowledgeable of than even myself. And that is that the deliberate attempt by many people with money that were on the other side to lure the bar of discussion, the level of discussion, to make sure that we focus on, as we talked about earlier, tabloid news as opposed to, you know, really getting into the issues. I'm right down there in the street at the end. Well, if he can do that, he'll win. See, that's how he wins. He wins my, you know, whereas if you stuck with the issues, then we probably, Hillary would be president right now because there is nobody, I mean, that I know of. And I know quite a few politicians that would be no more knowledgeable than her on any issue. Including, you know, even Bill would admit that Hillary, when she makes her mind up, you know, she's a tremendous reason. Take vacuum, though, after the election, she was quiet. She didn't say anything. Everybody wondered, my, she must be busted over what happened. It was such a surprise, a bad surprise to everyone, really. Well, I think it obviously was for her as well, except that, you know, they knew things were getting tighter at the end. And one of the great mysteries of life is what's, you know, the Comey's action, a Comey coming out just before the election. And I don't want to, I know that Hillary's going to talk about this in her book, I'm sure. And so, you know, what, what, with numbers and facts of what the impact that had. And actually, some of the motivation behind it. And apparently, what it, what it was, is that the Comey actually had a rogue unit, really, in New York, who was close to Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani. It was in Trump's camp. Exactly. And so they were pushing some of these issues. And, but it was a matter of political courage. You know, one of my, and I say this with a great deal of admiration for him, one of the disappointments for me, and was the fact that Obama left the issue of the Russian involvement slide. And, and he, as opposed to, and as you know, Trump is making a big deal of that now. Yeah, well, you know, if he didn't do anything, why would, should we do anything now? And, and, but the reason why a lot of people apparently didn't step forward with some of this stuff was because they sincerely believed that Trump would never win an election. Right. Why make it dirtier than it was? Well, I make it dirtier than it was. But all of that is going to be, now, when you discuss that, that particular incident with Obama, you need to do it with the caveat that he really wanted Hillary to be president. So it's not a matter of him, you know, playing. I mean, it was a judgment call based on the idea that the entire world didn't think that this guy was going to win. He was standing aside. He didn't want to get screwed by. Yeah, because what he, and it was a terrible dilemma because on one hand, if he did report this, the involvement of Russians in the, and by the way, he knew that as a fact in September. So you're not talking about some late arrival. And that's what Trump keeps bringing up. Well, what Clinton did was try to stop the Russians from doing that without being, I mean, not Clinton, but Obama, without making it political, without making it look like he was doing something political. In hindsight, everybody can second guess it. But I know for those of us who would have loved to see this issue surface a little earlier, you know, that didn't help. But the bigger issue, the bigger issue maybe, and this I have discussed extensively with the President and others, is the deliberate strategy of voter suppression, that those that support Trump and in many sense the Republican agenda are beginning to participate in. And it's this attempt, and they're justifying it on the basis of, you know, we've got to make sure that only good Americans vote kind of, you know, we want to make sure you're a citizen. And so you say, well, but the trend has been the other way, for example, you want to encourage young people to vote. Well, should we have a lot of ignorant young people voting? You know, and that kind of thought. So why should we make it easy for these people who may be irresponsible, you know, you start classifying people who you don't want. And in some of the states that people thought would have been more strongly democratic in the primary, in the presidential election, there were hundreds of thousands of people deleted from the voter roll, disenfranchised, for one reason or another, not having a driver's life. And a lot of these things are now these requirements are coming up to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court, fortunately, is starting to knock someone down with the appellate court. It was a national campaign. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And it was the time of the election. And by the way, you got to give them credit. Now, in fact, they did such a good job that they elected Donald Trump. I mean, it didn't matter who was running in a sense, you know, but they did a great job gerrymandering the country. And I don't think that's something that is debatable. I mean, it's already been the United States Supreme Court that says, stop it, you can't keep doing that kind of gerrymandering. And the second thing that they did were these voter suppression programs. Now, they didn't all do that six months before the last election. They did it for the decade before. Yeah. And one of the problems, and you and I talked about this, but one of the problems that progressives have is that they never take care of business, right? We spend a lot of time talking about issues, but we don't get there in the mud and actually organize voters, get out there and make sure that people are, you know, we get very unhappy with the Hawaii state legislature. And yet we don't we're the least likely to participate in an election. Well, you know, the thing is that Trump is different than any president we've ever had. Oh, yeah, of course. And, and under him, you know, all kinds of hostile things have happened, all kinds of rollback, in fact, pull out the wings on democracy, I would say. And Bill Clinton was one of those. You know, he does share some common points with W and with Bush senior and with other presidents. And W never tried to restrict voting. And that's the difference. And Bill Clinton, you know, who's here, who you know, who you've talked to, can tell you the difference between all the presidents before and this one. And of course it does because, you know, say what you like. And I was very opposed to, obviously, I mean, I helped Bill Clinton beat Bush senior. I was did everything I could to make sure that that, you know, that we supported anybody running against George, George W, including Gore and the rest of it. But, and by the way, you know, everybody does gerrymandering to some degree. I mean, the Democrats get it if we have a chance. I'm sure we've done it in Hawaii, you know. But not to the degree it was done before. But what no one has really did, really did is this systematic suppression of voters as a strategy and something you put out there. We need to do something. Democrats need to wake up. I mean, you know, in a sense, we got what we deserve. It's a huge issue. And the Democrats could rebuild public confidence by getting on that issue. Well, it's kind of sad. I'm going to say something. It is kind of sad for our party, in a sense, when the most important Democrat is not even a Democrat. And that is Bernie Sanders. You know, something is juxtaposition. Something is wrong. And so we got to get back. And one of the one of the interesting things, one of the great things about the Clinton early years with Bill, when we were all, you know, meal fight Clintonites, so we say, Reagan had taken over the country and had moved the country from Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty type of democracy to something closer to a lot more conservative. So we were in the process of losing elections like crazy. So when Bill ran, we had to present an agenda that appealed to everybody. And so that meant not just welfare as a support network, but job opportunity. And sometimes I think that in this day and age, we are no longer presenting policies that resonate with the entire community. And that's all fault. But it's an opportunity, too. Yeah, you can't blame Trump. But what you can blame Trump for is he's a master dividing conquer. In fact, I mean, again, you know, I'm going to say something, and maybe it's on the borderline of talking out of school. But basically, one of the things that happened is, what the President told me is that he's gotten, he's known Trump for years. I mean, as a businessman and as somebody who is just, you know, acting the way he acted, he's acting in the private sector. And apparently, one of these issues came up and immediately Trump tweets out something and blames Clinton, right? And then he calls him up. And he calls Clinton up. He says, ah, you know. I was only kidding. Yeah, kind of. You know, I was only kidding. What I'm dealing with is an angry population, you know, an angry public. And so, frankly, Bill, I say some of these things because I know they're angry, but I don't want them angry at me. So I give them a target to get angry at. And he actually had this conversation. The worst kind of demagoguery. I don't know what else you call it except demagoguery, you know. And so anyway. Well, John, I mean, this is, you know, the election left a hole in all of our hearts. Yeah. It's incomplete. We don't know how Hillary felt then, really, or how she feels now. We don't know how Bill felt, really. You more than most, you know how he felt. But I think we need to see that book. Yeah, I think I would love to see that. As a country, we need that book. And we needed, you know, we needed to, well, let me just say this, you know, there is Bill, obviously, the political guru or in tactician and participant. But there's also Bill the father, you know, Bill the husband. And I really think that, you know, he lost an election, by the way. He was elected governor one term, lost the next time, and then won again. And so it's not like he hadn't won. But I think that this probably affected Hillary's losses probably affects him more. Sure. Because he can't, you know, it's your family and you just get so worked up about not being able to respond. And you hate to see unfairness. Oh, yeah. But I tell you what, he's very proud of, though. And we also talked about that, is that Chelsea has two beautiful grandchildren, which is more than I have. But, you know, yeah. So anyway, he, you know, he enjoyed, he obviously loves Hawaii. And he enjoyed meeting people at the Hokulea, you know, and he will be on our show in the future. All right. Looking forward to that. We can ask him ourselves. Oh, wow. Thank you, John. Thanks. Thanks so much for coming down. Thank you. Let me be your host. Thank you.