Clinton defends 'dead broke' comment

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her remarks about the financial struggles she and Bill Clinton experienced after they left the White House, including mortgages they needed for "houses."

"Let me just clarify that I fully appreciate how hard life is for so many Americans today," Clinton said Tuesday in an interview on ABC Television's Good Morning America.

Interviewer Robin Roberts asked the former first lady if she could understand the negative reaction to comments she made in a separate interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer broadcast Monday. In that interview Clinton said she and husband were "dead broke" at the end of his presidency, and "we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education."

"I can," said Clinton, who in 2000 agreed to an $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for a memoir of her time as first lady. "Everything in life has to be put in context. As I recall, we were something like $12 million in debt" coming out of the White House in 2001. The Clintons purchased homes in Chappaqua, N.Y., and in Washington, D.C.

Clinton's Senate financial disclosure forms, filed for 2000, show assets between $781,000 and almost $1.8 million. The forms allow senators to report assets in broad ranges. The same form, however, showed that the Clintons owed between $2.3 million and $10.6 million in legal bills to four firms for work performed on investigations into the couple's financial dealings during Bill Clinton's two presidential terms.

The statements played into concerns among some Democrats that Clinton, who is considering a run for the presidency in 2016, is out of touch with Americans on the issue of income inequality.

"I think she's been out of touch with average people for a long time," said Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, pointing to Clinton's estimated $200,000-per-speech speaking fees and million-dollar book advances. "Whether she was flat broke or not is not the issue. It's tone deaf to average people."

Clinton said Tuesday that she and her husband have "gone through some of the same challenges that many people have" and that they "understand what that struggle is." But she also acknowledged that "we've continued to be blessed in the last 14 years."

"I want to use the talents and resources I have to make sure other people get the same chances," she said.

Clinton's interview was part of the media rollout for the formal release Tuesday of her new memoir, Hard Choices, a book that's seen as laying the groundwork for a prospective presidential campaign.

Clinton's book tour began Tuesday morning with a sold-out autographing event at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan's Union Square. Around 1,000 people, some of whom slept on the sidewalk the night before, lined up for an autograph and the chance to shake her hand and say hello. Many in the crowd wore "Ready for Hillary" buttons or stickers.

In the interview with Sawyer, Clinton said she would probably announce a decision on whether to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination no earlier than next year. Even so, she didn't commit to that timeline.

"I have to make the decision that's right for me and the country," she said.

Clinton also told Sawyer that she sees no problem with Bushes or Clintons running for the presidency almost every four years and that she isn't the prohibitive favorite for the White House in 2016.

"This is a democracy," she said when asked about possible American voter fatigue with the two families. "People get to choose their leaders."

Her husband defeated Republican President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 election, was re-elected in 1996 and was succeeded by George W. Bush in 2001.

"If I were to decide to pursue it, I would be working as hard as any underdog or any newcomer because I don't want to take anything for granted if I decide to do it," she said.

During the interview with Sawyer, Clinton touched on one of the lowest points of her tenure as Secretary of State: the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Clinton said the Benghazi outpost was one of many perilously situated U.S. diplomatic facilities around the globe.

Asked by Sawyer why Stevens was in Benghazi even though his own diary noted that there were "never-ending security threats" there, Clinton said he was there "of his own choosing."

Clinton said Republican inquiries over the 2012 attack in Benghazi give her "more of a reason" to run.

As for her health -- which Republicans have sought to make an issue since she hit her head, suffered a concussion and was later diagnosed with a blood clot near her brain in late 2012 -- Clinton said she's doing fine.

"No lingering effects," she said.

She'll probably be on blood thinners for the rest of her life to stave off future clots, she said.

Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Allen and Annie Linskey of Bloomberg News, and by Ken Thomas and Hillel Italie of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/11/2014