human rights. the former secretary of state, the former united states senator from new york and the former first lady of the united states, have to fit them all in their secretary hillary rodham clinton. welcome to "washington post" life. >> thank you so much jonathan. i'm delighted to be with you especially today. >> so we now here in united states lots of people are excited about the fact that we have a woman as a vice president of the united states but we have women still being brutalized around the world. what are your thoughts on this international women's day? >> well i share the opinion that we have made progress with -- and it would be unfair to argue that we haven't. there's a lot we can point to and clearly i'm as thrilled as anyone having vice president harris and the white house but if we really look at where we are we no that huge barriers, legal, structural, psychological and as you know barriers of all kinds are holding back women and girls and jonathan it's especially important to focus on that right now because the pandemic over this past year has really set women back. the burdens that it has imposed on women especially mothers has been seen in everything from an increase in domestic violence to an increase in child marriages, to a loss of employment by front-line workers who are disproportionately women so on this international women's day we can take stock of how far we have come since i gave that speech in beijing in 1995 but we have to recommit ourselves to continuing to make the changes that are necessary to ensure that every girl and woman have the chance to fulfill her own god-given potential. >> name one or two of those changes that you think should happen or should be made. >> well in the developed world and especially in the united states, we need paid family need. we need quality affordable childcare. we need to continue to knock down all of the barriers many of which are now in the realm of culture rather than law against women's full participation in the labor force and in the rest of the world we have seen is that backs and we have seen the continuing requirements that are placed on women to not only be fully involved in the home but to do so much work that is not reiterated like carrying water, carrying firewood in caring for children. they don't get the right to inherit or the right to own property so there's a lot that needs to be done across the world and the final point about that jonathan is study after study has proven this is not just a nice thing to do. we know where women can fully participate in the economy, the formal economy where they are paid, then the entire communities they are part of and indeed the country in which they live have increased economic activity and there is no country in the world now matter how far it tries to ensure women equality that would not see their economic growth increased if the barrier to women's involvement were totally knocked down. >> and a follow-up i was going to ask you in the atlantic last fall you offered an addendum to your beijing statement writing quote rights are nothing without the power to claim them. how can women claim them? >> well i did write that he caused i am concerned that there has been a lot of lip service to rights. laws have been changed, constitutions have been changed, women have been included in ways they weren't prior to 1995 and that is all good but without the power to claim them are pretty empty. we need many more women at every table where any decision is made. .. you need to look harder and people in executive positions in the private sector, should be evaluated on how inclusive they are in providing opportunities. not just for the hiring of women, but for their advancement, their promotion, their sleuthing into the executive positions themselves. certainly that is true in academia, and the media, it is not just in the kind of corporations we generally think of providing goods and services, but across the economy at large. and in the public sector i am encouraging more and more women to run for office. but their names out there. be willing to get into the arena because we need more women who are helping to make decisions. i would add leasing a great example of that this past week. we have seen with the american rescue plan, not only a terrific peace of legislation that targets covid relief, stimulus payments for families and businesses, provides more subsidies who have lost healthcare and therefore can be eligible for the affordable care act. looking to provide money for getting kids back into school and daycare's open. we've also seen a real focus on one of the challenges women always face balancing family and work. with providing assistance for children. in the build 93% of american children are in families that will receive a payment. this is a kind of legislation that many of us has hope for, advocated for over many years to help level that playing field so that mothers and fathers, women and men can manage both their family responsibilities and their work responsibilities without a disproportionate burden falling on mothers and women. >> you talk about the american rescue plan which is also known as the $1.9 trillion covid relief package that president biden campaigned on, pushed for and by tomorrow will most likely be a law of the land. as you know with the biden administration has been working on women and family issues that you have passionately cared about. any chance, any chance he will formally work with the president to help him on these issues? >> guest: well i don't think i will work formally. but i'm certainly working informally. i am working very hard to support the president's agenda. i was thrilled that today he has announced the gender equality council that is run by two fabulous young women that i personally know and have worked with over many years. i am in full support of what the biden-harris administration is doing. it's not just, jonathan because i care deeply about equality and justice for women and girls, i care about it for men and boys too. but i especially care about it for our larger society. i think we now have a chance as people have lived through covid, that more and more americans regardless of political party are starting to say wait a minute, i do need my government to stand up for me. i need my government and my corner, not just the corner of special interest. the multinational corporations and the millionaires and billionaires. i need them and my corner. i am struggling. my small businesses gone under or hanging by a thread. if had to leave work to care for my children will therein zoom school not real school. i am so excited by this legislation. i think it is generational. i believe it's been a long time coming and finally we have a consensus. maybe still just the democrats both we have the polling, the democrats in congress are supported by a very significant majority of all americans for the biden-harris plan. i am excited that maybe we're going to get finally to an understanding that we need to really truly lift everybody up. it's good for not just those getting direct aid or subsidies or support in some fashion. it's good for the entire economy in the entire society part i am thrilled by that. i am outspoken advocate for the biden-harris administration. both on social media interviews like this and also behind the scenes and talking to a number of the people who are making these important decisions. speak what i want to take a bit of a detour. where talk about the psychological and attitudinal issues facing women around the world, the entire nation and by the entire world is been talking about the interview last night with the duchess of sessa's meghan markle and her husband harry the duke of sussex. i'm wondering what happened when the business is the royal family paid the bigger issue here is, what happens when you have women who are in powerful positions. or in powerful families who feel like their voices are being squelched. their freedom is being denied. just talk about your thoughts and reactions to the interview. and what's, if there is a bigger message to women to be gleaned from what meghan markle had to say last night. >> guest: oh, i thought it was an extraordinary two hours of television. and i think oprah for conducting the interview as only she could. i found it so heartrending to watch. i've met obviously both harry and meghan. i knew harry's mother, princess diana. i know the other members of the royal family. and it was just heartbreaking that this incredibly accomplished woman, meghan markle, who falls in love with prince harry was not fully embraced by not just the so-called firm which is the name for the permanent bureaucracy that surrounds the royal family, but by the media in the uk. i have my time in the box with the british tabloids as anybody who is in the public eye has had. their cruelty and going after megan was just outrageous. and the fact she did not get more support. that the reaction was let's just paper it over and pretend it did not happen or it will go up away, just keep your head down. this young woman was not about to keep her head down. this was 2021. she wanted to live her life. she wanted to be fully engaged. she had every right to hope for that. and i just think that every institution, obviously it last night we were thinking about royalty in the uk. but every institution has got to make more space and acceptance for young people coming up. particularly young women should not be forced into a mold that is no longer relevant. not only for them but for our society. it was heartbreaking to see the two of them sitting there, having to describe how difficult it was to be accepted, to be integrated, not just into the royal family as they described, but more painfully into the larger society whose narrative is driven by tabloids that are living in the past. i just hope that there will be some serious, thoughtful consideration and all of the institutions. not just in response to what megan and harry were talking about. but literally across all of our societies. why do we make it so hard to incorporate diversity to celebrate it to be proud of it. i just cannot help but watch last night and really feel these two young people, by my standards they are still young, are not only standing up for themselves and for their children, but they are really trying to send a message about what institutions including the ones they were a part of need to do to be more dynamic and forward-looking than they currently are. >> bus come back stateside into new york but as i mentioned before your former et cetera from the great state of new york. let's talk about governor andrew cuomo. over the weekend the senate majority leader on prominent democrat home sure you know. both of these women's : governor cuomo to resign. when you think you should do? >> guest: i have said, jonathan, that the allegations are serious and they need to be investigated thoroughly. not only for the sake of the women who stepped forward to bring these allegations but for all new yorkers. i am very confident that the attorney general will conduct an independent, comprehensive investigation. i think we should all wait to see what those results are. >> what's talk about the republican party showing? the republicans have been eating their own. i wonder what advice if in eight you would give to congresswoman liz cheney of wyoming and handling not just donald trump and the criticism coming from him, but his followers in congress. speech at first i do not which i hurt liz cheney but i will say i was incredibly impressed by her strength in standing up to what had been instigated by donald trump, an attack on our capitol by the then sitting president of our country which is so outrageous. and really representative cheney was one of the very few republicans in congress who did stand up. and i give all of them who spoke up, who voted for impeachment who voted for conviction in the senate. credit for doing what was right. i just wish more republicans had the courage or understanding of what they needed to do, that they too had had stood up and spoken out. right now, jonathan, it is really troubling to see the republican party turn themselves into a cult. i basically pledge allegiance not to the united states of america but to donald trump. you cannot accept we have seen with the very large popular victory of joe biden and kamala harris, the passage of the american rescue plan that is so popular. i don't understand why the republican party is so afraid of itself. because that is what it comes down too. they are afraid that donald trump will instigate primary opponents against them. in those primary opponents will demand loyalty to the trump not to the american, not to the united states of america. i think this will eventually burn out. i hope it happens soon or not later. the country should not be so much in turmoil and really at the whim of someone who is so indifferent to more than 500,000 deaths from covid. from white supremacists and naturalists storming our capitol and everything else that he has either left or ignored. specs begin that secretary clinton, if i went back into my archives, you and i have spoken over the years. i've written columns about our conversations in july of 2016 in the middle of your own presidential campaign, you are the presumptive democratic nominee we talked about then candidate donald trump his use of that language, you call it divisive. i called it racist. and here's what you told me at the time. you said we have to reject it is a threat to our democracy. i don't care what your raise what your ethnicity is pitting people against one another, stoking mistrust, everything he says everything he promises do as president would drive even further divisive barriers between us. here we are, nearly five years later. did you expect it to get as bad as it got with him as president? >> guest: i did not expected to get as been bred to think of a bad, jonathan, did try to sound the alarm during the 2006 and campaign. we went several times. >> guest: the number of research their people studied that campaign understand my speaking out against white supremacy and the kind of rhetoric that trump used was politically guess not wise. but for me is absently imperative to try to speak out. to try to portray what i thought was the outcome of a drunk presidency. i hoped once he was in office would understand the enormity of the job. have some of that sense of humility that presidents need to have when they are in the oval office. will as we know that did not happen. it was always all about him, his personal, his financial, his partisan political advantage. it really was tragic to watch. everything what he said after charleston all the way up through his absolute indifference and negligent during covid and all the cost that imposed to his behavior in the face of legitimate and peaceful protest following the killings of george floyd and others to obviously his final act even those that are controlled by republican governors and legislatures. he never grew into the job. he never accepted the awesome responsibility that goes with being president. and i am just so grateful beyond words that president biden is not only in the office behaving as we should expect a president to behave, doing the work, having the kind of engagement on the issues that any president should have. i am hoping as i said earlier that the republican party will find its sole. will find its center again and understand the thought they could control him, they could use him, they could use them to take over the supreme court. they could use them to recklessly cut taxes. they could do with their own agenda was really demanding more from because he didn't care about any of it other than his power, is adulation, the role that he played rather than the job he was supposed to do. i hope the republican party catches up with the rest of the country. the other thing i would add about this is, it truly is shameful that the republican party has decided that it cannot win elections unless it stops people from voting. many in the republican party were upset that not only president biden vice president harris when their states, but that we elected to dynamic setters from georgia. so what is the response? with difference with the democrats but we could stand up for them. we could make our case. i don't be anything possible to be part of its future oriented. start standard turn the clock back trying to bring back all kind of voter suppression tactics. omega devitt cofer black and brown people, we don't think they could get their votes. that's not the mark of a very confident and optimistic political party. that's the mark of a losing political party and periods spewing trickle into another thing they're doing at least the ones that were elected are retiring earlier today center roy blunt of missouri announced he will not seek reelection but he's the fifth republican to announce they're not going to seek reelection. what he think that says about the republican party? you think the republican party is at a fork in the road and it's going to go down one that is not that brings the country together? speech i think you're seeing republicans retire not ready to face a primary against a trump acolyte who do not have the stomach anymore to stand up and fight against extremism in their own party. so they are retiring. i can understand that. we have done the calculation for they concluded trump as the puppetmaster that pulls the strings of the hard-core base of the republican party disinformation on social media that really pollutes people's thinking about where we need to be in the country. what is true and what is absolutely false. and so they are throwing the towel in. i'm sorry, i'm sorry. not that i would agree with a lot of the republicans who are leaving, i served for eight years in the senate as you know, jonathan, i overlapped and frankly i could not believe that many of the people who i knew had basically shut their mouths. that not stood up to trump and chose to not run again. i hope it's not a sign the parties going to go even more extreme. actually if not for voter suppression is probably good news for the democrats. i think voters, whether they are middle of the road republicans who have certain ideas about what they want to see or independents or democrats him across the spectrum, they are going to see a president with joe biden who's getting things done for them. maybe that will help to turn the tide asthma republican state wait a minute, i do not want to part of the extreme. i want to be part of the decision-making for our country. >> host: quickly got a squeeze into things before we go. one, your view on the filibuster in terms of getting president biden's agenda through this a lot of increasing talk is filibustered is to be done away with so i can get through a simple majority vote. if you are still in the senate would you vote to do with filibuster? >> guest: i would, jonathan put i would vote to do away with the filibuster. i think it has outlasted its usefulness. i think whatever problems right now is that we have a minority that's becoming more and more extreme that is basically holding the majority not just of congress but of the country back. and i think the filibuster for whatever purpose it is served in the past should be retired. and i am encouraged there are conversations about whether it is not done with completely, it can be modified so that important bills like the john lewis voting rights act. or infrastructure builds up a people to work and to frankly fix our crumbling infrastructure can pass on majority vote. because there's no doubt in my mind that is what the american people are looking for. they are really tired of the kind of games that look like they're being played part and they don't understand they vote for somebody and nothing gets done because everything can get stopped by filibuster. so if we don't have the votes to eliminated then we should certainly amend it so that it can permit important legislation to be decided on a majority vote. >> host: rn medical squeeze into her things the time we have left. there's a great story in the front page of the style section about you commenting the clintons and the obama's and how you have become epic content creators. you are now and my biz you have a podcast called you and me both with hillary clinton party of a production company that has optioned two books. what are you hoping to do on this side of the microphone? speech i am following interleaved, jonathan. look in today's world just as it has always been from the beginning of time, storytelling is absolutely essential. you have now a convergence of policy and politics and culture. in the narrative of our time is really going to be critical in helping everybody decide how to create a life, how to build a future, where country goes next. i am so excited to be doing the podcast brisbane wonderful talking with people of a dude with i heart they're terrific part of the home of the other day that people stay for my podcast for 30 -- 40 minutes even though our attention spans we know have been diminished. i have been in business now with my daughter and other partners on a production company called hidden light. we are doing our first production on the book of guppy women chelsea and i wrote together for booktv. we have options in a credible book the daughters of carbonic with gayle lemmon. which looks at the kurdish women who are on the front lines fighting isis. we have other things sorted in the works. and i want to tell inspirational informational stories that really get people to think hard about how we live together. how we pursue justice and equality. how we really tried to get over our divide in fines and unifying themes of our common humanity and common americanness. i'm really having a great time. what secretary clinton going into a little bit of overtime because i cannot end this interview without getting you to talk about the loss of your very good friend and mentor to me, that is the great power has democrat civil rights activist vernon jordan. close us out with some reflections on your friend. >> guest: will jonathan i read your column and i thank you for. he was a truly unique towering figure. he was as you said a leader in the civil rights movement. one of the last live was there with doctor king, john lewis, and all the rest of the heroes who helped to improve our country and give us at least a chance to fulfill our ideals. he is also a great mentor. he lifted everybody up who knew him. if you had a hard question about a decision to make, if you wanted advice about what should be doing in your life or your business, the score is upon scores of people who would go to vernon was always discreet, he was always very open and honest with you. but he gave some of the best advice that i know of. and that he certainly ever received. it was just a great friend. i knew him, jonathan covid 1969. i had many, many years of his friendship. and then with him and, with his daughter vicki and anne's children. during the eight years bill was president we spent every christmas eve at the jordan's house. we have a buffet dinner together, we would stand around the piano and seeing christmas carols. we would have great conversations before we went to a midnight church service. so i have both the memories of this giant of a man and everything he stood for. everything he had accomplished. and then the deep personal memories of his friendship to me, to bill, to chelsea, our family over so many years. he is going to be incredibly missed. a party a lot of our mutual friends. they keep saying the same thing. i know him went to reaching for that phone or tapping up that number before i remember that he is not there anymore. it is a hard fact to face. that vernon jordan it is no longer with us. but he leaves a huge legacy. at the legged legacy young people to it understand how it is possible to make change in so many different ways. that was a genius. he can make changes in voter grades he can make changes in corporate boardrooms, he can make changes in the oval office. he understood that if you believed in what you were espousing and doing there would always be a way of trying to get that to somebody who could make a difference in a life, and a community, and a country or a world. what a great man vernon jordan was. stuart secretary hillary rodham clinton thank you so very much for coming to "washington post" live. >> guest: think you're jonathan it's always a pleasure to talk to you. strict south carolina rep nancy mace talks about her life and career including becoming the first woman to graduate from the citadel. the reagan institute host the event her remarks are prerecorded. 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