When you have a precious grand baby on the way. Retire, relax, enjoy life. Thats on the ledger. And actually, ive said this a few times earlier in interviews. Im not making a decision in part because i do have this very lifechanging experience coming up in the fall. I dont want to be looking past it, you know. I dont want to be meeting my new grandchild and having somebody calling me and saying, oh, you got to do this, that and the other in order to make this decision. Im just not going to do that. So i will make this decision based on how i feel about it and what i believe i can do. But im not going to be rushed to do it, because this cannot rush you . Hard choice . Grandmother or the possibility of being the first he female president of the United States of america. You know, there have been hard choice. There have been a lot of grandfathers who have done it. Precisely. Maybe its not a hard choice. Its a personal hard choice. All right. On that note oh thank you. Thank you all very much. So i do want to thank secretary clinton for sharing her time and her thoughts with us. You can read more about her experiences as weve been talking, her book hard choices. Thank you to our audience and to our viewers here and around the world for joining us and for everyone at cnn. Good night. [ applause ] nice round of applause for Hillary Clinton and christiane amanpour. Hi, im wolf blitzer. Youve been watching town hall. Hillary clintons hard choices. We welcome you to this special edition of the situation room. You have just seen and heard Hillary Clinton talk for about an hour, about benghazi, syria, immigration and a whole lot more. Weve got a lot of coverage, a lot of analysis to do. Here in the situation room, were in the situation room. And i want to keep all of you here for the next hour as we assess what we have just heard. What do you think . Did she do a good job or didnt she do a good job . Good job . [ applause ] i think they think she did a pretty good job. Lets bring in jake tapper. Hes got some thoughts on what we just heard. Nice round of applause for jake. Come on over here, jake. What do you think . How did she do . First of all, she said hard choices a lot. I dont know if you picked up on that. Trying to sell her book. Thats the title of the book hard choices. For the people that read the book with a lot of anecdotes are very much from that. Ive seen her in a lot of different formats. This was her, at her best campaign format. She was on message and really trying to relate to the audience in some moments. Especially talking about being a woman in leadership. There were a couple moments when you can tell she was speaking as a way not as candidate. Im thinking when she talked about the gun lobby and referred to them as a radical minority terrorizing the majority. But christian did a wonderful job. We should give applause. [ applause ] i didnt learn a tremendous amount new, but i thought it was her at her best in terms of relating to an audience. I want to bring in john king. John, you listen very carefully. Im listening there with you, you are taking a lot of notes. What jumped out to you. The back and forth. Christian in the audience. She was clearly interested in moving on and discussing a lot of subjects. Sometimes candidates filibuster. She was not interested in that. Which is interesting. Tells you about her mindset. She was very clear and she wanted everyone to understand to the question from the young woman here that she disagreed with the president on syria. Gently and politely, she wanted to make clear that she reinforced that early on. She wanted to arm the syrian rebels. She is running. Her decision is whether or not to stop running. The base wont like so much her words about those young kids she is showing a great deal of empathy for children at the border trying to get to the United States but she also said just because they get to the border doesnt mean they stay. The liberal base wont like that so much. When she said she would try to reunite the Young Children with families in Central America or elsewhere, hold on. A big round of applause for our moderator, christiane amanpour, she is here with us. [ applause ] you know, its tough because you want to ask a whole lot of hard questions. But what i honestly genuinely think, it is so valuable to hear what people want to ask her and not just what we want to ask her. And i was very impressed by, as you said, the diversity of the questions. I think many people, all of this was substantive. People wanted to know about iraq, about syria, about immigration, about women. Many people criticize, which is why i ask her, including journalist, female journalists, why did you not run as a woman last time. She talked about that very well. And she talked about the pressures of doing that. And some ladys question about maternity leave, she reminds me that america is one of only three countries in the world that does not give their women paid maternity leave. An i have spoken to top, top, the imf, there is an added gdp boost if men and women are at the work force at the same level. Even in the United States. Even in developed economy. For that reason as well as humanitarian and other reasons, there should be that she certainly sounded and looked like a i want to get to that in a moment but she sounded like a president ial candidate. What did you think . Look, i mean, look. Everybody says she is running. What can i tell you . I tried my best. I knew she want going to announce or not announce on this. But she has been thinking about it and evolving. I like her marijuana comment. I like the gay marriage comment i thought was interesting. She did get incredibly testy during the npr. I thought she advanced that and had been thinking about that. I thought that seemed to go down pretty well. Syria, i cover that, an incredibly important issue. Were all terrified by the fact that an al qaeda offshoot has established a statelet in iraq and in syria. And many people believe thats because of a handoff policy by this administration. And she is very clear, but i still wanted to know why, if this was the, you know, existential National Security threat to the United States, which it is, push and push and push to change this policy. You know, her own ambassador resigned over it. If there was any question, jake, about her health, certainly did not indicate any problems at all. She was lively, feisty, talkative. She certainly was alert and she wanted to explain her positions. She said if she does choose to run then she will do what other candidates have done and disclose her medical records. One other point to something that you and christiane were talking about, is whether she was radically canndid or keepin her options open and that is about paid medical leave. Maternity leave. She did not support it, why not . Because it is not politically possible. It wasnt a statement of principle as we heard from christiane, it was, we cant have it done. So im not going to come out and favor of it right now. She said, let the states try it. As everything happens in this country. I come from europe where we have very generous paid maternity leave. Where we he have a universal health care. Where we do pay taxes in order to have these kinds of things. So we sort of take it for granted. And five months vacation. No, jake. People try to put Hillary Clinton in a bks. She is constantly evolved but she is evolved in a public way. Her husbands administration. Architect of health care. Ultra liberal, government take over of health care. She is with the liberal base on guns right there. More in the center on the immigration issue and she sounds like a states rights republican. Let the states try the marijuana question. Let the states try on the minimum wage. Let the states try on the family leave and lets see how things go and when the state proves they can do it, then you nationalize it. Hard it pigeon hole sometimes. And she has a great sense of humor. She doesnt always get to show it. Like it or not, she is kind of funny. We have a lot of analysis coming up here in our special situation room, including Hillary Clinton talking about her plans for 2016. Are your competitive juices flowing for the chance to be the first female president . Of the United States of america. Fame, makes a man take things over fame, lets him loose, hard to swallow fame, puts you there where things are hollow the evolution of luxury continues. The next generation 2015 escalade. Fame are the largest targets in the world, for every hacker, crook and nuisance in the world. But systems policed by hps Cyber Security team are constantly monitored for threats. Outside and in. Thats why hp reports and helps neutralize more intrusions than anyone. In the world. If Hp Security Solutions can help keep the Worlds Largest organizations safe, they can keep yours safe, too. Make it matter. [ male announcer ] thats why theres ocuvite to help replenish key eye nutrients. Ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. Ocuvite. Help protect your eye health. Ocuvite. When folks think about wthey think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. There have been, as you know, a number of investigations, including the independent one that the state department commissioned as well as many in congress, there are answers, not all of them, not enough, frankly. Im still looking for answers because it was a confusing and difficult time. But i would hope that every american would understand, number one, why we were there. Because we need to be in dangerous places. And number two, we are doing the best we can to find out what happened. And i hope that fairminded people will look at that seriously. Welcome back. Were here at the museum in washington, d. C. This is a special edition of the situation room and im wolf blitzer. Lets talk to gloria borger, and cnn political analyst maggie abe rahman. Lets go down the line, ladies. Give us your immediate thought. What do you think . I think she did very well. She got looser as time went on. I still dont hear a theme of what her candidacy would be like her discussion was like her book, a series of issues. But she was much more candid than she has been. She did show flashes of humor and you did see at the end she addressed the questions of grandmother. She said a lot of grandfathers have run too. Thats a good point. What did you think, gloria . Youve been watching her for a while. I dont think there is any overall message because, i am woman. I am different. I am running as a woman this time. In 2008 when she lost, she said it was difficult to gauge how i was being presented. She talked about the hair, makeup, being under the microscope as a woman. How people ask her about being a grandmother and didnt ask mitt romney so much about being a grandfather many times over. I think what i heard from her was, there is going to be a different campaign. She is running on her experience. But she is also appealing to women as a woman. Brianna, youve been covering her for a while as well. Did you see outbursts of desire to be the first woman president of the United States. I think when you kind of i think you see her really keeping, not just the door open, but everything is geared to me. I see toward running. Unless she decides not to. To me it seems very apparent at this point that that is where her mind is. What struck me is if she is going to run and this is to your point, maggie, she sort of raised the question herself. What is your vision. She raised the question and didnt really answer it. I want to know what her vision is. She may not want it unveil it so quickly but i think thats the question she is sort of figuring out right now. There was a clear take on the nra. Then the question was, she said, and it almost sounded like a she was asked about barack obama, it brought me he back to 2008. She said some people can paint a beautiful vision but can you lead us there. And i thought, wait, is this 2008. There is no question she is didding a l doing a lot of thro. She did not answer the question about race with president obama. I do think that will come up again and again and again. I think she will need a clearer answer. Specifically, what would you like to have heard . I think she needed it say there were people who opposed him because of race. I think in the democratic primary that is going to hurt her and people want to hear her say that. For voters that would be offended in a general election, they probably wouldnt be with her anyway. There may not be much democratic primary. Thats why they need daylight. Why do you want to go through this is a system we have but why go through that if you dont have to. If there a democratic primary, people will run to her left and not to her right. Yes. Thats to my point. Exactly. Let me play this little clip from the town hall meeting. Watch this. Are your competitive juices flowing for the chance to be the first female president of the of United States of america . You can see why shes an experienced journalist. Ive been asked this a million different ways. That was very clever. I was with my husband for eight years. I saw how difficult that was. I have served president obama for four years. He became a good friend of mine. I see how difficult that is. Buzz people who dont agree with you try to tear you down. Because there is a lot at stake. It really matters what is going to happen, whether it is immigration or guns or income, inequality or anything else. Im going to think about all that, but not right now. Not right now. But she will make up her mind presumably by the enof the year. She had said by the end of theier and now she said that she will be well on her way by the end of the year. So she is giving herself a little bit of wiggle room. That fascinates me because if she decides she doesnt want to run, that is something she needs to do sooner than later to give space to the other potential democrats who may want to run. If she does decide she is going to run, it helps her to put it off a little bit and she also was she looks back and really does not like that she declared in january of 2007 and had almost two full years of campaigning really did not like that. So i think she will put it off as long she wont have long to wait. A lot of pressure. Shes running. Can we just say that, shes running. If she doesnt run, i totally agree with you. If she doesnt run, that will be a huge story. Like everybody believes shes running. It will be like, of course shes in the meantime, she freezes out other potential democratic candidates. Saying it is a fantastic field and we have tons of other people, which she has said in other interviews, there isnt a ton of others. There a vice president. He is thinking about running. He is at the world cup, by the way. And a few governors. But it is not the same. All you have to do is look at the polls. When you look at potential field, she is in the 60s. Joe biden is the closest. He not even in the teens, i dont think. She faced it in 2008, inevitability is not a campaign slogan. Im the inevitable candidate. Im going to win. Polls show not only is she expected to be the democratic nominee but also favored to win the president ial race. And it is a little early for people to think shes inevitable because it happened to her once before. And im sure she is thinking with b that. How did she do on benghazi. I think her answer is still incomplete and she will continue to get questions shp she said, im searching for answers too. She said, there is a lot gloria, that we dont know. I guess that in effect might justify a special Congressional Committee if theres a lot she doesnt know. And my reporter ears perked up when i heard that. Because of course, there are questiones about whether she will testify about this committee in benghazi. Now that she has come out and said to christiane that there are a lot of unanswered questions, i guarantee you that republicans will say, well, madam secretary, come visit. All right. Hold on for a minute ladies. We have a lot more coming up ahead. Hillary clinton speaks out about guns in america. Also about marijuana, both medical and recreational. We have at least two states that are experimenting with that right now. I want to wait and see what the evidence is. You want to wait and try it . You said you never smoked. Were moving our company to new york state. The numbers are impressive. Over 400,000 new private sector jobs. Making new york state number two in the nation in new private sector job creation. With 10 Regional Development strategies to fit your business needs. And now its even better because theyve introduced startup new york. With the state creating dozens of taxfree zones where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. Become the next business to discover the new new york. [ male announcer ] see if your business qualifies. The what i needed was information i could trust on how to take care of me and my baby. Luckily, unitedhealthcare has a Simple Program that helps moms stay on track with their doctors and get the right care and guidancebefore and after the baby is born. Simple is good right now. anncr vo innovations that work for you. Thats health in numbers. Unitedhealthcare. Hooking up the country whelping business run build were investing big to keep our country in the lead. Load we keep moving to deliver what you need. And that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. Cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey thats nice Norfolk Southern whats your function . Helping this big country move ahead as one Norfolk Southern hows that function . Co until youre sure you do. You need a hotel room bartender thanks, captain obvious. Co which is why i put the hotels. Com mobile app on my mobile phone. Hotels. Com i dont need it right now. We cannot let a minority of people, and thats what it is, its a minority of people hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people. Welcome back to our special edition of the situation room. From the museum here in washington where