And Group Retirement products. Thats why we are your retirement company. Additional support has been provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. From the tisch wnet studios at Lincoln Center in new york, hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan good evening and thanks for joining us. Two days before the Partys NationalConvention Begins in philadelphia, a preview of the democratic ticket played out today in miami. Presumptive president ial nominee Hillary Clinton introduced her running mate for Vice President , tim kaine, the u. S. Senator from virginia. Hillary clinton began by taking aim at the rhetoric heard at this weeks Republican National convention. Donald trump may think america is in decline, but hes wrong. Americas best days are still ahead of us. Sreenivasan she said the Democratic Convention would focus on building bridges, not walls, embracing diversity, and criticized trumps approach to problem solving. And when he says, as he did say, i alone can fix it, hes not only wrong, hes dangerously wrong. Sreenivasan clinton described tim kaine as a leader who cares more about making a difference than making headlines, and as someone with a backbone of steel, citing his push to ban guns for the mentally ill following the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting. Speaking in florida, a state where one out of four residents is latino, kaine called for an easier path to citizenship for immigrants and frequently showed off his bilingual skills. Bienvenidos a todos en nuestra pais. Verdad . Sreenivasan kaine is 58 years old. He is in his first term as a senator from virginia after serving as the states governor and the mayor of richmond. Hes never lost an election. The son of an ironworker, he would be the nations second catholic Vice President , after joe biden. Contrasting the nominees, kaine said clinton does not trash our allies but respects them. Trump saying he would leave our allies at the mercy of an increasingly aggressive russia. And folks, thats an open invitation for Vladimir Putin to roll on in. Even republicans say thats terribly dangerous. Sreenivasan he also criticized trumps business record. From Atlantic City to his so called university, he leaves a trail of broken promises and wrecked lives wherever he goes. Sreenivasan susan swecker, the head of virginias delegation to the Democratic Convention, has known kaine for 20 years. He is a very genuine person, but also a very strong person, and someone that has a wealth of experience. A person of integrity. Sreenivasan california delegate deborah broner said she was excited by the pick. His experience as an attorney with civil rights issues are important to all of us as democrats and as americans. I believe that his Early Education leadership in virginia will be essential and complementary to Hillary Clinton and her presidency. Sreenivasan but chuck pascal, a pennsylvania delegate for Bernie Sanders, said he had hoped for someone else. Ive been hearing a lot of push back from the progressive side, mainly because he doesnt excite any particular part of the base, and his record has been mixed in some things like trade. Sreenivasan for more analysis of the kaine pick, i am joined from philadelphia by newshour weekend special correspondent Jeff Greenfield. Jeff, why tim kaine . How does he help Hillary Clinton . Well, its a choice that actually many people had predicted because it was if nothing else, it was a way of communicating that Hillary Clinton, as she said, has a reasonableness gene. Mayor, lieutenant governor, governor, senator. The reverse of a donald trump with no experience. I think what maybe not many people expected was that the rollout today showed a tim kaine that very few of us knew really good on his feet, very warm, very moving, very funny, speaking without notes fair great length of time. So i think after he appeared, there were more people who said, oh, i see why she picked him. Sreenivasan and there was a different vibe in that rollout speech as well. Donald trump got a lot of criticism for the fact that he didnt even stay on stage very long with mike pence. Yeah, i think i think part of what they were trying to communicate was this is a comfortable twosome. Shes not upstaging him. Shes perfectly happy to sit there and let him talk at 48 length to let him sphwriews himself to the american public. But i also think the way tim kaine told all those stories you know that he subject his kids to the same integrate schools that his wifes father, republican governor, had integrated. What in any event to be in honduras. What it meant to be the governor during the Virginia Tech murders. Yeah, i think she was saying to the country, i really am comfortable with who i picked, and youre going to be comfortable afterwards. Exi also think a number of people who wanted to see a more liberal or progressive candidate may have had second thoughts after hearing kaine thinking i get this pick. Sreenivasan this wasnt someone Bernie Sanders folks had supported before or after the speech. Thats right. But i think there is a comfortable level they may have reached because a lot of what tim kaine was communicating were progressive values. A lot of people think the clintons are grudge holders. In 2008, at a critical point in the primary, tim kaine endorsed barack obama, and this at least shows that, you know, Hillary Clinton does not walk around for eight years thinking, well he didnt back me. Why should i pick him . Sreenivasan you know, he was an early supporter of Hillary Clinton before she even declared. I think it was in 2014 when he started out. The fact he was speaking spanish in and out of this conversation, the fact that they chose to do this in florida, a key battleground state, important . Yeah, i would say that does not come under the heading of coincidence. Ive seen of one of trumps supporters complain about this why are you speaking spanish when youre running for Vice President of the united states. But i think its pretty clear, given how this campaign is going to shape up, the clear drive on the part of the clinton people to make demographics work for them and try to get a hispanic vote out. Hispanics represent an increasing part of the ey have not voted in anything like their numbers of citizens. So i think him campaigning in florida, speaking very comfortably in spanish, i have a feeling youre going to see a lot of of that as the Campaign Goes on in arizona, colorado, new mexico is a safe Democratic State now. But, yeah, thats clearly an asset that they see theyre going to play. Sreenivasan how about the importance of the electoral map . Hes the virginian, and he is a you know, hes somebody who has worked across party lines in virginia, and hopefully i imagine that Hillary Clinton campaign thinks can deliver that state. Its possible. We havent seen much of that in recent years. Vice president ial candidates picked because of geography. And theres some academic skepticism about how much that ever works. But surely, youre talking about a man elected to statewide office there three times in a state that used to be one of the most republicans, gone democratic the last two elections. And if clinton can keep virginia in her column, that makes the path for donald trump just that much more harder. Sreenivasan all right, Jeff Greenfield joining us from philadelphia. Thanks so much. Thank you. Sreenivasan Hillary Clinton has spent roughly half of her nearly 69 years in public life, as first lady of arkansas, and of the united states. As a u. S. Senator from new york, and as secretary of state. But fairly or unfairly, the whiff of scandal has lingered over her White House Run from the clintons investment in the whitewater real estate deal in arkansas, to the more recent f. B. I. Probe of her use of private email server while secretary of state. Opinion polls reflect that clinton is, like her republican opponent, donald trump, a polarizing figure on one hand, she has topped the gallup poll of most admired woman each of the last 14 years and 20 times overall. On the other hand, a real clear politics average of polls finds 56 percent of americans have an unfavorable view of her, and 67 of americans told a cbs News New York times poll this month they do not find her honest or trustworthy. To examine her record of service as first lady, senator, and secretary of state, i sat down this week with the authors of two books about her. Michael tomasky wrote hillarys turn inside her improbable, victorious senate campaign. Hes now is a correspondent fo the daily beast. And mark landler wrote alter egos Hillary Clinton, barack obama and the Twilight Struggle over american power. Hes a New York Times white house correspondent. Sreenivasan back in 1992, bill clinton said, youre going to get two for the price of one. Shes going to be part of my policies. And she was head of the Health Care Reform task force; it didnt do well in congress. Whats her Lasting Legacy from that era . She was the first professional first lady, the first feminist first lady, the first first lady from the 60s generation, the first first lady who was the breadwinner in the family. A lot of america liked and admired that. Other parts of america found that unappetizing, and even kind of threatening. And so she became a flashpoint simply for who she was. Sreenivasan picking up on that womens rights theme, one of the things that she did was in 95, she famously spoke out. It is no longer acceptable to discuss womens rights as separate from human rights. If you remember, it was right after the health care debacle. So she goes to beijing, delivers this by all accounts, just fervent speech, and even to this day, many years later, its probably in the top five, if not the top three speeches shes ever delivered. And it also really was the speech that catapulted her onto the global stage and kind of set the stage for the next chapter of her career, which was as a sort of a global figure, a global stateswoman. Sreenivasan after bill clintons presidency, after hes impeached in 99, Hillary Clinton decides to run in a state she does not live in, something that her opponents picked up very quickly, labeling her the carpetbagger. How did she win with those odds stacked against her . Four days after the 1998 election, pat moynihan, the longtime revered new york senator, announced that he was going to retire. He was up for reelection in 2000. And new york democrats were casting about, who are we going to run . Because the republicans had Rudy Giuliani and george pataki, at the time both quite formidable figures. And the democrats didnt really have anyone of that stature. So they approached her and said, why dont you consider doing this . And at first she said, what are you talking about, im not a new yorker. How she finally did it . Perseverance and steady, you know, somewhat boring stickto itiveness. She just kept her head down and went and gave her speech about the issues, and ultimately she won over people, won their respect. Sreenivasan if you had to compress her legislative achievements in the senate, what would those be . She was in the senate for eight years. She had a part in a number of pieces of legislation, and of course she was the senator from new york when 9 11 happened, so she and Chuck Schumer were by all accounts that i know of, very active in helping First Responders and other victims of the 9 11 attack. So i think she would probably point to that as a high point, a few things she did on education. There is no big legislation that bears her name, and thats true of a lot of senators. She really transformed herself into a National Security expert. You know, she decided to join the Senate Armed Services committee, and she became a real military wonk. She was famous for going to every subcommittee hearing and methodically questioning every Lieutenant Colonel from the pentagon about defense procurement or Selective Service benefits. So thats where she really began to carve out and hone this reputation as a hawk, that i think has followed her through the secretary of state years and then into the president ial campaign. Wed be remiss not to note her iraq war vote. Of course. Which she cast probably because she had her eye on the presidency. And so that one has hung around her neck and not stood the test of time. Sreenivasan more for political calculation than for whether or not she felt like troops should be there . Well, her defense has always been that she voted for authorization as a way to pressure Saddam Hussein to come clean on the weapons of mass destruction, but that turned out not to have existed. But its probably not a coincidence that she and john kerry and john edwards, all three who were looking at the presidency, voted for that war. And if you then go through her record as secretary of state, whether it was the troop surge in afghanistan, the military intervention in libya, the debate over arming the rebels in syria, she fairly generally came down on the hawkish end of the spectrum. Now theres been a continuing debate over whether she does that because its borne of principle or whether she does that for political calculation, and i think as with everything with Hillary Clinton, its probably some complicated mixture of the two. But i think that theres no question that she has generally been more comfortable with exercising military power to advance american interests, certainly than the president she served as secretary of state. Sreenivasan she was also pretty instrumental in driving the Obama Administration into the coalition in libya. President obama and Hillary Clinton are getting an earful of blame. There was almost an entire night devoted to her, and Chris Christie even essentially prosecuted her fictitiously on stage. How much of the decisions of the administration can be attributed to the impact that Hillary Clinton had on barack obama . I think the libya decision, she was an important voice, perhaps the important voice in turning around the president. He was extremely skeptical about going into libya, as honestly was she at the very beginning. She, through her diplomatic travels, was persuaded that it could be done with a broad coalition, and that it was worth doing. If you look at other ones though, for example syria, she and general petraeus, who was then head of the c. I. A. , argued fairly fervently for arming the rebels. And they were turned down when they made their pitch. The president later came around to the idea in sort of a half hearted way and ended up sending a small number of weapons to the rebels. I mean, the relationship with russia, the iran Nuclear Negotiation these are areas where president obama played a very strong role himself, and her battle was less to win the debate than to carve out some territory in those issues for herself. Sreenivasan in the context of libya, benghazi is the word that the republicans have clung onto for really the past couple of years, hung it around her neck and said that she is solely responsible. Literally weve seen the mother of one of the soldiers that were killed there, speaking at the Republican National convention. Sort of two questions why are republicans still talking about it, and two, what is she responsible for . Im sure on some level, many republicans are generally aghast at the loss of life there, but shes genuinely aghast at that loss of life too. She was a friend of chris stevens, a good friend of chris stevens. So i think theyre doing it largely to tarnish her politically. And there have been numerous investigations of it, none of which has ever placed any particular culpability right at her door. I think the bigger issue for her, frankly, is to talk about libya more broadly. What did go wrong in libya, what real lesson should we learn from what was by all accounts a misbegotten intervention, and if she were president and faced a similar decision, how would she think of it differently, how would she act differently, how can americans solve this whole question of intervention . We either seem to intervene in too gigantic a way, as we did in iraq, or we dont intervene adequately enough, and allow a situation to fall into a mayhem as we did in libya. So i think those are the substantive issues that i think shell have to contend within the general election debate. Sreenivasan where does she walk lockstep with the president , and where has she broken with him . There are certain positions that she has had to take that she has not taken in that past that are opposite of obama or against obama, because of this movement of the Democratic Party to a populist left economic posture that Bernie Sanders represents. So the most obvious thing im talking about here is trade and the transpacific partnership, which she now