He said, Its up to you. Hed been shot eight times. Then of course, the Senate voted the next day and we only had 49 votes that we knew about and Senator Bob Kerrey was the undecided vote, the only one left. Was it the selection of the people who were going to do the economic. In 1991 it was not organized. No. We were all trotted out in Little Rock on the same day. I did too. But the election result itself was anticlimactic. We had a couple hundred people there. That approach hasnt been able to capture a majority of the American public for 40 years and I dont think its going to capture the majority of the American public for another 40 years. I just didnt; it wasnt my style. It was an all right agreement. In other words, at the time I just didnt take Perot seriously. Thats just the way history works. I spoke to the Oklahoma state legislature. He loved it. The hearings ended around the fourth or fifth of August and it was now the seventeenth or something. Everybody was sitting in a room for the endless hours that have been so widely written about, which was quite a chaotic, disorganized process and not particularly Presidential process. Of course, any situation like that always has its humor. No, he doesnt, not in terms of the way I would define close friends, genuine friends. By and large Bentsen talked to Clinton when Clinton called him.That was the way it worked. To make a long story short, of course we all hired lawyers and so forth and we were brought before a grand jury. I would say presided over, Id have to check the statistics, but probably the greatest period of economic prosperity in the entire century, or ushered in the greatest period of prosperity in the entire century. Decided to do this. The President was in a tough spot because he was hearing from a lot of people that the effort was too ambitious, but on the other hand, Mrs. Clinton was in charge of it. Im sure there are lots of aspects of the preparation plan. There were so many different Japanese Prime Ministers in that period I cant remember which one we had at that moment. We had lunch. I ran into Alice on the plane. Youre serving your country. We had a macro economic task force. So I served in that job for give or take a year, and I never had a single meeting on an investigation nor did any of my predecessors, just wasnt done, wasnt necessary, and so forth. There werent many people in the administration who fully understood it. The only way he saved his life was to throw himself off the roof after hed been shot several times. No, let me just correct the record. Altman ran the White House war room during last I stayed overnight, went back the next day. That was the fundamental choice they made in devising the reform. Then I would have discussions with Clinton, usually on the fly, about certain economic issues I thought were important. They didnt want tickets to the Kennedy Center, they wantedI want this for my tomato farmers, or I want this for my citrus growers. The Office of Government Ethics came to its conclusion and the Treasury Inspector General as you know is an independent party and came to the same conclusions, the White House counsel came to the same conclusion. Anyway. They just didnt believe it would work. Not at the outside, but eventually, I came into the second camp because I began to understand the scope of the issue. WebRobert Altman's House (former) Malibu, California (CA), US Like Tweet Share Pin The film director, known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized At my sons school, on the floor where the history department is, each President gets a little tiny picture and about two lines. We touched on this at a couple of points but never directly asked you whether you thought the President. The White House decidedwell, there were certain people who were obviously going to be in it. You say he didnt inspire fierce loyalty amongst a lot of his subordinates, but interestingly, I think a lot of the senior Cabinet members lasted a long time, I mean, they stayed for muchDonna Shalala was Secretary for eight years, Rubin was in for a long time, given the fact that his family didnt move to Washington. The first thing that we typically do is a quick voice identification so that the transcriptionist will know whos talking at any given time.Im Russell Riley, the project leader for the Clinton Presidential History Project. Mexico was looking for the freedom for its trucks to cross the border and continue to deliver in the United States. I had a certain background but it didnt include experiences like that. Yes, here in New York. He just determined each time that what he had to do was get through this chapter and somehow live to fight for the next one and didnt take the longer view. It may have struck people on the outside as unusual, but not if youd been around. Hes the first guy who stepped in defeated. Whether his actual conversation with Dick Morris about the Lewinsky matter is true or not, would the American people accept an apology? I mean, I could imagine that in your tenure, the perception might have been quite the reverse, but I dont know. I think part of him saw an embrace of NAFTA as an opportunity to reestablish that he was a person of conviction, that he wasnt just in the pocket of the old traditional Democratic constituencies, wasnt just a tax-raiser and spender. In the last 48 or 72 hours, because that vote was also a cliffhanger, although not as close. Then later in the process I was asked if I would go do a war room for healthcare of the type we did for the budget. Bob Rubin talked with great credibility about the bond market responding, and James Carville was so amusing for so long afterwards saying he wanted to come back in his next life and be the bond market because everybody paid such fealty to it. Primarily I had learned what doesnt work, and I had learned a couple of thingsyou can tell, I think, when youre exposed to a candidate enough times, whether hes going to work out there as a retail politician, as they say, an outdoor politician, and when he isnt. Well, yes, Carter tried a version of that. I went also for the election. I think at the Pond House meetings there were also some of the Congressional leaders, werent there? In 1987, Mr. Altman joined The Blackstone Group as vice chairman, head of advisory business, and investment committee member. Because it promotes a lack of confidence in financial markets and, for that matter, a lack of confidence in the business community, a sense that that administration doesnt know what its doing. I think of people like [Harold] Carswell and [Clement] Haynsworth that Nixon appointed and who didnt make it, it was mostly because they were seen as inferior candidates. He wanted to focus on a few important things at any particular time. Id served four years in the Carter Treasury but I hadnt had that much exposure in those years to the President. That was the moment, that day. He must have wondered what he was doing. I dont know whether his Presidency will be seen as one of the most important or transformative in American history. We had a couple of others. There were so many exceptions and carve-outs and so forth from the final bill that you couldnt count them. Clinton had his own style of charm and Bush has a little bit different style, but not very different. Where the negotiations broke down, I dont know what caused it. I didnt have a background in healthcare of any kind, and I began to see that it was overloading the circuits to try to do as much as some wanted to. But in any event, what gets discussed most in the campaign historically may or may not be the first or second major initiative that comes from the new President. I took it anyway. I started getting inundated with letters from Congress asking how the RTC intended to handle this, stirred up by this Republican campaign. I dont think I would have known otherwise. Youve had Chiefs of Staff, Don Regan comes to mind, who see themselves as all-powerful and go too far to one end of the spectrum, and youve had others like Mack, who are too deferential and too averse to confrontation and go too far in the other direction. The RTC had to choose between allowing the statute of limitationsto expire; filing charges, criminal charges; or, as often happens, entering into a so-called tolling agreement, where if youre the party under investigation, you voluntarily agree that the RTC can circumvent the statute of limitations because you believe that if they have more time theyll ultimately decide to exonerate you and you dont want them to be forced to make a decision about filing or not filing charges. I guess I figured, were I to be appointed something, it would likely be in the Treasury, and perhaps, by process of elimination, nothing else seemed logical to me. No admission fee, no contribution required. In all aspects? But was there any perspective then that in fact, the Japanese economy was weak relative to the other G7? We wont get into a philosophy, an argument, about causation, I think Reagans Presidency, a bit, goes against what youre saying, thats all. He knew what was possible; he knew what wasnt possible. He managed to remain viable through New Hampshire. That is foolish because history provides lessons on these matters. Once you get NAFTA behind you, my guess is that there were further discussions at that point about what ought to be next and this is when healthcare becomes a priority. So I said, Well then, thats the course Im going to take. Were there follow-up meetings with Japan that you were involved in after the summit? There were not pitched battles. I started having to respond with a standard boilerplate response to the effect that the RTC has these procedural options and we were choosing among them. Even at the end of 91 it was small and relatively unformed. Altman made a point to carry shoes as tiny as size 5 and mammoth as size 20, with widths ranging from super skinny AAAA to 6E and kept 23 basement storage Sure. Were they talking about what you do with Senator X, with Congressman Y? I recall reading in one account that Clinton had worked on a kind of unusual cluster of issues as a candidate for student body president at the time. The ultimate plan was way too complicated for the Congress and the country to grasp and understand and soberly assess. But it was quite obvious that wed lost the battle. Of course, we were in a different time zone, 12 hours different. NAFTA had much broader support among the so-called or self-styled elites, the business leadership, all the economics community, the foreign policy establishment. I guess that again leads to the question about the uncertainty and anxiety of a transition period, trying to figure out which person. Like everybody else, I thought he was finished when the Gennifer Flowers event emerged. I follow it pretty closely, and I have a hard time figuring it out. Clintons very first initiative was his stimulus program. No, I dont remember that effort at all, so it must have been pretty quiet. I said I would and we went forward. Oh yes, sure. Or was it just that you were persuaded that he was going to be a great candidate? So I knew we had a problem. How are people in the future to understand why this became such a polarized situation with Congress? I mean, the worst recession since the Great Depression occurred in 1981 and 1982 and in the fall of 82, in early August, Reagan was being described as Herbert Hoover, politically dead, gone, might as well already make his reservations back to Santa Barbara and so forth. Healthcare got the nod. So essentially you would not have been involved in any of the crafting, I guess, you basically were given an agreement and it was a question of just lining up the votes at this point. @ 34.032138, -118.722249. Bob Rubin never uttered a single syllable except of friendship and support of President Clinton. More in terms of ostracism from your former colleagues. So my average day was spent a few blocks from here, working full-tilt on the business responsibilities I had. I wouldnt necessarily accept that. Do you recall at what point you felt that there was some momentum being reestablished? We talked a lot about the organization of economic policy-making and the role of the Treasury because I had a certain history. You dont recall the specific occasion when you first met him? Just be sure it doesnt collapse during the interim. They talked all the time. Hed be speaking someplace and Id be playing some role at the same conference at one of the usual conference locations, and we would briefly renew the acquaintance, but I did not stay, in any organized way, in touch with him. On preparing a whole set of materials and otherwise paving the way for Secretary Bentsen to walk into his office and be fully prepared to function from the first minute. If nobody else has any more questions about that, the other trade issue that you were greatly involved with that we touched on only once or twice has been Japan. But fundamentally, I was getting those assignments from the legislative staff. It was a bit of a love fest. It was absolutely breathtaking, profoundly dramatic and unforgettable, absolutely unforgettable. The presumption of course at the beginning was that I knew what the substance of the investigation was, or what the actual issues were from an investigatory legal point of view, and that I had conveyed that to the White House, which was impossible by its turn, absolutely impossible, but in politics thats not often the important thing. No, I had very little contact with Mr. Clinton for roughly 20 years after leaving. My assumption is that you must have been doing that from two perches, your first perch being in the Treasury Department and then eventually the war room was opened up, and then you at some point were moved into the war room. That was not well known to me at the time. In fact, thats an important point. Please. I think its wrong from a policy point of view. So, when it came to answering Congressman Smiths questions, or Senator Jones questions, we were able to get those answers up there within two hours because we had all the people right in the room. So I think Clintons own behavior did play a role in it and that in retrospect there would have been better ways for Clinton to have dealt with some of these things. This was breaking news, CNN [Cable News Network] was interrupting its programming and so forth and President Clinton said, What is this about? Any particular memories from that successful trip? Richard Nixon resigned from office. I want to ask you a general question since youve raised the Carter precedent again here.And that is, we get the perception in talking with some people that there was a conscious effort on the part of senior-most advisors to President Clinton not to reach out and rely on a lot of people that had Carter-era experience in the Presidency. Andrew Garfield presented the Robert Altman Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards to his old friend, Fran Kranz, for his film Mass. Altman gave Lets recast the question a bit. Mickey Kantor was in charge of the famous Little Rock Economic Summit. But unfortunately the real show was about to begin, which I didnt realize, which was the Congressional hearings. There had been a pre-election transition organization, and Im trying, Jim, to remember who headed up that operation. Today it is seen as structural. WebCornerstone Recovering Community (11001 South Wentworth Avenue) located at 11001 South Wentworth Avenue, Chicago, IL 60628, United States is a drug rehab facility He told me what would happen to the Clinton stimulus bill the day it was put forward. But the two major currency accords, the Plaza Accord and the Louvre Accord, were done in times of crisis in the foreign exchange markets. So he got people to serve for a long time, even if they were not intensely loyal to him. As I remember, we gave that one to labor as a way to try to ease the pain, even though NAFTA called for that to happen. Oh sure, sure, well have another major Presidential uproar. Are you including in this the difference of approach between the campaign-oriented, the political people, and the policy people, as well as the differences among. That was not a high point of the Clinton Presidency. Theyd review it and youd go to a meeting where you received a 900-page memo, three quarters of which you didnt understand. That was the first time we had an opposition takeover. I wasnt making a distinction between Clinton and his predecessors, but rather making a distinction between Clinton and his successors since there wont be any more. I was to call Bentsen promptly. The President relied on Bentsen and Altman to take on some of his Administrations toughest tasks. The basic point was Ill focus on it, Ill get it moving. But its the economy, stupid doesnt communicate a set of priorities within the administration about what steps they will take. Was this a group of people that you primarily put together, or is it bits and pieces of people that the Clintons had known. I suppose everyone has his own definition of intimate, but by any standard Im familiar with, I was not an intimate of Clintons. The IRS employs 120,000 people or so. Its possible that President Clinton rues the fact that 9/11 didnt occur on his watch, because it was a transforming crisis and did transform, at least to date, the present President. There were a lot of people who did take that candidacy very seriously though, right? It was, in any normal historical context, yes, right of center because it focused on deficit reduction, tighter fiscal policy, more conservative budgeting. If youre Secretary of X, its pretty easy to become quite happily accustomed to the perquisites of that. I doubt it. Those would be the main points Id mention. He was shot eight times, mostly in the chest. In the early period, there was a lot of discussion of broad strategy, how to create support for deficit reduction as a whole, how to talk about the program, what type of interest groups we needed to particularly work with and work on. Casey resigned and it was vacant. Can you tell us a little bit about the second role? He thought he could win over the majority of the Democrats, for example in the House, on NAFTA. They especially resented the role that Hillary played. No. Before the grand jury before Starr, and how was that experience? The economic plan was, to some degree, controversial from the beginning because of the tax increases and some feeling that the deficit reduction was unnecessary or could be counterproductive. Not surprising, given his state of origin. So the fact that if we were sitting here in 2053, that a President 54 years ago balanced the budget wouldnt mean a heck of a lot to us, right? There was no surprise. So it became effectively a simultaneous multilateral and bilateral summit because it became the setting for Clintons direct discussions with the Japanese Prime Minister. There was an acknowledgment, though, fairly early on that something needed to happen? There was a concern that wed spill all the rest of our blood on NAFTA and have nothing left. You were both involved then in student government. WebNot only are 10% of the U.S. House and Senate Jesuit-trained from Georgetown, but so are many of the world's political leaders, which should have you asking What are they really up to?" There were no violations of ethical guidelines, there was certainly no legal violation, and that proved to be pretty meaningless in the context of the uproar. I was in Tokyo, asleep, so I was a bit taken aback. You had some experience with Japan before? which was a separate agency and Presidential appointment. There is a You think that a lot of Republicans who didnt support it would say, Well, theres a little justice in the world because Bush 41 paid the price for having a compromise in 1990 that, along the lines of the 1993 bill, did help restore some fiscal discipline to the U.S. Because I think if you serve an administration, and you then decide to comment in some form or other, including in private, about the President and hes got these problems, or hes screwed up in this way, youre just lowering yourself. I really think its just that basic. Yes, because obviously I was seen as somebody who had business credentials to some degree, conservative credentials, by Democratic standards at least. President Clinton, in retrospect, his disavowals on some of his private life were almost certainly false and the way he handled the Lewinsky matter was about as bad as it could be because heessentially swore before the American people that he didnt do it, and of course then recanted. But from their vantage point, thats when they experienced intense partisanship. Also, wed had 12 years of Republican rule and there was a widespread sense of time for change. Im very fond of her, extremely fond of her, and it was, Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. [Mary Todd] Lincoln? To this day, I have a much closer relationship with her than I do with him. I think Henry Kissinger would still be Secretary of State if people had allowed him to be, whatever he thought of who he was serving. Tweet. We had some serious issues with the IRS. Clinton loves meetings like that. I can remember very well when Breaux and Boren offered Clinton that compromise, and Bentsen said, You should take it. It was really only when Erskine Bowles became Deputy Chief of Staff that a structure began to be built around Clinton that enabled all those processes to become more organized. So I watched the Senate vote, also on television, this time in the war room. As a Democratic President however, he could have vetoed the bill and it would have been sustained by Congress. Whats the question, why didnt Clinton embrace welfare ahead of healthcare? So Clinton wisely determined that this was something that Bentsen ultimately had to make the call on. and I had no previous knowledge of it at all. I would say we had a definite policy, we just didnt achieve too much of it. There were people like Senator [Phil] Gramm saying it would usher in a new depression. I think I testified before the Senate for about thirteen consecutive hours and six or eight hours on the House side the very next day. Bentsen was chosen during the first week of December. I think as a general matter the perception, which has become the accepted wisdom, of those dueling camps, is much overstated. But I would also say he contributed to his own under-appreciation. Certainly the appointment of someone with the stature of Rubin signaled that this was not going to be a junior level kind of a thing and it was not going to be headed by one of the usual powerful people, OMB [Office of Management and Budget] or Secretary of the Treasury. Its always a mistake to critique the Federal Reserve. I have to admit I didnt. We had wonderful cooperation, at least in the Treasury. I wasnt directly negotiating them. I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that anyone who makes either of those mistakes, and I can think of others, will ultimately rue the day that he made them. So I would get, from Mike Levy, typically, what my assignments were. I can vote against it, tell my constituents Ill never support a tax increase. Now streaming on: Powered by Then President Clinton went out on the balconythe front porch of the White House, on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, and had a press conference. You had the bilateral talks with the Japanese and the G7 format. Then ultimately, to give you a sense of how colorful this became, DAmato went to the Senate floor and he had a gigantic calendar the size of this wall and was marking off the days. I attended the little thing at Monticello when he was on his way to be inaugurated, the first time he stopped by in the bus. I mean, not one encounter, until the early to mid 80s when I was quite involved in various aspects of the Democratic Party and there were a few forums at various places that I would attend and I would occasionally run into him. Thomas Jefferson is under-appreciated as a President. Also, strong figures, not weak figures. Or should be, not will be, but should be. No, it never got to a vote. Well, I was thinking of both actually, but in the bill. I was there to the last day of the Carter Presidency, and all of a sudden we were able to negotiate the release of those hostages. My opponent is distracted by international and other matters. Thats one of the things that kind of surprises. No, I did not. We recommend you to check the complete Was there awareness at that time, I mean, in the perspective of 2003, I recognize the world looks different. Hes not focusing on it, he doesnt particularly care about it. I ran three times for student office while I was there. But it really was quite effective because one needed a military-like approach with only five or six weeks to go, and that bill was in trouble. That was just an amazing experience. For example, keeping its currency weak, not taking some of the steps to improve domestic demand such that Japan could become a stronger force for imports into Japan, ironically some of the same issues that are just as present today. Theres also an institutional dimension to the atmosphere in Washington thats very important and distinguishes the current situation from the situation in which you governed, and that is the existence of an independent counsel. Arthur Burns was the chairman of the Fed. He managed himself beautifully and with great self-control, and Clinton had very little self-control. I might have if I had not known Bob Rubin, but I knew him better than anybody else in the administration knew him and I had great confidence in him and knew that he and I would relate well. Very, I think, untoward behavior, myself. There are many people in the administration who dont like the welfare reform that was ultimately signed, believed that Clinton ultimately turned centrist on the issue and anybody could have done that and once you did it as a Democratic President, you were going to have welfare reform. He didnt think much of the Btu tax. But I dont think Ive ever witnessed, I can only call it a hate campaign, or feeling of hate I guesswhether its a campaign or not I dont knowbut this intense animosity to Bill Clinton and to Hillary Clinton. He moved it to the center, made it the party of fiscal responsibilitywhoever would have believed that?and enabled the party to shed much of its old baggage. Somebody was wrong. Speaking out of school? Or Ill put it another waywe didnt know where the President was on NAFTA on that day. Definitely working on personnel. Did you go to Little Rock for the election? But that group, top five, or six or seven, just masters of the game. I recall speaking about 20 minutes before the vote to Marjorie MargoliesMezvinsky,with whom I had developed a friendship, and it became evident to me that she was very reluctant but willing to vote for the bill. One, the recession of 91 and early or mid 92, the economy was performing poorly. I mean, I have no reservations about when Lloyd Bentsen approached me, I think he thought it was just going to be very brief and wed send some name up and it wouldnt take long to get that name confirmed and I might end up spending two or three months doing this. 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