Hillary Clinton on helping a potential President Harris: “It’s all hands on deck”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she is willing to do anything she was asked to do to help with a potential Harris-Walz administration. 

In an interview with CBS News’ Erin Moriarty, Clinton was asked if she would want to play a part – officially or unofficially – in the White House should Vice President Kamala Harris win. “Well, certainly, unofficially I want to be as helpful as I can, and would do anything I was asked to be helpful,” she replied. “We have so much to do that it really should be all hands on deck. And anybody who can help in any capacity should be willing to do so.” 

Clinton also said she would be willing to contribute in any way towards a Harris victory. “I’m gonna do everything I can between now and the election to help her get elected — everything that I’m asked to do, everything that I can think of to do. And then I would be, you know, more than willing to offer any advice or help that she might think appropriate to help her become president and to help her be the best president she can be.”

Clinton also spoke of the prospects of a President Harris in the Oval Office.  

“I am such an optimist about our country, despite how difficult the times are,” said Clinton. “I am, as my late friend Madeleine Albright used to say, an optimist who worries a lot. But I am fundamentally optimistic. 

“I’m very optimistic about a Harris-Walz administration, because I think it not only has the capacity to deal with all the problems we know, but maybe to lower the temperature in the country. Tim Walz, the coach of America; and Kamala, with her real sense of patriotism and commitment to the country and wanting to bring it together, [would] be the president of all Americans, not half the country. 

“Maybe we can break the fever,” Clinton said, “Let’s get back to taking some deep breaths and finding ways to work together. There’s so much we could do if we would start listening to each other and talking and making principled compromises. So, I think they have the potential to really produce that for our country.”

In an extended conversation broadcast on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Clinton talked about her new book, “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty” (to be published Tuesday), and spoke of such topics as her marriage with former President Bill Clinton; her 2016 election loss to Donald Trump (and his recent criminal conviction); and her appearance at this summer’s Democratic National Convention, where she “passed the torch” to Harris, with the goal of breaking the glass ceiling of the White House. 

Clinton and her husband publicly endorsed Harris within hours of President Biden’s announcement that he was ending his candidacy and backing the vice president. “We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” they wrote. “America’s future depends on [her victory].” 

In August, Clinton took the stage at the DNC, energetically backing Harris as the nominee.  

“Together, we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said at the convention. “And tonight, tonight’s so close to breaking through once and for all. … And you know what? On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th President of the United States. Because my friends, when a barrier falls for one of us, it falls and clears the way for all of us.”

Clinton, the first female presidential nominee of a major party, told “CBS Sunday Morning” that her speech to the convention was symbolic: “That was the sort of unspoken throughline, that I had been there, and now it was generational. This moment required it. And I wanted to give her the best send-off I could.”

Asked if it were personal for her, Clinton replied, “It is personal. But it’s personal not because I ran for president. Of course, that’s a part of it. It’s personal because I love this country.”

       
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