By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-21 16:56:50 | Updated at 2024-11-21 21:53:33
5 hours ago
Bill Clinton chastised Democrats for not paying more attention to rural and small town voters, saying it cost them the 2024 election.
His advice for Democrats going forward was to 'help people who feel left out and left behind in small towns and rural areas.'
The former president is on a book tour for his new book 'Citizen: My Life After the White House,' which came out on Tuesday. The memoir details into the past 24 years of his post-presidency life.
Clinton, in media interviews for the book, has opined why Democrats lost the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. He also predicted a conservative would be the first woman in the White House.
But the former president, who won the White House in 1992 by touting his small town roots and pushing for a stronger economy, said Democrats needs to change how it talks to people.
'Politics is the only business in which you can prove your authenticity by not knowing anything,' he told MSNBC.
'You know, and I think that's a problem and we'll pay for it unless we get over it, but that's a problem for the Democrats too. We have to learn to talk to people in ways that they can relate to that explains that. That's why, you know, when I helped -- I did my best to help this time. I don't want to go to any big rallies and big television things. I just wanted to get in the country.'
Bill Clinton's advice for Democrats is to 'help people who feel left out and left behind in small towns and rural areas.'
Clinton spent his time campaigning for Kamala Harris in the rural parts of Georgia and North Carolina, two battleground states that ultimately went to Donald Trump.
He also warned Democrats are 'not playing on the same field' as Republicans and it will continue to cost them.
'Just go out and talk to people because I think that we're behind in the sense that a lot of the small-town and rural people are now highly sophisticated and how they get their information. And there are zillions of new websites now all trying to advance their sort of conservative to right-wing radical cause,' he said.
'And a lot of times we're not playing on the same field and we're not even being heard. So I just said, send me out there and I'll see if I can't do some good. I have no idea if I did, but I tried.'
Clinton was elected to the White House as the country was coming out a long-time conservative era when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were in power. He is credited with bringing the Democratic Party back to life in the '90s, following the Reagan Revolution. He won two terms in office.
He campaigned heavily for Joe Biden and then Harris. He was a frequent critic of Trump on the campaign trail, even pointing out his was younger than him.
However, now that Trump has won, he said he believes the president-elect can find redemption through faith after the multiple attempts on his life. His comments came amid fears Trump will run a retribution campaign while in the White House.
Clinton told Stephen Colbert on the 'Late Show' that Trump could be like St. Paul, a Roman soldier turned Christian who became an advocate for the poor. He is credited with helping spread the Christian faith throughout the Roman world in the first century.
' I was raised in the Baptist church,' Clinton said, 'and I believe in deathbed conversions, so I still think, you know, President Trump could be like Paul on the road to Tarsus. And think how wonderful that would be.'
Colbert's audience burst into laughter.
But the former president insisted he was serious.
'Really. If he wanted to be,' he said.
'That would be lovely,' Colbert replied.
Clinton expressed optimism for Trump's second term in office, saying: 'You gotta plan for the worst and work for the best.'
Bill Clinton predicted America's first female president will be a conservative like the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (above)
And, despite Harris' loss in November, Clinton thinks the country is ready for a female president - just not a Democratic one.
He predicted a conservative 'Margaret Thatcher' type would be the first woman to sit in the Oval Office.
Thatcher was the United Kingdom's first female prime minister and the longest-serving one of the 20th century.
A member of Britain’s Conservative Party, she implemented economic policies known as Thatcherism. Her nickname was ‘The Iron Lady.’
She was a controversial, polarizing leader but had a long-lasting effect on British politics.
Bill Clinton said he believed that cultural changes in the United States have made it harder for a woman to run as president. His wife Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
'Well, I think all these cultural battles that we're fighting make it harder in some ways for a woman to run,' he told CBS Sunday Morning.
'I think in some ways we've moved to the right as a reaction to all the turmoil. And I think if Hillary had been nominated in 2008, she would've walked in, just like [Barack] Obama did,' he said of his wife.
'I think it would probably be easier for a conservative Republican woman to win,' he noted. 'Because, I mean, that's what Maggie Thatcher did.'
Still, he predicted: 'l think we'll have a female president pretty soon.'
Asked if within his lifetime, the 78-year-old laughed and said: 'Oh yeah. Well, I don't know how long I'm gonna live. You're askin' an old man that question!'
'I hope I'm around for the next time. But now it's President Trump's turn in the barrel. It depends on what he does and how it plays.'
