Program Note: Tune in tonight for Anderson's interview with Bill Clinton on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.
Photos by Chuck Hadad
AC360° Producer
Former President Clinton took a break from his annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City to sit down with Anderson Cooper. Watch the interview tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.
Program Note: Tune in tonight for more of Anderson’s interview with Former President Bill Clinton. AC360° 10 p.m. ET.
Anderson Cooper | BIO
AC360° Anchor
Anderson Cooper: You are focusing this year on women and girls and you are saying it’s not only a social issues but it’s also a business issue.
Bill Clinton: Absolutely, if you look in developing countries, there is a huge disconnect between work women do and the money they earn and the wealth they have. In general, women do two thirds of the work, earn ten percent of the income and own one percent of the property.
Bill Clinton: The more you put the girls of the world in school and give the young women access to the labor market, and then involve them in the business and political life of the country, the more stable the society is going to be, the more prosperous the society is going to be. And the less human trafficking you are going to have. So what we are trying to do is to address these issues in a way that people can see everyone benefits.
Bill Clinton: Last night, the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, talked about how in the last ten years after the genocide, fourteen or fifteen years now but in the last ten years they have almost quadrupled their per capita income.
Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer
America’s preeminent political power couple made a rare joint appearance Friday, when Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton took the stage at the former President’s Clinton Global Initiative.
“I want to begin by expressing my extreme indebtedness to the Clinton global initiative, to all of you who participated, for giving me the first chance I have had in a week to see Hillary,” the former president told the audience of social activists and business leaders at the closing session of CGI, a week long conference designed to find solutions to global problems through public and private partnerships.
Secretary of State Hilly Clinton was at the session to unveil a new State Department initiative on food security.
As he introduced her President Clinton was effusive in his praise for his wife, saying that Hillary’s approach to food security, helping farmers around the world grow their own food to earn income and alleviate poverty, was much smarter than the decades-long policy of simply giving humanitarian aid and food to countries.
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Roland S. Martin
CNN Contributor
Much has been made of the involvement of former President Bill Clinton in the freeing of two Current TV journalists held in North Korea and facing 12 years of hard labor.
But considering that American taxpayers continue to pay for their office space, security detail and other perks of the office of a former president, why not put Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush to work for the good of the country?
There seems to be a tradition in this country of former presidents spending their time giving speeches, raising money for their presidential libraries, writing their memoirs and staying out of the way of the current occupant of the White House.
I get that. You had your shot and you want the new person to have their day in the sun and do it that way. Yet letting that experience and solid relationships go to waste makes no sense to me.
Joseph Cirincione
Special to CNN
President Clinton did more than free two unjustly jailed journalists. He jump-started the successful diplomacy he had begun 15 years earlier.
In October 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang. During Bill Clinton's presidency, the administration had locked down North Korea's plutonium production program, which had created enough deadly material for two bombs during the Reagan years. They had stopped all missile tests. They were a few details away from concluding a deal to end these programs completely.
But Clinton ran out of time. Enmeshed in Middle East peace talks, Clinton could not get assurances that a presidential visit to North Korea would seal the deal. He passed off the almost completed process to the incoming George W. Bush administration.
On March 6, 2001, new Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off." But Bush had different ideas. On March 7, Bush kneecapped Powell.
With South Korean President Kim Dae-jung sitting next to him in embarrassed silence, Bush said, "We look forward to, at some point in the future, having a dialogue with the North Koreans, but any negotiation would require complete verification of the terms of a potential agreement."
Joseph Cirincione
Special to CNN
President Clinton did more than free two unjustly jailed journalists. He jump-started the successful diplomacy he had begun 15 years earlier.
In October 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang. During Bill Clinton's presidency, the administration had locked down North Korea's plutonium production program, which had created enough deadly material for two bombs during the Reagan years. They had stopped all missile tests. They were a few details away from concluding a deal to end these programs completely.
But Clinton ran out of time. Enmeshed in Middle East peace talks, Clinton could not get assurances that a presidential visit to North Korea would seal the deal. He passed off the almost completed process to the incoming George W. Bush administration.
On March 6, 2001, new Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off." But Bush had different ideas. On March 7, Bush kneecapped Powell.
Dan Lothian
CNN White House Correspondent
Two senior Obama administration officials described on background how former President Bill Clinton's mission to Pyongyang to secure the release of two U.S. journalists imprisoned by North Korea evolved:
- President Obama never spoke directly with former President Clinton about this issue, the officials said.
- During a phone call with their families in mid-July, the journalists told their relatives that they had been informed by the North Koreans that they would be willing to grant them amnesty if an envoy like former President Clinton would come to Pyongyang to secure their release.
- During the weekend of July 24 and 25, President Clinton spoke with National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones about his willingness to take on this mission.
- Clinton ultimately agreed to go on the mission but made it very clear in every communication that this was purely a humanitarian effort.
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