The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: President Bill Clinton & James Patterson - The President is Missing - Extended Interview Quotes

On the threat cyber-attacks pose:

President Clinton: Anything that is electronic can be hacked.

James Patterson: This is a thriller, but what happens in this book is real. It could happen. And it’s not– people go “the lights will go out for four hours.” No, that’s not the case. Everything goes out. And it’s erased. All your medical records, all of your bank accounts, Wall Street…it’s all gone.

Trevor Noah: It’s funny because there are some people who are in debt and they’re like, “That sounds good to me. Yeah, that sounds really good to me. Everything is erased? That sounds really good to me.”

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On writing and promoting the book together:

Trevor Noah: I have watched you on the road together promoting the book. You talk about how traveling around with President Clinton, what it’s like to be Mike Pence. Nobody attention to you. You’re in the background.

James Patterson: I picked up a lot of moves. I have the eye roll. I hold my head.

Trevor Noah: You’ll be taking water off the table at the same time, like you’re practicing the moves. But is that an interesting—i guess– relationships to have. Because you’re working with a president.

James Patterson: It’s been a great. He’s been terrific to work with. The first two chapters, we rewrote those six times.

Trevor Noah: Could you override him as a president?

James Patterson: There never was an argument. We never had a disagreement.

Trevor Noah: Because you were afraid?

James Patterson: Well, yeah. What do you think, I’m crazy? He has these secret service people everywhere. They’re out there (motions to the studio audience). They’re watching us.

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On the on the national conversation about “civility”:

President Clinton: A lot of poison has been poured down America’s throat since that 2016 campaign started. It started off calling Mexicans rapists and murderers. It’s hard to pour poison down other people’s throats and not have some of it come back up and bubble up.

President Clinton: Sooner or later, people need to quit tearing each other down and go to work. But I think you can’t foment as much hatred as has been fomented by the administration without having a blowback. So if they want to have more civility, they need to stop the name calling and take the lead.

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On Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant:

President Clinton: I read the article about the lady who owned the restaurant, and I wound up with a lot of respect for the way she debated it. But I also had a lot of respect for the way Sarah Huckabee Sanders handled it. I mean, she was very dignified. She didn’t chew them out. She didn’t pitch a fit. She didn’t call them immigrant-loving thugs, or whatever. She just got up and left and offered to pay. So maybe what I’d like to see this be the beginning of something where, you know, it would be better if we started talking to each other again.

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On immigration and the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy:

President Clinton: Well, first of all, every country’s entitled to protect its borders. We have two border threats today. Fentanyl coming in from China is killing a lot of Americans, and heroin coming over the southern border is causing a lot of trouble. But there has been almost no net immigration from Mexico since 2010. It’s a made-up problem…as the mayor of Brownsville, Texas said the other day.

These people are from Central America. They are afraid of the narco-traffickers. The law says that those who have a legitimate fear can be given asylum in our country, and those that are disappointed that their countries have been wrecked by narco-traffickers and can’t make a living are not eligible. That’s the law now. There’s a humane way to do that without taking the kids away from the parents. There is nothing in the law that says they have to do this, and it’s wrong.

I’ll tell you something, the crime rate among immigrants is much lower than the crime rate of the native born. The murder rate among Muslims is about a third that of the native born. We need to quit– we need to get the facts straight, take a deep breath, and say, yes, we agree with you. Everybody has got a right to protect their border. Yes, we all care about the victims of immigrant crime. What I did do when I was president is sign a bill saying that if an immigrant, even when properly documented, committed a serious crime against an American, they lost their right to stay in this country. But this idea of zero tolerance and throwing– putting these people in cages, doing this to the kids, it’s an outrage and we should stop it now.

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On the #MeToo movement:

Trevor Noah: Over the weeks, I’ve watched your interviews and I’ve read what you’ve said on how these conversations have shaped your mind and your understanding of the #MeToo movement. Honest question: Has it been hard for you to reprogram your brain? Has it been difficult for you to go, ‘I have to relearn something that is happening now as opposed to how I’ve always seen the world?’

President Clinton: No, it means that I need to not react to the raw pain of having to relive something that happened 20 years ago. And I need to be aware that, unfortunately, there are still millions of people every day who face objectification, disrespect, discrimination, and sometimes outright abuse in the workplace, on the street, and at home. And now we’re all alive to it in ways we weren’t before. And we’re all trying to work our way through– not all of us, but most of us are– trying to work our way through how we can use this moment to build a better country in person after person after person’s lives. And that should be the number one priority of everybody.

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On advice to men during this moment of reckoning:

Trevor Noah: When we strip away president, when we strip away a man who is one of the most powerful men in the world, as a man, the instinct is to go to a defensive place, as someone, as you said with your past, your instinct is to get angry if someone misremembers a fact or two. What would your recommend to other men out there who begin will journey of understanding and self-reflection?

President Clinton: To become other directed. That is, look at what’s happening in people’s lives. Then you have to ask yourselves, “How do i think? How do i feel? How do i act?” and both try to make sure you’re doing better– even if you think you’re a really good person and you’re not aware of ever having done anything wrong– and then asking, starting– asking the women in your life– or if you’re gay, your partners in your life– whatever your gender.

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On what book they would encourage President Trump to read:

Trevor Noah: (to Patterson) You have one of my favorite quotes where you say you believe that everybody loves to read. Some people “No, I don’t like reading,” but you say “No, they just haven’t found the right book.” Which book would you think you need to start President Trump on so he would start to read? What would you recommend as a favorite?

James Patterson: (to President Clinton) You got a good example? (back to Noah) That’s a stumper, I’ll tell you. No, I don’t want to go there. I’m civil.

President Clinton: It’s a short book (laughter). I’m being serious. At the end of World War I, a German Christian Democrat named Max Weber wrote a book called Politics as a Vocation. It’s about 120 pages long. And among other things, he says, number one, politics is hard. It’s a long and slow boring of hard boards. And number two, if you take a job where you have power over another person’s life, you should be very humble, because you are given temporary power, and yet, you are not omnipotent. You are not all-wise, and you are putting your soul at risk. It’s a great description of the importance of politics and the joy of it, but how you can’t do it right unless you’re humble enough to realize that you’re holding other people’s lives in your hands, and you should value them and take care of them.