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CNN Live Today

Interview With Jon Meacham

Aired April 01, 2002 - 11:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Former President Bill Clinton says that he regrets the last-minute pardon to financier Marc Rich. He made this admission in a new interview with "Newsweek" magazine. Jon Meacham is "Newsweek's" managing editor. He joins us from New York this morning. Good to see you. How are you?

JON MEACHAM, MANAGING EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Good morning.

HARRIS: Now let me ask you something about this word of some regrets being expressed by President Clinton in the article. From the way I read it, he's saying he regrets it because of the politics that it stirred, not necessarily because it was the wrong things to do, correct?

MEACHAM: Right. As always with Bill Clinton, light and dark are an equal measure and at war in his soul. Jonathan Alter (ph) in this exclusive interview that we have this week, asking would you pardon Rich again? Clinton says no, it was terrible politics, and then goes on to give the three or four reasons why he did it, to justify the issue on the substance. So, as always with Clinton, there's a battle going on inside his head and his heart.

HARRIS: I do find it pretty easy to believe one of the reasons that I see listed here, and that is that he didn't really necessarily have a high opinion of prosecutors after his experience with them in the past and that Rich was being chased by one. So I guess he felt some sympathy there.

MEACHAM: Exactly. He admitted to Jon in the interview, I think for the first time, that the prosecutorial abuse that he felt he had suffered through the Whitewater years which became the Lewinsky years clearly played a role. He said that he felt he had been a victim of prosecutorial abuse and that's something that, because he felt it, he could apply to other people.

HARRIS: Yes. And for those who might have been happy to see him go, it seems as though he may be having the last revenge. As I read this article, he's having a lot of fun right now and making a lot of money doing it.

MEACHAM: He is. He's making about $200,000 to $300,000 for overseas speech, about $125,000 for speeches in the United States, which plays out to about $10-$15 million a year. He got the biggest book deal we think in history for the $12 million memoir. One interesting point Jon asked, if he and Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton, would read their books to one another before they went out. And he said, well, we haven't really discussed it and I hope she'll let me read hers.

HARRIS: That's an interesting answer.

MEACHAM: So, that's right. The Clintons are an unending story.

HARRIS: Yes. And since you bring that story up, what does this article say about the Clintons and their marriage? Any insights there?

MEACHAM: I think so. It continues to be one of the most fascinating partnerships probably since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the American experience. They spend as much time together as they can. It turns out that the former president really does like life in Chappaqua. He -- we figure -- three or four nights a week, they manage to connect, which makes since given their competing schedules and she's the junior senator from New York. He's globetrotting. He's been to something like 30 countries already.

One of the things that Jon brings out so well is Clinton is in perpetual motion. He's 55 years old. The energy that he brought to the presidency has not diminished at all. He's, you know, we joke about him being the Harlem Globetrotter and he really is.

HARRIS: You know, I want to ask you about this because, you know, you remember I'm sure. The conversations about a year or so ago were all about Bill Clinton stealing the stage from George W. Bush. We've seen that not -- pretty much Bush has taken the stage for good with what happened on September 11. But did he talk at all about the profile that he's keeping and whether or not that has ever been an intention of his?

MEACHAM: Well, there's a rule among the ex-president's club that you don't speak ill of your successors and you keep a low-profile for a while, usually about a year or so. Clinton has been more active. He was at ground zero shortly after the attack.

There was a question, I think, in a lot of people's minds in the weeks after the 11 about whether he felt, as we put in magazine, rather September 10th, a kind of gaudy weed, as Alter writes, between two Bushs. And I think that that will be the great question for his history as well. But he's very frank. He says -- Clinton says in this interview that he doesn't believe the war on terror we're engaged in now will be seen in the same light as World War II is, for instance, 50 years from now. So he's trying to make a case for his own domestic legacy and his international legacy. He is very clear about NAFTA and other things that he believes part of the global culture that he helped build will be remembered in the same light, I believe he hopes, as the war on terror.

HARRIS: It's a fascinating article, and one that -- I must say, I'm surprised to see come out so soon. But it's a great read. Jon Meacham, thank you very much for coming in and explaining things to us. We appreciate your time. Take care. MEACHAM: Thanks, Leon.

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