Fast forward to October when you become press secretary. Why would you want to become press secretary in the midst of the biggest scandal in this administration? Well, my first day was the day the House officially took up impeachment within the Judiciary Committee, October 2nd. One of the reasons I wanted to do the job was, this is the biggest so-called scandal in the administration, but it was the second largest so-called scandal that was going on in town, because the largest scandal that was going on in town were Republicans who were making a moral argument that the president should be removed when everybody who understood anything about what was going on in this town knew that this was raw politics. They were going to remove the president because they could. Newt Gingrich, when Erskine called him to say "Why do you keep pushing this?" his answer was, "Because we can." And this was about showing that they were right in their sort of almost religious fervor and that they could remove the president, not because he should have been removed. So I think there were a lot of people, myself included, who understood that this was work that was worth doing, because if we removed a president for private behavior, God save the next president who has a Congress from another party, and how far down will we drag the bar for doing this? Not to revisit the arguments, but it's clear that this wasn't just private behavior. I mean, many people in the White House staff certainly have acknowledged that. Oh, sure, but this stemmed from private behavior, and the investigation of the president's private life. And the argument that we made that I believe is that even if you assumed everything they said was true about what the president may or may not have done, this didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense. And my argument is----imagine if we put this in reverse and turned this around and said, okay, the president's impeached and removed for this. Let's start going back through our history and see who else should have been removed. I don't think Ronald Reagan would have survived with the problems he had over Iran-contra, and I think you can come up with three or four other presidents who had some public misconduct that was dealt with in a way short of impeachment. So I think going into the future there certainly was a danger and I think that's why so many constitutional scholars seemed to get energized by this. I mean, constitutional scholars are hardly a political force in this country. But, you seem to have people, who in a way that wasn't partisan and who cared about how we interpreted the Constitution,lining up very solidly in the category of "What do they think they're doing here?" In the mid-term elections of '98, Democrats did better than expected. Did the president feel that that was going to stop the train? I think everybody felt at that point, and the president included, that the country had sent a message, and that the one thing the members of Congress generally listened to is this kind of message. Like, they came in the next day and there were people who used to have offices who didn't have them anymore. Just like the message that was sent in the '94 midterm elections that was sent loud and clear to the president. So I think the president and many people around assumed that there would have to be some delicate discussions of a way to get out of this, but we were all going to get out of this. So I don't know that there was anyone who predicted that on election day or the day after or the day after that, that this would play out through February. Describe the president on the day of the House impeachment vote that Saturday. Busy. It was an extraordinary day because impeachment was only one of many things that was going on. We had had a unbelievable week leading up to that with two major things going on in the world coming together. The decision to move forward against Iraq took an enormous amount of energy of the president because, as you remember, we had had sort of the false start in November where the planes were literally within a few minutes of dropping the bombs and had been called back because of the diplomatic maneuver. So going down that track again took a lot of time and effort. The impeachment vote in an odd way was a little bit secondary to us because we knew it was going to happen. We knew where every member of Congress was on this. There was no undecideds. There was no suspense in it. That doesn't diminish the importance of the event. It doesn't happen very often in this country, thank God. How did the president seem? Well, he seemed resigned to it. I think at this point we had fully entered the period where he took the mental approach that they can do what they want to me, the only way I can beat them is if I focus on my job and I don't take the bait. And post-August 17th was when that process started. But by December 19th, that process was pretty much complete. And, you know, what made the day interesting was Livingston. ... I literally dropped everything that was in my hand and walked over to the Oval, because I knew this was something we had to deal with. And, he had an interesting reaction to it--what he had through me said publicly. Which was that Livingston was making a mistake here, we can't surrender to this negative political atmosphere. But I think, privately, he was amazed that somebody would make a charge and an important political leader would just collapse and just say, "Okay, fine, throw in the towel." And I think he took some comfort in his belief that he was doing the right thing and some comfort in that he was tough enough to see this through. Was there ever a sense--and some of the punditry I remember very well that weekend. There was a line of argument that went Livingston has resigned because of a sex scandal, the president may now be forced to resign. Let me back that up a little bit, because you had a very cynical political strategy being engineered by Tom DeLay through that week, and he'd be an interesting person to find out to what extent he was involved in all of the other things. But the Republicans for six weeks had argued through Henry Hyde that impeachment wasn't important, that this was like a grand jury, and all they were doing was sending an indictment to the Senate and the Senate would make the tough decisions on whether the president should be removed. Well, about Thursday or Friday of that week, they all of a sudden shifted 180 degrees and said impeachment was important and it's so embarrassing to this country and so paralyzing that the president should resign. And then Livingston falls right into their lap and creates a model that pundits and commentators and Republicans could argue the president should follow. I mean, that's the reason I didn't sit around my office and watch the commentary. I knew instinctively and immediately that's where this was going. And we had to figure out a way to puncture this, and that's why the president's reaction to this that I reported out on the White House lawn to the press was so important, and it was so important we do it quickly. And as I remember it, I said something along the lines of, "The president likes Livingston, enjoyed working with him, but we firmly believed that the politics of personal destruction were wrong, whether targeted to Democrat or Republican, and that Livingston could break this cycle right here right now by reconsidering and not resigning." And that put the president on the right side of this. You said before that the president seemed resigned because you had built in the news, you knew what was coming. How did that resignation manifest itself in terms of how he looked, how he talked, how he acted? I don't know how you translate it into someone else's life, but to me it felt like the president had gotten almost comfortable with the idea that some injustice had been done to him here. And this was a combination of things going on. There was one of--you know, the president didn't wake up on one morning and say, What I did was wrong, I have to accept responsibility for this and try to make it right. This was a process that happened over time. And that I think came to--that process became complete in and around September. So I think he on one level accepted responsibility for what he had done and was trying to figure out a way to do everything he could to make it better in any way he could. I think on the other front, on the defensive of the assault coming in at his direction around the same time, he began to detach himself a little bit from it and not take every single piece of it as an assault on him personally. And by December 19th, I think his view was that they can do whatever they want, they can impeach me, they can vote in the Senate and remove me. But they're going to have to do that to get me to leave, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to get up every day and do my job, because that's the only way I can continue to have a connection with the American public. And if Congress finds a way to remove me, then I'll leave, but I'm not going to do it, and I'm going to continue to do what I was elected to do and the public's just going to have to make a choice over who's right. On that Saturday after the vote, there's a decision made to have a bit of a pep rally, Democratic members come to the White House. Did you discuss that with the president and did you discuss whether that would be a good idea, whether the appearances of that would be appropriate? The decision to do that was actually made the day before. This is one of those things that you remember something in a funny way, because we were sitting in the senior staff meeting in the morning, and I had had the thought based on everything that was going on that we needed to have the president with Democrats behind him. And as I was in my mind formulating how I wanted to propose this, Ann Lewis piped up and said, "We need to bring Democrats down here." And I remember thinking that's exactly what I think. And now that it's gotten very controversial, everybody thinks it's her idea, not mine. But it actually was the right idea, and I'll tell you why I think that. This was all about attacking the legitimacy of the impeachment vote. This was not about sort of appearances and whether you get criticized or not. This was the moment the president was impeached. We had one singular goal here, which was to depict this the way we believed it was, which was a purely partisan, political act by the Republicans. And the best way to do that was to have all of the Democrats come down and say that and stand with the president. Now, I understand the criticism that came later, and I understand that particularly Senate Democrats didn't think that that was the right thing to do. I think that if they'd been where we were, they would have thought differently. I know it was the right thing to do. If we had somehow allowed this that Saturday and Sunday to take on the possibility that-- Legitimacy. Legitimacy. If this had gotten the legitimacy that this was real, that this was Republicans acting as statesmen and not partisan politicians, there was no way out. There was a glide path to being removed, and we had to do that, and it was the right thing to do. We paid a price for it later, but that price is dwarfed by the price we would have paid if we'd stood up and said, "Well, you know, the House has acted in their wisdom and now it's time to move to the Senate. I mean, we couldn't have survived that." You say you paid a price for it later. What do you mean? We paid a price for it because Senate Democrats, who were in a different position than House Republicans, saw it as unseemly. And, listen, I don't remember any Senate Democrats saying it was unseemly at the time. What I remember is three weeks of commentary, you know, kicking the crap out of us at the White House, and then all of a sudden, people saying, "Yeah, I guess they're right." So I mean, that's fine. They had their own view. When you were figuring this out, was there any talk then that this might damage the vice president politically down the road? Did that come up in discussions? I don't remember any discussion. I think our sense was that we tried to take care of the president's politics and look out for the vice president's politics where we could, and he was the best judge of his own politics. And he can make his own argument, but I believe that this was as much in his interest politically as it was the president's, because, again, to be part of an administration that gets impeached for reasons that are legitimate is, I think, devastating politically. I think to be part of an administration that's impeached for political reasons is something that is quite different, and that's what the message was at the end of that day. I think the public understood what was going on, and one of the reasons they understood it was because they saw this as Republicans lining up with the Republicans, Democrats lining up with Democrats, and to that it meant politics as usual in Washington and one more reason to turn off the TV. When the Senate acquitted the president, do you recall that day? Do you recall the president's mood? Sure. It's very funny because I got in trouble for one thing on this, but it ended up being the most effective thing I said in two years at the White House, when--because I was frustrated with getting the same question day after day, I declared the White House "a gloat-free zone" three or four days before the Senate vote. We knew we were not going to be removed then. And all the press could care about was, well, how are you going to react? Are you going to run around and bang the bongo drum or are you going to gloat? And, you know, I did that. And I remember John Podesta calling me in and telling I'd been too glib. But I think he agreed that it actually sort of put a box around the problem, and we dispensed with it. But, having said that, that was a very somber day because I think we were glad to be rid of this, but everybody sort of felt the weight of everything we'd just been through, and that was no different for us than it was for the president. You know, the look on his face when he walked out to make the statement I think expressed everything: that he was glad that the Senate had done the right thing, and that he was sorry that he had put the country through this, to the extent for what he was responsible for. And I think that's something he was very aware of at this point. After impeachment, I can only assume that the White House was hoping for some breathing room. Instead, you got Kosovo. I think the one thing you learn when you are there is there's no such thing as breathing room. There doesn't seem to be a time in the modern president's life where things are calm. There's always something going on around the world. The reality was, there was always something going on around the world during impeachment that we had to deal with. The vast majority of people in Washington ignored that. But we quickly shifted from one serious matter to an unfolding crisis in Kosovo. Was he angry about Kosovo? I mean, did you see the president when the Serbs were moving in, did you see him personally get upset about-- Yeah, I have never seen to date and since the president with such a determined look in his eyes. There was something about what happened in the massacre, which I think happened in December, and the general flouting of the West's beliefs by Milosevic that seems to get to the president, but in a different way than a lot of other things. There wasn't anger. All during Kosovo I never saw the president lose his temper. And I understand in the first term there were some moments in foreign policy crises where, you know, he screamed at people, saying: "How could this happen? How could you do this? Why did this happen?" But during Kosovo it was replaced with a very quiet and very steely determination that he was certain that he was doing the right thing, and he was certain that what we were doing as far as relying on air power would work. And that was in the face of a lot of people who doubted it. This is on a number of levels. The funny thing about Kosovo was, if you go back and watch the coverage of Kosovo for the week leading up to the bombing campaign starting, there was general outrage about doing nothing. For the week after the first day, there was general outrage about what are we doing. You know, "Why aren't you doing anything? Well, why are you doing this?" On a more important level, there were certainly those within the Pentagon who were speaking on a regular basis about their doubts about this working. It started in the paper, but you could tell as these meetings went on, as the campaign went on, just by the look in people's eyes, they weren't sure that this was going to work. And the interesting part for me was watching the president during this period because rather than the person you know, I need answers, you know, why is this happening---he was the one who was reassuring that we have a good plan, we know it'll work, just don't respond, don't react to everybody criticizing you on television all the time. We knew this was going to work. Just stay with it. Was he genuinely worried about sending in American troops? I mean, did he keep up the air war because he was so fearful of having American casualties? He kept up the air war because he genuinely thought it was going to work. I mean, as we got into day 60 or so, you could not ignore the possibility that it wouldn't work. So there was definitely a lot of work and contingency work going on of how we would--if the ground force was needed, how would we do that? Did he talk about fear of casualties driving that policy? No, and I think people have this turned on its head a little bit. He didn't go into this and say let's use the air campaign because that's a much safer way of doing this. I mean, that's a given. He pursued the air campaign because he was convinced that it would work and that he would get the result that he eventually got. I think he took very seriously the risks of escalating that campaign by sending in ground troops and was very aware of it, but had gotten to the point where, if necessary, was willing to do it. But people who argue that somehow we did the air campaign because he was afraid to have body bags coming back home have it backwards. And it was only when it wasn't working as fast as a lot of people would have expected or a lot of people hoped that work was done on ground troops.I have no doubt in my mind that he would have made the decision, if necessary, to send in ground troops. I also have no doubt that when Milosevic ran up the white flag, there were people who were surprised. But I don't think the president was one of them. Did you see a noticeable change in the president in these months after impeachment? Was there anything strikingly different about him? I think that the change that was brought about, from my eyes, was someone who became much more focused and disciplined in going about the way he did his job. He seemed at a certain level, with some exceptions, to be immune to the daily criticism that he was getting. It didn't seem to bother him as much anymore. And we didn't have the sessions where every bad article seemed to set him off, you know, because it was unfair or was allegedly unfair. I think from my vantage point, he took a much more--it's probably the wrong use of the word---but stoic attitude towards the way Washington worked, and became much more focused on this idea that if I just stick in here and do what I'm supposed to do, that's the only way this thing can all come out in a positive way. And I know that there are people who think that that is a put-on and, you know, if it is, it fooled me. February of this year, 2000,the White House announces that this is the longest U.S. economic boom in history, 107 months of continuous economic growth. Was there a celebration in the White House? Was there a particular moment that you recall there? You know, it's one of those things where we couldn't figure out how to measure when it was. So there was kind of a long debate on, "Well, when is it officially?" And anytime you can't quite figure out when the date is, it's hard to plan a party. But, it's one of these things where I remember the president engaging--I can't remember the meeting. It was in the Cabinet Room, and again, I don't remember why we were all in there. We could have been preparing for a press conference, because we had sort of that cast of characters around, and the president engaging Gene Sperling in sort of a banter back and forth over, "Well, when can we say it is and how do you do it, do you have to wait for the GDP numbers?" And as he continued going, you could tell how much he was enjoying having this discussion. And he sort of got this smile on his face, and you could tell that on one level he was having this conversation trying to figure out a tactical thing, but there was part of him saying, "We did this. I can't believe we're having this discussion." In July of this past summer, Camp David declared a news blackout. Why'd you do that? Because we found that when the parties were able to talk freely with the press about what was going on, we spent the first four or five hours every day arguing over the papers. The newspapers. The newspapers. The Palestinians would be upset about something the papers had from some Israeli position and they'd want to settle that, and the Israelis would be upset about something the Palestinians said. And the best way, we thought, to keep the conversations productive and focused was just to tell everybody they couldn't talk. Now, we understood that there are limits to that and there was still some discussions. But if you look at those 12 or 13 days, there wasn't that much, and I don't remember a moment in those talks when either side had a particular grievance with the other on what was in the paper. They obviously had grievances on more substantive things, but, you know, I was sort of seen as the arbiter of this and, you know, Prime Minister Barak would grab me every morning and say, you know, "Anything in the paper today?" And I'd say, "No, nothing to worry about." And he'd say, "Good," and, you know, sort of walk on to start the meetings. So they were very aware of this. And it provided a much more constructive atmosphere for the talks. What was Mr. Clinton's mood like during this time? Well, you've got to put this in perspective. He went in thinking that there was probably a 10 percent chance of getting an agreement. But he had been convinced and agreed with the line of reasoning that said that this is the only chance we have, that if you just let this continue to disintegrate, it's going to cycle downward, disintegrate, and you'll have violence on your hands. So I think he was determined to try to take this shot, understanding that it was a long shot. But I think in the back of his mind he had a sense that if he could keep the parties together long enough and talk to them enough, he could help them find common ground. So I don't think he went in and thought this was impossible. He understood how difficult this was. And I think after a couple of days of it, sort of looked back and said, "I can't believe I didn't understand how incredibly difficult this was, because once they started talking about Jerusalem, it was like it took it to a whole new level of difficulty." He kept imposing these deadlines that would come and go and he'd impose another deadline. Well, not really. Basically, the president had a G-8 meeting to go to, and we were making a rolling judgment over what's going on here is useful. Is there a reason to delay going to the G-8? And the G-8 meeting was quite important, but missing the first day of it didn't seem to us to be all that big a deal. And the discussions were not moving in a very positive way, but they hadn't gotten destructive yet. So the decision was really no big deal the first night, to just say we'll stay another day. It became a big deal the second night because at that point you were not going to go and stay at the G-8 meeting for 15 minutes and turn around and come back. And, I stood in the room as they came to this decision, but the talks were called off. This wasn't a ploy. This wasn't some thing we were trying to do to pressure one party or another party. They were off. Both sides agreed. And that's when I went out and told the president that the meetings were off. And I don't think it was in the press more than five minutes when both sides reconsidered in their own way. This was right around midnight. Yeah, the cars were running. They had been packed. The cabin sits on a little hill and the driveway comes right up to the cabin. So sitting in the middle of the room, you could hear the president's Suburban. You could hear the engine running outside. And they were all set up, and we were packed and everybody was walking to the door when the phone rang and the parties decided to put this back on for a couple days. So I don't think it's a situation where we were saying "Here's a line in the sand. No, no, here's a line in the sand." This was up to the parties. I mean, ultimately we had five or six more days of talks that came to nothing, We saw the stills of the president shuttling back and forth between Arafat and Barak and a couple of times when they were together. Was there ever a sense that a deal was possible? Or was it clear that Jerusalem was such a difficult issue that there was never going to be an agreement on it? I think that there was vacillation between hopefulness and hopelessness. But there were a few moments where there seemed to be a willingness among both delegations to put a deal together. ... And I think there were a few moments, particularly on the last night, when they would make some progress and then they'd fall back. But it was very clear that neither side wanted to leave, because we'd say, "Okay, fine, what reason is there to stay?" And then all of a sudden they'd find something new to talk about. But on the last night, it was clear that we had to do something, and I think any sense of hope was dashed when Arafat sent his representative over and he came in the room and it was sort of, I think, a difficult moment for everybody in the room. But the message was, we can't move in the way that you're all suggesting on Jerusalem, and we're going to have to come back to this at another point. The president made a very pointed statement in which he praised Prime Minister Barak, and by implication, seemed to criticize Arafat. Tell us about how the president came to formulate it that way, since he had previously been so careful to be neutral. I think to walk away and say after what happened, that both parties worked in good faith and they just couldn't do it, didn't necessarily accurately reflect what had gone on. Barak had come in, as is, I think, widely known, with some very interesting and forward-moving ideas. And on certain levels, some of the details of these, there was some meetings of the minds between the two delegations. But ultimately on the broad strokes of this, Arafat made the decision that this was not the time to make a dramatic move. And I think the president was determined to reflect in his comments the importance of what Barak had done. Did Clinton also feel disappointed by Arafat, that Arafat had let him down? I think he was disappointed that they couldn't make the deal there. I think because he understands Arafat, and has been in this process, he had some empathy for the difficult position Arafat was in. What was his relationship like with Arafat? I mean, he's met with Arafat more than any other foreign leader. I think he's got a very good relationship. I think obviously the current times have put a strain on that, and I think in the past he was always effective in making a case to Arafat and making the case of why taking difficult and risky steps was in his interest. And despite all of his efforts at this session at Camp David, he couldn't do that, and this was probably the first time he couldn't do that. So I think there was some frustration. There wasn't anger. He didn't see it that way because he understood how much Arafat had at stake here. This wasn't just that he's being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. This is a big deal. This is the biggest deal you have in this part of the world when you start talking about Jerusalem. Did the president have too much faith that his own personal and political abilities could bring these two leaders to an agreement that a lot of people thought was just impossible? That's an interesting question, but with all due respect, it's an irrelevant question because the president knew he had about a one in ten chance of getting this thing done. That's what he said as we walked into the place, you know. But it's the only chance we had. I mean, there's this ridiculous argument right now that somehow by bringing them together and not getting a deal, we've devolved into violence in the region. When everybody who was part of this process knew that that's where they were going, that they'd had 18 months of steadily deteriorating talks at the level right below the leader, and this was getting worse and worse and worse. And the only chance we had to get a deal was to try to bring them together and take a long shot. And I don't think the president went in thinking that somehow he could ride to the rescue and be the big hero. I think he realized that the United States has an essential role in this process, and it was a difficult call to make--do we play a card now or do we wait. But this was not a case where he overestimated his ability to bring them together. I think as he sat and talked to them hour after hour, particularly Jerusalem, he completely understood how difficult this was. There's like no comparable situation here where you can say on this issue, you just can't talk about it because the feelings run so high. What I know from watching, because I watched him during four of these peace summits, it's certainly my belief that if there was anyone who could get this done, he was the person, because he's got this sort of rare combination of being a good politician, he understands the other person's politics. And you can have all the negotiators in the world make proposals, and the other guy will look at you like you don't get it. You know, someone would say something, "Let's try this," and the president would say, "Barak can't sell that at home, that's terrible for him." You know, he understood both of them. He also was quite a gifted listener, which most people aren't, and could tell when people were just blowing off steam and when people were really trying to send you a message about what it is you were trying to do.