game ape Bill Clinton on the Election, D.E.I. and One of His Regrets

A month after losing the presidential election, Democrats are still unpacking what went wrong. Speaking at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, former President Bill Clinton blamed a lack of time.

When President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, he said, “nobody had a plan because nobody knew what was going to happen.” He added that a primary “would have been total chaos.”

Ultimately, he said, Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t able to adequately introduce herself as a presidential candidate. “What happened was Kamala Harris was a stranger to them,” he said of voters.

The former president also discussed Biden’s decision to grant a pardon to his son, Hunter; the Israel-Hamas War; D.E.I. policies; his new book, “Citizen: My Life After the White House,” and how much voters should focus on the character of politicians. Here are five highlights from the conversation.

On Joe Biden’s pardon of his son

Clinton said that Biden had not handled some aspects of the decision well. “I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it,” he said. “It does weaken his case.” But ultimately he defended the decision:

I personally believe that the president is almost certainly right that his son received completely different treatment than he would have if he hadn’t been the president’s son.

On the Middle East

During his time as president, Clinton worked to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He was the last president to visit Gaza. At the DealBook Summit, he referenced failed peace talks that he convened in 2000 with the Palestinian leader at the time, Yasir Arafat, and the then-prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak. Clinton blames Arafat for the deal falling apart, and he said that he tells young people today “what Arafat walked away from” and “they can’t believe it.” He added:

I’ll go through all the stuff that was in the deal and it’s not on their radar or radar screen. They can’t even imagine that happening.

Clinton added:

You walk away from these once-in-a-lifetime peace opportunities, and you can’t complain 25 years later when the doors weren’t all still open and all the possibilities weren’t still there. You can’t do it.

He grew emotional when discussing his past efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I’m an old guy. I have my regrets. That’s one of them.”

ImageFormer President Bill Clinton at the DealBook Summit.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

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