How has your understanding of his support evolved? You were criticized a lot, probably rightly, for using the word “deplorables” for many of his followers—but how do you view the evolution of his followers, and what it is that they want most of all from him?
Well, first of all, I said only about half were. So, to be fair—
Well, are you doubling down on “deplorables”?
I gave a speech, for example, about something called the alt-right, which the press had no idea what I was talking about. Certainly the public had no idea what I was talking about. But I was beginning to see this really disturbing rhetoric—racist rhetoric, sexist rhetoric, the kind of authoritarian demagogic claims about our politics. And it worried me. So I tried to put that into the political debate, but I also did try to draw a line between those who were following him because of that.
It wasn’t a bug—it was the feature. And people didn’t take it seriously. People were, like, “Oh, that’s just Donald. He’s just spouting off. Don’t worry about it.” I saw something darker. But I was in . . . not the strongest position, since I was running against him, to make that case. I was trying to say, Look, I understand there are people who believe that kind of stuff, but most of the people, at least half, who are following him—they want change. They are not satisfied with where we are in the country. It was something that I was aware of, and I respected, because people were feeling that it’s hard to succeed a two-term President of your own party. I knew that going into it. People liked and respected President Obama, but they wanted something that might be a little different, and something—
A little different?
But they didn’t know how different at the time.
I don’t want to jump too far ahead, but I think it’s fair to say that, so far, J. D. Vance has not covered himself in glory, and Marco Rubio probably doesn’t appeal to the base with quite the same stickiness as Trump himself. I wonder if you think it’s possible—and I think maybe this has run through your head—that the Trump family has dynastic ambitions, whether it’s Donald, Jr., or someone in the family, who might pretend to succeed him.
Well, David, you and I think alike. I think, if he could figure out a way to stay, he would. My husband likes to say, “If he tries to stay, I’m running again.” But, if that’s unlikely, which we have to hope it is, I don’t get the feeling he’s all warm and fuzzy about J. D. Vance.
No.
I don’t think he is warm and fuzzy about nearly anybody other than himself and who is closest enough to him, and that is possibly a son or a daughter.
A son or a daughter?
A son or a daughter.
And the daughter is thought to be cleverer than the sons.
Well, I’m not going to characterize them. It’s the blood relationship that matters.
Understood.
Look, we’re speculating like we know something, which we don’t. I’m not hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and picking up the bread crumbs of gossip.
I think you’d like it there.
Yeah. But, given Trump’s psychology, if he can’t do it himself, he wants somebody he can control, and preferably somebody related to him. And that would be, I think, his hope.
You’ve watched Trump over a long period of time. You’ve debated him three times. You’ve observed him very carefully, obviously. Is he disintegrating?
I think he is. He’s certainly not what he was. He falls asleep in lots of public meetings. I mean, poor Joe Biden. I mean, he shut his eyes once or twice, but Donald Trump is falling asleep all the time these days. But part of that is, he stays up all night posting on Truth Social. So he’s not getting enough sleep anyway, which is pretty disturbing, because I don’t think people who are sleep-deprived make good decisions, on top of everything else. But I really think he has a number of traits that have got more obvious. He doesn’t even try to hide them. His impulsivity, his immaturity, his lack of curiosity about anything going on around him. When he launched the war against Iran, and then, out of the White House, you hear that “Nobody told me about the Strait of Hormuz. Nobody told me they could close the Strait of Hormuz. Where is the Strait of Hormuz?” You can’t make it up. It’s like some movie that you walk out of because it’s so outlandish.
“Dr. Strangelove.”
Yeah, exactly.
We’re talking on a day the United States and Iran seem to have signed an agreement to end, at least for now, this war. Did the United States lose this war?
Yes. The United States has come out weaker. Iran has come out stronger. Now, I started the negotiations that led to the J.C.P.O.A., the agreement that President Obama eventually signed. It was an intensive diplomatic effort. We started by getting the U.N. Security Council to impose global sanctions on Iran in June of 2010. We then worked to get secret negotiations started through Oman, and those began with several meetings and with a plan about going forward, which I handed off to my successor, John Kerry. These were serious negotiations, with high-level people. When we sat across a table from the Iranians, we had our own nuclear physicists there, as did they. We had experienced diplomats, people who had negotiated on many different fronts for many years. That’s not the way this Administration does its business.
The United States doesn’t send bombers to Iran because anybody else commands it to, but it’s very clear that Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, pushed and pushed Donald Trump to do this. It’s my understanding that, when you were Secretary of State, Bibi Netanyahu made the same case. Tell me about that.
Well, you’re absolutely right. When I was Secretary, it was a constant theme by Netanyahu and his then government, the then Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister. It was relentless. It was a constant push. I remember—
What would he say to you?
What?
What would he say to you?
He would basically say, “You need to support us in attacking Iran.” And back then—this was 2009 to the end of 2012—we had more capacity than Israel did, on several fronts, to do that. And so there was a constant argument that we would have. I remember, one day, I was on the phone for hours with Ehud, with Bibi, with others. And they would say things like, “Our planes are on the tarmac.” And I’d say, “Well, good luck. I mean, great. Why are you doing this?”
