Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton

Leadership matters. And while it’s easy to take a cynical view of government and politics in today’s world, it’s important to remember that public service can and should still be an honorable endeavor - and responsible leadership, working together, and putting people first are still fundamental to effective government. 

In the season finale of Why Am I Telling You This, former Prime Minister Tony Blair joins President Clinton for a wide-ranging discussion on the conflict in Ukraine, the future of Northern Ireland, how to create a vital center in politics, and the work of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

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Last week was another week marked by multiple mass shootings in America, including attacks in Houston, Southern California, and a particularly heinous, racially-motivated massacre in Buffalo, N.Y. in which 10 people were killed in a supermarket—the deadliest mass shooting in the United States so far this year.

In the wake of these tragedies, Americans have a responsibility to denounce domestic terrorism and stand up to those who promote the racist ideology that motivated the Buffalo shooter.

But elected officials, especially, must go beyond offering thoughts and prayers. Mass shootings keep happening, on a near-weekly basis, and the one thing we know can make them less frequent and less deadly has not been done: namely, reinstating the assault weapons ban and the limit on high-capacity magazines that were in effect from 1994 to 2004.

For this episode of Why Am I Telling You This?, we revisit commentary from President Clinton (originally published in TIME in the wake of two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio on the same weekend in the summer of 2019) calling on Congress to institute universal—and more thorough—background checks, and reinstate the ammunition limit and ban on assault weapons—sensible measures that worked before, and can work again.

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Graduation season is here, and soon a new generation of leaders will take their energy, their ideas, and their desire to take action out into the world to help solve the challenges we all face. The more opportunities we provide for more people to pursue higher education, the better off we all are.

This special episode of “Why Am I Telling You This” features a conversation between the sitting First Lady of the United States and community college educator, Dr. Jill Biden and Secretary Hillary Clinton from the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting about why community colleges are one of the great cornerstones of America’s education system, and the important role they play in shaping the leaders of tomorrow.

Started in 2007, CGI U has brought together more than 11,000 college and university students together to create change in the U.S. and around the world. The 2022 CGI U meeting, hosted in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges, included more than 400 student leaders, representing 70 countries and more than 200 schools, all with ideas to tackle the innumerable challenges students have faced throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, and to make the world a safer, healthier, and more equitable place for all.

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A parent or caregiver’s unconditional love is one of the greatest gifts any of us can receive.  With Mother’s Day around the corner and Father’s Day coming up next month, this special episode of Why Am I Telling You This? brings together some of the most inspiring stories our guests have shared with President Clinton about their parents and other caregivers and the impact they made on their lives. The episode features conversations with Dr. Bernice King, Wynton Marsalis, Magic Johnson, Jason Isbell, David Ortiz, Melba Wilson, Matt Damon, Lisa Leslie, and Jose Andres.

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There’s a reason a certain type of home-cooked cuisine is referred to as “soul food”—because it nurtures the spirit as well as the body. From the American South to New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, food is an integral part of culture, a symbol of love, and a way to bring family, friends, and strangers together.

On this episode of Why Am I Telling You This?, President Clinton is joined by “America’s queen of comfort food,” Melba Wilson, whose eponymous restaurant has been serving mouth-watering meals in Harlem—where she was “born, bred, and buttered”—since 2005. In addition to nurturing her native community with food, Wilson also takes care of her neighbors in other ways. In 2021, she was instrumental in setting up a mobile COVID vaccination site for Harlem residents, provided meals to thousands of essential workers, and established the Melba’s COVID-19 Employee Relief Fund to provide financial aid to dozens of restaurant workers who found themselves out of work during the pandemic. She is also serving on New York City’s COVID Recovery and Health Equity Task Force.

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Throughout American history, progress has never come easily, as we’ve been reminded repeatedly over the last few years. It requires hard work, persistence, and passionate individuals banding together to support causes they believe in. Few people know that better than Dolores Huerta, the trailblazing civil rights and labor movement leader who helped farm workers find their voice and power by organizing a strike and boycott among California grape workers in the 1960s in response to horrific working and living conditions. Despite violent backlash, the workers’ steadfast determination over the next five years resulted in health benefits, higher wages, and better, safer living and working conditions.

Sixty years ago, along with Cesar Chavez, Huerta formed the National Farm Workers Association—which later became what is currently America’s most enduring agricultural union, the United Farm Workers. As a direct result of her leadership in the American Labor Movement, countless people have been able to better support themselves and their families and have earned the treatment of respect and dignity they deserve. She has remained on the front lines of nearly every progressive social movement since.

On this episode, Huerta shares with President Clinton her remarkable life story, the experiences she had as a young person that shaped her into a trailblazing activist, and how today—at 92 years old—she still has the motivation and commitment to make a positive difference on women's rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, voting rights, and civil rights through the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

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In an age that seems dominated by conflict, it’s important that we step back and remind ourselves of our amazing capacity to work together.  And there’s perhaps no greater example of that than the modern city.  From the smallest details to the large-scale infrastructure, every piece of a city was thought about, designed, and built by someone to make one large living thing we could all inhabit. When it all works well, it enables our society to work well, too.

Roman Mars has spent his career chronicling these bits of human ingenuity that we so often take for granted—things like the utility codes, the curb cuts, the traffic signals, and much more. As host of the 99% Invisible Podcast and, with Kurt Kohlstedt, co-author of the book The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, his work challenges all of us to look up and around, and to think about the how and the why of design around the world in a different way.

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In existence for over a century, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is arguably one of the most important agencies of the federal government. Its work is so critical that it often enjoys rare and widespread bipartisan support. In this special bonus episode, President Clinton and nationally recognized experts share first-person accounts and unique perspectives of how the Clinton administration’s unprecedented investment in research and science at NIH led to some of the most impactful scientific breakthroughs in the last century – including developing antiretroviral treatments for HIV/AIDS, accelerating research which ultimately made it possible to develop COVID-19 vaccines, and the sequencing of the human genome.

This episode features talks by:

• President Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, Founder and Board Chair, Clinton Foundation 
• Dr. Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration
• Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH
• Dr. John I. Gallin, NIH Associate Director for Clinical Research who served as the inaugural chief scientific officer of the NIH Clinical Center
• Dr. Gary Nabel, President & CEO of ModeX Therapeutics and the first director of the NIH Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center
• Dr. Harold Varmus, the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Meyer Cancer Center of Weill Cornell Medicine, former Director of NIH, and Nobel Prize winning scientist
• Dr. Wendy Chung, Director of Clinical Genetics at Columbia University
• Dr. Francis Collins, longstanding former NIH Director and Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute
• Dr. Charles Rotimi, Director of the Trans-NIH Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health

This podcast was adapted from an event held in partnership with the Clinton Presidential Center and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service as part of the Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture Series. To learn more, visit www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org. 

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More than 770 million people around the world are living without access to clean water—including in communities throughout the United States.  The challenges this creates to public health, economic opportunity, education, and gender equality are astounding, and the crisis of water inequity is only growing more urgent due to the effects of climate change.  

In this episode, President Clinton is joined by an unlikely pair who are working together to bring access to life’s most fundamental resource a reality for everyone across the globe—actor and Academy Award winner Matt Damon, and water and sanitation engineer Gary White.  After meeting at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting more than a decade ago, they partnered to found the organization Water.org, and later WaterEquity, and have now brought clean water to more than 40 million people in 11 countries.  In their conversation with President Clinton, they discuss their new book The Worth of Water, explain the urgency of the water crisis and why they’re both so passionate about it, and outline a roadmap to how solving this problem is possible within our lifetimes.

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A new baseball season is finally getting underway—bringing with it our enduring optimism. Baseball has helped see us through wars, depressions, and pandemics.  It’s seen Jackie Robinson break down the color barrier 75 years ago this April, and players like Juan Marichal and Roberto Clemente open the doors of possibility to generations of young people across Latin America.  It is more than a game; it’s a part of who we are.

There’s no better person to help celebrate the upcoming season than David Ortiz, a once in a generation star who embodies the best of baseball both on and off the field.  David is a 10-time All-Star, three-time World Series champion with the Boston Red Sox, seven-time Silver Slugger, soon-to-be baseball Hall of Famer, and a hero to fans young and old, from New England to the Dominican Republic where he grew up.

In this episode, David shares stories about how his parents’ love and guidance helped give him the dedication and discipline to succeed; some of the most memorable moments of his career, including breaking “The Curse of the Bambino” in 2004 and rallying the local community and the country after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and his commitment to giving back and making a difference in kids’ lives through the David Ortiz Children’s Fund.

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