Interview with Hillary Clinton

Brian Williams: A colleague of yours in the Senate, Joe Lieberman, is campaigning with Republican colleagues of yours, John McCain.  Should Joe Lieberman still be a member of the Democratic Party?  Should he be able to run a committee under the Democratic banner?

Hillary Clinton: Well, Joe is an independent Democrat.  And as an independent Democrat, you know, he certainly decides who he’s going to support. But he caucuses with us. He votes with us. And, you know, I certainly believe that’s important we continue that.

Brian Williams: Let’s talk about immigration in light of one case up in Reno.  Federal agents raided a few establishments.  Fifty-five arrests were made at some of the fast food places. They came in and found illegal workers.  Is that the kind of piecemeal approach to these raids; is that the way to go about it?

Hillary Clinton: No, it’s not. We need comprehensive immigration reform.  We need to do everything we’ve been talking about to tighten border security.  I voted for more technology, more personnel.  I have voted for physical barriers because we’ve got to get control over our borders.

We do have to crack down on employers.  People wouldn’t come here if they didn’t have a job waiting for them.  We need to provide more help to communities like Reno and others that, you know, end up paying for healthcare, education, law enforcement.  I want to do more with our neighbors to the south to see if we can’t help them create more jobs so that people can actually stay at home and have a better economic future.

And then we’ve got to deal with what is 12 to 14 million people here illegally.  And I hear the voices on the Republican side.  I hear them in the broadcast media calling for deportation, round them up.  And whenever I hear that, Brian, I say, “Fine, you tell me how we will do that.”  It will take tens of thousands of federal law enforcement officials not just with occasional raids but literally going door to door into our homes, into our businesses, looking for people who are here illegally.

It would take more than $200 billion to fund that kind of intrusive privacy shredding event that I think Americans would never stand for.  And what I wanna do is to say let’s get real here.  These people need to be brought out of the shadows and registered.  If they’ve committed a crime here or in the country they came from, they should be deported immediately, no questions asked.

If, however, the vast majority who have worked hard, their kids are in school here, if they wish to have a pass to legalization, they’ve got to meet some tough conditions.  They do have to pay a fine because they came here illegally.  They did break the law.  They have to pay back taxes.  It might take years but they’ve got to make amends there.  They have to begin to try to learn English.  And we’ve got to do more to help them to try to learn English.

I actually had a piece of legislation with the Republican Senator from Nevada Senator Ensign, where we’re trying to do more to help people in the workplace learn English.  Then they have to wait in line behind everybody who’s here and coming legally.  And over the course of ten, 12 years, they will be able to earn legalization.

But once they are registered and once they sign on to these conditions we have imposed, they will become legal so that employers will not be able to exploit them or, frankly, undercut the job market and prevent Americans who are here legally from having these jobs.  I don’t see any alternative.  And that’s what I will work for immediately upon becoming President.

Brian Williams: We have two minutes left. I guess I should ask you to look back on the campaign so far.  Akin to the question in New Hampshire, it has gotten personal quite early. How have you kept going?

Hillary Clinton: Well, I believe in what I’m doing so deeply. I see these problems. I care passionately about the people who I meet, you know, who tell me they don’t have healthcare and they don’t have a job.  And they deserve better than what they’re getting from our current government.

I know what we can do.  I know we can meet these goals.  That’s what America’s about.  Since when did we become the can’t-do nation?  Oh, we can’t provide healthcare.  We can’t deal with our energy crisis.  I don’t believe that.  I reject that, Brian.

I came of age when, you know, we had our sights on the moon.  You know, when we were breaking down barriers thanks to people like Dr. King that prevented all of our country from living up to our own God-given potential.  I want us to believe in ourselves again.  We are a good and great nation.

We can unleash the ingenuity and the power of the American innovative spirit.  And I can be the President who does that.  I see so clearly how we can make the progress that needs to be America’s birthright.  That’s our common purpose:  making this progress, living by our values, restoring our leadership around the world.

So, you know, the nights are short, the days are long.  But I’m always motivated because sometime during every day somebody tells me, like they did in Nevada yesterday, “Thanks for starting the children’s health insurance program.  It really made all the difference to my boy.”  “Thanks for, you know, being on our side when it came to standing up against the White House and the Pentagon that wanted to take the signing bonuses away from wounded soldiers.”  I really measure what I do in terms of what difference it makes in somebody else’s life.

There’s an endless opportunity to help people.  So it doesn’t matter to me how hard it gets.  I think I’m doing it for the right reason.  I think I can make a difference in my country.  So I’m gonna get up and keep going as long as it takes.

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