Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas (25 page)
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Authors: Edward Klein
B
ill Clinton’s strengthened determination to seek revenge against Barack Obama couldn’t have come at a worse time for the president. The last thing Obama needed was a resolute opponent within his own ranks. By the second month of Obama’s second term, his left-wing agenda had hit a solid wall of Republican opposition. Congress rejected every one of Obama’s requests—for an expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency, for comprehensive immigration reform, for an increase in the minimum wage, for stricter gun control, and on and on.
What was worse from the perspective of the White House was that Obama’s strategy of barnstorming the country in an effort to demonize the Republicans and pressure them to fall into line
proved to be an equal failure. As the
Wall Street Journal
pointed out in an editorial:
[Obama] certainly has ample reason to conclude his bash-Republicans strategy has stopped working. His campaign to portray the modest sequester budget cuts as Apocalypse Now has backfired, and the GOP isn’t budging on his demand to raise taxes again. Even the docile White House press corps has caught the Administration in numerous factual distortions, and the decision to shut down White House tours for grade-schoolers on their spring break looks petty and mean.
Obama’s troubles were reflected in the drop in his approval rating, which was at its lowest point in sixteen months. According to a McClatchy-Marist poll, more registered voters disapproved of his performance (48 percent) than approved (45 percent). The Chosen One no longer walked on water.
Several of Obama’s closest political advisers, including three former White House chiefs of staff—Rahm Emanuel, John Podesta, and Bill Daley—as well as his new chief of staff, Denis McDonough, urged him to drop his combative tone and reach out to the other side. “The more you do it, the more you will like it,” one of them told the president.
Thus was born in the spring of 2013 Obama’s so-called charm offensive, or what Politico dubbed “President Obama’s Plan B: Engage with the Republicans.” In quick succession, he dined out with a dozen Republican senators, met with House Republicans
in the basement of the Capitol, had drinks with two of his most strident antagonists—Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain—and invited House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan to the White House for lunch.
“This week we’ve gone 180 [degrees],” House Speaker John Boehner sniped. “After being in office now for four years, he’s actually going to sit down and talk to members.”
Many in Washington doubted the sincerity of Obama’s sudden burst of bonhomie. “This raises the uncomfortable question: Is this schmooze-a-thon a legitimate act of humility and leadership or a cynical public display?” wrote Ron Fournier in
National Journal.
“I can’t answer that question because I don’t pretend to know Obama’s state of mind. I can tell you that some of his advisers are no more convinced that this strategy will work than they were a few days ago. ‘This is a joke. We’re wasting the president’s time and ours,’ complained a senior White House official who was promised anonymity so he could speak frankly. ‘I hope you all [in the media] are happy because we’re doing it for you.’”
The same White House advisers who questioned Obama’s outreach to the Republicans were against a proposal to broaden the president’s charm offensive to include Democrats and to underscore that initiative by inviting Bill and Hillary Clinton to a dinner at the White House. Among the critics of that idea, the most vocal was Valerie Jarrett.
“If Valerie had had her way, the dinner would never have happened,” said one of Jarrett’s confidants. “She told the president and Michelle that no good would come of it, and no harm would result from not doing it. So why do it? But she was—most unusually—outvoted by the political people around Obama, and Barack decided to overrule her.
“However, Valerie won on one point,” this person continued. “The dinner was kept secret. Valerie didn’t want to give Bill Clinton the opportunity to speak to the media about it and make some political points, which the White House would then have to address. It showed how much Valerie believed that Bill was a loose cannon and didn’t have the president’s best interests at heart. Also, Valerie pointed out that if the dinner was announced, it would remind the media that the Clintons had never been invited to the Obama White House until now.”
And so, on March 1—the very day that the $85 billion in budget cuts known as the “sequester” went into effect—the Clintons slipped unnoticed into the White House and sat down for dinner with the Obamas in the Residence. Typically, once Obama decided to do something (for example, the surge in Afghanistan), he immediately had second thoughts, and his behavior during dinner degenerated from moody to grumpy to bad-tempered.
After the obligatory greetings and small talk about family, Obama asked Bill what he thought about the sequester: Would it turn out to be a political plus for him? Bill went into a long—and boring—lecture about the issue. To change the subject, Hillary asked Michelle if it was true, as she had heard, that the first lady was thinking about running for the Senate from Illinois.
Michelle said that she was warming to the idea, though she had yet to make up her mind.
Bill shot Hillary a look of incredulity.
As the dishes were being cleared away after the first course, Valerie Jarrett joined the dinner party. She immediately picked up the topic of Michelle’s running for the Senate. Valerie said she was very much in favor of the idea, and she left the distinct impression that, if Michelle decided to go for it, she, Valerie, wanted to run the show and act as Michelle’s chief of staff.
Bill then moved the conversation to Obama’s vaunted 2012 campaign organization. He told Obama that it would be a good idea to fold the organization, along with all its digital and social media bells and whistles, into the Democratic National Committee.
Obama’s only response was a disparaging smile.
“You have to use your organization to aid the candidate in 2016,” Bill pressed Obama.
“Really?” Obama replied in a tone of undisguised sarcasm.
The two men went back and forth over the subject of where the money for Obama’s campaign organization had come from and how to allocate funds for the 2016 presidential election. Bill raised his voice. So did Obama.
Once again, Hillary cut in and tried to steer the conversation to safer ground. She asked Michelle about one of their mutual friends (my source for this conversation did not name the person). Everyone drank a fair amount of wine. But Obama drank more than the others and never turned down a refill.
Then Obama suddenly announced he had to step out of the room. With the president gone, there was an awkward silence.
The talk returned to the subject of the sequester, and everyone at the table agreed that most Americans would blame the Republicans for the inconvenience caused by the partial government shutdown.
When Obama came back into the room, he reeked of tobacco, and Michelle didn’t try to hide her annoyance.
Bill next launched into a monologue about his experience with a government shutdown when he was president. He explained that he had outmaneuvered the Republicans and come out victorious because he had learned how to deal with such crises when he was governor of Arkansas.
“Executive experience counts,” he said, suggesting that Obama lacked that vital attribute.
No one had spoken to Obama that way in years. As the presidential gatekeeper, Valerie Jarrett had made sure that anyone who might be tempted to lecture Obama was barred from getting anywhere near him. That was one more reason she had been opposed to inviting the Clintons to dinner.
As Bill Clinton went on about his managerial experience, Obama began playing with his Blackberry under the table, making it plain that he wasn’t paying attention to anything Clinton had to say. He was intentionally snubbing Clinton. Others around the table noticed Obama thumbing his Blackberry, and the atmosphere turned even colder than before.
For the third time, Hillary changed the subject.
“Are you glad you won’t have to campaign again?” she asked Obama. “You don’t seem to enjoy it.”
“For a guy who doesn’t like it,” Obama replied tartly, “I’ve done pretty well.”
“Well,” Bill said, adding his two cents, “I was glad to pitch in and help get you reelected.”
There was another long pause. Finally, Obama turned to Bill and said, sotto voce, “Thanks.”
After the dinner, and once the Clintons had been ushered out of the family quarters, Obama turned to Valerie, shook his head, and said, “That’s why I never invite that guy over.”
A
bout a week after the White House dinner, Chelsea Clinton flew down to Washington from New York City, where she and her investment banker husband, Marc Mezvinsky, had just bought a $10.5 million apartment overlooking Madison Square Park. The pricey transaction made news around the world:
People
magazine ran two photos of the apartment along with the intriguing observation: “[Chelsea] Clinton, who works as a special correspondent for NBC News, has eased her views on a possible future run for public office, saying she isn’t sure if she will follow in her parents’ footsteps.”
At the age of thirty-three, Chelsea had become a celebrity in her own right. And as she disembarked from the plane in Washington on this blustery March day, she looked every inch the part. She was dressed in a stylish thigh-length beige jacket, skintight
black wool pants, and cowboy boots. Her naturally curly hair, which she wore straightened and with blonde highlights, was parted in the middle and hung to the middle of her back.
A limousine whisked her off to Whitehaven, her parents’ home on Embassy Row. There, two Secret Service Suburbans—one for Bill, one for Hillary—were parked in the driveway. A pair of agents escorted Chelsea into the house, where her parents greeted her with hugs. Bill and Hillary had invited a group of Chelsea’s friends and associates to an informal afternoon party.
The guests had yet to arrive, and Chelsea and Hillary seized the opportunity to take a power walk and catch up on some mother-daughter gossip. They made their way past the pool and patio to Rock Creek Park, which bordered on the Clintons’ property. Several Secret Service agents followed at a discreet distance.
For the past several months, Hillary had been urging Chelsea to get pregnant, and each time Chelsea had replied that she and Marc were trying, but so far without any luck. According to one of Hillary’s friends, Hillary told Chelsea that she needed to get away from all the stress she was under. “Your father and I had the same problem,” Hillary said. “Your father had just been elected governor and I was a partner at the Rose Law Firm. And so we decided to take a vacation in Bermuda, and that’s when I finally was able to become pregnant with you. So I recommend that you leave your cell phones and iPads at home and don’t tell anybody where you’re going.” (Ultimately, Chelsea took her mother’s advice, and in the spring of 2014 she announced that she was expecting a baby.)
When the two women returned, Chelsea went up to her suite of rooms, which her parents kept exclusively for her use at Whitehaven, and changed into party clothes—a light green cashmere sweater, a black skirt, and black pumps.
The Clintons’ Filipino housekeeper had set the food on a table in the dining room. The buffet consisted mostly of vegan fare, although there was some barbecue for the unreconstructed carnivores in the group.
As Chelsea’s guests arrived, they were welcomed by Bill, Hillary, and the three family dogs: Seamus, an arthritic old chocolate Labrador that could barely stand; a poodle named Tally; and Massie, a stray puppy adopted by Bill. The guests drifted through the living room, which was hung with abstract Vietnamese art, including a painting of Chelsea and Hillary wearing traditional Vietnamese conical hats made from bamboo and dried leaves. French doors led to the sunroom, with its large Rose Tarlow velvet sofas.
Bill made a point of talking with nearly all the guests. He paid particular attention to some of the younger men and women, who appeared to be left tongue-tied by the presence of the Clintons—three of the most famous people in the world.
Chelsea acted as hostess. Recently put in charge of the family business, she helped her father run both Hillary’s nascent presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation, which had changed its name from the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The main object of the gathering was to give Chelsea the opportunity to introduce her parents to some people she wanted to hire in New York City to work at the foundation, which had recently moved
its headquarters to the forty-second floor of the Time-Life Building on the Avenue of the Americas.