Former President Bill Clinton took aim at President Trump’s plans for a triumphal arch in Washington and the push to put Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center, arguing that global challenges would be easier to solve if leaders “didn’t care as much about who got the credit.”
The 42nd president made the remarks Tuesday while delivering opening remarks at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.
Shortly after stepping up to the lectern, Clinton referenced Trump’s recent announcement that plans for a massive arch bridging Washington and Virginia would include a “top grade military complex” used to store drones.
“I think it’s important to take a few minutes to assess where we are now and the environment in which we are meeting,” Clinton said.
“I suppose I could take my entire allotted time to discuss the self-evident wisdom of building an Arc de Triomphe in Washington to hold all our drones,” the former president quipped, drawing laughs from the audience.
“Some of this stuff — it’s hard to make up,” he added.
Clinton then described the present as a defining period.
“Over the course of a lifetime, there are only so many real opportunities to make decisions that we know will shape our personal history and the history of those we live with and care about for a long time to come. This is one of those moments,” he said.
He went on to address efforts by the Kennedy Center board to inscribe Trump’s name on the historic Washington institution. Last week, a federal judge blocked an attempt by the Trump-picked board to add the president’s name to the building and rename its campus after him.
“I personally think that the way we’ve argued about what’s going on at the Kennedy Center and all that kind of stuff — I think we’ve been majoring in the minors,” Clinton said.
“You really think 100 years from now anybody’s going to care very much about whose name’s on what building?” he asked. “Isn’t it more important what happens in the building? And what happens outside the building?”
Clinton, 80, said he still holds the views he campaigned on more than three decades ago.
“I feel so strongly — as I did 30 years ago-plus when I ran for president as a virtual child — that diversity is a positive thing, not a negative one,” he said.
“That cooperation works better than conflict, and that we could actually deal with just about every challenge we face, if we didn’t care as much about who got the credit, and we made sure that we took care of the least of these,” he continued.
Much of his speech centered on the development of artificial intelligence and a critique of what he called “zero-sum thinking” among the nation’s political leaders.
“I believe that on the 250th anniversary of this country, we can’t have a politics driven by zero-sum thinking: In order for me to win, you have to lose,” Clinton said.
“Nevertheless, I do understand why so many leaders around the world have chosen this zero-sum approach. Think how richly they have been rewarded for it in every sense of the word, and this payoff has been more apparent in the United States than any other country,” he said.
Without naming Trump directly, Clinton leveled sharp accusations at those in power.
“Some days I can hardly believe what is happening in this country that I love so much. People in charge have created one set of rules for themselves and another set for everyone else,” he said.
“They’ve weaponized government to settle personal scores, prosecute enemies, stamp out free speech. They’ve even made the federal government a new profit center for themselves and their allies,” Clinton said. “That violates the spirit and letter of the Emoluments Clause of our Constitution.”
