Why Am I Telling You This? with Bill Clinton

Latest Episodes:

How History Will View the 2020 Election Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

Presidential elections have taken place in America every four years since 1788, but the 2020 election was unlike anything we had experienced before. Amid a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a long overdue reckoning with systemic racism, Americans made their votes and voices heard in record numbers, electing the historic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Yet even after the results made clear that he had lost, Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of the free and fair election and undermine the public’s faith in our system—eventually leading to the assault on the Capitol on January 6.

In this episode one of America’s most respected presidential historians and best-selling author Douglas Brinkley joins President Clinton to make sense of what we just lived through, and to reflect on how future generations might view what will likely be one of the most consequential and intensely examined elections in American history.

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The Presidency and the People: How to Form a More Perfect Union Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

In commemoration of Presidents Day, President Bill Clinton traces the evolution of the presidency from America’s founding through modern history and explores how the best presidents used the office to build an America that more closely resembled our highest ideals and aspirations.

This special episode, from the original version of “Why Am I Telling You This?”, features President Clinton’s keynote speech from the 2019 Presidential Ideas Festival at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. For this episode, David Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” and Professor of American History at Yale University, provides original commentary on President Clinton’s speech. Professor Blight says the speech is a “rare blend of learned history and lived experience... a reminder of what the future of the institution of the presidency can still be.”

This episode was originally released in July 2019.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta: How Facts Can Fight A Pandemic Feb 11, 2021

Show notes

From the time the first U.S. cases of the coronavirus began to be reported a year ago, America found itself in a battle against two interconnected diseases. The first, COVID-19, has now claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and completely upended the ways we live, work, and interact with each other. And the second is a major reason why COVID-19 has had such a devastating toll: the spread of misinformation to downplay the seriousness of the virus.

In this episode, President Clinton sits down with one of America’s most trusted doctors and journalists, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to make sense of where we are in the fight against COVID-19 one year into the pandemic, dispel myths about the vaccines, and discuss his new book, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age.

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Wynton Marsalis: How Jazz Explains Democracy Feb 04, 2021

Show notes

After a year in which we were all forced to improvise, and some of the most fundamental ideas and foundations of our society have been challenged, there may be no better art form to help us understand these times than jazz. In many ways, jazz is the music of democracy at its best, and shows how we can find harmony with one another and work together to become a more inclusive, kinder, and equitable nation.

In the premier episode of his podcast, President Clinton sits downs with one of the world’s most influential jazz artists, Wynton Marsalis, to hear powerful stories about Wynton’s life, how his recent works “The Ever Fonky Lowdown” and “The Democracy! Suite” are blueprints to help us decode and overcome the forces that divide us, and what he learned from his father, who he lost to COVID-19 early in the pandemic.

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Introducing: Why Am I Telling You This? Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

President Bill Clinton is a master at using storytelling to explain complex issues and highlight our common humanity. To hear him tell it, this comes from growing up in a family where everyone had a story, but in order to tell one, you first needed to listen. In this new podcast, hear President Clinton share stories and ideas with some of the most fascinating people of our time as they make sense of the issues and events that continue to shape our interconnected world.

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