The Ben Shapiro Show

00:00:00.000 If we want to reconnect the social fabric, we have to rebuild relationships.

00:00:04.000 And the most effective way to build relationships is collaborate with somebody else and solve a problem.

00:00:10.000 Don't talk up here in abstract.

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00:00:23.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.

00:00:23.000 Hey, hey, and welcome.

00:00:26.000 Our guest today is Carly Fiorina.

00:00:28.000 She's the head of the Unlocking Potential Foundation and, of course, 2016 presidential candidate.

00:00:32.000 We'll talk with Carly in just a second.

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00:01:42.000 Carly Fiorina, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:01:44.000 I really appreciate it.

00:01:45.000 It's great to be with you, Ben.

00:01:46.000 Thank you for having me.

00:01:47.000 So for the vast majority of people who are familiar with you, I'm sure they're familiar with you from the 2016 presidential campaign.

00:01:54.000 Obviously, you had a huge name profile before that.

00:01:56.000 You were CEO of Hewlett-Packard and you'd run for Senate in California as well.

00:02:00.000 So what got you from business into politics in the first place?

00:02:04.000 Well, you know, I kind of realized that politicians and the policies they pursue impact all of our lives.

00:02:11.000 There were periods in my life where I didn't vote at all.

00:02:13.000 I thought politics wasn't for me.

00:02:15.000 And then I realized, actually, politics affects me.

00:02:18.000 It affects a lot of people.

00:02:20.000 And I also think there's so much that's broken about our politics.

00:02:24.000 I think, as George Washington observed in 1789, it's about winning more than it's about problem-solving.

00:02:32.000 And I think the vitriol in politics is really soul-crushing to a lot of people.

00:02:38.000 And so I thought, well, maybe I can make a positive contribution and perhaps speak about it in a different way and speak about a citizen government, which is what I think we were meant to have.

00:02:48.000 Well, looking at the state of politics now, are you optimistic still about that vision of getting into politics?

00:02:53.000 Because it seems like we're getting more polarized.

00:02:55.000 There's sort of a movement by Rod Rehr and others to sort of move away from the political, to just say, listen, nothing's getting solved there.

00:03:00.000 Let's move back into the areas that you occupied beforehand.

00:03:03.000 That's where the solutions are going to get done.

00:03:05.000 Well, I'm kind of there at the moment.

00:03:06.000 You know, I think that, first of all, We know this from our founders, but I've learned this in my life.

00:03:13.000 Power concentrated is power abused, always.

00:03:17.000 There's too much power concentrated in Washington, D.C.

00:03:20.000 And what happens when power gets concentrated, especially in big bureaucracies, and let's face it, government's a big bureaucracy, is power starts to serve itself, preserve itself.

00:03:31.000 And so problems don't get solved when you're focused on keeping things the way they are.

00:03:37.000 So, the work that I do now is really to lift up problem solvers, wherever they are, in communities, in companies, in organizations, so that they can be focused on solving the problems right in front of them, because they're frustrated by the fact that the people they thought were solving the problems aren't really getting them solved.

00:03:57.000 Okay, so let's talk about you jumping into politics.

00:03:59.000 So, I first became aware of you because I didn't really read the business section when I was, you know, 15 years ago.

00:04:05.000 But when you first started running for Senate in California, so what year was that?

00:04:10.000 2010.

00:04:10.000 Okay, so you're running for Senate in California.

00:04:12.000 What prompted you to take on a quixotic task like running for Senate in California?

00:04:16.000 Well, as I told you, I don't mind tough challenges.

00:04:19.000 I've been attracted to tough challenges all my life, so that was a tough job.

00:04:24.000 That was a tough challenge and a very long shot, but honestly, I felt as though there was nothing in the conversation, in the political conversation, about the people that I saw in California who didn't think the way Barbara Boxer did.

00:04:42.000 Who were being harmed by the policies that Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and the Democrats in Sacramento were pushing.

00:04:51.000 And I felt as though it was important to have somebody with some small shot to be able to stand up and articulate what I thought were Real life, realistic policies that actually work, that I know something about.

00:05:10.000 See, one of the reasons I think we were intended to be a citizen government is politicians don't know a lot about a lot of things, especially if they've been in politics all their life.

00:05:22.000 I'm not saying they're bad people.

00:05:23.000 There's some very good people in politics.

00:05:26.000 But if all you've done is run and win, run and win, run and win, You don't know a lot about what's going on, and yet you're making policies that impact people tremendously.

00:05:38.000 And so California's business environment was getting harmed, crushed by these policies.

00:05:44.000 I happened to know something about it, and Barbara Boxer knew nothing about it.

00:05:48.000 And that kind of ticked me off.

00:05:51.000 Well, it turns out Barbara Boxer knew very little about anything, but neither did the voters of California.

00:05:56.000 She wouldn't be the only politician that way.

00:05:58.000 But I think so much of politics just gets to be, it's like sports.

00:06:02.000 It's win-lose.

00:06:03.000 My team, my team.

00:06:05.000 And we've turned into tribal team players.

00:06:09.000 I'm on the D team, so I always go with the D. I'm on the R team, I always go with the R. That win-lose never solves problems, although it may win elections.

00:06:18.000 So after that taste of running in 2010, what prompted you to think, okay, 2016, I really want more of this?

00:06:25.000 Well, it's such a doubting question, Ben, I'm sure.

00:06:29.000 I mean, yes, it was a huge challenge.

00:06:30.000 I talk to tons of politicians and I always look at them and I say, like, this seems horrible.

00:06:34.000 Why would you want to do this?

00:06:35.000 Well, you know, there are things about it that are very hard, but the voters make it great.

00:06:41.000 I mean, I have no regrets.

00:06:42.000 I loved talking to citizens.

00:06:45.000 And one of the things that I said, the media once asked me, what's the biggest surprise about running for president?

00:06:50.000 And I said, the yawning chasm between what citizens talk about and how they talk about it and what the media asks and how the media talks about it.

00:06:59.000 There is a yawning chasm still, which is why it's so important that you do what you do, for example.

00:07:04.000 So, why did I do that?

00:07:05.000 I did it because, once again, I knew it was a long shot, I knew it was a tough challenge, but ours was intended to be a citizen government.

00:07:15.000 And I know something about big bureaucracies, and I know what makes them tick, and I know what has to happen to reform them.

00:07:22.000 And Washington is one gigantic bureaucracy.

00:07:26.000 And it is a system that seeks to preserve itself at all costs, Republicans and Democrats alike.

00:07:33.000 I know something about that.

00:07:35.000 I know how to reform those systems.

00:07:36.000 And so I thought, well, I think my voice can make a contribution here.

00:07:41.000 And you famously made a courageous stand in the middle of the debates when you started talking about Planned Parenthood openly and shot to the top of the polls.

00:07:49.000 What did it feel like to go from nowhere to the top of the polls in a matter of... Well, it wasn't exactly the top of the polls, but I think we did get to something like 9% in the national polls.

00:07:58.000 There were a couple where you were up to like 15, I think.

00:08:00.000 And so that was a big change because when I started, less than 3% of the electorate had ever heard of me.

00:08:05.000 I mean, I had no name ID.

00:08:09.000 You know, I focused less, honestly, on what the polls were saying, and more on what I was saying.

00:08:19.000 And the Planned Parenthood, that was the time, of course, when the whole scandal about selling body parts was coming out.

00:08:26.000 And literally, the media machine was saying it wasn't true.

00:08:31.000 And of course it was true.

00:08:32.000 And it's been demonstrably shown to be true.

00:08:37.000 And that was just outrageous to me.

00:08:40.000 Outrageous because it is a crime against humanity.

00:08:44.000 Outrageous because it says something terrible about the character of our nation.

00:08:49.000 But also outrageous because here is something that's actually going on.

00:08:55.000 That a whole bunch of people, for political reasons say, And it was.

00:09:04.000 So, you're in the middle of this campaign, you suddenly start to pick up enormous steam, and then Donald Trump, then candidate Trump, decides to airmail himself into the middle of the campaign, effectively, and insults you personally.

00:09:18.000 I have to admit, I was not a voter for President Trump in 2016, I didn't vote for any of the candidates at the top of the tickets, and one of the reasons was because President Trump routinely attacked people in ways that I thought were unpalatable, and it wasn't just you, obviously he accused Senator Cruz's father of killing JFK, He still does.

00:09:36.000 That behavior continues.

00:09:37.000 Right.

00:09:38.000 So how did you not get cynical about politics given both his statements and then the reaction to his statements specifically targeting what you look like?

00:09:47.000 Well, first let me say when Trump entered the campaign, everything changed.

00:09:54.000 Instantaneously.

00:09:56.000 And you could tell as a candidate.

00:09:58.000 The minute Trump came down the escalator, every question became about him.

00:10:04.000 From the media.

00:10:05.000 Every question became about him.

00:10:06.000 On every network.

00:10:08.000 Because he was interesting.

00:10:09.000 He was a celebrity.

00:10:10.000 He drew eyeballs.

00:10:12.000 And so the whole conversation shifted.

00:10:15.000 It's one of the reasons I said what voters wanted to talk about was so different than what the media wanted to talk about.

00:10:20.000 And Donald Trump knew that.

00:10:21.000 He was brilliant at it.

00:10:23.000 And so, okay, give me the media attention, he said, and it worked.

00:10:29.000 Regarding President Trump's comments about me, and I actually tell that story in this book, but Gee, President Trump isn't the first man who ever said something about my looks, either positive or negative.

00:10:43.000 Women's looks are discussed as a way of demeaning or dismissing them.

00:10:48.000 It's happened to me all my life.

00:10:50.000 So when it first happened, it was just kind of like, oh, here we go again.

00:10:54.000 My staff was stunned.

00:10:56.000 And I just said, we'll find a time to deal with it.

00:11:01.000 And so I finally dealt with it in that debate.

00:11:07.000 People were shocked that he said it in a presidential campaign.

00:11:12.000 But in fairness, he's not the only man or the first man to have said things like that.

00:11:18.000 Were you perturbed, though, by the reaction of primary voters, that they looked at that and they didn't find that offensive enough to?

00:11:26.000 I do.

00:11:27.000 be even close to disqualifying.

00:11:28.000 Obviously, he wins the nomination, then goes on to become president of the United States.

00:11:32.000 Well, I find it disturbing.

00:11:34.000 I do.

00:11:34.000 I find it disturbing that we have come to accept a level of discourse and behavior that should be unacceptable.

00:11:46.000 I don't think Trump is necessarily the cause of this.

00:11:51.000 He may be the result of it.

00:11:54.000 But the level of...

00:12:00.000 Vitriol, conflict, insult that we now think of as routine in civil discourse should not be acceptable in this nation.

00:12:13.000 And it worries me.

00:12:15.000 And that's what I meant when I said earlier, politics, somehow the way we conduct politics is it has infected everything.

00:12:23.000 Part of that is social media.

00:12:24.000 People will say things on social media that they would never say to your face.

00:12:29.000 And yet we've just sort of come to think that's okay.

00:12:33.000 It's not okay.

00:12:34.000 So moving forward, what do you make of President Trump?

00:12:38.000 So now obviously he's the president.

00:12:40.000 How do you grade his performance as president?

00:12:45.000 Well, let me say a couple things.

00:12:48.000 First, Republicans have rightly criticized Democrats for assassinating someone's character because they don't agree with them.

00:12:59.000 Remember, John McCain was a racist.

00:13:01.000 Mitt Romney was a misogynist.

00:13:03.000 Neither men were either one of those things.

00:13:06.000 It's wrong to assassinate someone's character because you disagree with them.

00:13:10.000 But it's equally wrong to defend someone's character just because you happen to agree with some of their policies.

00:13:17.000 I think Donald Trump is an entertainer, so he focuses on himself.

00:13:21.000 And a leader focuses on those they serve.

00:13:25.000 I think Donald Trump is a politician, so he focuses on winning.

00:13:28.000 A leader focuses on problem solving.

00:13:32.000 I think a leader understands that how you do things matters hugely.

00:13:37.000 It matters as much as what you do.

00:13:39.000 Because how you do things builds support or not, it builds character or not, it lifts people up or not.

00:13:49.000 And while I agree with some of the things Donald Trump does, I rarely agree with how he does any of them.

00:13:58.000 So moving forward to 2020, and this is the hard question obviously, do you plan on voting for him in 2020?

00:14:03.000 I don't know.

00:14:05.000 So what would he have to do in order to win your vote in 2020?

00:14:08.000 I don't traffic in hypotheticals.

00:14:10.000 Never have, won't now.

00:14:12.000 Okay, so looking at the future of the Republican Party then.

00:14:16.000 I, as I've said, did not vote for any of the top candidates in 2016.

00:14:19.000 Many of my chief worries about President Trump as president involved him alienating young voters particularly.

00:14:26.000 My generation is very anti-Trump.

00:14:29.000 That's true for many young Republicans as well as many young Democrats.

00:14:33.000 What do you see as the future of the Republican Party?

00:14:35.000 The theory of the media is that it's a demographically shrinking base, that that base will continue to shrink demographically, and that the future of the Republican Party is basically there is no future.

00:14:45.000 The Democratic Party is going to win from here till eternity.

00:14:48.000 Where do you see the Republican Party going?

00:14:49.000 Do you still consider yourself a member of the Republican Party?

00:14:52.000 Well, I think that depends on people who call themselves conservatives and Republicans.

00:14:56.000 I really do.

00:14:57.000 So, for example, when people who are Republicans say that it is the duty of Republicans to pledge loyalty to President Trump, That doesn't bode well for the future of the party.

00:15:13.000 This is America.

00:15:14.000 We don't pledge loyalty to a president.

00:15:16.000 Not in this country.

00:15:18.000 In this country, a citizen is sovereign.

00:15:21.000 And a president has to earn our respect.

00:15:24.000 So, I think it depends.

00:15:26.000 When there are constitutional principles at stake, and yet those get swept aside because, oh my gosh, we have to stand with President Trump because the Democrats are bad.

00:15:39.000 I don't think that bodes well for the future of the Republican Party.

00:15:42.000 I mean, let's just take the Mueller report.

00:15:45.000 I've read every single word of it.

00:15:47.000 There are real constitutional principles at stake there.

00:15:50.000 And so for people to say, oh, just never mind.

00:15:54.000 I don't think that bodes well for the future of the Republican Party.

00:15:57.000 So let me ask you in depth, since you've read the Mueller Report and since it's the hot topic of the moment and it looks like it's going to be unfolding, the consequences of it over the next couple of months, what do you think ought to happen?

00:16:05.000 So my brief take on the Mueller Report is that it has an enormous amount of both embarrassing and terrible behavior by the President of the United States.

00:16:13.000 As a lawyer, I didn't see anything that rises to the level of criminal obstruction of justice.

00:16:17.000 Obviously, William Barr felt the same.

00:16:19.000 Robert Mueller had the capacity to rule on that.

00:16:21.000 He didn't.

00:16:21.000 He sort of kicked it over.

00:16:23.000 Do you think, number one, that I didn't see more evidence of collusion than was already there?

00:16:28.000 I didn't see criminal collusion.

00:16:29.000 What was your overall assessment of the Mueller Report and what ought to happen from here?

00:16:34.000 Well, first let me say one of the things I learned at my brief time in law school is that lawyers can disagree.

00:16:40.000 And apparently a lot of lawyers disagree about this.

00:16:43.000 I'm not a lawyer.

00:16:43.000 But as a citizen reading this report, I found the report... First of all, you're right.

00:16:51.000 And Mueller's very clear in this report that he sets a very high bar.

00:16:55.000 It's called criminal conduct.

00:16:57.000 That's a very high bar to have to clear.

00:17:01.000 I would also say the report is carefully and precisely written.

00:17:06.000 I would say that Trump is not exonerated.

00:17:12.000 I would also say Trump did not fully cooperate.

00:17:15.000 But more to the point, the Russian Interference.

00:17:21.000 That volume of the report is stunning and shocking.

00:17:27.000 And the fact that we are not having a conversation in this country about how to prevent that from happening again is Really dereliction of duty, I think, honestly.

00:17:43.000 And the fact that both Republicans and Democrats, in fairness, have taken that as a political issue.

00:17:50.000 It's not a political issue.

00:17:52.000 The sweeping, systemic, I'm quoting, as you know, the sweeping, systemic interference in our elections by the Russians is now a political football, and it should not be.

00:18:05.000 Do you remember when Republicans were so upset because President Obama whispered to President Medvedev and said, I'll have more flexibility after the election, and Republicans went up in arms, oh my gosh.

00:18:18.000 Of course the FBI had to investigate the hints that they were given.

00:18:23.000 There was a lot there.

00:18:25.000 And we should be shocked by what has been uncovered.

00:18:30.000 And alarmed.

00:18:32.000 And I would also say that in Volume 2, I accept I'm not a lawyer.

00:18:38.000 It wasn't criminal conduct.

00:18:40.000 But this is not the way a president of the United States and his staff should be behaving.

00:18:46.000 And my question is, if it were a Democrat doing this, what would Republicans be saying?

00:18:52.000 See, here's the thing about principles.

00:18:54.000 They're sometimes inconvenient.

00:18:56.000 And if a principle is right when it's a Democrat in the White House, then that principle remains right when a Republican is in the White House.

00:19:06.000 And I think the Republican Party The Democrat Party too has to kind of get focused on what are our principles.

00:19:14.000 And I think our principles as a conservative are power concentrated is power abused.

00:19:21.000 Decision making has to be dispersed.

00:19:23.000 Huge bureaucracies have to be reformed.

00:19:26.000 People closest to the problem know best how to solve them.

00:19:29.000 And that definitely doesn't mean people in Washington, D.C.

00:19:32.000 It means people in cities and communities and families and businesses.

00:19:37.000 And we are a long way from those principles.

00:19:39.000 So, in a second, I want to ask you to turn to the Democratic Party and give your diagnosis there, since you've given your diagnosis to the Republican Party.

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00:20:48.000 All right, so let's talk about the Democratic Party on the other side of the aisle.

00:20:51.000 So, suffice it to say, I agree with a lot of your critiques of the Republican Party.

00:20:55.000 Obviously, I'm deeply worried about people who are willing to go along with bad behavior simply in the name of getting a win.

00:21:01.000 I do think that there are a lot of people who, obviously, I assume you agree with this, who back President Trump, not because of his worst aspects, but because they feel they are getting what they want in terms of policy.

00:21:10.000 And they are pragmatist when it comes to, okay, there's only one guy on the ticket in front of me.

00:21:15.000 He's the person I got to vote for because he's there.

00:21:17.000 Absolutely.

00:21:17.000 And then they look at the Democratic Party, and they say, all these people had to do was be sane, and that's not a thing that seems to be happening.

00:21:23.000 What's your diagnosis of the Democratic Party, and who do you think is best positioned inside the Democratic Party?

00:21:31.000 I know you're not into speculation, but who do you think are the top candidates in the Democratic Party position for 2020?

00:21:36.000 So I think the Democrats have taken the easiest possible route And rather than really be introspective about why they lost, who they're missing, who they're not appealing to anymore because of their rabid identity politics, they've taken the easy way out and they've said, it's all Trump.

00:22:05.000 It's all Trump.

00:22:06.000 It's all Trump.

00:22:07.000 And it's not all Trump.

00:22:09.000 Democrats have contributed to this climate.

00:22:13.000 As I said earlier, I think in a way Trump is the result of a long decline in our political discourse, not the cause of it.

00:22:22.000 And Democrats have been unbelievably insulting and assassinating people's character because they didn't agree with them.

00:22:30.000 And now they just say Trump is bad, Trump is bad, everything Trump does is bad.

00:22:36.000 And everything that has become a partisan football.

00:22:39.000 And, of course, they go further and further and further and further to the left.

00:22:45.000 And so, if Bernie Sanders is their nominee, Trump will win in a landslide.

00:22:50.000 If Elizabeth Warren is their nominee, Trump will win in a landslide.

00:22:54.000 I still think we should call out bad behavior when we see it.

00:22:57.000 I still think we should stand up for constitutional principles.

00:22:59.000 But, when faced with the choice between policies that will ruin this country And policies that generally speaking are working for this country, people are going to vote for Trump.

00:23:11.000 So, I think the question for the Democrats, the question for someone like Joe Biden, who I think many people would say maybe has the best shot of beating Trump because he appeals to some of the same constituents that took Trump over the top against Hillary Clinton.

00:23:31.000 Biden has to survive a Democrat primary.

00:23:35.000 And we'll see.

00:23:37.000 We'll see.

00:23:38.000 So far, you know, apologizing endlessly for getting into someone's personal space wasn't a strong start.

00:23:46.000 So looking at sort of the problems that face the United States, there seems to be a couple of broad consensus items that I think I personally believe are incorrect but seem to have become common wisdom.

00:23:56.000 Some of those broad consensus items seems to be that there is a large group of Americans who are being economically left behind thanks to income inequality and that the only way to rectify that imbalance is either through government redistributionism or through restrictions on trade.

00:24:11.000 What do you make of the argument that the rising populism of the left and the right are driven by the idea that major corporations have been outsourcing, that communities are being left empty?

00:24:22.000 And what do you think is the solution to that, if any?

00:24:25.000 See, to me, this question is a classic example of problems being placed in the wrong place.

00:24:35.000 So why do people say income inequality, redistribution, trade?

00:24:39.000 Because those are federal solutions.

00:24:41.000 Yes, there are people being left behind.

00:24:46.000 Unlocking Potential Foundation does a lot of work in communities.

00:24:50.000 There are structural impediments.

00:24:52.000 Washington DC is the most rapidly gentrifying city in the nation.

00:24:56.000 And as a result, People who have lived there all their lives can no longer afford to live there.

00:25:02.000 If you live in a neighborhood that, like Ward 8 in D.C., your life expectancy is 37 years less than 10 miles away because there's inadequate medical care, because there's not as healthy food your life expectancy is 37 years less than 10 miles away All of these things have been building up for a very, very, very long time.

00:25:26.000 So it's naive for us to say, actually, there is no problem.

00:25:30.000 Everyone is doing better.

00:25:32.000 Everyone isn't doing better.

00:25:33.000 On the other hand, the solution to that is not federal.

00:25:36.000 It's not, I mean, trade policy can help in certain ways.

00:25:40.000 Redistribution, who do you give the money to for what?

00:25:43.000 These are problems that require collaboration at the community level.

00:25:47.000 This is the work my foundation does, to bring people together in a community, lift leaders up, not based on their position or their title, but their ability to solve a problem.

00:25:58.000 And one of the things I see happening all across this country is people are so sick of politics, they're so sick of nothing happening, that they're saying, you know what?

00:26:07.000 We're going to have to kind of buckle down and do something with this problem because we actually know something about it.

00:26:14.000 It impacts us.

00:26:17.000 Not everything is going to get fixed in Washington, D.C.

00:26:21.000 There are some federal solutions that are required.

00:26:24.000 But most things actually, and this is the genius of our founders, most things actually get solved a little closer to home.

00:26:32.000 So when we talk about solving things closer to home, I've written extensively about the breakdown of the social fabric.

00:26:38.000 My new book is all about that.

00:26:39.000 Obviously people like Tim Carney have talked in their book, he has a book called Alienated America, talking about the disintegration of the social fabric.

00:26:46.000 How is a social fabric rebuilt?

00:26:48.000 Because it seems like without that social fabric, people are going to look more and more to government, including the federal government, for solutions that used to be solved on a community level.

00:26:55.000 And my solution has largely been, you need to re-engage not only with the ideas of the founding, but also with your religious roots.

00:27:00.000 I know Tim Carney sort of believes the same thing, that with the death of church, particularly in the middle of the country, a lot of the social fabric has disintegrated.

00:27:07.000 How do you think that social fabric can be rebuilt?

00:27:09.000 People have to connect with each other.

00:27:11.000 I know it sounds so basic, but church used to be a place where people connected with one another.

00:27:18.000 People have to connect with one another and solve problems.

00:27:24.000 It's amazing what happens when people decide, I'm going to collaborate with you and solve a problem.

00:27:31.000 It could be a simple problem.

00:27:32.000 It could be a complicated problem.

00:27:35.000 We have to stop looking up there.

00:27:39.000 We have to reconnect with one another.

00:27:41.000 The work that we do in my foundation, we work with all kinds of people.

00:27:47.000 We never ask.

00:27:50.000 What's your political party?

00:27:51.000 What are your political beliefs?

00:27:53.000 What's your religious affiliation?

00:27:54.000 We never ask.

00:27:56.000 Instead, what we do is, what problem do you want to focus on?

00:28:00.000 What problem do you want to solve?

00:28:02.000 And when people get focused on a problem that impacts more than them, then they start reaching out to others.

00:28:10.000 If we want to reconnect the social fabric, we have to rebuild relationships.

00:28:15.000 And the most effective way to build relationships, I've learned this over and over and over, is collaborate with somebody else and solve a problem.

00:28:23.000 Don't talk up here in abstract.

00:28:26.000 Get down on the ground and solve a problem.

00:28:29.000 And it turns out, people kind of like doing that.

00:28:32.000 And they figure out, okay, you and I look different, we may think different, we're a different generation, but we can actually get along and get something done.

00:28:39.000 So you mentioned a little bit earlier that you do think that there are certain areas where federal solutions are available.

00:28:44.000 So what are some of the federal solutions that you think ought to be applied and that are not currently being applied?

00:28:50.000 Well, you mentioned trade.

00:28:52.000 I mean, trade policy absolutely impacts people in all kinds of ways.

00:28:58.000 I don't happen to be a big fan of tariffs because I think demonstrably they harm our consumers and our businesses more than they harm the trading partners we're trying to punish.

00:29:12.000 But that's clearly an answer.

00:29:15.000 I think there's no question that the deregulatory movement that the Trump administration has led has had a wonderful effect on the economy.

00:29:24.000 The more confidence businesses of all sizes have in the economy, and that confidence in part comes from their knowing that, you know, if I see an opportunity, I can go after it.

00:29:39.000 If I see someone I want to hire, I can hire them without being burdened by a whole set of things coming down the pike that I can't afford.

00:29:46.000 All those things help.

00:29:48.000 My point, however, is that I think government so often gets in the way more than it solves a problem, and And I also think that politicians don't actually focus on solving problems.

00:30:04.000 They focus on winning.

00:30:06.000 And the truth is, here's the dirty truth about politics.

00:30:10.000 Unresolved problems win elections.

00:30:13.000 How long have we been talking about the same problems?

00:30:16.000 How long have we been talking about immigration?

00:30:18.000 Fifty years?

00:30:19.000 How long have we been talking about care of veterans?

00:30:22.000 How long have we been talking about debts and deficits?

00:30:25.000 How long have we been talking about government reform?

00:30:27.000 We've been talking about those things forever.

00:30:29.000 How long have we been talking about abortion?

00:30:32.000 And the truth is, Having those things unresolved and getting people all riled up about them wins elections.

00:30:32.000 Forever.

00:30:41.000 We've seen it over and over again.

00:30:44.000 If politicians aren't going to role model problem-solving, and I don't think they have for a very long time, I think citizens are going to have to.

00:30:53.000 And what I know, and what I say in this book, is we're actually all meant for problem-solving.

00:30:58.000 We have the potential to problem-solve, and it's very fulfilling when we do it.

00:31:03.000 Do you think the American people are ever going to get the hint about and vote this way?

00:31:06.000 In other words, the American people, we like to make a lot of overtures about problem solving and getting together and fixing all of these things.

00:31:13.000 And then we tend to vote for the most entertaining politicians, the people who tell us what we want to hear, the people who pander to us, the people who yell at each other the loudest.

00:31:20.000 And that's not unique to President Trump.

00:31:21.000 This existed long before President Trump.

00:31:25.000 Do you think that we ever get the hint or do you think that basically what we end up with is, you know, to come full circle, where we ended up at the beginning, that we end up with more and more people disengaging from politics.

00:31:34.000 I used to believe pretty strongly that the people who are going to be most involved in saving the country were the people who are politically aware.

00:31:40.000 I'm not so sure that's the case anymore.

00:31:41.000 I think that the people who may save the country are the people who are least politically aware because they're more focused on... Or have checked out.

00:31:47.000 Right, exactly.

00:31:47.000 The people who have decided, you know what, I can't focus on all this noise out here.

00:31:50.000 Instead, I'm going to focus on the stuff that I can do right in front of me.

00:31:54.000 Do you think the American people clue into this, or do you think that basically we have a widening, ever-yawning gap between the political class and everybody else?

00:32:01.000 Well, what I see happening in communities, yes, I do think people are cluing into it.

00:32:06.000 But I also think that we have to be, you know, one of the things that I think you have to do to solve a problem is be clear-eyed about what the current state is.

00:32:17.000 So, I mentioned George Washington in 1789, the trouble with political parties, they will come to care only about winning.

00:32:23.000 The system is designed to win.

00:32:28.000 On both sides.

00:32:29.000 Political parties have put together a system that narrows choices quickly, that supports people who are already in office, that provides benefits to the folks who are already in politics, and makes it very difficult for people who aren't in politics.

00:32:50.000 So if you doubt that, think about what the system produced, and has produced.

00:32:56.000 Honestly, in the United States of America, this political system, both parties produces Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

00:33:05.000 This is the best we can do?

00:33:06.000 I think not.

00:33:08.000 I think not.

00:33:09.000 So, eventually, I think we're going to have to figure out that political parties are not always operating in citizens' best interest.

00:33:20.000 They're operating in their own interest, and they're operating in the interest of people who are trying to win elections.

00:33:25.000 But in the meantime, I think we've got to solve the problems right in front of us and quit looking to Washington to do it for us.

00:33:32.000 And that means, as well, by the way, Role modeling the behavior that eventually we want out of our elected officials instead of parroting their behavior.

00:33:44.000 So in one second, I want to ask you about your role as a publicly facing woman in the business world.

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00:34:50.000 Okay, so let's talk about what it was like to be CEO of HP.

00:34:54.000 What sort of public requirements do you think were different maybe because you were a woman than there would have been for a male CEO in the same position?

00:35:01.000 Did you feel that there were certain burdens that you had to carry just publicly or challenges that you had to face in that role that if you'd been a man you wouldn't have had to face?

00:35:09.000 I wouldn't use the term requirements, but what I would say is the scrutiny is different.

00:35:16.000 The criticism is different.

00:35:18.000 So, for example, when I took the job, I was very focused on the fact that this was a great company that had lost its way.

00:35:28.000 We'd missed nine quarters in a row.

00:35:30.000 We were losing market share.

00:35:31.000 Profitability was deteriorating.

00:35:34.000 We had to fix some things.

00:35:36.000 And so I was ready, on the day of my announcement, to speak to the press about those things.

00:35:41.000 Why this was still a great company, but we needed to make some fundamental changes to restore our innovative spirit.

00:35:49.000 And what did the press want to talk about?

00:35:51.000 Oh my gosh, you're a woman.

00:35:53.000 The editor of the most widely read business publication at the time, the very first question I was asked was, what designer made your suit?

00:36:03.000 When I was a presidential candidate, my campaign was routinely asked what kind of shoes I was wearing.

00:36:09.000 So these are things that men simply don't have to deal with, and they are a distraction.

00:36:15.000 The other thing that I would say is, I think that there is an understanding between men of the necessity for respect and how it's important to give another man respect.

00:36:29.000 I'm not sure that understanding exists where women are concerned.

00:36:33.000 And so people will talk in terms about women that they would never use for men.

00:36:38.000 Now, the reason I say I don't think it was a different requirement.

00:36:41.000 I was a chief executive officer of a publicly traded company.

00:36:44.000 And my job was just the same as any other CEO's.

00:36:47.000 I needed to worry about our customers, our employees, the communities in which we lived and worked, our shareholders.

00:36:54.000 We had a massive transformation that we needed to take that company through.

00:36:58.000 And so it was my job not to let all this noise distract me.

00:37:04.000 But there's a lot of noise and it takes energy not to be distracted by it.

00:37:09.000 So what were your strategies for getting over that?

00:37:11.000 I mean, I know that, you know, just being in the public eye, even in what I do, the amount of flack that I take, which is nothing compared to the amount of flack that you've taken over your career, can be extraordinarily draining, just on a personal level.

00:37:22.000 How did you deal with that on a personal level, being attacked so much, being in the public eye so much, being under scrutiny so much?

00:37:27.000 I ignored it.

00:37:29.000 I ignore it all.

00:37:30.000 It's one of the things I say in this book.

00:37:32.000 If you can't get over being criticized, you will never fulfill your potential.

00:37:37.000 If you can't get over being criticized, you will never lead.

00:37:40.000 You will never change the order of things for the better.

00:37:42.000 You will never actually solve the problem.

00:37:45.000 Because criticism is the price.

00:37:47.000 Whether you're a man, whether you're a woman, whether you're different, whether you look like everyone else, criticism is always the price.

00:37:53.000 Yes, the criticism of me as a woman was maybe different.

00:37:55.000 Gee, I don't like her suit.

00:37:57.000 I don't like her hair.

00:37:58.000 On the other hand, the fact that there's criticism that accompanies every leader.

00:38:04.000 And by the way, leader is not about your position or your title.

00:38:06.000 It's about whether you're solving a problem and changing the order of things for the better.

00:38:11.000 Criticism is the price.

00:38:13.000 And so I learned very early on.

00:38:15.000 I got criticized a lot early in my career.

00:38:17.000 Who does she think she is?

00:38:19.000 Why is she doing that?

00:38:20.000 My gosh, people have been trying to solve that problem forever.

00:38:22.000 Why does she think she can do it?

00:38:25.000 I learned to tune it out.

00:38:27.000 That doesn't mean, by the way, that I didn't seek feedback.

00:38:30.000 Because feedback's very important.

00:38:32.000 And feedback comes from people who actually care about what you're trying to do.

00:38:38.000 And they maybe care about you.

00:38:40.000 But criticism is just noise from people standing on the sidelines who don't have the job that you have and don't have the responsibilities that you do.

00:38:48.000 Whatever your job is and whatever your responsibilities are.

00:38:51.000 So what's your social media strategy?

00:38:52.000 Social media is just criticism from people who don't know you.

00:38:55.000 That's right.

00:38:56.000 So what's your social media strategy?

00:38:57.000 So first of all, you have to put it in perspective.

00:39:00.000 And I know it's very difficult.

00:39:02.000 Again, social media is one of the reasons I wrote this book.

00:39:05.000 Because if you think about it, people are growing up in an environment.

00:39:09.000 They're trying to find their way in an environment where criticism is omnipresent, where criticism is unbelievably intense, cruel even, where we have national debates and dialogues at the highest levels of politics where we have national debates and dialogues at the highest levels of politics that kind of feel like vitriolic, That's an incredible environment to have to find your way in.

00:39:38.000 And yet, it means that when you get all that stuff, you've got to put it in perspective.

00:39:44.000 And you have to realize if you're doing something worthwhile.

00:39:48.000 If you're doing something worthwhile, if you're solving a problem, if you're providing another point of view.

00:39:55.000 85% of what you're going to get is criticism.

00:39:57.000 Okay.

00:39:58.000 That's the way it is.

00:40:00.000 So I want to ask you about, you know, you mentioned your education earlier, the loss and the fact that you dropped out of law school, that you ended up going for an MBA.

00:40:06.000 So what are your thoughts on people who are looking at a career path and thinking about college, law school, MBA?

00:40:12.000 What do you think our colleges are worth at this point?

00:40:14.000 Because obviously there's big controversy over whether everybody should go to college for free or whether we should pay $500,000 to get our kids into crew at USC.

00:40:22.000 Yeah.

00:40:23.000 Wow.

00:40:24.000 Talk about a terrible lesson for those kids, not to mention for society at large.

00:40:30.000 So first what I say to people, and I say in this book, is don't get hung up on the plan.

00:40:36.000 I see so many people, honestly, and I've seen it all throughout my career, who have so much potential, but they get on a plan.

00:40:44.000 Okay, I'm going to graduate from law school, and then I need to make this much money, and then I need to be a partner in this firm, and then I need to get married, and then I need to have so many... They have all these things that have to happen for their plan to come true, and they miss so many opportunities along the way.

00:41:00.000 Ambition is fine, but if you get so hung up on a particular destination, I have to be here by this point.

00:41:08.000 If I'm not here by this point, it's over.

00:41:12.000 That's a real dead end.

00:41:18.000 They get there, and it isn't what they thought.

00:41:22.000 Or they sell so much of their soul to get there.

00:41:25.000 They give up so much to get there, that by the time they're there, they're not at all who they should be.

00:41:32.000 Or they never get there at all, and they're devastated, and none of those outcomes are good.

00:41:37.000 So yes, be ambitious, but see the opportunities around you.

00:41:43.000 The opportunities around you might cause you to take a detour, and it won't be fatal.

00:41:47.000 It might be exactly where you're meant to go.

00:41:50.000 So what's the contrast between, you know, following the opportunity and the so-called kind of follow-your-bliss movement of the 1960s?

00:41:55.000 You talk about how you were looking for self-fulfillment when you dropped out of law school.

00:41:58.000 This wasn't something you felt was fulfilling.

00:42:01.000 For me, I had a similar experience.

00:42:02.000 When I finished law school, I worked for a major law firm for about 10 months.

00:42:05.000 I thought it was the worst thing ever.

00:42:06.000 I dropped out.

00:42:07.000 I went to work for one-third the pay at a different company, and that started me on a different career track.

00:42:12.000 And I very much encourage people to do that sort of thing.

00:42:14.000 But how do you know the difference between when you're dropping something that you're doing in search of another opportunity, and when you're dropping something that you're doing in favor of something stupid?

00:42:23.000 Because you do see this too.

00:42:24.000 People who have a plan, and then they decide to follow their dream, and it turns out that their dream is to finger paint.

00:42:28.000 How exactly do you distinguish?

00:42:31.000 Well, first of all, it would never have occurred to me to say I was dropping out of law school for self-fulfillment.

00:42:38.000 It's not how I thought about it.

00:42:40.000 And I realize it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek in the 60s and all that, but I think therein lies the truth.

00:42:50.000 If you hate something, you're going to be bad at it.

00:42:54.000 I mean, it's just human nature.

00:42:56.000 If you hate something, you're going to be bad at it.

00:43:00.000 I think the difference between dropping something you hate and following an opportunity versus finger painting is, are you actually wanting to be excellent?

00:43:12.000 Are you prepared to work hard?

00:43:14.000 Are you trying to make a positive difference?

00:43:16.000 Working hard and being excellent is really key.

00:43:19.000 It's not just key to success, it's actually key to fulfillment.

00:43:23.000 And so, wherever a path takes someone, the question I always ask them is, Do you like what you do?

00:43:31.000 Are you learning?

00:43:33.000 Are you making a contribution?

00:43:35.000 Are you working hard?

00:43:36.000 Are you doing the best job you can?

00:43:38.000 And if the answer to all those five questions is yes, yes, yes, yes, then you're probably on the right path.

00:43:44.000 So here's a question that is very often asked to females, not as often asked to males, probably should be asked to men more often.

00:43:50.000 How did you balance career with family life?

00:43:52.000 This is obviously something that my own wife struggles with.

00:43:55.000 As I've said, she's a doctor.

00:43:57.000 That means she's been basically in medical school since we met.

00:44:00.000 Which is now 11 years coming up in July.

00:44:02.000 We'll be married.

00:44:02.000 She's finally finishing residency Thank God in in two months, but she's taking time off when when we had kids She took six months off for our first kids took about three months off for our second kid She's planning on working part-time after she's done because she's looking for particular balance How do you think it's important to draw a balance between what you're doing in terms of family life and what you're seeking in terms of career because there is a Prevailing view out there that women can have it all and they're only 24 hours in a day And I wonder how much that's true Well, I think, first of all, there is no silver bullet.

00:44:32.000 There is no magic answer.

00:44:33.000 And there is no cookie-cutter answer either.

00:44:38.000 I sort of faced this when I realized that something very fundamental, how each of us spend our time, becomes our life.

00:44:49.000 And so therefore we have to own the choice of how am I going to spend my time.

00:44:55.000 Because how we spend it becomes our life.

00:44:58.000 And so I got very intentional, very deliberate about how do I spend my time.

00:45:03.000 And the revelation for me was when I realized whatever choice I make, someone will be unhappy.

00:45:11.000 Whatever choice I make, someone will be unhappy because someone always wants more.

00:45:16.000 If you're focused on work, your family wants more.

00:45:19.000 If you're focused on family, your work wants more.

00:45:22.000 And so that also is something I think we have to learn to live with.

00:45:27.000 But when I say I'm deliberate and intentional, I began a process of Looking at how am I spending my time in a week?

00:45:35.000 How am I spending my time in a month?

00:45:37.000 How am I spending my time in a year?

00:45:39.000 And then to look back at it and say, are these the choices that I think I should be making?

00:45:44.000 And each one of us has to make that choice.

00:45:47.000 There is no one size fits all and there is no silver bullet.

00:45:51.000 You have to own those choices because it becomes your life and you have to realize not everyone will be happy, but that's part of the price too.

00:46:00.000 Do you think that the media have sort of pervaded a mythical view of what the balance can be?

00:46:06.000 In other words, it seems like there's an Instagram view that you can work full time at a job, spend 12 hours a day with your children, vacation every month, and all of this somehow works out perfectly.

00:46:17.000 If you watch TV, There seems to be very little struggle to draw that balance.

00:46:21.000 It's basically, I'm a high-powered lawyer and I work full-time, but I also am there for every one of my kids' baseball games.

00:46:27.000 It's like, well, I'm not sure that that's just the case.

00:46:30.000 I feel like what that's leading to in many ways is women sometimes putting off I mean, statistically, women are putting off marriage, they're putting off childbearing, they're putting off childrearing until later in time because they've been told by a media that career ought to come first, when in reality, maybe it should for certain women, but it's not invariable.

00:46:50.000 There is a ticking clock on one end when it comes to family, and there's not a ticking clock necessarily when it comes to career.

00:46:55.000 What do you think the media's role is in drawing sort of a model for how women should pursue career?

00:47:01.000 Well, I do think that I give women maybe a little more credit for thinking for themselves.

00:47:07.000 But I do acknowledge your point that so much of what we see on television and in social media is just a fantasy.

00:47:16.000 It's a fantasy.

00:47:17.000 I mean, so much of social media is a complete fantasy.

00:47:21.000 How much time do people spend curating their Instagram photos?

00:47:25.000 That's a fantasy.

00:47:26.000 And it's not only a fantasy, it's a superficial fantasy.

00:47:30.000 And so, again, part of, I think, what people have to deal with in this environment, and part of the reason I wrote this book now, is to say, understand what all this is.

00:47:44.000 Entertainment, maybe.

00:47:46.000 It's a little bit of propaganda, frequently.

00:47:49.000 It's driven by a business incentive to make money on the part of the media, so therefore they want people to watch.

00:47:59.000 And who wants to watch about real life?

00:48:01.000 Isn't it easier to watch about some fantastic, you know, fantasy about how everything can be?

00:48:07.000 But I think that Life is always trade-offs.

00:48:15.000 It is for men too.

00:48:16.000 And there are a lot of men in my father's generation who got to the end of their careers and said, oh my gosh, what have I missed?

00:48:27.000 How much have I missed?

00:48:29.000 And they regretted that far more than they thought about the corner office they attained.

00:48:35.000 So, in your book, Find Your Way, I mean, it covers an enormous amount of ground.

00:48:37.000 You also talk about sort of being driven and focused with regard to relationships.

00:48:41.000 So, you talk about this specifically with regard to your first husband.

00:48:43.000 I was wondering if you could tell that story.

00:48:47.000 Well, my first husband was a mistake.

00:48:52.000 But, you know, without getting into all the sort of details, let's just say he betrayed my trust in very significant ways.

00:49:02.000 And so, I had to come to grips with that and say, This isn't gonna work.

00:49:10.000 I wasn't the first person to do that, but it felt incredibly difficult and dramatic to me.

00:49:17.000 And fortunately, I met the love of my life and my soulmate, and 37 years later, here we are.

00:49:25.000 So life worked out.

00:49:26.000 But I think often about what might have happened to me had I not had the courage to make that choice.

00:49:34.000 Courage features prominently.

00:49:39.000 in a fulfilling life or a successful life or an impactful life.

00:49:44.000 And what ends up happening to so many of us is it is our fears that hold us back.

00:49:51.000 And most of those fears are kind of silly.

00:49:53.000 I mean, my fear, honestly, with my husband, my first husband, my mother never really liked him, was, oh no, my parents are going to say, I told you so.

00:50:03.000 Well, how silly is that?

00:50:05.000 And yet, how often do people get held up by, I'm afraid I'm gonna make a mistake?

00:50:12.000 Of course, we all do.

00:50:14.000 I'm afraid I'm gonna get criticized.

00:50:15.000 I'm afraid I'm gonna look foolish.

00:50:17.000 I'm afraid my likes will go down.

00:50:20.000 All those are such stupid fears.

00:50:22.000 And so, getting over those fears, being courageous, is a huge part of an impactful, productive, fulfilling, successful life.

00:50:32.000 So I want to get back to your tips that you have in your book, Find Your Way, which is really a terrific book.

00:50:37.000 In a little while, I want to go back to the very beginning for people who don't know your whole story.

00:50:41.000 So your story is really fascinating because it had a lot of ups and downs.

00:50:44.000 You talk in your book, Find Your Way, about your story, about the fact that your parents expected you to go to law school and you decided not to go to law school.

00:50:51.000 And then somehow you end up going from secretary to CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

00:50:56.000 So can you tell that story about why didn't you decide to go to law school?

00:50:59.000 You started.

00:51:00.000 Yeah, I started because I was one of those kids who was a parent pleaser.

00:51:05.000 I was a middle child.

00:51:06.000 I was the one who was never going to disappoint.

00:51:09.000 My parents' expectations for me weighed very heavy on me.

00:51:13.000 And so I lived through their expectations.

00:51:16.000 By the way, there are a lot of people who live for other people's expectations.

00:51:19.000 And so I go off to law school and I just hate it.

00:51:22.000 And then I realize I have to make a choice.

00:51:25.000 I'm either going to pursue something that I truly hate, and please my parents or I'm going to please myself and find my own way.

00:51:34.000 And so I dropped out.

00:51:35.000 And that was an incredibly difficult decision.

00:51:37.000 I wasn't a quitter.

00:51:38.000 I wasn't the person who was going to drop out.

00:51:41.000 But now I have to go make a living.

00:51:44.000 And so I had put myself through school as an undergraduate, as a temporary secretary in local businesses.

00:51:52.000 And so I went back to work full-time, typing and filing and answering the phones.

00:51:56.000 I mean, we don't really even have those positions anymore.

00:51:59.000 We keyboard, we don't type, but that's what I did.

00:52:03.000 And I was grateful for that job.

00:52:05.000 I really was.

00:52:06.000 I typed and filed and answered the phones for a nine-person real estate firm.

00:52:12.000 It was a dead-end job, man.

00:52:14.000 But it paid the rent.

00:52:16.000 And maybe six months into that job, two men came up to my desk.

00:52:20.000 They worked there and they said, we've been watching you.

00:52:22.000 You do such a good job.

00:52:24.000 You're so focused.

00:52:25.000 Maybe you want to know about what we do.

00:52:28.000 And that was my first introduction to business.

00:52:31.000 I had never thought about business.

00:52:33.000 I ran away to Italy to teach English for a year.

00:52:35.000 You can imagine my parents are really concerned.

00:52:38.000 And finally, I buckle down and get an MBA.

00:52:41.000 And I land in an entry-level position in a vast company with literally one million employees.

00:52:48.000 And I'm at the bottom of the totem pole.

00:52:51.000 I didn't have a plan to get ahead.

00:52:53.000 I didn't think I would make it a year.

00:52:55.000 But what I saw were problems everywhere that just festered, that everybody talked about but nobody did anything about.

00:53:04.000 And I saw people impacted by those problems who actually knew a lot about them.

00:53:10.000 So I started working with people and solving problems.

00:53:13.000 And what I figured out is if you solve problems and change the order of things for the better and produce results, people pay attention.

00:53:20.000 And then other opportunities came along.

00:53:23.000 Literally, that is the story of my life.

00:53:26.000 So how do you get from working at the lowest level at a one million person company to being the head of a company that hires hundreds of thousands of people?

00:53:33.000 I ran to problems.

00:53:34.000 I know it sounds so basic, but that's the truth.

00:53:36.000 I ran to problems.

00:53:38.000 I always took the challenging jobs because I figured out I like challenge.

00:53:42.000 I like solving difficult problems that everybody else is saying, stay away from those problems.

00:53:47.000 And the reason I liked it so much is because everywhere I went, I found people who knew something about the problem.

00:53:53.000 People closest to the problem know best how to solve it.

00:53:56.000 It's just they're so often not asked.

00:53:59.000 And so I would ask people, and they'd always have good ideas, and then we'd work together.

00:54:03.000 And I found I loved that.

00:54:04.000 I loved the teamwork of it.

00:54:06.000 I loved the collaboration of it.

00:54:07.000 I liked the intellectual challenge of it.

00:54:10.000 And when problems get solved, when things get better, I guarantee you other opportunities come along, and they always did.

00:54:17.000 And I wasn't afraid to say, okay, I'll take on that challenge.

00:54:21.000 So your story is actually somewhat like my own mother's.

00:54:23.000 My mom started off as an education major.

00:54:26.000 She went to Northwestern, then Boston University.

00:54:28.000 And she started off as a secretary at a company.

00:54:30.000 She ended up becoming vice president of that company.

00:54:33.000 And I'd be curious to get your thoughts on what it was like to be a woman working at that time.

00:54:38.000 There's a lot of talk now about sexism in the business world and about the so-called glass ceiling in the business world.

00:54:43.000 What were your experiences with being a working woman?

00:54:47.000 Well, both are true.

00:54:48.000 That's just a fact.

00:54:48.000 It was then and it is now.

00:54:49.000 apparently there was allegations of a lot more of that kind of sexist abuse in the workplace.

00:54:54.000 Obviously now we still experience people who suggest that that's a prevalent problem.

00:54:59.000 Well, both are true.

00:55:00.000 It was then and it is now.

00:55:01.000 That's just a fact.

00:55:02.000 And let me quickly say, most people are not bad people.

00:55:08.000 There are some bad people who engage in bad behavior and that behavior has to be confrontable But most people are maybe thoughtless, or careless, or clueless, or maybe they're afraid.

00:55:18.000 So I'll give you three examples.

00:55:19.000 The first one I already mentioned, two men come to my desk and take a chance on me.

00:55:24.000 And say, you can do more.

00:55:26.000 And they encouraged me to go on.

00:55:28.000 My first client meeting ever at that vast company called AT&T was held in a strip club because that's where the men went to have business lunches.

00:55:37.000 And my male colleague didn't really want me to come.

00:55:40.000 So he said, we're going to the strip club and I assume you won't come.

00:55:43.000 I went because I couldn't be scared off of my job.

00:55:47.000 We turned into very good colleagues over time, because it turned out he was afraid of me.

00:55:52.000 He was afraid the NBA would take away his job.

00:55:55.000 I had a boss introduce me as, this is Carly, your new boss.

00:55:59.000 She's our token bimbo.

00:56:01.000 I've been called all kinds of names.

00:56:06.000 My appearance has been commented on.

00:56:07.000 Here's the truth.

00:56:09.000 It's different when you're different.

00:56:11.000 It is.

00:56:12.000 The criticism is different.

00:56:13.000 The challenges are different.

00:56:15.000 And yet, for every thoughtless, clueless, careless person in any organization, in my experience, there are ten times as many people who are well-meaning, who want to lift people up.

00:56:29.000 The problem is, Too often, the well-meaning people don't say anything.

00:56:36.000 And so the bad behavior continues, and we've seen a lot of that in the press as well.

00:56:41.000 I mean, pick your Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, the gymnastics coach.

00:56:48.000 People knew that was going on, and they didn't do anything about it.

00:56:52.000 So what's the best way for women to deal with that, or anybody who's being mistreated at work?

00:56:57.000 Because one of the things that we see is obviously, I totally agree, people who do this sort of stuff should be called out.

00:57:03.000 Not only is my mom a working woman, my mom actually worked, my dad stayed home.

00:57:06.000 My wife, as people know, is a doctor, so she's a working woman.

00:57:09.000 What's the best way for folks to deal with this?

00:57:11.000 Because on the one hand, you want to call things out when you see them.

00:57:13.000 On the other hand, there's There's a converse sort of tendency, for some people anyway, to hide behind the eight ball of victimhood, to feel like there's such an obstacle to overcome that I can never overcome it, and defeat themselves in the process.

00:57:27.000 What's the best way to deal with these situations?

00:57:29.000 Well, the truth is it depends on the situation.

00:57:32.000 So I'll tell you two stories.

00:57:33.000 The guy who said we're going to go to the strip club to have lunch, right?

00:57:36.000 Who was doing it obviously, purposefully to humiliate me and scare me.

00:57:43.000 It almost worked.

00:57:45.000 After that, he and I became great colleagues.

00:57:47.000 We never talked about that day again because the truth is I actually needed to work with him.

00:57:52.000 He knew the clients, he knew the company, and he figured out he needed to work with me because he was kind of a pie in the sky guy and I would Work hard and understand the details and get it done.

00:58:02.000 So we became good colleagues.

00:58:04.000 We worked our way through it.

00:58:06.000 The boss who introduced me as a token bimbo, I went into his office afterwards, shut the door and said, you will never speak to me that way again.

00:58:15.000 Sometimes behavior has to be confronted.

00:58:18.000 Sometimes you have to realize that someone was thoughtless and careless and clueless and get over it.

00:58:24.000 And what I tell young women, young people of all kinds, but young women especially, is my advice is don't get a chip on your shoulder.

00:58:33.000 There are bad people, and bad people need to be confronted, but most people aren't.

00:58:37.000 There may be thoughtless or clueless, so don't get a chip on your shoulder.

00:58:41.000 And look for the people who will lift you up, because there are plenty of people who will, men and women.

00:58:46.000 But also don't hide your light under a bushel.

00:58:49.000 Don't try and fit in.

00:58:51.000 Don't be less smart than you are.

00:58:55.000 Be as smart as you are.

00:58:57.000 Be as brave as you are.

00:58:58.000 Be as tough as you are.

00:58:59.000 And if somebody has a problem with that, it's their problem.

00:59:03.000 Don't ever let it be your problem.

00:59:04.000 I mean, what's really inspiring about this sort of stuff, I think, is that it's very individually based stuff.

00:59:08.000 It's not stuff where you're calling for, now we have to call for a giant piece of legislation, a big piece of social change.

00:59:14.000 It's just stand up for yourself in the moment.

00:59:15.000 Yes, and by the way, the other thing that I think is going on, you talked about victimhood, When people feel victimized, they feel helpless and powerless.

00:59:26.000 And one of the reasons I wrote this book is because actually all of us have enormous power.

00:59:32.000 We just don't realize it sometimes.

00:59:34.000 And we don't realize how to unlock it and to use it.

00:59:37.000 But the other thing that I worry about in this current climate of Me Too is everything is the same.

00:59:44.000 And everything isn't the same.

00:59:46.000 A coach of gymnasts who is abusing them routinely, or a Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein, it's not the same as Joe Biden putting his hands on someone's shoulders.

01:00:00.000 You can't create a situation where the real issues become trivialized by people saying, I felt slightly uncomfortable.

01:00:10.000 So what do you think?

01:00:11.000 Let's take the Joe Biden thing, for example.

01:00:12.000 What do you think the proper response, both on the part of Joe Biden and society, should be to the sort of Joe Biden sin?

01:00:17.000 I totally agree with you, by the way.

01:00:18.000 I think that the failure of society to recognize gradations in behavior, to suggest, OK, well, this is a bad thing, and therefore all bad things are equivalent bad things, is really silly.

01:00:28.000 And that's why I've said that the attempt to paint Joe Biden as some sort of great sexual victimizer, when there's not been a single allegation that he was sexually victimizing anyone, is bizarre.

01:00:37.000 But how should society deal with that sort of thing?

01:00:39.000 What should its attitude be toward the Joe Bidens of the world when they do this?

01:00:42.000 Well, I think a lot of people have come to the conclusion that this is silly.

01:00:47.000 This is silly.

01:00:48.000 And a lot of people have said this is silly.

01:00:50.000 A lot of women have said this is silly.

01:00:52.000 Both Democratic women and Republican women.

01:00:55.000 I think really what the Joe Biden Episode illustrates is it's politics.

01:01:03.000 And one of the things that I think is unfortunate about politics is that vitriol we talked about, that tribal, I win, you lose, it's infecting every conversation.

01:01:17.000 It's a shame when we can't have a serious conversation about real assault and real abuse because our headlines are filled with, what do we think about Joe Biden?

01:01:27.000 That's all about politics, and it's all about his primary opponents trying to take him down early.

01:01:33.000 That's what that's about.

01:01:34.000 Okay, so in a second I'm going to ask you one final question.

01:01:36.000 I want to ask you about whether you think that the American people are ready for a female president, which is one of the questions that has been in the air since Hillary Clinton, since you ran.

01:01:44.000 But, if you want to hear Carly Fiorina's answer, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.

01:01:48.000 To subscribe, go to dailywire.com, click the subscribe button, and you can hear the end of our conversation there.

01:01:53.000 Carly Fiorina, thanks so much for stopping by.

01:01:55.000 It really is a pleasure to see you.

01:01:56.000 Thank you.

01:01:56.000 It's great to be with you.

01:01:57.000 Thank you.

01:01:57.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Jonathan Hay.

01:02:07.000 Executive producer Jeremy Boring.

01:02:09.000 Associate producer Mathis Glover.

01:02:10.000 Edited by Donovan Fowler.

01:02:12.000 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.

01:02:13.000 Hair and makeup is by Jeswa Olvera.

01:02:15.000 Title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

01:02:17.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

Carly Fiorina | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 51

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