Coming to a podcast near you: Hillary Clinton
Coming to a podcast near you: Hillary Clinton
The former first lady and 2016 candidate, known for her deep distrust of the media, is about to become the media herself.
Stern and Clinton ended up recording for almost 2½ hours, producing Stern’s longest interview for a non-musician in the show’s history.
Clinton was unfiltered. She joked that she “likes men” despite “what you may have heard,” discussed how Sen. Lindsey Graham may have suffered a “brain snatch,” complained that Bernie Sanders’ delayed endorsement in 2016 “hurt me,” and recalled that, when she phoned Trump to concede the election, “he was so shocked he could barely talk.”
Clinton enjoyed the relaxed environment that Stern creates at his studio, which isn’t too brightly lit and where guests sit amid throw pillows on a couch that looks like it was from Stern’s college dorm room. “It was an incredible experience,” said the person close to Clinton. “We’ve been thinking through based on that experience how to create a similar format.”
There is some irony that Clinton has gravitated to doing a podcast. As Stern repeatedly shows, what makes for a great interview is when a subject opens up and offers windows into character, motivation, relationships — the very things that Clinton the candidate was often unwilling to do. Her guardedness led critics to regard her as “inauthentic,” which arguably harmed her two presidential campaigns.
Clinton’s show will feature her in conversation with a brand-name guest, who might be drawn from world leaders and politicians, of course, but also celebrities, authors and perhaps famous chefs. Her team is experimenting with using a Stern-inspired ensemble plucked from the larger universe of Hillaryland to help loosen her up, keep the show conversational, and discuss the day’s news, perhaps at the top or bottom of the show. The search is on inside her organization for a Robin Quivers-like sidekick.
Overall the project is guided by the spirit of Clinton’s recent media blitz: the Stern podcast, a recent podcast with David Plouffe in which she suggested that Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed by the Russians, and an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote a new Hulu documentary series in which she says of Sanders, “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.”
“Stern has a cast of characters,” said the person close to Clinton. “So could you have some people on the show in her orbit who are interesting but not necessarily guest-worthy? And then hopefully there’s some irreverence involved.” (Hillary is not the first Clinton with an audio show. Bill and Chelsea Clinton currently both appear on the Clinton Foundation’s podcast, Why Am I Telling You This?)
Hillary Clinton wants the main guests to be defined by the theme of her most recent book. The person close to her described the ideal interview for the show as “a meeting of the minds with people of grit and determination.”
Clinton has brought in two podcast veterans to produce the show, which will be recorded from a studio in Manhattan: Kathleen Russo, executive producer of Tina Brown’s “TBD” and creator of Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s the Thing,” and Julie Subrin, who also produces for Brown’s show. Clinton has already spent some time in the studio, and on Friday, she’s recording an interview with an author promoting a book out in the spring. She’ll continue interviews over the coming months until there’s enough material for a splashy launch.
