In 2013, Hillary Clinton gave three speeches to Goldman Sachs for the modest speaking fee of $675,000. Below is an excerpt from the never-before-released* transcripts of one of these speeches. Included is some pre-speech schmoozing caught on mic.
Voice: Hey Hill! Great to see you.
HC: Hi Lloyd! [Lloyd Blankfein, Chair & CEO, Goldman Sachs] I hear Royce is playing lacrosse at Exeter this spring. Go Big Red! Give him and Kiki hugs from Bill and me.
Blankfein: Same from us to the Big Dog. Tell him I’m a 27 handicap without any mulligans.
Presenter: Okay folks, let me remind you to put away all recording devices and phone cameras. Everything today is strictly off the record. Now, here’s our dear friend and as some would say, “Madame Wall Street,” Secretary Hillary Clinton.
[Sustained Applause]
HC: Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to see so many old friends. In a few years’ time, when I’m in the White House, Bill and I hope to spend more time with each of you. For now, you should remember that I’m slowly but surely getting my campaign off the ground, and over the next few years I’ll be making harsh criticisms about Wall Street’s killing jobs and wages. You may hear me flip-flop on past free trade deals. Heck, at times I might sound like one of those filthy kids who camped out in Zuccotti Park for weeks on end!
[Audience Laughter]
HC: But please, please don’t expect me to wink each time I do this or I might develop a facial tick!
Unidentified Voice 1: Hillary’s a political revolutionary!
[Raucous Laughter]
HC: We’ll follow the familiar, tried and true script for our campaign: populist rhetoric during the primaries to pacify the base, shift to the center/right after the summer convention and then it’s back to business as usual after the inauguration. Now … any questions for me? Yes, Chip?
Chip: Should we worry that so many younger people are attracted to those on the left? I’ve heard that Senator Sanders is thinking of running.
HC: Eventually, young people could be a vexing political problem, especially if they join a nonviolent, mass movement for structural change. But this time around, after I get the nomination, they’ll hold their noses and cast the inevitable “Lesser Evilism” votes.
Unidentified Voice 2: What about women and blacks?
HC: First, we have a critical mass of older women who’d vote for me no matter what. I mean, I could advocate drone strikes on Canada and they’d say, “We don’t care. We want a woman in the White House.” Second, Bill and I have had the entrenched black political class in our back pocket for decades. They’ll keep the crucial 25 percent pillar of the Democratic voting bloc on the old plantation, especially in states like Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida.
Unidentified Voice 2: How will you do that?
HC: Easy. We stoke their fears that the white man’s party, the Republicans, will take the White House if they don’t support me. And watch me wrap myself like a python around the president until November 2016!
[Laughter]
Unidentified Voice 3: Hillary, our third black president!
HC: You know, and I trust that this stays in the room, the facts about the last several years are wildly at odds with the credit given to the president. In truth, by every key indicator — poverty, income, net worth, unemployment, and homeownership — black Americans are far worse off than when President Obama was elected in 2008. They’ve lost more wealth than under any president since the Great Depression.
Unidentified Voice 4: That’s troubling.
HC: I know, right? We’d better hope that my primary opponents don’t use that data in their campaign.
[Laughter]
Unidentified Voice 5: Yes, but hypothetically, what if women, blacks and Latinos start connecting the dots and begin joining other issues to theirs?
HC: Well, yeah, that’s our ultimate nightmare but come on … really, we know that’s never going to happen. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to redouble our efforts on keeping working people obsessed with gender and race instead of their common class interests. That’s a good project for the many creative people in this room!
[Laughter]
Unidentified Voice 5: You’ve painted a reassuring picture today. Is there anything that could go wrong?
HC: The only thing that could trip us up is if you guys repeat the 2008 Financial Crisis and force us to bail you out again! But Bill has a contingency plan for that too … a foolproof one. We’ll figure out a way to blame it on Islamic militants, or something. I hear that an al-Qaeda offshoot in Iraq is getting pretty darn big.
[Howling Laughter]
HC: Again, thank you so much for your long-term, steadfast support, You’ll all be invited to the best inauguration ball and party ever!
[Chants of “Hillary, Hillary!” as Clinton steps down to greet attendees.]
*Posing as a fund manager with a few million bucks to donate to one lucky PAC, in February, Dandy Goat contributor I.M. Salmon went undercover to a private party in Hillary Clinton’s New York mansion. Tucked between a yellowed copy of the Wall Street Journal from March 1997 and the book “Hypnosis for Dummies” were the hitherto unpublished transcripts. The intrepid Salmon merely did as any good citizen would do.