In a preview clip for his upcoming primetime special interview with “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, former president Bill Clinton spoke out against mounting gun violence in the U.S., pinned down the “big problem with gun owners” today and posited one of the measures necessary to pass common sense gun reform.
The clip from Scarborough’s interview, airing in full on April 24, begins with the “Morning Joe” host asking Clinton, simply, “what do we do” when it comes to the extremism of political views and the regularity of school shootings? The host noted that such violence dates all the way back to Columbine, when Clinton was president and many thought of the tragedy “as a one-off.”
“Well, one thing’s pretty clear is, whatever we do, we need to do it more together,” Clinton said. “And I think we need to start talking across this divide.”
The former president’s main takeaway is that constituents and voters on both sides of the argument need to talk to each other to find common ground at the polls: “Neighbors have to talk to neighbors,” Clinton said.
“A big problem with gun owners is they say, ‘Well, you know, what these people wanna do sounds reasonable, but it’s a slippery slope. How do I know what will be limited?’ And I argue that we outta just put it all up for referendums, let people vote on it,” Clinton said, citing some of the pro-choice successes seen in Michigan and elsewhere after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. “Then neighbors have to talk to neighbors, they have to treat each other like people.”
But the former president added that he also sees room for improvement on his side of the aisle; those for and against gun reform aren’t seeing each other as part of the same fight.
“On my side, there are too many people who favor a lot of these gun measures who don’t know any of these country people and they don’t understand that, you know, most of ’em you would be glad to have as neighbors if your house caught on fire because they’d come over, take your kids to safety and come back and help you put the fire out,” Clinton said. “But this whole thing has come to stand for something that’s not what it’s about. It’s crazy. And we need to start asking each other for help on this.”
Watch the full preview clip of the primetime special, “Joe Scarborough Presents,” in the video above.
