We need to reach those too tired to think, says former president Clinton at pro democracy event

Record ID: 1984501

  • Title: We need to reach those too tired to think, says former president Clinton at pro democracy event
  • Date: 18th March 2025
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (MARCH 18, 2025) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AND FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON ARRIVING AT EVENT, GREETING HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA, FOMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHU7D OLMERT AND OTHERS ATTENDEES BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON SITTING DOWN FORMER
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Clinton Russian invasion Trump autocracy democracy
  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • City: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Europe,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA001963418032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Tuesday (March 18) said democrats all over the world needed to reach people who were too 'tired' to think democratically.
    “Now we are fighting this rise in autocracy, where everybody says ‘Oh I am so tired, I don’t want to think about it anymore. (...) That is the person we have to reach in every single nation represented here”, Bill Clinton told an international audience at the World Forum in Berlin, an event taking place over two days to discuss the “global crisis in democracy,” according to the events website.
    Five months after the re-election of the Republican U.S. president, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton recalled his meeting with a Trump-supporter during the last electoral campaign, who confessed that he was “too far gone” to be open to hear Clinton out.
    “He understood that he was captured by the identity politics which now dominate America. So at least I had a civilized conversation with him,” Clinton said.
    Fellow speaker and former U.S. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton, said the truth of current global politics could not be 'sugarcoated.'
    "Autocracy is on the march and we now have a government in the United States that has thrown in its lot with the autocrats...where there is no truth, there cannot be trust, and where there is no trust, there cannot be democracy and peace," Hillary Clinton said.
    Nobel Laureate, Maria Ressa said the arrest of former Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte was a sign that impunity cannot last forever.
    Duterte was sent to The Hague on March 11 for alleged crimes against humanity during an anti-drugs crackdown during his time in office. Ressa, who herself was detained under the Duterte regime, told the audience: "The world doesn't have to be the way it is today. That there is an end to impunity."
    The World Forum was organised for the second time by the Cinema for Peace Foundation.
    (Production: Tobias Schlie, Lena Toepler)
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