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Morning News

'Roll Call': Hillary Clinton to Keep Low Profile During First Days in 107th Congress

Aired January 3, 2001 - 11:19 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton -- you talked about her -- we expect her to arrive any moment, within this hour at least. And we'll have that picture for you when that happens.

Now, she may be among the Senate's fresh faces, but hers is one of the higher-profile ones, at least right now.

Mark Preston covers the Senate for "Roll Call" magazine. He joins us now to talk about Mrs. Clinton's first day on the job.

Good to see you. Good morning. How are you?

MARK PRESTON, "ROLL CALL" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Leon.

HARRIS: Well, you may have heard just moments ago there Sen.- elect Stabenow and Sen. Snowe talking about the advice that might be given to someone like a first lady coming into this situation. But -- and they seem to be rather collegial about the whole thing, but can Hillary Rodham Clinton really expect that sort of reception across the board in the Senate?

PRESTON: You know, absolutely, because the Senate is known for its collegiality. Not very often will you hear senators personally attacking each other in the Senate. They do it more on a political level, unlike the House of Representatives, which sometimes can get a little bit rancorous at times and then bad feelings can become personal. In the Senate, you know, not only will you see Democrats, but also Republicans will be watching their words.

HARRIS: Well, you know, those of us who may be watching the Senate from a further arm's length than you do also see things like lots of egos there in that particular chamber. Any -- there's got to be a sense there that there's going to be a ruffling of some feathers when a freshman senator comes in and gets more attention in many cases than even some of the Senate leadership may be getting. You don't think that's going to be a problem?

PRESTON: Well, below the level, there is some sentiment about Mrs. Clinton coming in and overshadowing some of the more seniors members who have been here for one or two terms, absolutely. Mrs. Clinton's going to come here. For the past eight years she's worked vigorously on her husband's agenda -- it was a joint agenda -- on such issues such as health care. She's worked closely with congressional Democrats on minimum wage. I think Mrs. Clinton has been actually very smart by keeping a low profile all through her campaign by saying that when she does come to the Senate that she doesn't want any special treatment, that she wants to be treated like everyone else.

So I think what you'll probably see in the first couple months is Mrs. Clinton probably will try to keep a low profile. That's going to be hard to do, though. I think that Democrats are probably going to try to push her to the front because, you know, she is such a rallying cry for liberal Democrats.

HARRIS: Well, you know, it's not just that either, it's also the vision of her being escorted in and out of rooms with Secret Service agents in attendance, or maybe even Capitol Hill Police either before or after her or whatever. I've heard some grumbling about the number of this entourage of security she's going to have around her as well.

PRESTON: Well, that's actually true. And I spoke to somebody yesterday about that. And the Capitol Police right now, they have jurisdiction over the Capitol. And what they would do is trump the Secret Service on any protection duties.

Now, what's going on, though, is that they've been able to find some common ground to have the Secret Service and the Capitol Police both protect her when she is on Capitol grounds. However, once she leaves Capitol grounds, the Secret Service would then resume full responsibility for Mrs. Clinton.

But you're right. I mean, she'll be in the hallways. And not only is she a senator, a first lady, but she's a senator from New York. And all the New York media, all the television stations and newspaper reporters, will certainly be following her and tracking every movement she makes.

HARRIS: And you know something, a lot of people are going to be looking at that and watching her reaction to the attention she receives from the New York-oriented media because of the talk going into this whole thing about the fact that she was not a resident of that state beforehand, before the election. Will she have to really go out of her way to prove anything back to her constituents? And will that be something of a, I guess, a stumbling block for her later on?

PRESTON: Well, you know, it's interesting. If we go back I guess 30 years or 25 years, Robert Kennedy was also criticized for that.

HARRIS: Mark, I'm sorry to cut you off. I'm going to let you finish your thought, but I just wanted to advise you, I can't -- don't know if you can see what's happening on our screen right now, but we understand this is Hillary Rodham Clinton arriving. And as we were just talking about the security cortege she's got, we see here more, probably about eight or nine different security men jumping out of this vehicle. There's President Clinton. We see him getting out of the front seat of this SUV that they've arrived here at the Capitol in. Still have not scene Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton coming up. There she is. We now see the back of her. They are now just now entering the building. She's there walking in, and she'll be wearing blue, just in case you were wondering.

All right, we'll let you go ahead and finish your point.

PRESTON: Well, you know, just going quickly back to security detail, keep in mind that today's security is going to be more beefed up because it's her first day in the Senate, she is being sworn in, and she is with the president of the United States for the next 17 days. First ladies, you know, will keep their Secret Security detail after they leave office, after their husband leaves office. So what you'll see is a more scaled-down version of Mrs. Clinton's Secret Service detail.

Now, just going back to New York, I think Mrs. Clinton has made it clear during the campaign that she wants to try, you know, focus all of her efforts on passing legislation and trying to be parochial to her state. That's going to be very important for Mrs. Clinton because she's going to be criticized if she's not. So it will be a tough balancing act for her.

HARRIS: Well, she should be pretty used to the criticism. She's endured plenty of that over the years.

Finally, let me ask you this in closing this morning: I mean, look -- can you give us an idea of how -- the way that she's, I guess, positioning herself coming in here now? She's positioning herself as, what, a centrist here? She doesn't seem to be basically cleaving to her liberal pedigree here. And how is that going to play out for her?

PRESTON: Well, you know, that's interesting. The guests that you just had on earlier, you know, are women who have gone to the middle. Now, Mrs. Clinton, of course, has always been labeled as someone who ears to the liberal side. I think when she comes here in the Senate, she's going to turn to someone like Sen. Kennedy who she's worked with for the past eight years on issues such as health care and the CHIP program and minimum wage, and issues along those lines. However, she is very smart to align herself with New Democrats, which is this movement of moderatism here in the Senate. That allows her to play both sides of the fiddle, so to speak, so that she doesn't alienate any of the constituents that might have voted for her.

HARRIS: Well, Mark Preston, we appreciate you staying outside and braving the cold to play with us this morning. Appreciate your insight. We'll let you get indoors now.

PRESTON: Great, thank you.

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