Bill Clinton wrote a new memoir about his two decades since serving as the 42nd President.
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced on Thursday, April 4, that it will publish Clinton’s new book, Citizen: My Life After the White House, on November 19.
“A life in public service can be deeply rewarding if you accept that in the constant ebb and flow of history, there are no permanent victories or defeats, and never forget that every life is a story that, regardless of time and circumstance, deserves to be seen and heard,” Clinton, 77, said in a press release.
“I knew as I entered this new chapter of my life that I’d keep score the way I always have: Are people better off when you quit than when you started? Do our children have a brighter future? Are we coming together instead of falling apart?” he continued. “Citizen is the story of my twenty-three-plus years since leaving the White House, told largely through the stories of other people who changed my life as I tried to help change theirs, of those who supported me, including those I loved and lost, and of the mistakes I made along the way.”
In Citizen, Clinton comments on various events since he left the Oval Office, including the Iraq War, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, COVID-19 and the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
He also discusses how he supported his wife Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the Democratic nominee for President in 2008, and how he virtually endorsed Barack Obama.
The former president also expresses his frustration over Hillary losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump.
Bill served two terms as president from 1993 to 2001. He chronicled those eight years in his first memoir, My Life, published in June 2004.
That year, he also faced serious health issues.
In September 2004, Bill underwent quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. Five years later, he underwent heart surgery.
Since leaving the White House, Bill established the Clinton Foundation with the stated mission to “strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence.”
Its programs have included the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which is dedicated to delivering HIV/AIDS medication around the world, the Clinton Climate Initiative devoted to climate change and the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, which works to reduce childhood obesity.
Bill has also faced controversy recently. It was revealed that he was among dozens of public figures mentioned as being associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in court documents that were unsealed in January.
Johanna Sjoberg, who allegedly worked for Epstein, named Bill in a 2016 deposition. She claimed that Epstein spoke to her about the former president.
“He said that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls,” she wrote. When asked if Bill was a friend of Epstein’s, Sjoberg alleged that the twosome had “dealings” with each other.
Bill’s spokesperson Angel Ureña denied claims regarding Bill’s involvement with Epstein in 2019. “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” she wrote via X (formerly Twitter) at the time.
