msnbc   |  December 01, 2012

Speculation over Hillary Clinton's next career move

An MSNBC panel takes a look at what the future may hold for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> it's become somewhat of a parlor game this election cycle. we enjoy playing ate lot here. will she or won't she in 2016 ? we all know i'm talking about hillary clinton and whether she'll run for president. the secretary of state is one of the leading democrats whose name is being floated around. but she has repeatedly brushed off the speculations, and now that it's clear she is giving up her cabinet position, what will she do next? i'd like to washer roll lewis, and beth fui, senior editor for politics and news at yahoo. thanks for sticking around, folks. you both covered hillary for a number of years, since her time as a senator here in new york. i know you're making your own speculations, perhaps participating in some office pool even. michelle cottle of the daily beast spoke with analysts who suggest that a presidential run would inevitably complicate hillary 's advocacy work and risk tarnishing her shimmering global brand, even if it ultimately opened up greater possibilities. errol, is that a fair hypothesis?

>> it's a fair hypothesis, but it's exactly the kind of risk she has been taking her entire life. you mentioned an office pool . it would be the easiest money you could make would be to assume unless you see something otherwise written in stone you have to assume that she is going to run for president. she has spent her entire life, her entire life, even before she became an adult of trying to learn more about the major issues of the day and have an impact on them. she has been in the white house and seen what you can do, whether it's, you know, don't ask don't tell or welfare reform , how you can move the mighty levers that only the white house has control over. to assume now that she wants to be thought well of and sit in some foundation office, i don't think so.

>> and beth, you've got to think that bill clinton is probably not talking her out of it.

>> bill clinton would love hillary clinton to be president. in fact, the fact that he was so magnanimous with president obama this past campaign was a miracle to a lot of us who covered hillary clinton in '08 because i think the president, bill clinton took his wife's loss harder than she did in that campaign against then senator obama . look, what i think is going to happen is hillary has all the cards to her. she is going to take a year off. she can sleep. she can write a book. she can do speaking appearances. she can be a mom to chelsea.

>> maybe a grandmom.

>> maybe a grandma. i don't know anything about that. and she can still decide to run. this is going to kill all these other democrats who are hoping to run because the field is frozen until she makes a decision.

>> i want to talk to you about that, because you raise an interesting point there are a lot of folks who are suggesting one of the reasons we spend so much time talking about hillary ad nauseam is because there really aren't a whole lot of other democrats out there who could run and have a chance of winning.

>> don't tell that to andrew cuomo there are a lot of people out there who are regarding their position as essentially frozen until --

>> the list is deep?

>> the list of ambitious young politicians is deep. keep in mind, craig, every single state senator who is a democrat out there thinks they can do what state senator barack obama did in 2004 , a meteoric rise to the top.

>> and not just young. look at joe biden . don't you think he wants to run? he is the vice president. and yet he is stuck in place until hillary clinton makes her decision.

>> it would be fascinating. you've got to think that if joe biden and hillary clinton both decided they were going to do it, there would be a conversation had that, no, you think they would potentially run against each other.

>> no. i think it's hillary 's at this point to decide.

>> but i so enjoyed having both you guys. i hope you come back. don't spend your saturdays at home with your families watching football or something, come back and be a part of this.