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George W. Bush And Bill Clinton Talk Leadership In Dallas

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

So two former U.S. presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, shared the stage last night in Dallas, Texas. They did not talk about the current president. They did talk about finding future leaders to bridge the political divide. Here's NPR's Don Gonyea.

DON GONYEA, BYLINE: The 42nd and 43rd presidents, a Democrat and a Republican, have bonded since leaving office. This event was a graduation ceremony at the George W. Bush Presidential Center for the latest group of presidential leadership scholars, people from nonprofits, public and private sectors and the military. It's a joint project of four presidential libraries. Here's George W. Bush.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEORGE W BUSH: One of the real problems with these presidential centers is that they become irrelevant pretty quickly unless there's something that captures people's attention.

GONYEA: Bush added...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BUSH: It just - it fit right into our view of how to be useful.

GONYEA: Bill Clinton noted the different political, religious and ethnic backgrounds of the program's scholars, then offered this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BILL CLINTON: One of the things that's wrong with America today that bothers me more than anything else about our future is that we have separated ourselves into like-minded communities. We may be less racist, homophobic and sexist and everything, but we don't want to be around very many people who disagree with us normally.

GONYEA: He lamented that too many Americans get their news from places that only reinforce their beliefs.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CLINTON: And the truth is in an interdependent, complex world, diverse groups make better decisions than homogenous ones.

GONYEA: There was no mention of any hot political topic or of the current White House, just a low-key endorsement from two former presidents of less rancor and gridlock. Don Gonyea, NPR News.

[POST BROADCAST CORRECTION: In an earlier introduction to this report, we mistakenly said it was former President Obama who was onstage with former President George W. Bush. As the report makes clear, it was former President Clinton who was there.]

(SOUNDBITE OF EVIL NEEDLE'S "VIBIN'") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Corrected: July 13, 2017 at 9:00 PM PDT
In an earlier introduction to this report, we mistakenly said it was former President Obama who was onstage with former President George W. Bush. As the report makes clear, it was former President Clinton who was there.
You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.