MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Strong Words From Bill Clinton About Hillary's Presidential Race

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MATTHEWS: Well, Clinton`s mention of Jackson was seen by a racially tinged criticism of President Obama`s candidacy. Jim Clyburn writes about the 2:00 a.m. tongue-lashing phone call he received from the former president following Hillary Clinton`s subsequent South Carolina thumping. It`s in his memoir, "Blessed Experience."

Clyburn says, quote, "His powerful voice came on the phone. `If you bastards want a fight, you damn well will get one.` I needed no help identifying that voice. It was Bill Clinton, the former President of the United States, my longtime political friend. His wife Hillary had just suffered a major defeat in South Carolina`s Democratic primary. He exploded using the word `bastard` again and accused me of causing her defeat and injecting race into the contest."

Well, Clyburn and Clinton have since made their peace.

U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn is a Democrat from South Carolina, the assistant Democratic House leader right now, and author of "Blessed Experience."

Well, you know, Mr. Clyburn, thanks for joining us."Blessed Experience", and that experience don`t seem to jibe. Tell me how it all fit into your political memoir.

CLYBURN: Well, thank you so much for having me, Chris.

Well, the fact of the matter is, as I said in my preface to the book, all of my experiences have not been pleasant. But when I look back on them, all of them have been blessings. And that really was a blessing, but not - - I didn`t feel that way at the time.

I believe that I learned a lot during that primary. I learned a lot writing this book, about myself, about the people with whom I`ve interacted over the years, and I do believe that Bill Clinton and I are on very good terms these days and I think that we will be working together for the Democrats going forward.

MATTHEWS: You know, I don`t think you`d call enemies up at 2:00 in the morning, because I know enough about politics to know that you don`t want to alert them to what you really think of them.

But it seems to me it was an act of a weird kind of friendship -- 2:00 in the morning, he calls you up. You were asleep, I guess, were you? And you go, wait a minute, this was my old pal, giving me a lot of stuff here.

What was your emotional reaction to that call? How did you react when Bill Clinton, the former president, comes on with that distinctive voice of his?

CLYBURN: Well, I was not asleep. I usually stay up pretty late on election nights.

MATTHEWS: I see.

CLYBURN: And that was the night of the primary election and I was awake. But I was caught being off guard. I listened for a long time, before I replied. And when I did, I simply asked the president to tell me why he thought I had violated the neutrality that I had promised the Democratic National Committee I would maintain during that primary.

Of course, he felt that what I said injected race into the campaign. All I was saying was that we have to be very careful how we deal with that civil rights period and who should get credit for it. That`s what started all of this.

I don`t believe that Lyndon Johnson was anymore important than Martin Luther King, Jr. They played different roles. We all have roles to play. And King played his role, Johnson played his role, and as you know, Chris, you`ve written about it, President Kennedy laid a foundation back in 1963. I don`t know whether or not King would have felt the way he did had he not started his interactions with John F. Kennedy.

So, everybody had a role to play, and I don`t know that any one of them was anymore important than the other. And you will find those kinds of experiences throughout this book. When I worked across the aisle to get certain things done, simply because I needed somebody else in a different role, sometimes even across the other side of the capitol to get things done. So that`s what this book is all about.

I thought about those tenth graders I used to quiche, as I wrote this book, and I wanted this book to be something that every young boy or girl, especially those who have had experiences like I`ve had, to gain something from it, learn from it, be motivated by it, and be able to really look upon all of their experiences, however unpleasant they might be, as possible blessings.

MATTHEWS: Well, I`m going to go read it. The name of the book is "Blessed Experience." And after I read it, Congressman, I`m going to have you on the talk about my questions. By the way, you have just sized up the great old reason why Thomas Jefferson said, "When you`re mad, count to ten. When you`re really mad, count to a hundred before you talk."

Anyway, U.S. Congressman James Clyburn --

CLYBURN: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: -- author of "Blessed Experience."

We`ll be right back.

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