Hillary Clinton Jokes to Goldman Sachs: We’re Going to Give China a ‘Red State’

Hillary Clinton told Goldman Sachs that she would give the Chinese a “red state” if she was ever in a position where she had to swap territory back and forth with the Chinese.

Clinton made the remarks in a private paid speech to Goldman Sachs on October 29, 2013, according to speech transcripts released as part of Wikileaks’ John Podesta email dump. Clinton first talks about China taking land in the Pacific that the United States could theoretically take, which would re-name the Pacific Ocean the “American Sea”:

I think that—you know, one of the greatest arguments that I had on a continuing basis was with my Chinese counterparts about their claim.  And I made the point at one point in the argument that, you know, you can call it whatever you want to call it.  You don’t have a claim to all of it.  I said, by that argument, you know, the United States should claim all of the Pacific.  We liberated it, we defended it.  We have as much claim to all of the Pacific.  And we could call it the American Sea, and it could go from the West Coast of California all the way to the Philippines.  And, you know, my counterpart sat up very straight and goes, well, you can’t do that.  And I said, well, we have as much right to claim that as you do.  I mean, you claim it based on pottery shards from, you know, some fishing vessel that ran aground in an atoll somewhere.  You know, we had conveys of military strength.  We discovered Japan for Heaven sakes.  I mean, we did all of these things.

Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein then joked about giving the Chinese New Jersey, and Clinton said that we would give the Chinese a red state, according to the transcripts:

MR. BLANKFEIN:  These are more technical conversations than I thought they would be. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON:  Yes, yes.  And then he says to me, well, you know, we’ll claim Hawaii.  And I said, yeah, but we have proof we bought it.  Do you have proof you brought any of these places you’re claiming?  So we got into the nitty-gritty of—

MR. BLANKFEIN:  But they have to take New Jersey.          (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON:  No, no, no.  We’re going to give them a red state.”