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In the twenty-three years since he left the White House, former President Bill Clinton has worked to refashion a life of politics as a public servant and elected official, into that of a private citizen aiming to advance the promise of America, at a time when there was emerging, in his words, “Two Americas … with very different stories.”

In his new book, “Citizen: My Life After the White House” (to be published Tuesday by Knopf), Clinton considers the post-presidencies of other chief executives, from John Quincy Adams to Jimmy Carter, and how he himself is determined to “live in the present and for the future.”

Read an excerpt below, and don’t miss Tracy Smith’s interview with Bill Clinton on “CBS Sunday Morning” November 17!

“Citizen: My Life After the White House” by Bill Clinton

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On January 21, 2001, after twenty-five years in politics and elected office, eight as president, I was a private citizen again. I often joked that for a few weeks, I was lost whenever I walked into a room because no one played a song to mark my arrival. “Hail to the Chief” was now my successor’s anthem. I had loved being president, but I supported the two-term limit and was determined not to spend a day wishing I still had the job. I wanted to live in the present and for the future. Except on rare occasions, I have kept that promise to myself, though it got a lot harder after the 2016 election, harder still after the coronavirus struck, George Floyd’s killing, the January 6, 2021, attack on our Capitol, and the inventive efforts of the right-wing culture warriors to find new ways to stoke grievances without sensible plans to make things better for themselves and for all the rest of us.

The years after the White House are different for every former president. In 2001, I was only fifty-four, with a lot of energy, useful experience, and contacts from my years in politics that could and should be used to serve the public as a private citizen.

So how should a former president do that? Several of my predecessors had made a real difference in their time, disproving John Quincy Adams’s famous maxim that “there is nothing more pathetic in life than a former President.” Adams himself served sixteen years in Congress, two of them with Abraham Lincoln, where he led the fight against slavery on the floor of the House. He also represented the captive African Mende people aboard the Amistad in the Supreme Court, winning their release before they could be sold into slavery. Theodore Roosevelt started a new party and ran for president, finishing second in 1912, the only third-party candidate to do so. William Howard Taft became chief justice of the Supreme Court. Herbert Hoover led an effort to modernize and reorganize the federal civil service under President Harry Truman. And Jimmy Carter built a remarkable record with his foundation, eliminating the scourge of guinea worm in Africa, overseeing elections in tough places, and becoming, along with Rosalynn, the face of Habitat for Humanity.

Although Hillary was now serving in the Senate, I had always been impressed by the impact she had by working with nongovernmental organizations, beginning with the Children’s Defense Fund. And I had learned a lot in our White House years watching her work with civil society groups in Africa, Northern Ireland, India, and elsewhere.

So I decided to set up a foundation with a flexible but clear mission: to maximize the benefits and minimize the burdens of our new century in the United States and across the world. I was excited about the possibilities and hoped I could do it.

Meanwhile, I had a more immediate agenda. I wanted to support Hillary, just starting her service as a senator from New York, and Chelsea, only a few months from graduating from Stanford, so they could stay in public life if they wanted to do so and be financially secure if I didn’t live long, which, given my family history, seemed likely. To do that and pay my substantial legal bills run up during the Whitewater investigations and the impeachment process, I had to start making money, something that had never interested me before. As governor of Arkansas, I had made $35,000 until the voters raised it to $60,000 a couple of months before I left office. As president I made $200,000, and paid for most of our family’s expenses out of it, in large part because the job provided excellent public housing!

By the time I left office, I had given a lot of thought to how to increase the opportunities and decrease the problems of our interdependence. We had to create more fairly shared prosperity, shoulder more shared responsibilities, and build more communities in which our differences are respected, but our common humanity matters more.

But the America that I found myself working in had changed in many ways since I had started in politics in the 1970s, and even in the short time since I’d left the White House. Two Americas were emerging with very different stories. One believes that our diversity makes us stronger, and better able to achieve shared prosperity through shared opportunities and responsibilities and equal treatment in our local, state, and national communities. The other believes they are in a battle for all that has been lost by our increasing diversity and economic stagnation, mostly in more rural areas. They feel they’ve lost control over our economy, our social order, and our culture. They’re determined not to lose control over our politics, and to use politics to regain control over the other three.

I still believe we all do better when we work together. In such a polarized environment, that means you have to be willing to work with people who don’t think like you along with those who do. Almost always, cooperation beats conflict, and when you do have to stand your ground, it’s wise to leave the door open for reconciliation. The ability to do that distinguishes great leaders. Think of Nelson Mandela putting the leaders of parties who had imprisoned him for twenty-seven years in his cabinet, or Yitzhak Rabin keeping the peace process alive while acts of terror claimed the lives of innocent citizens and eventually claimed his.

Following this path is challenging even in less violent times. My family has had a lot of experience with highly personal attacks which were not just hurtful to us, but hurt the country by distracting attention from the real debate: how best to meet our common challenges. When the going got rough, I tried to imagine that I was one of those big inflatable toys of the cartoon figures Baby Huey or Casper the Friendly Ghost—they were big favorites of kids when I was in elementary school. You could knock them down and they always bounced right back up. To survive in politics, that’s what you have to do, over and over. Maybe we should start producing those bouncing figures again, as representative of happy warriors reaching across our great divide. People could keep them at home and at work, starting and finishing every workday by knocking them down and smiling when they bounce back. It might clear our heads and help us to get back in the building and cooperating business.

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.

As I entered this new chapter of my life, I knew 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?

This book 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.

I’m very grateful that, with the help of my family, friends new and old, a great staff, and the endurance of my curiosity, energy, and ability to work, I have been able to have a life full of new experiences and new ways to help and empower people as a private citizen while finding real joy in our small but growing family. I’ve loved cheering Hillary on as a senator, secretary of state, presidential candidate both in 2008 and in 2016, and watching with wonder the life Chelsea has built with her work in the private sector, in academia, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, with the books she’s authored, and her family life with Marc, whom I love and admire. Chelsea says she and Marc are teaching their kids to “be brave and be kind.” It shows. I love being their grandfather, and am so glad Chelsea and Marc welcome Hillary and me to be involved in their lives.

When this book comes out, I’ll be seventy-eight—the oldest person in my family since my maternal great-grandparents, straight out of American Gothic, made it into their late seventies. But I still think and dream about how people can live better lives together, and still want to help them do it. I can’t sit still and can’t go back. So, as many people do every day, I aim to get caught trying. It’s the real American way.

      
Excerpted from “Citizen: My Life After the White House” by Bill Clinton, published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Bill Clinton. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Jake Paul, a former child star and social media influencer who started boxing professionally in 2020, will slug it out with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on Friday in a matchup that will be livestreamed worldwide on Netflix.

Here’s what we know about how much Paul and Tyson are being paid, along with other financial aspects of an event that many consider more spectacle than sport.

How much is Mike Tyson getting paid for the fight?

Regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, 58-year-old Mike Tyson has an estimated net worth of $10 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. That is a modest sum compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars “Iron Mike,” as he is known, accumulated in career earnings, including $400 million in fight purses, according to Forbes. Over the last decade, Tyson has also fought his way back after filing for bankruptcy in 2013 at the age of 37. 

Though promotors have not revealed exactly how much Tyson will earn Friday’s fight, reports from online sources, including DraftKings Network, estimate he’ll make around $20 million. 

That’s about the same dollar amount Tyson earned in his match against Michael Spinks in 1988, a record purse at the time (worth roughly $53 million today adjusting for inflation). That bout lasted less than two minutes, with Tyson knocking out the previously undefeated Spinks in 91 seconds. 

In 1992, Tyson was sent to prison for six years after being convicted of raping a teenage beauty contestant. He was released on parole after three and a half years, returning to boxing in 1995 in a match against Peter McNeely, who was dispatched by technical knockout out in under 90 seconds.

Tyson would go on to earn $30 million for each of his next four matches, which included an infamous 1997 fight against Evander Holyfield in which Tyson bit off a piece of his opponent’s right ear. Tyson was disqualified from the fight, had his boxing license revoked and fined $3 million, but was allowed to keep the purse.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Paul wore a diamond-spiked ear cover, a pointed reference to the incident. But when it comes to making light of the ear biting, Tyson has already beat Paul to the punch, having launched ear-shaped marijuana edibles (with Holyfield’s consent) through his company, Tyson 2.0, a premium cannabis brand he launched in 2021. The brand generated an estimated $150 million in revenue in 2023, according to Forbes Australia.

How much is Jake Paul getting paid for the fight?

Jake Paul, 27, is set to earn $40 million, according to an estimate from DraftKings Network and other sources — double what Tyson, is expected to receive for the fight. A simple explanation for that may be that Paul, a top social influencer with 27 million followers on Instagram alone, is also co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, the company promoting the extravaganza in partnership with Netflix. His net worth is estimated at $80 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

With a 10-1 fight record, mostly against mixed martial artists and other pro-boxing newcomers under his belt, Paul, a former child star and YouTube prankster who began his boxing career in 2018, does not lack confidence — or showmanship. His cocky attitude earned him his latest nickname “El Gallo de Dorado” or the Golden Rooster, coined by fans in Puerto Rico. Before that, he was called “The Problem Child,” a fairly self-explanatory moniker based on the online persona he’s crafted for himself over the years. 

Paul, who went full Gallo at an open training session this week with Tyson at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas, donning a rooster hat and red-feathered skirt over his boxing trunks, epitomizes social media’s melding of Barnumesque entertainment and sports. 

In a TikTok video posted Tuesday, a shirtless Paul, slumped on a couch wearing a prosthetic belly to make himself look out of shape, places stacks of money on his protruding stomach while offering “Mikey, Mikey” an additional $5 million if the former champion can last more than four rounds with him in the ring. If he doesn’t, says Paul in the video, the aging boxer will have to get a tattoo that says “I love Jake Paul.”

“This is why modern boxing is a joke,”commented one user on Reddit in reaction to the video. “People get more excited about freak show fights than actual boxing matches.” 

As reported by USA Today, “Tyson and his camp have not publicly responded to the offer.” 

How much is the purse for the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight?

The undisclosed purse is estimated by some to be as high as $80 million. 

How much do tickets to the Tyson vs. Paul fight cost?

Last-minute tickets can still be found for the Tyson vs. Paul fight, which will take place Friday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Prices range from $69 for upper mezzanine seats on StubHub to as much as $32,392 for floor seats on Vividseats. 

Who do gamblers think will win the fight?

Tyson enters the ring on Friday, nearly 20 years since his last professional fight, as a +160 underdog, according to the latest betting odds from DraftKings. That means a $100 wager on post-retirement Iron Mike will bring in a $160 profit if he wins. At -200, Paul is the favorite to win. Bettors will have to place a $200 wager to make a $100 profit, should the social influencer prevail over Tyson. 

“There has been a lot of anticipation for this fight, and we have been pleased with the betting volume,” Johnny Avello, director of sports operations at DraftKings, told CBS MoneyWatch. “We expect more action to come in the hours leading up to the fight.” 

Although it remains to be seen how much will be wagered in total, the event is attracting some whale-sized bets of $500,000, according to ESPN.

Gamblers are backing Tyson, according to DraftKings, with 69% of all bets currently on the former undisputed world champion to emerge victorious. “While Tyson is 58-years old now, people see one of the greatest boxers of all time at a favorable price and jump at that opportunity,” Avello said.

“While it won’t match up to an event like the Super Bowl, it could certainly be our most bet boxing match of the year,” he added.

Not everyone will be able to place a bet the epic bout. Though the fight is sanctioned by Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, changes in the rules, including shorter rounds and bigger gloves, disqualifies the fight from being bet on in at least seven U.S. states.

How to watch the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight

For most fans, the best seats will be at home, with Tyson vs. Paul streaming worldwide on Netflix. A basic Netflix subscription is $6. The platform’s broadcast starts at 8 p.m. Eastern time. 

As reported by CBS Sports, the fight marks Netflix’s biggest bet to date on live sports. Netflix, which has 282 million subscribers in over 190 countries, has recently tested the waters by airing exhibition events in golf and tennis.