Bill Clinton will appear on the season premiere of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s NatGeo series “StarTalk,” and in a new preview video, the president learns of the failings of his science education from the astrophysicist.
“I never read anything about astrophysics until I got out of the White House,” Clinton says during the interview, expressing a desire to meet more scientists and learn new things. “So I said, ‘Before I die, I really want to understand this.’”
But the former president says that it’s not just the high-level science that escapes him. Even some of the basic fundamentals have been ripped out from under him since he finished school.
“When Pluto was declassified, I realized what little I learned has now been thrown out the window. It was a traumatic experience,” he joked.
Tyson was quick to burst another of Clinton’s bubbles by pointing out that the brontosaurus was declassified from dinosaur status around the same time as Pluto’s demotion from planet status. Apparently, the skulls and bodies that were assumed to be from one dinosaur were actually mismatched.
“It’s like politics. No final victories, no final defeats,” Clinton said in shock.
“StarTalk: Bill Clinton” airs Sunday, Oct. 25 at 11 p.m. on National Geographic. It will pre-premiere online Oct. 19.