MR. LEHRER: Speaking of the work of the country, other news
today, the Pope is arriving in Cuba almost as we speak.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good thing.
MR. LEHRER: All right. Has the time come maybe for the United States to also bury
some economic and political hatchets with Cuba?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I think that our previous policy, the one that we have now and
the one we have had through the Republican and
Democratic administrations of keeping economic
pressure on and denying the legitimacy of the
Cuban government has been a good policy. I have
made it clear from the day I got here that we
would be prepared to respond to a substantial
effort at a political or economic opening by
Cuba, and we have, as you know, a system for
communicating with each other. Nothing would
please me greater than to see a new openness there
that would justify a response on our part, and I
would like to work on it. And I think Mr. Castro
knows that. I've tried to proceed in good faith here.
MR. LEHRER: Have you thought about doing something dramatic -- this is your second
term -- getting on airplane and going down there
or inviting him to come up here, something like that, just like the Pope has done?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I'm glad the Pope is going there. I hope that we will have some real progress
toward freedom and opening there and I'll work on it. But that's still mostly up to Mr. Castro.
MR. LEHRER: Why is it up to him?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, because look what the Pope is saying? The Pope is saying I
hope you will release these political prisoners.
Well, you know no American President getting on
an airplane and going down there or having him come up
here is going to do that. The Cuban-American
community, I know a lot of people think they
have been too hard on this, but they do have the
point that there has been no discernible change
in the climate of freedom there and I hope that the
Pope's visit will help to expand freedom and
I hope that after that we will be able to talk about it a
little bit.
MR. LEHRER: Pope, in fact, was interviewed
on his plane a little while ago by some reporters and
they asked him what messages would you give to the
American people about the embargo, and he said
change, to change, to change. That would be his
message to the American people.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, His Holiness
is a very great man, and he, his position on this
is identical to that, as far as I know, of every
other European leader. And only time will tell
if they were right or we were.
MR. LEHRER: Explain to Americans who
don't follow the Cuban issue closely why Cuba is
different say than China a communist country, North Korea
a communist country. Vietnam we had a war with
Vietnam, as we did with Korea, and in some ways
China as well. We have relations with them. Why is Cuba different?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think Cuba is different in no small
measure because of the historic legacy we have
with them going back to the early 60s. I think
it's different because it's the only communist
dictatorship in our hemisphere, a sort of blot on
our neighborhood's commitment to freedom and
openness and a lot of Americans have suffered
personal losses there of significant magnitude.
And I think as a practical matter we probably
think we can have a greater influence through
economic sanctions in Cuba than we can in other places.
Now, I have worked over the last five
years on a number of different ways to explore other alternatives of dealing
with this issue and I wouldn't shut the door on
other alternative, but I
believe that our denial of legitimacy to the government and our economic pressure has at least made
sure that others didn't go down that path and
that now I think it's one of the reasons that
every country in this hemisphere is a democracy
and a market economy except for Cuba. I think a lot
of people forget what the impact of our policy
toward Cuba and what the highlghting of the
Cuban's policies have done to the change the
governmental structures in our neighborhood, so
I'm hoping -- nobody in the world would be
happier than me to see a change in Cuba and a
change in our policy before I leave office, but
we have to have both. We just can't have one without the other.
MR. LEHRER: You don't see anything
happening any time soon as a result of the Pope's visit?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well No, I'm very hopeful. I was pleased when I heard he was
going. I wanted him to go and I hope it will be a good thing.
MR. LEHRER: The Middle East, you said a moment ago, you met with Mr. Netanyahu twice
yesterday, and Mr. Arafat tomorrow. First on Netanyahu, what is it exactly you want him to do?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, let's talk about what he wants. What
we want is not nearly as important as what he wants, what the
Palestinian want, what the other people in the Middle East want.
What we want is a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
What I believe he and his government want is an agreement to go
to final-status talks in the peace process under circumstances that
they believe maximize their security. I think what the Palestinians
want is an agreement that moves them towards self-determination under
circumstances that maximize their ability to improve the lives of
their people and the reach of their popular government.
And we've been out there now for a year -- I mean another year -- of
course, five years since I've been president. But since the Hebron
withdrawal, we've been out there for a year in the Middle East,
looking around, listening, talking, and watching the frustrations,
seeing the growing difficulties in the Middle East peace process. And
we came up with an approach that we thought, in the ballpark, would
satisfy both sides' objectives.
We worked with Mr. Netanyahu yesterday exhaustively to try to,
you know, narrow the differences. And we didn't get them all
eliminated, but we made some headway. And we're going to work with
Mr. Arafat tomorrow to try to do that. And then we're going to try to
see if there's some way we can put them together. And I'm very
hopeful, because I think it's not good for them to keep on
doing this and not making progress.
MR. LEHRER: Why does it matter that much to an American
president that these two men get together and make an agreement?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, I think it matters in the
Middle East, because of our historic ties to Israel -- the
difficulty that it would cause us if there were another war in the region.
Secondly, of course, we have major energy interest in the region.
It's -- a big part of our economy recovery is having access to it.
The third thing is, we have a lot of friends in the region beyond
Israel, and if they all fall out with one another, that's -- that's
bad for America. And of course, then, if -- if deprivation among the
Palestinians leads to a rise of violence and leads to a rise of more
militant Islamic fundamentalism in other countries throughout the
region, then that could be a destabilizing fact that could really make
things tough, if not for me, then for my successors down the road and
for the American people down the road, in the 21st century.
MR. LEHRER: So you believe with those who say only America can make peace in the Middle East?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I believe America is uniquely situated to
help to broker a peace in the Middle East. I actually believe only
the parties can make peace in the Middle East. I think only Israel
and the Palestinians and the -- Syria and Lebanon can join Jordan at
that table. That's what I think. And so I think, in the end, we –
we need to be very aggressive in stating what our views are. And we
need to fight hard to at least have our position taken seriously. But
in the end, you know, they have to live with the consequences of what
they do or don't do -- all of them do. And they're going to have to
make their own peace.
MR. LEHRER: The word around, as I'm sure you know, is that you
and Netanyahu really just don't like each other very much. Is that right?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't think so. It's certainly not true on
my part. But we have -- had differences of opinion on occasion in
approach to the peace process. And then there -- you know, there's
been a little smattering in the press here, there, and yonder about
those differences and whether they were personal in nature. But for
me they're not personal in nature.
I enjoy him very much, I like being with him, I like working with
him. We had a difficult, hard day yesterday; you know, we had a long
session in the morning, and then he worked with our team, including
the vice president, secretary of state, through much of the afternoon.
Then, after my dinner last night, I came back and we worked again for
a couple of hours. So, it's hard to do that if you don't like
somebody.
I really believe that he is an energetic man, and I think that
within the -- the limits of his political situation, I believe he's
hoping to be able to make a peace and to get to the point where he and
Mr. Arafat can negotiate that.
But our job is to see, if you will, from a different perspective
the positions of both the Palestinians and the Israelis You know, we
-- it's sort of like standing too close to an Impressionist painting
sometime; there's lots of dots on the canvas, and the people who are
standing too close to it, even though they're painting the canvas, may
get lost in the weeds. And then the people that are standing back can
see the picture, and it's a beautiful picture, if it all gets painted.
And so that's what I'm trying to do. I've got to -- I have to keep
backing the painters back so they can see the whole picture, and then
getting to the details and trying to help them ram it home, you know,
because the one thing that I worry about is that you just sit there
and have the same old conversation over and over again till the cows
come home, and it's easy to do.
MR. LEHRER: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: And so that's what I'm trying -- I'm trying
to broker this thing, be a catalyst, get the people together, and give
an honest view of what the picture looks like from back here about
what the two artists can live with.
MR. LEHRER: Well, some people say that it doesn't look like to
the innocent observer that either one of these guys want to make
peace, that you may be talking -- you may be forcing them to do
something that deep down in their either political hearts, or
otherwise --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: That could be. Yes, that could be.
MR. LEHRER: -- they just don't want to do it.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: That could be. And I don't know what to say about that.
MR. LEHRER: But you're not going to give up on it?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No. No. You know, if I don't make any
progress, I'll level with the American people and the rest of the
world and tell them I'm doing my best but I'm not making any progress.
But, you know, we were hitting it last night till late, and then
we're getting ready now for Mr. Arafat to come we'll hit it hard
tomorrow. And that's all I know to tell you. We're just going to
keep hitting it.
MR. LEHRER: On Asia, the Asia financial crisis, what business is
it of the United States to save these failing Asian economies?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, we can't save the Asian
economies if they won't take primary steps to help themselves, the way
Mexico did. You remember, we loaned Mexico some money, and they paid
it back early with interest, and we made about $500 million because
they took tough steps to restore economic growth, create jobs, raise
incomes, and get their financial house in order.
That's the first and most important thing the Asians have to do. But
in order to make it, they also need the backup of the International
Monetary Fund and a plan designed to deal with the particular problems
of each country, and then the U.S. and Japan and Germany and the rest
of the Europeans to stand behind that to say, if necessary, we'll put
together a package to really restore confidence.
In most of these Asian economies, the problem is the financial
system and people can't pay back their loans, or investors take their
loans -- when their loans are repaid, investors take the money and go
somewhere else.
What's that got to do with America? Well, every day now in some
of our newspapers you can see what's happening in the Asian stock
markets and the Asian currency markets. What happens when a country's
currency drops? When a country's currency drops, it doesn't have much
money in dollars, and therefore, it can't buy as many American
exports. A big part of America's economic growth since 1993 has
occurred from exports, a big part of that from exports to Asia. If
all their -- the value of all their money goes down, they can't keep
buying our exports, and that hurts us. Also if the value of their
money goes down, everything they sell in other places in the world is
all of a sudden much cheaper, so they can push us out of those markets.
MR. LEHRER: Cheaper than our stuff.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Correct. So if you want to just look at the
plain, brutal, short-term economic interest, that's the short-term
economic interest. If you want to look at the long run, we've got an
interest in Asia in having stable democracies that are our partners,
that work with us to help grow the region and grow with us over the
long run, to help shoulder burdens like climate change, cleaning up
the environment, dealing with global disease, dealing with weapons of
mass destruction, contributing to the efforts in Bosnia, ending the
nuclear program in North Korea. All those things we depend on the
Asian countries to be a part of. They can only do that if they're
strong. So we live in a world that's so interdependent that we need
them to be strong if we're going to be strong.
MR. LEHRER: As you know, there are some members of Congress who are
saying what this really boils down to is welfare for international
bankers, that's what we're up to. How do you respond to that? That's
going to get -- that seems to be growing, particularly in the last few days.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: It -- that bothers me a lot. First of all,
there is some truth to it. That is, if a country like Indonesia gets
money from the International Monetary Fund to deal with its financial
problems, what are its financial problems? You've got to pay notes
when they're coming due. And if somebody made a foolish loan that
they should not have made in the first place, that's an only 90-day
loan on a building that's going to last for 20 years, for example, you
hate to see them get their money back plus a profit at someone else's expense.
On the other hand -- and let me say, we are sensitive to that.
Secretary Rubin has done a very good job of trying to get these big
banks to roll over their debt.
MR. LEHRER: Take some hits themselves?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Take some hits; at least, ride the roller
coaster. They'll actually to get their interest back --
MR. LEHRER: -- if they hang in there?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- and the principal if they hang here. But
they need to hang in there. They don't need to just take the money and run.
On the other hand, if you start saying, "Well, everybody is going
to get half back of what they put in," that will actually speed the
rate at which people take money out and reduce the rate at which
people put money in. You don't rebuild confidence, and therefore, the
collapse is more costly. That's what bothers me, and -- I mean,
nobody likes the idea -- you know, I don't think any American likes
the idea that, you know, every single banker in one of these countries
that made every bad loan will get paid back. And that, in fact, won't happen.
But when you try to pay back most things to stabilize the
situation, the reason you're doing it is not to give the people who
made the loans their money back. The reason you're doing it is to
send a signal to the world that business is back up and going, that
you have to be more careful now, but you can trust this country now,
and you can invest.
So I think -- you know, I am convinced we're doing the right
thing for our own economy; I am convinced we're doing the right thing
for our values and our principles, and I hope I can persuade the
Congress that we are.
MR. LEHRER: All right. Another subject. Iraq. Bad news today.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Bad news.
MR. LEHRER: Apparently, Mr. Butler left. What can you tell us
about where that thing stands --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well --
MR. LEHRER: -- in terms of whether the inspectors are going to
be allowed to do what they want to do, et cetera?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: They seem to want to wait until early March
to open the --
MR. LEHRER: Iraq does?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- Iraq -- that -- open the sites that Mr.
Butler believes that ought to be opened.
That's a problem for us because we believe that we have to do
everything we can, as quickly as we can, to check the chemical and
biological weapon stocks. And as I told the American people the last
time we had this standoff with Saddam before he relented and let the
inspectors go back -- you know, my concern is not to refight the Gulf
War; my concern is to prepare our people for a new century, not only
in positive ways, like creating a big international financial
framework that works for them -- as we just talked about -- but also
to make sure we have the tools to protect ourselves against chemical
and biological weapons.
So I won't -- tonight, I can't rule out or in any options. But I
can tell you I am very concerned about this. And I don't think the
American people should lose sight of the issue. What's the issue?
Weapons of mass destruction. What's the answer? The U.N inspectors.
What's the problem? Saddam Hussein can't say who, where, or when
about these inspection teams. That has to be done by the
professionals.
And sooner or later, something is going to give here, and I am
just very much hoping that we can reason with him before that happens,
but we've got to have those sites open.
MR. LEHRER: Now, Ambassador Richardson
at the U.N. and others in the administration have
said the military option, just to continue your
sentence, the military option remains on the
table. The ambassador from Iraq to the U.N. was
on our program and he pretty much acknowledged that
Iraq is banking on that not being real, that the
U.S. alone is not going to go in and take out
some suspected anthrax facilities, particularly
if it's in the palace where Saddam Hussein lives,
et cetera, et cetera.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, the United
States does not relish moving alone, because we
live in a world that is increasingly
interdependent. We would like to be partners
with other people. But sometimes we have to be
prepared to move alone. You used the anthrax
example. Think how many can be killed by just
a tiny bit of anthrax, and think about how it's
not just that Saddam Hussein might put it on a
Scud missile, an anthrax head, and send it on to some city he wants
to destroy. Think about all the other terrorists
and other bad actors who could just parade
through Baghdad and pick up their stores if we
don't take action. I far prefer the United
Nations, I far prefer the inspectors, I have been
far from trigger-happy on this thing, but if they
really believe that there are no circumstances under which we
would act alone, they are sadly mistaken. That is
not a threat. I have shown I do not relish this
thing. Every time it's discussed around here, I
say one of the great luxuries of being the
world's only superpower for a while -- and it
won't last forever probably, but for a while -- is that
there is always time enough to kill. And
therefore we have a moral responsibility to show
restraint and to seek partnerships and alliances,
and I've done that. But I don't have to explain
to my grandchildren why we took a powder on what
we think is a very serious biological and
chemical weapons programs potentially by a country that has
already used chemical weapons on the Iranians and
on the Kurds, their own people.
MR. LEHRER: So you would order an air
strike or whatever it would take to take out some
facility if you couldn't get away from it any other way.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I'm going to
stay with my tried and true formulation -- I'm not ruling out or in any option. I
was responding to what you said that the Iraqi
official thought that we were just talking because
we wouldn't want to discomfort anyone or make
them mad. That's not true. This is a serious
thing with me, this is a very serious thing. You imagine
the capacity of these tiny amounts of biological
agents to cause great harm; it's something we
need to get after. And I don't understand why
they are not for getting after it. What can they
possibly get out of it? If he really cares about his
people. He is always talking about how bad his
people have been hurt by sanctions. If he cared
he would open all these sites and let people go
in and look at them. If he's telling the truth,
and there's really nothing there, and what
benefit does the United States have now for
stopping the United Nations from lifting the
sanctions? I have done everything I've been
asked to do. Even though we have got
reservations about it, we would have a hard time
answering that question.
MR. LEHRER: Would you go along with lifting the sanctions.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Our position is if
he complies with all the United Nations
sanctions, the conditions of all U.N. resolutions
leading to sanctions, that's what we want Iraq to
do. But he wants to have it both ways. He wants
to get the sanction lifted because he thinks
people want to do business with him and he wants
to continue to pursue a weapons program that is dangerous, we
think, is dangerous to the world and our
position. I want him to think about it and let
these inspectors go back.
MR. LEHRER: One more foreign policy
area, and that is Bosnia. That hasn't worked out
how you hoped has it?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, not as fast
as I had hopped but the Dayton Peace Agreement is
very much alive and well, and we have separated
the troops, I mean the forces and the people, and
we have got some relocation going on and we have
collected a lot of bad weapons and destroyed
them, and we are making some progress on the
joint institutions and other things and we are
trying to get that country together. And I must
say, I was very impressed on my recent trip there
by the level of support for the United States and
the international community and our presence
there, the level of support for our staying
there, and the level of commitment of so many
people to genuine pursuit the peace. And I
think we can make it in Bosnia. Do I think we
could all withdraw by now; yes, I did. That's
the down side, but if you had told me you can go
there and stay a couple of years and there won't
be any gunfire and the only people you'll lose
will be in accidents of one kind or another, and
you will have, you will get an increasing amount of harmony in the urbanized areas that you hadn't thought you
would get, I think we would be happy about that.
So I am going to stay after this, again this may be my congenital optimism, but I
believe we are going to make Bosnia peace work.
MR. LEHRER: U.S. troops are going to have to be there a long time, aren't they Mr. President?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, that depends on how long it takes to achieve
the mission. It invites recalcitrants on the parts
of any party in Bosnia that don't want to do something that is in
the Dayton Peace Agreement, if the Americans
say we're leaving in a year and the Europeans say
we're going to leave as soon as they do, then the people who have to make the changes say, all I have to do is wait a year and I won't have to make any changes at all. So I think we should lift the sort of time certain...
MR. LEHRER: No more deadlines?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- for withdrawal. Yeah. Because it -- you
know, the world community really hasn't done anything like this in a
while. Not like this. And it's very complicated. But on the other
hand at bottom it's about people getting along together and working
together and serving together as citizens. And I have been quite
impressed by how much has been done.
MR. LEHRER: We've been talking now about all these foreign
policy things. And I was just -- if you'd go back through here, only
the U.S. can keep peace in Bosnia, only the U.S. can make peace in the
Middle East, only the U.S. can stabilize --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Facilitate peace.
MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Facilitate peace.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Facilitate peace.
MR. LEHRER: Okay, facilitate peace.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: They got to make the peace.
MR. LEHRER: Okay. Only the U.S. can help stabilize the
economies of Asia. Only the U.S. can stare down Saddam Hussein and
Iraq. If there are going to be any coalitions, the U.S. has to
organize them and make them work. Is this the role of the United
States of America for the immediate future?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, it's a big part of it. But it also is
a part of our role to put together a broad coalition on the climate
change treaty to deal with global warming. It's also our role to put
together global efforts to stiffen our efforts against biological
warfare, to put together, you know, a global effort to support the
International Monetary Fund and the nations themselves in dealing with
the Asian financial crisis. We live in a world that's interdependent
in two or three ways.
Number one, what happens in one country affects what happens in
another one. We can see that.
Number two, what happens on economic issues increasingly have a
security impact, and vice versa.
You know, I mean, I'll just give you the most blatant example is
there's all these articles in the paper about all these countries that
their currency dropped and, therefore, they can't buy jet airplanes
for their air forces. That's the most obvious case.
MR. LEHRER: Thailand being an example of that, yeah.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yeah. And so there's the economics and the
security, there's the national and the international -- there's all
this interdependence. And I just think that in this world, if you
happen to be at the moment it's occurring, that this huge new world of
interdependence is occurring, and plus you've got all this
interdependence at a citizen level with the Internet exploding and the
information explosion, we're going to have all kinds of implications
with the scientific explosions going on now, and we just happen to be,
at this moment in history, the strongest and the wealthiest country
around. It is a unique gift for our people. They've worked hard for
it, but it's still a blessing. But it's also a unique responsibility.
And, you know, looking back over the last five years -- I just
celebrated my fifth anniversary here -- I think that our
administration has had good success in changing the role of government
and changing the debate about government from -- you know, the debate
I heard for the 12 years before I got here was the government was the
problem versus as a solution. And we sort of come up with, "No, no.
Government's neither. Government's a catalyst. It's got to give
people the tools to solve their own problems. It's got to be a good
partner. It's got to empower neighborhoods and people."
So we've got a smaller, more active government, and yet we've
invested more in education, more in science and technology, more in
the environment. And it's working. We've got good results.
We've not been as successful in convincing people in very
practical terms about the interdependence of foreign and domestic
policy, of economic and security policy. We just haven't been. But
I'm hoping we can be more successful.
MR. LEHRER: Because the way it would come back to you would be
this way, Mr. President. If there's a problem -- like if Asia has an
economic problem, we're the folks that send the most money. You've
got a problem in Bosnia, Somalia, a military problem, we're the ones
who send the most troops. That's how it translates in --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yeah, but if you look at it, if you look at
-- there are some areas in the Bosnia peacekeeping operation, like
civilian police, for example, where the Europeans have nine times as
many as we do -- we put up more money -- I mean, you look at the
different allocations. If you look at what's going on in the United
Nations, if the congressional position --which is that we ought to
have our U.N. dues lowered to 20 percent -- prevails, since a lot of
really poor countries pay even less than their fair share of the
world's GNP, we'd actually be getting off light compared to many, many
other countries -- really light.
So it's just not true that we always pay an unfair share. But it
is true that we are called upon to bear the largest burden. If it
helps us, I think if we ought to do it. And if it's right and we can
do it at an acceptable price, we ought to do it, whether or not we're
sure it helps us.
But if you -- it's hard to quarrel with the argument that we've
been hurt by having 220-odd trade agreements in the last five years
when you look at what's happened, and a third of our growth coming out
of trade. It's hard to quarrel with the argument that we've been hurt
by our leadership in Bosnia or the MIddle East or Northern Ireland or
any of these other places. It's hard to quarrel with the fact that
our efforts to work with other countries to deal with chemical and
biological and nuclear weapons, to deal with climate change, to deal
with global disease spread, those things are good for Americans right
where they live.
And we just simply don't have an option to say, "Well, I'm sorry;
it looks bad in the newspaper today, so I think I'll check out of this
old world." But it looked pretty good there for a couple of years and
we were getting a whole lot more than we were giving,
so we liked that. We've got to be consistent. And we've got to
realize that there is an interdependence within our country on each
other and beyond our country.
And I've been working on that, and I'm supposed to be a pretty
good communicator, but I don't think I've done as well as I need to.
I've got to do more to persuade people.
MR. LEHRER: On a domestic issue, one that you've also been
talking about a lot -- recently, in particular, but you've always
talked about it -- and that's the racial divisions in this country.
Where would you put that in terms of your own concerns and the
concerns that you think the average American should have about their
country right now as we sit here?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I think the average American should be
concerned about it particularly as it relates to the racial
disparities and the results we get in living and working and educating
in America. I mean, if you look at the number of minorities who are
in poor inner city schools where the performance is lower than it
should be, if you look at the number of people who either don't have
jobs or are still underemployed, no matter how strong the economy is,
if you look at the patterns of opportunity wherever there are
differences, I think we should be concerned about that.
And we don't have to -- you know, we don't have to have a fight
over affirmative action every time. We can actually say, you know,
how are we going to make it possible for more people to live together,
learn together, and serve together, work together, at the same level
of excellence? I think everybody should be concerned about it. I
think everybody ought to be concerned about discrimination where it
still exists; and it still does.
And finally, you know, the vice president gave a brilliant speech
on Martin Luther King's Day, Monday, down in Atlanta, talking about
how profoundly embedded in the human heart and culture and history the
feelings of racial prejudice are.
And I think it's really worth -- if we're going to be an
interdependent country leading an interdependent world, then all this
interdependence has got to work. And with all of our diversity, we've
got to keep working on our hardest. It's not just a question of
Education. You got to really work at it all the time.
MR. LEHRER: Why are you having trouble getting some blunt talk started on this?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't know. We finally got some blunt talk
going on affirmative action. And there were some pretty compelling
stories told in Phoenix the other day. But I would like to see some
blunt talk, you know, we --
MR. LEHRER: On affirmative action?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, we had some blunt talk on affirmative
action. I don't think the whole debate ought to be about affirmative
action. I mean, you know, look at what we've done, for example, with
something that's supposed to have a civil rights impact that's largely
economic -- the Community Reinvestment Act. Passed in 1977, over 20
years ago. Now, the Community Reinvestment Act was set up to say to
the bank regulators: Look, you guys go in and look at these banks and
tell them, you got to take some of your money and invest it in inner
cities and neighborhoods, and with people who otherwise would not get
it so they have a chance to build homes, to build businesses, to
create jobs, to build neighborhoods.
In the 20-year history of the Community Investment Act, 85
percent-plus the money loaned out under it to poor inner city
neighborhoods has been loaned in the five years since I've been
President.
So I think there are things we can do to improve education, to
improve job growth, to -- not just having jobs, but also income and
ownership among minorities, to create opportunities for service that
will bring people together that will also mean fewer racial
discrimination claims that have to be dealt with by government, and
also, I think will help to tame the savage heart that still lurks
within so many of us.
MR. LEHRER: What should the American people think about their
president right now? You're going into your -- the last three years
of your administration, you've got all this controversy today, you've
got all kinds of things in the air --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think they ought to first of all think that
-- I came to office in -- after the '92 election with a real theory of
what I wanted to do to build America's bridge to the 21st Century;
that I wanted to strengthen our union, and I wanted to broaden our set
of opportunities, I wanted to deepen our freedom, and I wanted to
prepare for this modern world.
I had an idea about changing the philosophy of government, which
I talked about earlier. I had an idea that all of our policies ought
to be rooted in my three little words: opportunity, responsibility
and community. We had a plan for changing the economic policy of the
country, the welfare policy of the country, the crime policy of the
country, the policy helping people balance work and family;
integrating economic and other kinds of foreign policy -- we had all
these plans. And I think you'd have to say, on balance, it's working
pretty good.
So the first thing I would hope they say is, the President might
be right about his philosophy of government and the values and the
principles that we ought to be looking to, and about this whole
interdependence business. Because we do have the lowest unemployment
rate, the lowest inflation rate in a generation, the lowest crime rate
in a generation, the biggest drop in welfare ever, dropping rates of
juvenile Crime, teen pregnancy, drug use. And we -- we're moving
ahead in the world.
The second thing I'd like for them to say is, we've still got
some significant challenges out there before we are completely
prepared for this new era. We've got the entitlement challenge -- how
are our parents going to be on Social Security and how are the baby
boomers going to be on Social Security without bankrupting their kids?
We've got the work and family challenge still there. How -- how can
you do the most important work of society, raising children, and still
be good at work? We've got the environment and economy challenge out
there. How do you deal with climate change and clean air, clean
water, safe food, diseases spreading, all this sort of stuff,
preserving the environment, growing the economy? Those are just three
of the big changes out there.
Look at the world. We all -- you know, in America we talk about
diversity, and it's a real positive thing. We say we're going to get
all these people together. In a world where the Internet can also
give you information about how to make a terrorist bomb, and there's
more and more diversity among religious and racial and ethnic hatreds,
how can you make sure the world is about community, not conflict?
These are huge questions. And I don't think any serious person
believes we've resolved all these questions.
So when I look at '98, yes, I want to balance the budget. Yes,
I've got this great child-care initiative, which deals with work and
family. I've got a Medicare initiative and the Medicare commission,
which deals with our -- honoring our obligations to our parents. But
we've still got a bunch of work to do.
So the second thing I want them to say is, "Yes, he was right at
the first five years, and we're way ahead of where we were five years
ago. But we've got a huge amount to do yet, a huge amount before
we're really ready for the year 2000 and the 21st Century."
MR. LEHRER: But on a more personal level, Mr. President, you're
beginning -- you're a week from your State of the Union address, and
here you've got -- you've been -- you're under investigation for a
very, very serious crime and -- allegation of a serious crime. I
mean, what does that do to your ability to do all of these things that
we've been talking about, whether it's the Middle East or whether it's
child-care reform or what?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I've got to do my best. You know, I'd
be -- I'd be less than candid if I said it was, you know, just hunky-
dory. You know, these -- but I've been living with this sort of thing
for a long time. And my experience has been, unfortunately,
sometimes, you know, when one charge dies, another one just lifts up
to take its place.
But I can tell you, whatever I feel about it, I owe it to the
American people to put it in a little box and keep working for them.
This job is not like other jobs, in that sense.
You can't -- it's not -- you don't get to take a vacation from your
obligations to the whole country. You just have to, you know,
remember why you ran, understand what's happening and why, and, you
know, go back and hit it tomorrow. That's all you can do.
MR. LEHRER: But going back to what we said at the beginning when
we were talking about it, isn't this one different than all the
others? This one isn't about a land deal in Arkansas, or it's not
even about sex, it's about other things, about a serious matter. Do
you -- I mean --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, but all the others, a lot of them were
about serious matters --
MR. LEHRER: Sure. I don't mean --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: -- they just faded away.
MR. LEHRER: I'm not suggesting that they weren't serious. But I mean --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't mean -- I just -- all I can tell you
is, I'll do my best to help them get to the bottom of it. I did not
ask anybody to lie under oath. I did not do that. That's the
allegation. I didn't do it. And we'll just get to the bottom of it,
we'll go on.
And meanwhile, I've got to keep working at this. I can't just --
you know, ignore the fact that every day that passes is one more day
that I don't have to do what I came here to do. And I think the
results that America has enjoyed indicates it's a pretty good argument
for doing what I came here to do.
MR. LEHRER: That whatever the personal things may be, the polls
show that the people approve of your job as president, even though
they may not have that high regard -- that high regard of you as a
person.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, hardly anyone has ever been subject to
the level of attack I have. You know, it made a lot of people mad
when I got elected president. And the better the country does, it
seems like the madder some of them get.
But that's -- you know, that's not important. What's important
here is what happens to the American people. I mean, there are
sacrifices to being president, and in some periods of history, the
price is higher than others. I'm just doing the best I can for my
country.
MR. LEHRER: We're sitting here in the Roosevelt Room in the
White House. It's 4:15 Eastern Time. All of the cable news
organizations have been full of this story all day. The newspapers
are probably going to be full of it tomorrow. And the news may --
this story is going to be there and be there and be there. The Paula
Jones trial coming up in May. And you're going to be --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I'm looking forward to that.
MR. LEHRER: Why?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Because I believe that the evidence will show
what I have been saying; that I did not do what I was accused of doing.
It's very difficult -- you know, one of the things that people
learn is you can charge people with all kinds of things; it's almost
impossible to prove your innocence. That's almost impossible to do.
I think I'll be able to do that. We're working hard at it.
MR. LEHRER: What about the additional element here?
You're the President of the United States. Certainly you've got
personal things that you want to prove or disprove, et cetera. But
when does it, just the process, become demeaning to the presidency? I
mean, somebody said -- in fact, just said it on our program, that this
trial in May will be tabloid nirvana and --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I tried to spare the country that.
That's the only reason that we asked the Supreme Court to affirm that,
absent some terrible emergency, the president shouldn't be subject to
suits so that he wouldn't become a political target. They made a
different decision. And they made a decision that this was good for
the country. And so I'm taking it and dealing with it the best I can.
MR. LEHRER: And the new thing? They're going to be -- you know,
pour it on, nothing's going to change?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have got to go to work every day.
You know, whatever people say about me, whatever happens to me, I
can't say that people didn't tell me they were going to go after me
because they thought I represented a new direction in American
politics and they thought we could make things better. And I can't
say that they haven't been as good as their word every day, you know.
Just a whole bunch of them are trying to make sure that gets done. But
I just have to keep working at it.
You know, I didn't come here for money or power or anything else.
I came here to spend my time, to do my job, and go back to my life.
That's all I want to do -- and that's what I'm trying to do -- for the
best interests of America. And so far the results have been good, and
I just hope the people keep that in mind.
MR. LEHRER: Mr. President, thank you very much.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you. Jim.
MR. LEHRER: You had no conversations
with this woman, Monica Lewinski, about her
testimony, possible testimony, before -- in
giving a deposition?
MR. LEHRER: What about your having --
another one of the allegations is that you may have asked or the allegation has
been investigated that you asked your friend,
Vernon Jordan, to do that.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: And I will cooperate with the investigation.