    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [November 7, 1993]
    [Pages 1920-1931]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Timothy Russert and Tom Brokaw on ``Meet the Press''
    November 7, 1993

        Mr. Russert. Welcome again to ``Meet the Press,'' today a special
    edition live from the White House. I'm with my colleague, Tom Brokaw.
        Mr. President, this is our 46th birthday. You're 47. You strike me
    as the kind of guy who maybe watched the first program from your cradle.
    [Laughter]
        The President. I wish I could. I didn't have a television then. I
    was 1 when you started, but I was 9, I think, when we got our first
    television in 1956. So I couldn't start, but I did watch it often after
    that.

    NAFTA

        Mr. Russert. Well, it's great to have you here. Let's start--we'll
    have to talk about it today--let's start with NAFTA, the North American
    Free Trade Agreement. Your closest supporters say that if the vote were
    held today, you're still 30 votes short. True?
        The President. I don't think we're quite that short, but we're 30
    votes short of having explicit expressed commitments. I think we'll make
    it, however.
        Mr. Russert. What role has Ross Perot played in this debate?
        The President. I think he's kept things stirred up. That's what he
    likes to do. But I think, frankly, the vociferous organized opposition
    of most of the unions, telling these Members in private they'll never
    give them any money again, they'll get them opponents in the primary,
    the real roughshod, muscle-bound tactics, plus the fact that a lot of
    the business supporters of NAFTA have not gotten their employees and
    rank-and-file people to call and say they're for it. In any issue like
    this, the intensity is always with people who are against it. Those
    things are difficult.
        But again I will say I have been quite heartened by the responses of
    the last 10 days, more and more of these Members of Congress, men and
    women who want to do right by their country, don't want to hurt the
    United States, and understand that NAFTA means more jobs, not just in
    Mexico but throughout Latin America, a huge trading bloc of people
    helping to take us to the 21st century.

    NAFTA Television Debate

        Mr. Russert. Bob Dole mentioned last night that you were elevating
    Ross Perot. Are you concerned that you're going to recreate a monster?
        The President. No, Ross Perot has got enough money to elevate
    himself. He can buy his way on national television and buy his own
    exposure and have very little accountability, except when he makes the
    mistake of coming on this program with you.
        Mr. Russert. Without his charts. [Laughter]
        The President. Yes. The same mistake I made today. [Laughter] I
    think the Vice President will do well. Ross Perot is the master of the
    one-liner and the emotional retort, but I believe that the Vice
    President has an unusual command of the facts and a real commitment, a
    profound commitment to this issue. And the American people who watch
    Larry King will see that it's no accident that all the Presidents,
    living Presidents, and all the living Nobel Prize-winning economists and
    41 of the 50 Governors are for this. It's good for the American economy.
        Mr. Russert. Are you trying to demonstrate to the undecided
    Democratic Congressmen, listen, this is a choice between Clinton-Gore
    and Perot?
        The President. Absolutely not. He is a visible spokesperson for
    this. As I said to you, at least for the undecided Democrats, our big
    problem is the raw muscle, the sort of naked pressure

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    that the labor forces have put on.
        Mr. Russert. Are you afraid the Democratic Congressmen are in the
    pocket of labor?
        The President. No, I didn't say that. But I said that a lot of them
    are saying, ``Well, I'm not hearing from these business people who are
    for it; their employees are not telling me they're for it. And I'm
    hearing from all these people either pleading with me based on
    friendship or threatening me based on money and work in the campaign.
    And I don't hear it.''
        So I think what we want to do and what the Vice President's trying
    to do here, and this was his idea, is to let the American people listen.
    Yes, Ross Perot is against it. Yes, a number of other people, Pat
    Buchanan and others, are against it. But if all the Presidents are for
    it, all the Secretaries of State, all the Nobel Prize-winning
    economists, who've never agreed on anything the rest of their lives
    probably, and virtually all of the Governors are for it, it must be good
    for the American economy.
        Mr. Russert. We have, in fact, lost jobs to Mexico. And their
    concern is we'll lose more, and also the depressed wages. There's a
    clause in the treaty which, with 6 months' notice, any side can void it.
    Would you say to the American people that if the treaty passes, you'll
    monitor it? And if, say, in 2 years you are convinced there is a sucking
    of jobs and a depression of wages, you would move to abrogate the
    treaty?
        The President. If I thought the treaty were bad for the American
    economy, of course, I would do that. But let me tell you, there's
    another provision of the treaty that we negotiated that I also want to
    emphasize because it goes more to the heart of what many Americans are
    worried about. It deals with the so-called surge problem. That's a term
    of art which in common language means, well, what if this is a good deal
    for America and a good deal for Mexico, but some part of our economy, or
    theirs, to be fair, has an overwhelmingly negative impact? If something
    that nobody ever dreamed happened, there's also a provision that allows
    us to slow the agreement down as it applies to that.
        So there's no question that we have the protections we need. We can
    get out in 6 months if it's bad for us, and we can stop anything
    horrible and unforeseen. This treaty is going to make the problems with
    Mexico of the last 15 years better. It will raise labor costs in Mexico;
    it will raise the environmental investments in Mexico; it will reduce
    the trade barriers to our selling products in Mexico. It means more
    sales and more jobs.
        And also keep in mind, Mexico is just 5 percent of the American
    economy. It will improve our relationships with our biggest neighbor and
    thereby help us to take this kind of deal to the rest of Latin America
    so that we can establish a 700-million-person trading bloc. That's real
    jobs for America.

    APEC Meeting and NAFTA

        Mr. Russert. The day after the vote November 17th, the next day, on
    the 18th, you leave for Seattle to meet with 14 other nations, China,
    Japan. If you go there having lost NAFTA, what does it do to your
    standing?
        The President. Well, I'd say I'd sure rather not do it. Let me give
    you the flip side. If I go there and NAFTA passes in the House, it will
    be a clear statement to Asia, number one, that the United States is not
    withdrawing from the world, that we are determined to be the world's
    leading economic power by competing and winning, not from running away.
    Number two, I will be able to say what I have been saying to the Asians:
    Asia is important to us, but we want free trade, we want access to your
    markets.
        They will see us developing the NAFTA market, which is not just
    Mexico, it's Latin America, Canada, the whole 9 yards. And that will be
    enormous pressure on them to conclude these world trade agreements,
    these GATT talks by the end of the year. It will also help us with
    Europe to do that.
        So I can't tell you how important I think it will be. If we go out
    there without this agreement, they may say, ``Well, President Clinton
    wants to have an open door to Asia, but is he really going to be a tough
    competitor? They ran away from Latin America, their best friends and
    best consumers. And can he deliver? Will the Congress run away from him
    even if he tries to expand trade?'' My ability to get done what is
    plainly in the economic interest of this country will be weakened.
        Now, that's very important, because almost all these people who are
    against NAFTA are still for the GATT talks, for the big treaty on world
    trade. They all know it will create hundreds of thousands of
    manufacturing jobs for America. They should consider how much harder
    it's going to be to get GATT if the House

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    votes NAFTA down and how much easier it will be to get GATT if the House
    adopts NAFTA.

    Health Care Reform

        Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, let's talk about health care. There's
    been a lot of confusion about the numbers coming out of the White House.
    Mrs. Clinton went to the Hill and said that if the Clinton plan passes,
    costs will go up for about 35 percent to 37 percent of those now
    covered. Then Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services,
    said 40 percent. Last week, Leon Panetta said 30 percent. Even your
    strongest advocates, like Jay Rockefeller, were holding their heads, in
    effect, in anguish. Another Democrat said, ``We've got to prove that
    Democrats can count.'' Hasn't your credibility been hurt on the whole
    cost issue?
        The President. Maybe, but what I would like to emphasize is we're
    the only people who have a plan. It's very easy for everybody else to
    sit up in the peanut gallery. This is a very complex thing. And keep in
    mind, you're talking about small amounts of money, is this person going
    to pay $6 more a month or $60 less a month, trying to calculate how it
    would go if this plan would be passed just as it is.
        Now, let me say what was wrong with the early figures, where they
    said 40 percent of the people with insurance would pay more. Here's what
    was wrong with them, why they were too high. Of the people who have
    insurance today, we now think that 70 percent will pay the same or less
    for the same or better benefits. Why did they say 60 before? Because
    they neglected to calculate this: A lot of people who have insurance
    don't really have it. That is, they have $5,000 deductibles, so they're
    paying every year. They just may not be paying it in their insurance
    premium. So they went back and calculated based on what we now know
    about how much out-of-pocket people pay. You have $2,500, $3,000, $5,000
    deductible. That is something they neglected to think about.
        So now who will pay more under this, who has insurance already?
    People who have essentially catastrophic policies, that have very
    limited benefits, and young, single workers will pay more because if
    they pay more it will enable us to have what's called community rating,
    so that if a working family--middle-aged working family--with a sick
    child can still get insurance at an affordable cost. And all young
    workers who don't have insurance will be brought into the insurance
    system, and even they will get something for it. That is, what they get
    for it is knowing their insurance can ever be taken away. There will be
    a floor.
        Finally, let me say this: If you look at the experience of the last
    12 years when health costs really started to take off, and then you
    think about what it will be like 5 years from now, 100 percent of the
    American people will pay more 5 years from now than the rate of
    inflation if we don't do something. In other words, at least what we're
    trying to do will lower the rate of increase for all the American
    people. So within 5 years everybody will be better off, I believe.
        Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, no one disagrees with the idea that you
    have engaged the country in a debate about health care which is long
    overdue. But the fact is that you want to add 37 million people to the
    insurance pool. There are new technologies coming on board all the time
    that cost a lot more money. You're willing to pick up the early
    retirement benefits for corporations. You've added mental health and
    free prescriptions. It seems to a lot of folks that you ought to be
    going slower and that you ought to accept kind of phased-in universal
    health care coverage in 5 years. Would that be acceptable to you?
        The President. But the problem is--we are phasing it in over 3
    years, through all of '90. We're anticipating passing this program in
    '94 and then letting people have '95, '96, and '97. But let me
    emphasize, Tom, the people who make that argument assume something that
    we assume all the time in America, that we just can't do things that
    other people can do. We tolerate conditions in America that are
    intolerable in other countries.
        Now, the condition we tolerate by not having everybody insured is
    higher health care costs. That is, you've got folks in medicine in your
    family, you know this, not insuring everybody raises health care costs
    because all those people without insurance, if they need health care,
    will get it. They'll get it when it's too late, too expensive, and
    someone else will pay for it. And that rifles the cost. So by
    accelerating the moment of universal coverage, you not only do the
    morally right thing by finally letting America join the ranks of all
    these other advanced countries in giving everybody health security, you
    immediately begin to lower the rate at which costs

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    increase.
        So you can argue about all these other things, but it seems to me
    delaying the time of universal coverage will aggravate the price battle,
    not make it better. We assume that universal coverage will cost more
    when every other country that has universal coverage is paying much less
    than we are and having less inflation.

    Living Will

        Mr. Brokaw. Would you sign a living will publicly? About one-third
    of our health care costs in America go to the last year of life. Mrs.
    Clinton has talked about you doing that. Are you prepared to do that?
        The President. I certainly would sign one. I don't know if I would
    do it in public, but I'd be glad to tell you what's in it. I don't know,
    I've never thought about a public demonstration of a private act like
    that. But we've given a lot of thought to it because of the experience I
    had with my stepfather when he died, when Hillary's dad died earlier
    this year. I think families should think about living wills and should
    have them. It's not something that Government should impose on them. But
    we do have a lot of extra costs that most people believe are unnecessary
    in the system, and that's one way to weed some of them out.

    Health Care Reform

        Mr. Brokaw. And ultimately, are we going to have to come to health
    rationing in America, especially those heroic procedures that are long
    on odds and very expensive, take that money and spend it on prenatal
    care and other procedures that might extend life at the beginning, not
    at the end?
        The President. Well, let me say before we make that decision, we
    should acknowledge two things. One is, we're rationing health care right
    now. There's a huge rationing going on now. It's just a roll of the dice
    whether you have it or not and what you get.
        What we do know is that if our plan passes and we put more emphasis
    on primary and preventive health care and primary physicians getting out
    there and taking care of people and stopping bad things from happening,
    we'll have less need for those extreme procedures.
        I do not believe we want America to pull back from the technological
    advances that we all treasure. I do not believe we want to tell people
    they can't have procedures that have a realistic chance of saving their
    lives or returning them to normal. So I suspect they'll always be
    willing to pay a little more than any other country in the world to do
    that. But if we do more on the primary side, we'll be better off.
        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, you're still confident we'll get a
    health care bill by next year?
        The President. Oh, I think we will, absolutely.
        Mr. Russert. We have to take a break. We'll be back with more from
    President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. We'll talk a little bit about
    foreign policy.

    [At this point, the television stations took a commercial break.]

    North Korea

        Mr. Russert. We're back live from the Oval Office.
        Mr. President, a lot of growing concern about North Korea, a country
    that we fought some 40 years ago. Will you allow North Korea to build a
    nuclear bomb?
        The President. North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear
    bomb. We have to be very firm about it. This is a difficult moment in
    our relationship with them and, I think, a difficult moment for them.
    They're one of the most, perhaps the most isolated country in the world,
    with enormous economic problems, trying to decide what direction to take
    now, sometimes seeming to reach out to South Korea, sometimes seeming to
    draw back.
        I spend a lot of time on this issue. It's a very, very major issue.
    We have got to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and
    particularly North Korea needs to stay in the control regime. They don't
    need to withdraw. Now, there is a lot of disagreement about what we
    should do now. I just want to assure you and the American people that we
    are doing everything we possibly can to make the best decisions, to be
    firm in this. We are consulting with our allies in South Korea and
    Japan. They are most immediately affected by what we do and how we do
    it. And we have worked with the Chinese who, despite our other
    differences, have helped us to try to work through this.
        Mr. Russert. Would one of the options be a preemptive strike, the
    way the Israelis took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor?
        The President. I don't think I should discuss any specific options
    today. All I can tell you is that I tried to issue the sternest,
    clearest

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    possible statement about this when I was in Korea. Nothing has changed
    since then. I think you asked me a question about it one time also, Tom.
    This is a very grave issue for the United States.
        Mr. Russert. There are 800,000 North Korean troops amassed on the
    South Korean border. If the North Koreans invaded South Korea, would
    that, in effect, be an attack on the United States?
        The President. Absolutely. We have our soldiers there. They know
    that. We still have people stationed near the Bridge of No Return. I was
    up there on the bridge; I was in those bunkers with our young Americans.
    They know that any attack on South Korea is an attack on the United
    States.

    Russia

        Mr. Brokaw. President Yeltsin of Russia has said over the weekend
    that he wants to now delay the Presidential election until 1996. That is
    a full term for him, but he had said publicly that he would do it in the
    spring of next year. You had endorsed that. Now for him to pull back
    from that public commitment to elections next spring, is that a mistake
    on his part?
        The President. I have not spoken with him directly, because I
    didn't--late yesterday evening I was made aware of his comments, so I'm
    not sure exactly what he said and exactly what he meant. His comments
    are subject to more than one interpretation. I do think the following
    things. I think he had always assumed he would run for reelection, and
    his comments seem to indicate that he may not want to do that and he may
    want to simply finish his term. As long as he is promoting democracy, as
    long as he is promoting human rights, as long as he is promoting reform,
    I think the United States should support him. He has been brave and
    consistent. I think on this issue, we'll have to see how it plays out.
    I'm sure after the elections of the Parliament in December, they will
    have something to say about it.
        One of the things that Boris Yeltsin has really understood is that
    it's not good if he's the only source of legitimate democratic power in
    Russia. And he is now. He's been elected twice by the Russian people in
    the last couple of years. After December, we'll have another major
    player, sort of like the President and the Congress here. And as we
    know, there will be a different source of legitimate democratic power,
    and we'll see how it works out.

    China

        Mr. Brokaw. Let me ask you about China. You said during the course
    of the campaign that President Bush coddles China despite a continuing
    crackdown on democratic reformers, the brutal subjugation of Tibet, the
    irresponsible exportation of military and nuclear technology. Your
    administration now is demonstrably warming up toward China. Have
    conditions changed there?
        The President. Well first of all, let's talk about what we've done.
    The Chinese have complained because they think we've been so much firmer
    and colder. We imposed sanctions because of weapons technology transfers
    that the Chinese engaged in that we opposed. So we have taken steps
    there that were not taken previously.
        But we also have had a consistent economic relationship with them.
    The United States this year will purchase 38 percent of China's
    exports--little-known fact. The American people, not the American
    business community that wants to invest there. American people have been
    very good to the Chinese people in supporting their economic advances.
    We believe their movement toward market reform and decentralization will
    promote more democracy in China and better policies.
        I want to engage President Jiang on that, and I think we can do so.
    But we also have to be very firm on these issues of proliferation of
    weapons of mass destruction and human rights. But I think we have to
    pursue both courses at once. I don't think you can isolate a country as
    big as China, as important to the world's future as China, but neither
    can you simply turn away from things that you cannot abide. And that's
    what we've tried to do. We've tried to strike the right balance, and I
    think we have.

    United Nations Peacekeeping Efforts

        Mr. Brokaw. Even some of your partisans on Capitol Hill believe that
    you've not shown a strong enough hand on foreign policy. After your
    experience in Somalia, will you be as eager to get involved with the
    United Nations in operations of that kind in the future?
        The President. I think what we have to do is to recognize that the
    United Nations peacekeeping function is still very important and
    sometimes works very, very well. What they've

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    done in Cambodia, with our financial support but with no Americans
    there, is truly remarkable. Will it transform Cambodia? Who knows? Maybe
    it will all go back to the way it was, but at least the United Nations
    has given Cambodia a chance. That is what we are doing for Somalia. Will
    they be able to overcome their historic, deeply embedded clan warfare?
    I'm not sure. But at least we're giving them a chance.
        What's wrong with the United Nations peacekeeping operations is that
    it's too much of an ad hoc thing: Some work, some don't, and a lot of
    the command and control operations, a lot of the training details, a lot
    of the simple organizational things that are important have not been
    worked through. So the United States favors a substantial restructuring
    and upgrading of the peacekeeping operations in ways that would permit
    us to participate in the future with a much higher level of confidence.

    Somalia

        Mr. Russert. Let's turn to Somalia, Mr. President. The reports
    yesterday that the United States troops will take again a very visible
    role. What does that mean?
        The President. Well, when I announced that we would pursue the
    political objective a few weeks ago, I also said we would stay there and
    complete our mission. Our mission there is to deliver the humanitarian
    supplies and to keep the lines of communications open. We stood down
    from patrolling the roads when the voluntary cease-fire was announced in
    Somalia, to try to let things calm down and to try to get the political
    process going. Now that there is a political process, as always is the
    case, there's also a lot of maneuvering in a quasi-military sort of way.
    We cannot allow that to undermine the humanitarian mission, and our
    people cannot be expected, our young soldiers there cannot be expected
    to just sort of hunker down and stay behind walls. It almost puts them
    at greater risk. So we have to go out now and make sure the ordinary
    conditions of the U.N. peacekeeping mission are continued even in
    Mogadishu. And that's what we're doing.
        Mr. Russert. The Secretary-General of the U.N., Boutros Boutros-
    Ghali, said that unless you disarm the warlords and the clans and put
    together and fashion a political settlement before you leave, the
    mission will have been a failure.
        The President. I disagree with that. First of all, that's the
    argument he made to the Bush administration. President Bush's
    administration simply refused to get involved in disarmament. Arguably,
    it would have been easier then, at the moment when we came in, when
    everybody was starving and we were at our moment of maximum popularity
    and leverage, but I'm not sure that decision is wrong.
        In the end, the international community will have to broker
    political resolutions within countries. But our ability to stop people
    within national boundaries from killing each other is somewhat limited
    and will be for the foreseeable future. I mean, they are going to have
    to make up their mind. I think the better course is to get these African
    nations, to get Ethiopia, to get Eritrea, to get their neighbors
    involved in trying to work out a political solution.
        Those people now remember what it was like before we came there.
    We're going to do everything we can in the next several months to get
    this political solution going. But for us to go in and disarm would run
    the risk of our becoming, in effect, combatants on one side or the
    other, particularly if some said, yes, we'll disarm, and others said no.
        Mr. Russert. In retrospect then, it was a mistake for you to send
    the Rangers to try to capture Mr. Aideed?
        The President. No, that was a different issue. The mistake was--and
    I want to clarify this, because I am proud of what those Rangers did.
    The ones who gave their lives did not die in vain. The ones who gave
    their lives and were wounded in the last instance did it because of the
    tradition of the Rangers of never leaving anybody behind, even someone
    who has been killed. And I feel terrible about what happened.
        But what they were doing is trying to enforce the law. Their mission
    was to try to arrest people who were suspected of murdering the
    Pakistani U.N. soldiers. The mistake was not that they were trying to do
    that. The mistake was that we were out doing that, and while we were
    doing that the political dialog shut down, so that the people that were
    associated with Aideed thought we, the U.N., not we, the U.S., but we,
    the U.N., were trying to cut them out of Somalia's future. And what we
    had tried to do is to lower our profile on the military police side so
    that the political dialog can start again. Now that that's going on,
    we're going to do the U.N. mandate.
        Mr. Russert. And all troops will be out by

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    March 31st?
        The President. Yes.
        Mr. Russert. Quickly on Haiti.
        The President. If I can go back to my statement. They'll be out by
    March 31st, except for a couple of hundred support personnel who may be
    there to do just logistical things that----
        Mr. Russert. Which is what you said before.
        The President. That's right.

    Haiti

        Mr. Russert. Haiti. The military leaders have refused to meet. Your
    policy, the United States policy is to reinstate Mr. Aristide. Is it now
    time to broaden the embargo from just fuel to everything?
        The President. We have to strengthen the embargo. There are two
    options. We can, in effect, have a total embargo and try to shut the
    country down. That will be more painful in the near term to the average
    Haitians who are already suffering. We can also try to do something that
    will target those people that are causing this problem, which is to get
    all of the other nations in the world to side with us in freezing the
    assets of the wealthy Haitians who are plundering that country, keeping
    democracy from taking root, and supporting the police chief and the
    military. I would prefer to do that, but I'm not going to rule out the
    other things. And we're following this on a daily basis, spending a lot
    of time with it.
        Mr. Russert. So we could have a complete embargo on all goods?
        The President. That is an option, but I also hope that the other
    wealthy nations of the world that have assets deposited from these
    Haitian interests who are keeping democracy from returning will join us
    in freezing those assets. That would really help. That would do more in
    less time to change the political climate than anything.
        Mr. Russert. President Bush invaded Panama to remove Noriega. Would
    you consider invading Haiti to reinstate Aristide?
        The President. I don't want to rule anything in or out. But let me
    just say that there's a difference here, though. He went to Panama not
    only to remove Noriega for the Panamanians but because Noriega, himself,
    was wanted for violating American law as a drugrunner.
        Prime Minister Malval and President Aristide have both not called
    for us to do that. In fact, one of the problems we had with the
    Governors Island Agreement is that neither they nor the other side
    wanted the United States or the U.N. there in a police function. That
    is, those folks we were trying to land there the other day were supposed
    to train the army to be the army corps of engineers, to rebuild the
    country. Neither side has wanted that and they had these bad memories of
    invasion. Last time the Americans went there in 1915, we stayed nearly
    20 years. So they have not asked for that. But I don't think we should
    rule anything in or out.
        Mr. Russert. Your stated policy of the United States is to reinstate
    Mr. Aristide. The CIA has gone around this town saying that Aristide is
    mentally unstable. Can you as Commander in Chief tolerate that
    insubordination by the CIA?
        The President. Well, I think you have to ask yourself whether it's
    insubordination or not. And let me tell you what I mean by that. The CIA
    is duty-bound to tell the Congress what it knows. That's the law. Just
    like the Joint Chiefs of Staff are duty-bound to go, when asked, express
    their personal opinion if they have an opinion different than the
    President, even though they work for me.
        In secret hearings the CIA told the Senate what they told me before,
    which is that they thought they had some evidence which questioned Mr.
    Aristide's ability to be President of Haiti. All I can tell you is--and
    I'm glad in a way that it came out, since it had been whispered around--
    that based on my personal experience, the Vice President's repeated
    contacts with him, the willingness of Aristide to work with our people,
    he has done everything he said he would do. And more importantly, he
    agreed to put in Mr. Malval, who is a respected businessman, to give
    some balance.
        Aristide may not be like you and me; he's had a very different life.
    But two-thirds of the Haitians voted for him, and he has shown a
    willingness to reach out and broaden his base. So I just disagree with--
    and I also disagree that the old CIA reports are conclusive in their
    evidence. But they had a legal responsibility to tell the Senate. If I
    had put the thumb on them, you'd be asking me, ``Why are you gagging the
    CIA from giving American intelligence to the Senate Intelligence
    Committee?''
        Mr. Russert. I might ask you that.
        The President. You would.

    Foreign Policy Team

        Mr. Russert. Finally in this round, a lot of

    [[Page 1927]]

    calls or suggestions that Secretary of Defense Aspin, Secretary of State
    Christopher resign. Are they secure in their positions?
        The President. I don't think that the President should even discuss
    that sort of thing, those personnel things. Let me say this: I think
    they deserve credit for doing well on many big things. This
    administration has secured the interest of America in dealing with
    Russia, in dealing with the Middle East, in raising economic issues to a
    new high, in conducting a thorough security bottoms-up review of the
    Pentagon and our military operations, and in many other areas.
        We found three problems that we inherited here, when we got in, that
    are very difficult problems, in Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti. And every
    day you can pick up the newspaper and see opinions on both sides about
    what we should do or a myriad of sides. We're doing the best we can on
    those. And we're going to do it, and we're going to do it with the team
    we've got, as long as we're all working together. I think that they have
    worked very hard, and I think that some of the attacks on them have been
    quite unfair.
        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, we have to take a break. We'll be back
    with more from the Oval Office and talk about crime and kids in America.

    [The television stations took a commercial break.]

        Mr. Russert. We're back on ``Meet the Press.'' I'm with my
    colleague, Tom Brokaw, talking to the President of the United States in
    the Oval Office.

    Decline of the American Family

        Mr. President, in recent months on ``Meet the Press,'' we've talked
    to Senator Pat Moynihan, Washington Post columnist William Raspberry,
    the Reverend Jesse Jackson about the problem of kids and crime. And they
    are in agreement that the breakup of the traditional family as we know
    it--two out of every three black kids born this year will be born out of
    wedlock, two out of five white children born out of wedlock--is the
    breakup of the traditional family unit a national crisis?
        The President. Absolutely. It is absolutely a crisis.
        Mr. Russert. And what can you do about it as President?
        The President. I think that as President I have to do two things.
    One is to speak about it and to focus the attention of the Nation on it.
    I went to the University of North Carolina recently and spoke to the
    200th anniversary there of the university and gave a major speech trying
    to deal with the combined impact of the breakdown of the family and the
    rise in violence and the rise in drugs and the lack of economic
    opportunity and----
        Mr. Russert. Is there a correlation between crime and drugs and
    breakdown of the family?
        The President. Absolutely. Let me back up and say I think America
    has two big challenges. One is to change in ways that will permit us to
    go into the 21st century winning as a country and as individuals. The
    second is to provide security in the face of all these changes so that
    people can have a coherent life and that we can't do that with economic
    stagnation or with social disintegration, and we're fighting with both.
    I mean, today in the Washington Post, there's a story of four people
    killed over the weekend, nine people wounded. A guy picks up a 1-year-
    old daughter--maybe his daughter--a 1-year-old child, drives away, and
    people drive after him, shoot him in the head, and the bullet then goes
    through the girl's body and blows her shoe off. You know, 3 or 4 days
    ago, an 11-year-old girl planning her own funeral, I mean, these things
    are terrible.
        Let me just say, I've called the Attorney General last night; we
    talked for 30 minutes about this on the phone. We have got to use this
    administration to awaken in all Americans an understanding of this and
    to get everyone to ask what their personal responsibility is to try to
    help rebuild the family and the conditions of community. Then we have to
    follow policies which will do that.
        Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, do you think that there has been enough
    dialog within the black community about this whole issue, families
    without fathers? Jesse Jackson recently has started a campaign on black-
    on-black violence. But there really--among the activists in the black
    community, there hasn't been much public dialog. Has that disappointed
    you?
        The President. Well, let me say this. I think there should be more.
    And I think that we should all be willing to face up to all the reasons
    why this has occurred. The famous African-American sociologist--at least
    he's famous in our circles--William Julius Wilson at the University of
    Chicago wrote a little book a few years ago called ``The Truly
    Disadvantaged.'' It's only

    [[Page 1928]]

    about 180 pages long, but it graphically shows you what has happened to
    black families in the inner cities and how the decline of the black
    family is associated not simply with the rise of welfare but with the
    evaporation of jobs for black males in those areas.
        So I think, first, we ought to pass our crime bill here and put
    another 100,000 police on the street and do it right in community
    policing. But we also have to get work back into the lives of people.
    You know, you can't have generation after generation not knowing work
    and expect there to be structure and order in people's lives. That's one
    of the things that Colin Powell--retired as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
    of Staff--he talked about maybe he could be a role model for people
    outside of the military who have none of the structure that's what makes
    the military go in this country.
        Mr. Brokaw. So much of this is driven by drugs. Your administration
    has kind of taken drugs off the radar screen. Do you think you're going
    to have to take a harder line on drugs?
        The President. Well, first of all, I don't think that's a fair
    characterization. The administration has had to subject the drug budget
    to the same ruthless discipline that nearly every other budget has been
    subject to. So that while we have increased some drug funding, like in
    the block grant program, some of the rest of it has not been increased.
    What I have tried to do is to get people to see the drug problem, first
    of all, in terms of stopping the major sources, and then here at home,
    focusing on drugs in terms of treatment and education and integrating it
    with our overall strategy on law enforcement and violence.
        I think this country needs a community strategy which deals with the
    crises of drugs, violence, crime, the family, and work. And we need to
    go not only nationally, but at the grassroots level. And we need to
    understand that there's some basic things we have to do. If you want
    families to stay together, you've got to make it possible for people to
    be successful workers and successful parents.
        If I could just briefly tell this one story: A couple of Sundays
    ago, we had a family in here taking a tour, a man, a wife, three
    daughters. One of these children was in a wheelchair. She was in this
    Make-A-Wish program, you know, a sick child wants to go see the
    President. I say hello. We have a picture. On the way out, the man says,
    ``Mr. President, just in case you think that one person doesn't make a
    difference,'' he said, ``you signed the family leave bill, which gives
    me the right to spend time with my sick child and not lose my job. If
    you hadn't done that, if Congress hadn't passed it, I would have had to
    choose between spending this precious time with my daughter, who's
    probably not going to live, or keeping my job for my other two daughters
    and my wife. And I don't have to choose now. Don't ever think that what
    you do doesn't make a difference.''
        A few days later that little girl died. But that man knows that he
    was a good parent and a good worker. That's just one example of the kind
    of things we have to do that have moral content even though they may be
    public policies.
        But no matter what we do, there has to be a reawakening of
    responsibility in every community. That goes back to your other
    question: Should the black community be debating this? They should.
    Should the white community be debating this? We should.

    Racial Tension in Urban Areas

        Mr. Brokaw. All of this, it seems to me, is fueling greater racial
    tensions, especially in the urban areas. Do you think that the racial
    tension and the racial climate in urban America now is better or worse
    than it was, say, 10 years ago?
        The President. I think for middle class people it's much better. I
    think the level of comfort among people of different races is much
    higher. I think the appreciation for diversity is greater. I think for
    people who are outside the economic mainstream, it is much, much worse.
        My God, we've got kids planning their funerals, 11-year-old kids.
    But the crying shame is, those people also want to be a part of
    mainstream America. I mean, look at these children. When they make these
    plans for their funerals, are they out there breaking the law? And one
    thing I'd like to say to the rest of America is, you read these horrible
    stories about how many people get killed on the weekends--most of the
    people that lived in all of those neighborhoods never break the law,
    work for a living for modest wages, pay their taxes, trying to do right
    by their kids. I mean, this country is falling apart because we have
    allowed a whole group of us to drift away. It's not an under class
    anymore, it's an outer class.
        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, can we talk about

    [[Page 1929]]

    this in direct terms without a cloud of political correctness hovering
    over the subject?
        The President. I think we have to. I think we've got to. I think
    Jesse Jackson, frankly, has performed a good service by going out and
    starting this debate again when the American people are willing to
    listen. We've got to be able to sit down and tell people what we think.
    I think that the American people are willing to put aside political
    correctness. But if we want to say tough things about the breakdown of
    the family and the responsibility of people who live in these
    communities, we also have to say tough things to the rest of America
    about how you can't just ignore these people until you have to read
    about how they're having children, children having children, and
    nobody's married and they're having babies and these kids are dying.
    You've got to have some structure in these communities and some
    opportunity. If you want to preach the American dream to them, there's
    got to be something there at the end of the road. So there's something
    for all of us to do here.
        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, we have to take another break. We'll be
    back in just a moment to talk about Bill Clinton's first year in office.

    [The television stations took a commercial break.]

    President's Approval Rating

        Mr. Russert. We're back with the President of the United States in
    the Oval Office.
        Mr. President, your poll numbers are low, but the one that's most
    striking to me is that since you've been President, the number of people
    who think the country is on the wrong track has doubled. What happened?
        The President. Well, they may not know what's going on. And I think
    we should all ask ourselves what responsibility that has. Let's look at
    the facts. Let's just look at the facts. Since I became President, we
    have lowered the deficit, lowered interest rates, kept inflation down.
    This economy has produced more private sector jobs in the first 9 months
    than in the previous 4 years. Jobs are up and investment is up. We have
    shown discipline and direction in the budget. It was a remarkable
    achievement. Not only that, in that budget we did something that has not
    been done for 20 years, we tried to reverse the inequality of incomes.
    We asked the wealthy to pay more, and we gave over 15 million working
    families, comprising about 50 million Americans, a tax cut because
    they're working hard and still hovering around the poverty line. Most
    Americans don't know that.
        Mr. Russert. So it's just a communications problem?
        The President. Well, let me finish.
        Mr. Russert. Please.
        The President. In that program, one of the things I promised the
    American people to do to try to add more security to their lives was to
    open the doors of college education to everybody. We reformed the
    college loan program; we lowered the interest rates; we strung out the
    repayments. Most Americans don't know that. We passed the family leave
    law, which I just spoke about. We have a major health care proposal on
    the table. We have opened any number of economic avenues of opportunity
    that everyone agrees with. We've got $37 billion more in high-tech
    equipment up for exports now, created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
        So the economic record of this administration in only 9 months is
    very good. The educational record of this administration is good. What
    we're doing on health care is unprecedented in our lifetime. The foreign
    policy record on the issues that really affect our national security is
    good.
        There are the problems that nobody's figured out how to resolve; I
    concede that. I do not know what the answer to this is. But I know this:
    I believe that when historians look at this first year, they will be
    hard pressed to find many first years of Presidencies that equal ours.
    The Congressional Quarterly said the other day that only President
    Eisenhower had had a higher success rate in Congress than I have. If you
    go out and ask the average American, they think I hardly ever get
    anything passed.
        Mr. Russert. But the voters----
        The President. Now, that may be--that's right, that may be my fault,
    it may be somebody else's fault. But the reality is, the economy is
    going in the right direction, I'm keeping the commitments of the
    campaign to empower people through education and through health care
    initiatives and through all these other things. Why don't they know
    that? I don't know. I gave a speech the other day to 250 people from my
    home town, my home State who were up here, and I just went through these
    specific things. And they said, ``There must have been a conspiracy to
    keep this a secret; we didn't know any of this.''

    [[Page 1930]]

        Mr. Russert. But in six States since you've been President, Senate
    seats in Texas and Georgia, Governorships in Virginia, New Jersey,
    mayoralties in New York and Los Angeles have all gone Republican. There
    must be some small message in there for you.
        The President. Well, I think the message is people still want
    change. But you know, you're from Buffalo. Don't you believe that all
    politics is local? I was a Governor for 12 years, and I can honestly
    say, with 150 Governors I served with I never heard one say, not one,
    that he or she won or lost an election because of the President.
        Now, what are these things saying? They say people are still upset
    at crime, they're upset at the lack of jobs, they're upset when they're
    paying more taxes and think they're not getting something else for it.
    But we are addressing each of those things. Whether it's in the economic
    program, the health care program, the reinventing program, expanding
    trade, we are addressing those things.
        I think that what I have to do is to do a better job of getting out
    there and getting the record there. But what happens here is every day
    is just a new battle. I don't know anybody who's out there who believes
    that all these elections are any more than a referendum on what people
    want for their mayors and their Governors.

    Media Coverage

        Mr. Brokaw. Mr. President, Jimmy Carter used to complain that the
    White House press was here simply to play ``gotcha.'' Are you saying, in
    effect, that the press coverage has failed you and failed the country?
        The President. No. Well, I think it may have failed the country
    some, but I don't take it personally, and I don't think it's a
    ``gotcha'' thing. I think, in a way it may be my fault. I go from one
    thing to another, so we have one moment on national service, for
    example--a signature idea of my campaign, something we know the American
    people care about--and it happens, but it happens in the middle of all
    these other things so nobody knows it happened. I think that's the big
    problem.
        Mr. Brokaw. Let me ask you about 1996. You had a meeting in the
    White House the other day with Colin Powell; he endorsed NAFTA. Do you
    think Colin Powell is a Democrat or a Republican? And do you think he'll
    run for office in '96?
        The President. You'll have to ask him that. I don't think I should
    speak for him.
        Mr. Brokaw. Well, what's your instinct?
        The President. I don't have an instinct. Let me just say this: What
    I have determined to do is to get up every day and do what I think is
    right and try to move this country forward and keep the commitments I
    made to the American people and follow it through with real conviction
    and just let everything else happen. I can't control a lot of the
    events. But I do think it is astonishing to me, and I take this on
    myself maybe more than you, but that--is to go back to Al Gore's line in
    the campaign, ``What should be up is up; what should be down is down.''
    We're moving in the right direction, and people should know that. And if
    they don't, then I have to examine why they don't. But perhaps you do,
    too.
        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, we have to take a break. We'll be right
    back after this break.

    [The television stations took a commercial break.]

        Mr. Russert. We're back with the President. Tom Brokaw, you have a
    question.

    President's Health

        Mr. Brokaw. Even in the Oval Office, you can hear the local protest
    outside about firefighters or something in Washington, DC. You know that
    it is like living in a fishbowl here. Comedians have had a lot of fun
    with the fact that you run every day, but you don't seem to lose any
    weight. In fact, what can you tell us about your personal health? Have
    you lost weight?
        The President. A little bit.
        Mr. Brokaw. And have you changed your eating habits?
        The President. Yes, quite a bit since I've been here. I have lost
    weight. I gained a lot of weight in the campaign. I'm now almost back to
    where I was 2 years ago. I've lost weight, and lost, I don't know, 2 or
    3 inches off my waist. But I run 6 days a week, and I just try to--it's
    like everything else, I think you just have to get up, sort of show up
    every day, and try to make a little progress. I think that's what you do
    in life.

    The Presidency

        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, a friend of yours

    [[Page 1931]]

    told me that you jokingly sometimes refer to life in the White House as
    ``the crown jewel of the Federal penitentiary system.''
        The President. That's right.
        Mr. Russert. How confining has it been?
        The President. Well, it's pretty confining. I always say I don't
    know whether it's the finest public housing in America or the crown
    jewel of the prison system. It's a very isolating life. And one of the
    things that frustrates me is that I get more easily out of touch and
    maybe even out of harmony with the American people--that's the question
    you asked me earlier. I also know that every little word I say can be
    sort of twisted, you know. And again, I don't fault anybody, but I just
    have to be careful.
        Mr. Russert. We have just a few seconds.
        The President. Did you see what Gergen just did? He brought in this
    thing saying that the headline is now that Clinton accused labor of
    roughshod tactics. I mean, those guys are my friends. I just don't agree
    with them on NAFTA. We're going to all work together----

        Mr. Russert. We have just a few seconds. Is there one thing that, a
    year ago, you were absolutely certain of that you're not quite sure
    about now?

        The President. Yes. I was absolutely certain a year ago that I could
    pursue this aggressive agenda of change and that every step along the
    way I'd be able to tell the American people what I was doing and
    convince them that we're going right. We are pursuing it, we're making
    in a way a little more progress than I thought we would, but there's a
    big gap between what we've done and what I've been able to tell the
    people about. I've got to do a better job.

        Mr. Russert. Thank you for letting us join you in the Oval Office
    today. I take it this is the room you'll invite the Buffalo Bills after
    they win the Super Bowl?

        The President. That's right. The Buffalo Bills will be here if they
    win the Super Bowl this year.

        Mr. Russert. Mr. President, thank you very much.

        Mr. Brokaw. You'll be in office a long time if that's the case.
    [Laughter]

    Note: The interview began at 9 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House.