[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[September 30, 1994]
[Pages 1666-1670]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Interview With Alan Colmes
September 30, 1994

    Mr. Colmes. President Clinton, very nice to meet you. I've been an 
unabashed supporter of yours for a very long time, to the point where my 
listeners call me up and accuse me of being on your payroll. I'd like to 
dispel any such myth right now. [Laughter]

    The President. You're not on the payroll, but I appreciate what 
you've said.

National Public Opinion

    Mr. Colmes. Thomas Jefferson said of democracy that ``democracy is 
cumbersome, slow, inefficient, but in due time, the voice of the people 
will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail.'' How latent is that 
wisdom at this point in our evolution?
    The President. Well, I think what's going on in our country today is 
that people desperately want circumstances to change for themselves in 
their own lives, and they see things going on

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around them they don't like: high rates of crime and violence and drug 
abuse and family breakdown, the continued economic uncertainty and 
insecurity, a lot of working people worried about their incomes, their 
ability to finance their kids' education, the stability of their health 
care, their retirement. And they are not sure that the Government ever 
works for ordinary people. And I think that that plus the atmosphere in 
which we operate up here, which is so contentious and so full of the 
conflicting messages spawned by all the interest groups, make it 
difficult for anybody to communicate through that. But what I have to do 
is to just keep working for the American people, keep fighting for 
change.
    You know, we've made a remarkable start, I think. It's just the 
beginning, but we've made a good beginning in restoring the economy and 
fighting crime and making this Government work for ordinary people. 
That's what I got sent here to do, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Midterm Elections

    Mr. Colmes. Midterm elections are coming up, and just the other day 
the Republicans had a photo-op at the Capitol and they gave a 10-point 
plan. I wonder if you feel the American people will buy this and change 
the balance of power legislatively this November?
    The President. Well, the Republican contract, it's--I'm so glad they 
did it because they finally told the American people what I knew all 
along, which is what they're for. What they're for is to go back to 
trickle-down economics. They made over a trillion dollars worth of 
promises to the American people in this contract. And how they're going 
to pay for it is either to explode the deficit again, after we brought 
it down, or to cut Medicare or Social Security or never pay for the 
crime bill.
    It's the same old thing they did in the 1980's, and it poses a stark 
choice for the Americans in this election: Do you want to keep going 
forward with an economic plan that has brought the deficit down for 3 
years in a row for the first time since Truman, helped to produce over 
4.3 million new jobs, has got America ranked the most productive country 
in the world for the first time in 9 years, that's provided college loan 
relief for millions of Americans and done a lot of other things that are 
growing this economy? Or do you want to go back to the same old trickle-
down economics that exploded the debt, reduced investment in people, and 
nearly wrecked this economy? I mean, that's basically what the choice is 
in this election.
    And their contract, basically, is a contract on America, puts out a 
contract on the deficit, puts out a contract on Medicare, puts out a 
contract on the crime bill. I mean, they're going to wreck it all if 
they got to implement these ideas. It's just--it's unbelievable, but 
it's really where they are.
    Mr. Colmes. How successful do you think they'll be in their attempt 
to take over Congress?
    The President. Well, if we can get out there and tell the American 
people the truth about our record, the fact that we have made a good 
start, that we've got a long way to go and this is no time to turn back, 
I think we've got an excellent chance to defy the experts and the 
pundits.
    In all but three elections in this century, the incumbent 
President's party has always lost seats in at least one House of 
Congress. And I think there's only been one election, in 1934, when the 
incumbent President actually picked up seats in both Houses. So this is 
a natural rhythm, but what's going on now is the country is going 
through a lot of changes. People are having a tough time. They do not 
know what this administration has done to make our good first start. I'm 
going to get that out there. And they need to know that it's just the 
beginning, because a lot of people haven't felt it yet.

Health Care Reform

    Mr. Colmes. You've had an incredible string of accomplishments and 
perhaps the best first year legislatively of any President since 
Eisenhower. You've also cited Johnson's second year as a very successful 
year for him.
    The President. Yes.
    Mr. Colmes. But even your detractors, like Newt Gingrich, said 
you've had a great first year legislatively. Is it going to be more 
difficult in the second half of your first term, if there are more 
Republicans in Congress, for you to get things forth, like health care?
    The President. Well, sure it is, unless they decide that they want 
to get something done for America instead of something done for their 
party.
    Mr. Colmes. Is health care dead?
    The President. No, not at all. Look, we didn't get it in the first 
year, and I think the main reason we didn't get it is that the 
Republicans

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decided they didn't want it to happen. I was willing to compromise; I 
reached out to them. But let me just give you the evidence.
    When I introduced my plan, I said, ``Look, folks, all I want to do 
is to help people control health care costs, protect the health 
insurance of people who have it so they don't lose it, and provide 
coverage for those who don't. Here's the best way to do it, I think. If 
you've got a better idea, let me know.'' When we started, there were 24 
Republican Senators on a bill to provide health care for all Americans; 
they did it in a different way. When we got to the end of the 
legislative debate, that number 24 had dropped to zero.
    Meanwhile, a Republican Congressman from Iowa said that the 
Republican leader in the House, Mr. Gingrich, had threatened them all 
that they must not cooperate. A Republican Senator was quoted in a major 
newspaper saying, ``We killed health care; now we can't get our 
fingerprints on it.'' And the guy who gives them all their ideas, Mr. 
Kristol, said that the one thing you can't do is to pass health care 
reform while a Democrat is President; it'll ruin the party. So they put 
party ahead of the health care interests of the country.
    But we can still get it. You know, things sometimes take longer 
around here. You just quoted Thomas Jefferson. I got the family leave 
bill on my desk to give people some time off from work without losing 
their job if a child is born or a parent is sick; it took 7 years for 
that. I had the opportunity to sign the Brady bill, which took 7 years 
to pass. The crime bill was around for 6 years. I signed a banking 
reform bill yesterday that's going to cut a billion dollars a year in 
regulatory costs, and it was around for 10 years. So sometimes these 
bills take longer. I think we can get health care reform, but the 
Republicans are going to have to be willing to cooperate and put their 
country ahead of politics.

President's Approval Rating

    Mr. Colmes. Given these lists of accomplishments, is it incredibly 
frustrating for you when you see approval ratings not being where you 
feel they should be?
    The President. Well, I think--no, I think it's absolutely 
understandable, because people can only vote on what they know and what 
they feel. And you know, this country--I'll say again, these social 
problems that we have in our country, the crime, the family breakdown, 
the violence, the drugs, they've been developing over 30 years. The 
economic problems have been developing over 20 years. And the other 
party was in power for 12 years. I've been here 20 months. So, we've 
made a good step, but a lot of people haven't felt it.
    And because I have tried to change so much so fast, all the news the 
American people get is dominated by the conflicts, the process, the 
interest groups and all that kind of stuff, and the intense partisanship 
of the opposition. This election gives us an opportunity, gives me an 
opportunity to go out there and say, ``Hey, here's our record; here's 
what we've done; here's a good first start. They want to go back to 
trickle-down economics. You decide.'' Then the American people are the 
boss; let them decide.

Republican Opposition

    Mr. Colmes. Do you feel the intense opposition you talk about is 
stricter or more strident against you than it's been against other 
Presidents, and why?
    The President. Well, I don't know the--a lot of the studies have 
said that this is the most highly partisan opposition that's ever been 
recorded. All I can tell you is what they've done. The Republican 
Senators voted 42 to 2 for the crime bill last year, when it wasn't an 
election year. And it came back this year, and they said all these 
prevention programs were pork. Well, they all voted for them last year, 
and they went from 42 to 2 for it, to 38 to 6 against it.
    We've got an important piece of environmental legislation right now 
pending in the Senate--it's passed the House of Representatives--the 
Superfund bill for cleanup of toxic dumps. Everybody in America, believe 
it or not, from the Sierra Club to the chemical companies, is for this 
bill, from the most extreme environmental groups to the industry groups. 
The only people who are against it are the Republican Senators who don't 
want us to have one more legislative accomplishment before the election. 
That is the fact.
    What I've got to do is just keep fighting for change, keep going 
forward. The American people are going to have to decide whether they 
want to keep going on a path that is bringing the deficit down and the 
economy up, that's addressing crime, that has--unlike the Republicans 
who talked about this, we've actually reduced the size of the Federal 
Government, the

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Government's already 70,000 smaller than when I got here, and the law 
requires us now to take it down 270,000--or whether they're going to 
just go for that same old rhetoric where you promise everybody the Moon 
and explode the deficit and run the economy into the ditch. Now that's 
the clear choice in this election, and it's the--I think the American 
people, once they have a chance to think about it, will have a different 
view.

Haiti

    Mr. Colmes. I would guess the most difficult decision a President 
would ever have to make would be whether or not to send young people in 
this country into war. As you've struggled over this, vis-a-vis the 
Haiti situation, what kind of internal conflict have you gone through?
    The President. Well, I think first of all, the President's first 
responsibility is to the security and safety of the American people. At 
the end of the cold war when our interests, our--excuse me, our security 
doesn't seem so imminently threatened by nuclear weapons, I still have 
to work hard on that. That's what I worked hard with President Yeltsin 
on; that's why we're so engaged in these very tough negotiations with 
the North Koreans.
    But there are other things that affect our interests as well as our 
values. And one of the things that makes us secure today is that nearly 
everybody in our neighborhood, that is, in the Caribbean and Latin 
America, are democracies, and they're trading with us and working with 
us, and they're going to help us move into the next century. There are 
only two exceptions, and Haiti is the only country where a 
democratically elected President was overthrown by military dictators 
who proceeded to launch a reign of terror.
    So, I'd thought about it for a long time, and I worked for over a 
year and a half to give those people every single solitary opportunity 
to leave power peacefully, to restore democracy, to stop a flood of 
refugees coming for this country, and to give that country a chance. 
Meanwhile, we fed a million Haitians every day, we sent medicine down 
there, and we exhausted all diplomatic alternatives. So that's--when I 
decided to use military force there, it was because I thought there was 
no other alternative. Having made the decision, I decided that I would 
give the peace mission a chance to go down there and tell them, ``The 
President has made this decision. Now you have a decision about which 
way you are going to leave and under what circumstances and whether you 
are going to try and keep the country peaceful and whole.''
    I'm glad that the peace mission worked out, although, as you know, 
we already had over 60 planes in the air at the time that they finally 
agreed to leave. It was a difficult decision, but I thought in light of 
the human rights violations and the interest that we have in protecting 
our own borders and the interest we have in stability and democracy and 
growth in our area, it was the right one. And I might say, I'm very, 
very proud of what our soldiers have done there. If you look, just this 
week, we've got the Parliament meeting, the mayor has returned from 
hiding, electricity has been doubled, we've got refugees going back from 
Guantanamo to Haiti, and we started the gun buy-back program. So I feel 
good about what they're doing. You ought to be proud of them.
    Mr. Colmes.  What will happen if Cedras refuses to relinquish power, 
or if the Parliament doesn't vote the amnesty which is part of the pact 
that was made? What happens then?
    The President. Well, the pact said that we would do our best to 
reconstitute the Parliament and encourage them to vote an amnesty bill 
but that, in any case, they would have to leave on October 15th, they 
would have to give up power, whether or not they got the amnesty bill in 
fact passed.
    We committed to support the amnesty bill last year when Mr. Cedras 
came here and made his agreement with the United States and with Haiti 
and with the United Nations. And when the time came--and President 
Aristide put out the amnesty proclamation and told the Parliament he 
expected them to vote for it, and he would sign it. And when the time 
came, he wouldn't leave. So a lot has happened between now and then, and 
they've got to work through this.
    But I think the Parliament will do the right thing. I think that 
they will work through--they're debating not only whether to give it but 
what the terms of it ought to be, what the reach of it is. All these 
things are for the Haitians to resolve. But regardless, they are going 
to have to leave power.
    Mr. Colmes. Is there a contingency plan in case Cedras doesn't 
leave, once again?
    The President. Well, the contingency plan is that they will leave 
power on the 15th, regard-


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less. That's what the United States is doing there.
    Mr. Colmes. But there's no chance that Cedras will refuse to leave 
power?
    The President. Well, I believe he will honor his agreement, but if 
he doesn't, he'll have to leave anyway.
    Mr. Colmes. A lot of people who otherwise are supportive of taking 
democracy and helping to install it in a place like Haiti have problems 
with the fact that the spearhead at the top of this is Aristide and that 
he does not represent the best hope for democracy--he's been called a 
Marxist, he's been accused of necklacing--and that even those who might 
support such a policy toward Haiti have a more difficult time because of 
who the person is who's President of Haiti.
    The President. I think he would say that given the long history of 
violence and bloodshed and all the animosity that existed in Haiti at 
the time he became President, he may have said some things, or his 
supporters may have said some things that they would just as soon not 
have said. But the international human rights monitors who have been in 
Haiti say that during the months when he was President, the human rights 
record in Haiti was better than it was before he became President and 
much better than it's been since he left office.
    Moreover, in the years he's been out of Haiti, he has made repeated, 
consistent commitments to avoid violence, avoid retribution, avoid human 
rights violations. Furthermore, keep in mind, this time when he goes 
back into power, he will have forces from 29 or 30 countries there 
monitoring the situation, preventing human rights violations. And if he 
wants to succeed as President, which I believe he does, he needs the 
international aid package and the help in conducting parliamentary 
elections, all of which require an observance of human rights and not 
abusing the rights and interests and the lives of the minority.
    So I think the American people and the people of the world can have 
a pretty high level of confidence that President Aristide will do what 
he says. So far, in all my dealings with him, he has kept every 
commitment he has made. And that's all you can ask of anybody. And he's 
made an ironclad commitment that he will not support violence.

The Presidency

    Mr. Colmes. Mr. President, I know your time is limited, and I thank 
you very much for spending some time with us, but you know, I do have to 
in conclusion ask a really tough question. Is being President fun? Are 
you having a good time doing this?
    The President. Yes, I am. Believe it or not, it's not all--when 
people's lives are at stake, it's not always fun. When you're fighting a 
tough battle where you think you're fighting for something good and 
you're willing to compromise with the other side and they're playing 
politics, that's not always fun.
    But it is a real joy and a profound honor to just have the 
opportunity to come into this office every day and try to stick up for 
ordinary Americans and fight their fight and make their lives a little 
better. And whether they know it or not is not so important; it's not so 
important what they think of me on a daily basis. What is important is 
that I think of them on a daily basis, that I keep fighting for them. 
And I think the end will bring us out all right.
    Mr. Colmes. How do you get them to know that, though, so they 
appreciate what they may not know about your day-to-day machinations?
    The President. In part, that's what the elections are all about. 
That's what interviews like this are all about. I have to--I may have 
worked too hard on too many things for the last 2 years and spent too 
little time trying to directly communicate. I've worked hard at it, but 
I'm going to work even harder.
    But the main thing is that I show up for work every day and fight 
other people's fights. And then when elections come, I go out and make a 
report to the people; they make their own judgment.
    Mr. Colmes. Thank you very much, sir, for communicating here with us 
and our audience.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 2:40 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House.