[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[November 3, 2000]
[Pages 2439-2441]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Interview With Steve Harvey of KKBT-FM Radio, 
Los Angeles, California
November 3, 2000

    The President. Hey, Steve.
    Mr. Harvey. President Clinton.
    The President. How are you? We got cut off. I'm glad to hear your 
voice.
    Mr. Harvey. How are you doing? It's okay. How are you doing, 
brother?
    The President. Great.
    Mr. Harvey. Great. Glad you could call, man. Sorry we missed each 
other. You were in Los Angeles. I was supposed to meet you at an event. 
Sorry we missed each other.
    The President. Are you in New York?
    Mr. Harvey. No, I'm in Los Angeles right now. Hello?
    The President. Yes, I can hear you fine.
    Mr. Harvey. Oh, yes. No, I'm in L.A. right now. We were supposed to 
meet at an event a few weeks ago, and we got--we missed our signal, so 
we didn't hook up. But----
    The President. Well, I'm sorry I missed you.
    Mr. Harvey. That's okay. We got in today. My publicist told me that 
you're a big fan of mine. I just want to hear you say that out loud. 
[Laughter]
    The President. I am a big fan of yours, and I hear all the clapping 
in the background, so I want to please everybody for you.

Affirmative Action

    Mr. Harvey. Thank you very much, Mr. President. That's all I needed 
to hear. [Laughter] You just pretty much made my whole career. 
[Laughter]
    President Clinton, we are fans of yours here, on ``The Beat.'' I 
cannot speak for the entire radio station, but I know I am. I have 
always been a fan of yours and your work and your community development 
towards the African-American community. I have one question for you. I 
want to ask you, point blank, what can African-Americans and the Latino 
community expect from the Democratic Party in regards to education and 
affirmative action?
    The President. Well, I think first of all, you can expect them to 
build on the progress of the last 8 years. Remember--let's start with 
affirmative action--remember, there was a lot of pressure to eliminate 
affirmative action, both from the Republican Party and from some court 
decisions, which required us to change it. And we took the position that 
we should mend it, not end it, and that's the position that Vice 
President Gore has steadily defended. I 
noticed in his third debate that he was the only candidate who would say 
that he was for affirmative action. And I can tell you, we had long, 
long discussions about this. He believes strongly in it. And I believe 
virtually every one of our candidates for the Senate and the House does. 
I know that my wife, who is running 
for the Senate in New York, strongly feels that way, and I believe all 
the others do, as well. So I think you can feel very good about that.

Education

    Mr. Harvey. Now, also in terms of education for the same 
communities.
    The President. On the education issue, I think the choices are quite 
clear here. The Vice President and all the 
Democratic candidates, first of all, think that America ought to know 
our schools are getting better and our students are doing better. 
Reading scores, math scores, science scores are all up. In the last 7 
years, there has been a 500 percent increase in African-American 
students taking advanced placement courses, a 300 percent increase in 
Latino students taking advanced placement courses.

[[Page 2440]]

The college-going rate is at an all-time high because we have pushed 
through the Congress the biggest increase in student aid, from Pell 
grants to work-study grants to the Hope scholarship tax credit, in 50 
years.
    So what does Al Gore want to do? What 
do the rest of our Democrats want to do? They want to finish the job of 
putting 100,000 qualified teachers in our schools. They want to provide 
funds to poor school districts especially, and growing school districts, 
to build new school buildings and to overhaul others. They want to 
finish the work of connecting all the schools in the country to the 
Internet and all the classrooms. When Al Gore took on this project for 
our administration in 1994, only 3 percent of the classrooms were 
connected. Today, 65 percent of the classrooms are, and 90 percent of 
the poorest schools have at least one Internet connection. So we want to 
do that.
    He wants to provide universal preschool 
and more after-school programs for the kids who need it, and he wants 
tax deductibility for college tuition. Plus which, we have a Hispanic 
Education Action Plan that is designed to deal with the fact that the 
dropout rate among Latino students is still too high, and he has 
promised to build on that.
    So we've got a very, very good education program. It's been our top 
domestic priority, and I think you can really depend on the Vice 
President to deliver. That's why both the major teachers' organizations 
have endorsed him, and a lot of other educators around the country, 
because they believe that we have a program based on the research and 
what the educators are saying.
    And one final thing. He has got a good 
accountability program that we ought to identify failing schools, turn 
them around, or open them under new management. And all over America, 
you see these schools that were in trouble just a couple of years ago 
that are turning around. I was in a school in Harlem the other day where 
2 years ago, 80 percent of the children were doing math and reading 
below grade level, and today, three-quarters of the kids are doing math 
and reading above or at grade level. That's after only 2 years. So we've 
got a program that's working out there at the grassroots. We need to 
bring it to all of America, and you can trust Al Gore to do that. He 
cares a lot about it. And you can trust the Democratic Party. It's our 
issue. We care about it.

2000 Election

    Mr. Harvey. Absolutely. Now, President, you were at the Baldwin 
Hills Crenshaw Plaza on yesterday. Three thousand supporters came out. 
We thank you for stopping by, lending your support to the campaign. We 
thank you for all of the work you have done over the past 8 years. And 
we do applaud you in both of these directions, especially in terms of 
education and affirmative action. We appreciate you so much. We know 
you're busy; we know you're on a tight schedule. And hey, man, we just 
want to say thank you for calling.
    The President. Well, thank you, Steve. Let me say, I wanted to go 
back to Watts, a place I've been visiting for many years now, to thank 
the people of Watts, of L.A., and of California for being so good to me 
and Hillary and Al and Tipper Gore these last 8 years, and for proving 
that we could turn America around economically, educationally, 
environmentally, that we could provide more health insurance. And you 
know there's a lot of laboratories of success there.
    But I also wanted to emphasize that in California and throughout 
this country, there are races for the Congress, for the Senate and the 
House, which are also terribly important. They are just as close as the 
Presidential race. And if we can win a majority in the House and in the 
Senate, we'll be in a position to really pull this country together and 
move forward to build on the progress of the last 8 years, to keep the 
prosperity going. That's really why the young people of this country 
ought to get out and vote, because we have come so far in the last 8 
years, but all the best things are still out there. When Al Gore says, 
``You ain't seen nothing yet,'' that's not just politics. We can turn 
the country around, and now we can make big, big strides in the economy, 
in education, in health care, the environment, and pulling this country 
together. But we've got to have the right leadership. And these House 
and Senate races are also very, very, very important.

President's Future Plans

    Mr. Harvey. Yes. Quickly, Mr. President, after it's all over, when 
the election is done and Gore is President and you finally, after 8 very 
successful years, step down, what do you see yourself doing, man? What 
do you think?

[[Page 2441]]

    The President. Well, first of all, I've got to be an ordinary 
citizen again, and I've got to go out and make a living, so I'll do 
that. But what I want to do is find a way to be a useful citizen, in a 
way that does not in any manner interfere with the next President. Jimmy 
Carter has been a very great ex-President; he's done a lot of good. I 
think that I'm young enough that I could still do a lot of good, and I 
feel that I owe that to the American people and the people I've worked 
with all around the world--in Africa and Latin America and other places. 
But I want to take a couple months off to rest, consider what my options 
are, and then try to spend the rest of my life giving back in the public 
interest, because I have been very blessed. I've gotten to live my 
dreams. I've had a great life. And I just want to be helpful in any way 
that I can, and I'll try to find some good things to do.
    Mr. Harvey. Well, I'll tell you, President, after it's all over, my 
TV show ends on December 21st, and I've been working pretty much hard 
like a President myself. [Laughter] I say me and you, man, get a fishing 
boat and go on out there in the middle of the lake and do some bass 
fishing. I know you're from Arkansas; I'm from West Virginia. You know 
something about some fishing, I'm sure.
    The President. I do. I can still do that. [Laughter]
    Mr. Harvey. We ought to hook up and go fishing.
    The President. It sounds like a good idea to me.
    Mr. Harvey. Steve and Bill on the boat. [Laughter]
    The President. That's right.
    Mr. Harvey. Hey, thanks for calling, President. Thank you so much.
    The President. Well, you just tell everybody to go vote so we'll 
feel good when we go fishing, instead of worrying about things. 
[Laughter]
    Mr. Harvey. Well, you better believe that's what it's all about. We 
are pushing hard to get out and vote on this coming election, and we're 
going to do our very best to put Vice President Gore in office, because 
we can't take the other side. We just can't take it. We just can't take 
it. I will see to that.
    Thank you for calling, President Clinton.
    The President. Bless you, Steve. Thank you.
    Mr. Harvey. Thank you. Absolutely. You all, one more time, the 
President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
    The President. Thank you. Bye-bye.

 Note:  The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. by telephone from Air Force One 
at Oakland International Airport in Oakland, CA. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of this interview.