[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[December 18, 2000]
[Pages 2732-2743]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 2732]]
Interview With Dan Rather of CBS News
December 18, 2000
End of the President's Term
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, when I was walking over here, I mentioned
to one member of your staff, ``Well, it must be a bittersweet time.''
And he bristled a little. He was gentlemanly about it, but he bristled a
little. Do you see it as a bittersweet time?
The President. Well, only a little bit, actually. I'm very happy and
very much at peace and very grateful for the chance to serve and
grateful especially that the country is in such good shape as I leave
office. But I think, for all of us, it may be bittersweet in the sense
that people--virtually everybody that works here likes the work, and we
tried never to forget that it was a job and that we were privileged to
do it.
But everything comes to an end; you have to do something else. And I
think we've had our time here. I'm just focused on doing everything I
can in the days that remain, helping President-elect Bush have a successful transition and kind of savoring and
being grateful for the good things that have happened.
2000 Presidential Election
Mr. Rather. The country is still in the midst of an almost 8-year
boom. The country is at peace. You've had, by many measurements, if not
most--perhaps even all measurements--at least a reasonably successful
Presidency. Why are we having a Republican President come in behind you?
The President. Well, I think partly because of the prosperity. I
think they both debated how to use the prosperity, and the country was
evenly divided. One candidate won the popular vote, and the Supreme
Court decided the electoral vote. People will be analyzing that for
years to come. Maybe I'll have a chance to analyze it, too, after some
time. But I don't know that I have anything to add to what's been said
by others.
Vice President Al Gore/2000 Presidential
Election
Mr. Rather. Maybe we ought to come back to that later. Through most
of the 8 years of your Presidency, you and your Vice President seemed to
all the world to be joined at the hip. There were historians who were
writing that Vice President Gore had been given as much or more
responsibility than any Vice President in the history of the country.
The President. Oh, more. There's no question about that.
Mr. Rather. And that he did a very good job as Vice President.
The President. And he did. I think that when the period of this
history is written and people who care about American Government look at
how we organized and ran the administration, they will say a number of
things, including the fact that we came here with a well-thought-out set
of ideas and policies, and we basically did what we said we'd do in '92
and then again in '96, and that we had a real team operation in the
White House, and that the Vice President had more responsibility in more
areas than any Vice President in history and carried them out very well.
I don't think there is any question that in the job of Vice President,
he's the most effective person that has held that job and had more
responsibility than anyone who ever had it.
Mr. Rather. That being the case, Mr. President, when he, in effect,
ran away from you during the campaign, you had to be disappointed at
that.
The President. Well, I think, first of all, everybody has got to run
their own race. And it's a difficult thing running as Vice President.
There is no accident that only two Vice Presidents in the history of the
country have ever been directly elected President.
If you get to be Vice President, you've got an excellent chance of
getting to be President, because something could happen to the
President, and you've got a terrific chance of being the nominee for
President of your party. But to be directly elected, it's only happened
twice. And once, when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson, we were
still virtually a one-party country. And the only other time it happened
was in 1988, when basically there was an enormously contentious and
negative campaign which succeeded in painting the Democratic nominee,
Governor Dukakis, as virtually un-American.
[[Page 2733]]
This was basically a pretty positive campaign. They had a debate
about what to do. They talked about the various issues, and the people
split.
Mr. Rather. But back to the question--had to feel disappointed?
The President. I really believe every person has to decide what's
best for them. And I thought that it was--let me just say, I thought
that it was the right thing for me not to be out there very much until
the end, the last week or 10 days. I did most of what I could do early
by going to scores of events for our House and Senate candidates and for
the Democratic Party, which helped the Vice President, of course,
directly, the Democratic Party work did.
And when a Vice President becomes a President, he tries to figure
out some way to establish his own identity and to get the benefit of the
good things that have happened, but still to be an independent person.
And I don't think that anybody else should second-guess that. Once your
party has a nominee, then the rest of us should be on the team. I think
politics is a team sport. It's about addition, not subtraction. And I
don't believe the rest of us should second-guess the leader of the team,
including me.
Mr. Rather. Do you agree or disagree that some of your failures,
policy as well as personal failures in the White House, had an impact on
Al Gore's losing?
The President. Yes, to the first; no, to the second. To say that
people would hold him responsible for any personal mistake I made is an
insult to the American people. I mean, people just aren't that unfair.
The people of this country are basically good people. And moreover,
there were a lot of surveys along toward the end of the campaign that
showed that if I could have run again, I would have done fine. So I just
don't think there's any evidence of that.
On the policies, however, there were--you know, I don't know if the
fact that we drew the short straw and had that terrible mess with the
Elian Gonzalez case cost him a lot of votes in Florida, but it could
have. And if it did, I feel very badly about it, because this wasn't
anything anybody dreamed up.
I don't think there's any question that a number of--in West
Virginia, some people voted against him in the northern part of the
State because they blamed us--I don't think they're right about it, but
they did blame us for the closing of a steel mill there that occurred
more or less at the same time of the Asian financial crisis. They
thought we should have moved more quickly than we did to stop the inflow
of cheap steel.
I don't think there is--I don't know if you'd call this a policy
failure, but I don't think there's any doubt that in at least five
States I can think of, the NRA had a decisive influence because they
disagreed with our attempts to close the gun show loophole and have
child trigger locks, safety locks, and ban large-scale ammunition clips.
You know, presumably, some people voted for him because we were for
those things. But one of the sad things about all gun safety legislation
is that people tend to vote for the issues, but when they're voting for
candidates, the ``antis'' tend to be more intense than the ``pros.'' I
mean, if you look at Colorado, which is basically a Republican State
now, the Vice President lost there, but closing the gun show loophole
passed 70-30. In Oregon, because of the Nader candidacy, he only won a
narrow victory, but the gun show loophole closing carried 2-1.
So I think you have to give the--so the policy issues that we fought
out, I don't think there's any question they cost him some votes. I
think that, on balance, I believe he gained more because of the economic
success of the administration, because we have 8 years in a row of
declining crime, because the welfare rolls were cut in half, because of
the millions of people that were benefited by family leave, because of
the things we did.
So I think, on balance, it was more of a plus than a minus by a good
long way; two-thirds of the people thought the country was going in the
right direction.
But in a race like this that's so close, you think about some of the
issues we had in West Virginia on that steel mill or the Gonzalez case,
and you wonder--I mean, President Kennedy once said that ``victory has a
thousand fathers, and defeat is an orphan.'' In this case, where the
Vice President won the popular vote and, by decision of the Supreme
Court, lost the electoral college, defeat may have a thousand fathers,
too. We'll all be chewing over this for--heck, people will be writing
about this 100 years from now.
[[Page 2734]]
Supreme Court Decision on Election
Mr. Rather. I have so much ground I want to cover with you, about
your legacy, about the future, and I don't intend to spend the rest of
our time talking about the election just finished. But anyone who's ever
been around a courthouse knows that judges, high and low, frequently
engage in raw politics--all hope they'll deal with the law.
You mentioned earlier the Supreme Court. To those who are absolutely
convinced that the Supreme Court, they just had a Republican majority,
wanted a Republican as President, and voted politics, not the law--as an
attorney and as our President, you say what?
The President. I say, when I get out and start teaching
constitutional law again, I'll tell you exactly what I think about it.
[Laughter]
The important vote there, the 5-4 vote--there were actually three
separate opinions, but the 5-4 vote was a vote to stop the vote count--
--
Mr. Rather. That was the clincher.
The President. ----6 days in advance of the electoral college
meeting. And the American people will just have to make their own
decisions about it. But I think that it will be viewed in history as a
momentous decision, and I think that it will be debated a long time. But
it's very interesting. You know, there's a lot of stuff already been
written about it. I noticed there were three articles in this week's
Economist about it, basically critical, even though the Economist
endorsed President-elect Bush. There's going
to be a lot of stuff written about it.
But I think that from my point of view, as long as I'm President,
what I should be focused on doing is telling the country that we should
accept it, because the principle of judicial review has served us well.
And all of us believe, looking back in history, that there were periods
when the Supreme Court made serious mistakes, but when they did, they
normally were corrected over time.
So I think the Vice President spoke for all of us when he said he
strongly disagreed with the decision, but he accepted it. And right now
we need to focus on pulling the country together, giving President-elect
Bush a chance to get off to a good start, to
hit the ground running, dealing with all these issues that are out
there. And there will be lots of time for me and others to say exactly
what the elements of the Supreme Court decision were. But I just don't
think I should say more than that now.
Mr. Rather. We're going to move on and talk about the economy.
Before doing so, as one who taught law, as an attorney, were you
surprised that this Supreme Court ever took the case? I ask this, again,
for backdrop. Many attorneys I've talked to, of all persuasion and all
parties, said they were surprised--some say stunned--that this Court
would have even taken the case.
The President. Well, let me say, I think most lawyers--or a lot of
them--are surprised they took the case. Even those that were surprised
they took the case were shocked when the vote count was stopped on the
Friday.
Mr. Rather. Were you?
The President. No. No, not after 8 years in Washington, I wasn't.
But I hadn't found a single lawyer who believes that there is precedent
any time in American history for it. I've asked probably 50, 60. But I
wasn't surprised, no.
They had the power to do it, and they did it. And it's done, and we
should accept it, because the country has to go on. We can't reverse the
principle of judicial review, and we shouldn't. And we should try to
help the President-elect get off to a good
start, give him a chance to govern the country. I hope he'll be given a
decent honeymoon. I know what it's like not to have one, and I hope he
will get one.
And I think we should--we ought to just--right now, everybody can
think what they think about it, but for me, I believe I owe my country.
The people of this country have been good to me, and I've had a chance
to serve in this job. It's hard enough under the best circumstances. The
President-elect won the electoral college,
and he deserves a chance to have a good start. And that's what I'm going
to focus on, and I'm going to try to give it to him.
National Economy
Mr. Rather. Let's talk about the economy. I think, by any reasonable
analysis, that the incoming Bush administration is trying to position
the economic picture in the following way: The economy is starting
downward, maybe headed toward a recession, and therefore they're
positioning themselves to be able to say, whatever happens on the
downside, particularly if we have a recession, ``Don't forget, it's the
Clinton/Gore
[[Page 2735]]
administration, not this new incoming administration.''
The President. Well, they do that. You know, you can't blame them
for trying to buy low and sell high if they want to try to do that. But
I personally believe that no one knows how long we can keep this
recovery going. But the overwhelming majority of the experts believe
that we're going to have a pretty good year next year.
Now, it's already the longest economic expansion in history. We had
over 22 million new jobs. I don't think you can totally repeal the
business cycle, but it's certain that it's changed. And what has changed
it?
First of all, you have to give the American people a lot of credit
here. You have this explosion of entrepreneurial energy, not only among
small businesses and dot-com companies but people integrating technology
and productivity into big old traditional firms. There's no question
that technology has enabled productivity to grow much more rapidly than
in the past, and that keeps these recoveries going.
And we've kept interest rates down, and we continue to invest in the
education and training of the American people. And we continue to open
new markets around the world and at home. Those are the things that I
think are important for the Government to do.
Now, for the last couple of years, we were growing at a blistering
pace. In other words, we've been growing ever since I got here, but
we've been growing at a blistering pace. No one believed we could
continue to grow at 5 percent a year. Most people believe next year
growth will be around 3 percent. And I believe that the important thing
is to just keep following a solid economic policy.
I think we can have a tax cut; I've always said that. But I think it
needs to be modest enough so that there's no question that we're going
to continue to pay down the debt and pay it off within a decade or so,
at least 12 years. I think that will keep interest rates down. That's a
big tax cut to ordinary people and to business people and to investors,
because it keeps the market up and it keeps inflation down.
Then I think it's important to save back enough money to invest what
we have to invest in education and our other responsibilities, including
national security. I think it is important to save back enough money to
deal with the long-term challenges to Medicare and Social Security.
You've got the baby boom generation about to retire. And depending on
what you decide to do with it, it costs more or less money to do it.
But I think that--there's no question that we can. I believe we
should have a tax cut. The question is, how big should it be, and
whether you can meet your other obligations? But the most important
thing people want is to keep this economy going. And I think, you know,
it's got quite a little life left in it, I think.
Mr. Rather. Quite a bit of life left in it, you say. Mr. President,
with respect, you know as I know that in politics, a lot of it is trying
to pin a tail on somebody else. This economy goes down even a little,
it's fairly clear that the tail is going to be--at least they'll try to
pin the tail on you.
The President. Well, they'll have the microphone, of course. But I
think that what--the American people hire us not so much to place blame
as to produce. And over the long run, that's how we're all judged, I
think. And I don't think any--at least no economist thought we could
continue to grow at 5 percent a year indefinitely.
Interest Rates
Mr. Rather. Are you in favor of interest rates staying low, or do
you think they need to be raised some or lowered some?
The President. Oh no, I think--well, no, no, no. I think--I like low
interest rates, which is why we've been paying the debt down. Now, if
the Federal Reserve believes that the economy is slowing too much, they
might want to cut short-term rates again and try to get a little more
investment going. And I think that that's something that they have under
consideration.
I have found that, basically, Chairman Greenspan has had a pro-growth policy. He's tried to see this
economy grow as much as it could without inflation. On a couple of
occasions over the last 8 years, he may have made a call different than
I would have made it, but on the whole, I think he's managed this thing
in a responsible way, and I've tried to manage my part of it in a
responsible way. And that's enabled us to have the longest expansion in
history with low inflation.
You know, I'd just like to--when I took office, the deficit of this
country--the debt had quadrupled, and the deficit was $295 billion. This
year we're going to pay off--we will have paid
[[Page 2736]]
off, in the last 3 years, $360 billion on the national debt. And I just
learned, about 30 minutes before we started this interview, that with
the budget we finished last weekend, we're going to pay off another $200
billion on the national debt. So we will have paid down $560 billion on
the national debt over 4 years. Now, that's a huge impact to keep
interest rates low and growth high.
So I still think they can--if this thing is managed properly, I
think they'll have some more growth here. Now, like I said, I don't
know--no one knows how much you can combine the entrepreneurial spirit
of the American people, the explosion of technology and productivity
growth, and proper Government policies, and how long you can keep this
going. No one knows the answer to that, but I think they can--I think we
can keep it going quite a while longer.
Mr. Rather. So to move on, are you in favor or not in favor of
cutting interest rates now?
The President. For 8 years, I have refused to second-guess the Fed
publicly, and I don't think I should change as I'm going out the door.
The press indicates that they have that under advisement, that they're
thinking about it. And it's something I think they ought to think about.
It depends upon what the data shows about how much they think the
economy is slowing. Everyone--they wanted--the Fed's raised interest
rates, you remember. They knew it had to slow some. If we kept growing
at 5 percent a year, there was too big a risk we'd have an explosion in
inflation or an explosion of interest rates or both.
But then we had the increased fuel prices, which slowed things down
some, and a few other developments and some corrections in some of the
high-tech stocks. So I think they've got it under consideration. I think
that if they do it, I think it will certainly be an understandable
decision.
But my point is, the thing that keeps interest rates really low is
the fact that we're paying the debt off. That will keep interest rates
low, inflation low, and if we keep investing in education, investing in
technology, investing in scientific research, staying on the cutting
edge of change, and opening new markets around the world--something I
think that this incoming administration and I agree on--I think that
we've got quite a bit of life left in the economy. The American people
are still working hard, and they're very innovative. So I expect them to
have a good year next year.
Advice for the President-Elect
Mr. Rather. Let's have some fun. If you could recommend one book
that the incoming President, George Bush, should read, what would it be?
The President. That's hard. But if it were only one book, I'd
probably tell him to read David Herbert Donald's biography of Abraham
Lincoln.
Mr. Rather. If you could recommend he see one movie that you think
might help him in his years here, however long they would be, what would
that be?
The President. ``High Noon,'' because Gary Cooper does the right
thing, even when people leave him, and even though he's scared, he
doesn't pretend to be macho. He's scared to death, and he does the right
thing anyway.
Washington Politics
Mr. Rather. You're not going to believe this, but when I went over
with my staff what your answer would be, I told them, ``High Noon.'' I
want you to check it later. [Laughter]
Let's move along. When you look back over your 8 years, what's the
one thing now that you wish you had known 8 years ago?
The President. Oh, boy, that's hard to answer. There are so many
things I wish I had known 8 years ago. But I wish I had understood
better, 8 years ago, exactly how what I do here both is seen by and
reacted to by Congress and by the American people, better than I did
then. I could give you lots of examples, but I think if I had done that,
I think a lot of the--some of the early conflicts that I had would have
been different.
I also wish I had understood better than I did when I came here the
different views generally held by the two parties on the nature of
political power and its uses in Washington--ways that I just didn't
understand then.
1993 Economic Plan Legislation
Mr. Rather. Your finest hour as President?
The President. That's very, very hard to say. I had a lot of great
times, for which I'm very grateful. But I think when we prevailed in
both Houses by one vote on the economic plan in '93, that's what really
turned the economy around and made possible so much else that
[[Page 2737]]
happened. If we hadn't had a functioning economy, I don't believe the
welfare reform efforts would have worked as well as they have; I don't
think the family leave law would have benefited 25 million people; I
doubt if the crime rate would have gone down for 8 years in a row, even
though we had a good crime policy; and I'm not sure I would have had the
support from the American people to end the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
and Kosovo, or be involved as I was in Northern Ireland, the Middle
East, a lot of other places. We might have had too much trouble here at
home for me to do that. It probably--the fact that we had that lonely
battle that only succeeded by one vote probably made so much else
possible.
Somalia
Mr. Rather. Your darkest hour?
The President. I've had more than one of them, too. But certainly
one of them was when those 18 American soldiers were killed in Somalia.
It was awful, because of the circumstances, which I hope to be able to
talk about in some detail someday. But to lose them all in what was a
humanitarian mission, because they were asked to try to arrest a person
who had been responsible for killing our Pakistani comrades who were
there also on a humanitarian mission, and then to wind up with all those
Somalis dead and losing 18 of our people, it was a dark day.
Impeachment
Mr. Rather. Impeachment had to be a dark day.
The President. Well, by the time they got around to voting, I knew
what was going to happen. And I didn't--no, my darkest day came long
before that when I had to come to terms with the fact that I made a
terrible personal mistake, which I tried to correct in private and which
then got dragged into public. That was dark for me. By the time they got
around to voting on impeachment, I knew what it was, and it didn't have
any--I felt that to me, if we could defeat impeachment, it was like the
second big battle of the Gingrich revolution. The first was when they
shut the Government down, and that was the second one.
That doesn't mean that I didn't make a terrible mistake, but there
were 800 people, including a lot of Republicans, who were legal and
constitutional scholars, who wrote a letter saying this was not an
impeachable offense and shouldn't even be considered. And they all knew
that, too. That was a political battle we were involved in. I didn't
seek it. I didn't want to fight it, but I was only too happy to take it
up, because I believe the real purpose of it was to try to weaken me and
our side and what we believed in, and to strengthen their side and what
they believed in.
Mr. Rather. In that, they succeeded.
The President. Well, I'm not sure they did. In 1998 we won seats in
the House of Representatives for the first time since 1822 in the sixth
year of a President's term. So I'm not sure they did. It may be that,
after the fact, that what they did will acquire some historical
legitimacy. But what I regret about that was what I did wrong, not the
fact that they impeached me, because that was wrong, too. I agreed with
Joe Lieberman, as I said at the time. I
agreed with what he said, that what I did was wrong and what they did
was wrong. And I think that's the way history will record it.
President-Elect George W. Bush
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, the clock rolls. Allow me to pick up the
pace a little. I want to read you off a list and ask you to tell me the
first thing that comes into your mind.
George W. Bush.
The President. President-elect.
Mr. Rather. Like him?
The President. I don't know him very well. I like his father very much, and I've actually had more contact with his
brother, who is the Governor of Florida, than I
have with him. But I have a lot of friends in Texas who like him, who
say he's a good man, like his wife very much,
like his daughters. And I hope he'll succeed.
Vice President Al Gore
Mr. Rather. We'll go down the list, and we'll stop on each one.
Al Gore.
The President. Best Vice President this country ever had, a partner
who without I could not have been successful as President.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich
Mr. Rather. Newt Gingrich.
The President. A brilliant adversary and a complicated man.
[[Page 2738]]
Mr. Rather. A bit of an adversary?
The President. Brilliant. A brilliant adversary.
Mr. Rather. Brilliant adversary.
The President. And a complicated man. He's a complicated man,
interesting man.
National Rifle Association
Mr. Rather. The National Rifle Association.
The President. An effective adversary, but I think, on balance, a
negative force, because they're trying to convince their people that
we're trying to do something we're not trying to do.
Mr. Rather. Which is?
The President. Take everybody's guns away. That's why I like giving
speeches in debate with them, because I always tell everybody I talk to,
if you missed a day in the deer woods or a single sport shooting
contest, you ought to vote against me and our whole crowd. But if you
didn't, they must be telling you something that's not true here. Let's
look at what we're really for.
So I think the NRA did a lot of good things in Arkansas when I was
there--hunter education programs; they helped me resolve some property
disputes. They really did some good things, but now they're just into
terrifying people and building their membership and raising money. And
it's just not true we're trying to take their guns away. It's just not
true that we've interfered with legitimate hunters and sports people.
And it's just not true that we've done enough in America to protect
people from the dangers of criminals and kids having guns.
But you've got to give it to them; they've done a good job. They've
probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact we didn't win the
House this time, and they hurt Al Gore.
Attorney General Janet Reno
Mr. Rather. Going on down the list, Janet Reno.
The President. Good woman, tried really hard to do a good job. She's
a good person.
Virginia Kelley
Mr. Rather. Your mother.
The President. First thing that comes to my mind? I still miss her
every day.
First Lady Hillary Clinton
Mr. Rather. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The President. I love her, and I'm really proud of her.
Chelsea Clinton
Mr. Rather. Chelsea.
The President. I love her, and I'm really proud of her.
Mr. Rather. Do you expect her to run for something some day?
The President. Oh, Lord, I kind of doubt it. Although, I'm proud of
her; she got into this deal helping her mom, and she traveled with me some when Hillary couldn't go
the last year and 3 or 4 months. She cares about public issues and
public life, and she's got a big heart. And she's really interested in
all of it, but I don't know that she would ever run for office. But if
she did, if she wanted to do it, I'd sure support her and do whatever I
could to help her. But it's totally up to her.
Lincoln Bedroom
Mr. Rather. The Lincoln Bedroom.
The President. It's the place where Lincoln freed the slaves.
Whitewater
Mr. Rather. Whitewater.
The President. Biggest bogus issue in modern American politics--
classic. It was a fraud from the get-go, and a lot of the people that
were propagating it knew it was a fraud. And in that sense, people will
look at this years from now and be amazed that anybody rode it as hard
as they did for as long as they did.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr
Mr. Rather. Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Independent Counsel.
The President. First title is better than the second. But I don't
have any--he just did what he was supposed to do. I don't have any
particular bad feelings about him.
Mr. Rather. He did what he was supposed to do?
The President. Yes.
Mr. Rather. What was he supposed to do?
The President. They put him in there because Fiske was a fair, balanced man, and the whole thing was going
to be over before the '96 election, and they didn't want that. And so
they put him in there, said, ``Drag it out and get a bigger body
count.'' And that's--he just did what he was supposed to do.
But I don't really have any--that group, that faction of the
Republican Party controlled those independent counsels, and that's what
they did.
[[Page 2739]]
But I don't have any personal animosity toward him like that. I mean, he
really--he's part of that crowd, and they really believe it. They think
that whatever they do to our side is okay, and that's what they really
believe.
I didn't--I underestimated that when I got here. I just didn't
really believe it. I always had good relationships with Republicans at
home, even very conservative ones, members of the so-called Christian
right. We always dealt with issues head up. And I just didn't understand
that before I got here, but once I figured out what the deal was, I
could sort of let it go. I realized they just had a different world view
than I did.
Republican Leadership in Congress
Mr. Rather. At the end of my list--well, first, the Republican
leadership on Capitol Hill.
The President. We got a lot done together and could have gotten more
done if they hadn't given their rightwingers veto power from time to
time. For example, we had--look what we got done this year. We just
passed the best education budget of my entire 8 years as President, huge
increases for after-school programs, school modernization and repair,
nearly doubled the number of kids in the after-school programs, big
increase in Head Start. We've now done more to expand college access
than anything since the GI bill. We passed the China trade bill, the
Africa-Caribbean Basin trade bill. And we took the earnings limit off of
Social Security. We did a bunch of stuff this year, and we did for the
last 6 years.
But we have a majority in the Congress--in this Congress, not the
new one coming in, in the one that went out--we had a majority for
campaign finance reform. We had a majority for a Patients' Bill of
Rights. We had a majority for an increase in the minimum wage. I believe
we had a majority for closing the gun show loophole.
Mr. Rather. But you couldn't get that through.
The President. No, because the rightwing blocked the leadership from
letting us have a full and fair vote on that. So that I regret. But I
worked with them, and I have very--personally, I like Senator
Lott; I like Speaker Hastert. I've even acquired----
Mr. Rather. Do you like Tom DeLay?
The President. I've even acquired a rather jovial relationship with
Dick Armey. We've gotten to where we joke
around with each other.
I think--Tom DeLay I don't know as well. I
told him, I said, the only thing he ever said about me that really hurt
my feelings was when he said he didn't believe my golf handicap was as
low as it was. And I sent him--I think I sent him a score that was in
the Syracuse newspaper. [Laughter] But Tom DeLay worked with
Hillary. They both got an award--Tom
DeLay and Hillary both got an award from an adoption group because
they'd done so much to try to facilitate adoptions. And that's the one
area that I found real common ground with him on, that I think he's
really genuine on.
My problem with him is, his whole view about
how you should treat your opponents is very different from mine. I just
think he's got a total scorch-and-burn policy: take them out, whatever
the cost, whatever you have to do. And he's real nice about it. If you
smile, you'd have a very cordial conversation with him. I think he
really believes that. I think he thinks that's the way you're supposed
to treat your political opponents. And I just don't agree with that.
For example, I never would have sent--I wouldn't let someone from
the White House go to a contested State and try to intimidate vote
counters. I wouldn't do that. I just don't believe that. That's not who
I am. I don't think--I think that a great country has to have some
voluntary restraint on the exercise of authority. But he's a very able guy, and if you don't stand up to him, he'll
run right over you. So he's a worthy adversary.
Monica Lewinsky
Mr. Rather. At the end of my list--and you expect it--Monica
Lewinsky.
The President. Sad chapter in my life that I wish were not public,
but it's in the past. And for her, I wish her well. I hope she has a
good life.
Mr. Rather. Do you take the responsibility, the personal
responsibility, full responsibility?
The President. Absolutely. I did, and I do.
President's Future Plans
Mr. Rather. There was a report today you're thinking about hosting a
television program. Anything to that?
The President. [Laughter] No. You guys make more money than I have,
though. Maybe it's not a bad idea. I hear it costs a lot of money to
support a Senator. Maybe I ought to look into it. [Laughter]
[[Page 2740]]
Mr. Rather. Don't believe everything you read, Mr. President.
[Laughter]
The President. I don't have an offer on the table. Is CBS getting
into the bidding here? [Laughter]
Mr. Rather. What about running for something? Are you going to run
for mayor of New York?
The President. No.
Mr. Rather. Governor of Arkansas?
The President. No.
Mr. Rather. Governor of----
The President. I loved it--no. Let me just say something about
running. I think it's very important that--first of all, I need to take
a couple of months and just go down. I need some rest. I've been working
like crazy for 27 years. And I want to help Hillary, however I can, to succeed, because I think she--I'm so
proud of her, and I think she is immensely talented, and I think she'll
do very well. But I've got to support my family. I want to try--I've
never had a chance to save any money. I want to try to save some, so
they will be all right if anything happens to me. I've got to make sure
we've paid all our bills. And I want to have some time to rest and just
be a private citizen again.
And then what I would like to do is to find a way to be a useful--to
use all this incredible opportunity I've had as President to work on
things that I care most about, here in the United States and around the
world, but to do it in a way that does not in any inappropriate fashion
get underfoot of the next President. I don't want to do that. I just
want to try to be a good citizen.
And I think there have been two truly great former Presidents in
terms of their public service, John Quincy Adams and Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Rather. John Quincy Adams because he went back and served in the
House?
The President. He went back and served in the House, and he served
16 years--or served 8 terms, anyway----
Mr. Rather. Any chance you would do something like that?
The President. ----and he's great. Well, let me finish. Then William
Howard Taft went on the Supreme Court, served with some distinction. And
for some years, Teddy Roosevelt kind of organized another political
movement. Herbert Hoover did a lot of good. He went out and headed the
commission for President Truman. So they also did well. Thomas Jefferson
did some productive things after he left the White House. So there's
evidence that if you don't just vegetate, you can do some good. And I'm
going to try to use my center and foundation to do some really good
things.
But I think that what I need to do is, I just need a little time to
sort of decompress. And like I said, I want to try to take care of my
family and just see what happens. But I care a lot--I just gave a speech
in Coventry at the University of Warwick for Tony Blair, talking about, sort of, these big issues for the 21st
century.
Mr. Rather. Your globalization speech.
The President. Yes. How do you put a human face on a global economy?
How do you empower poor people in America and around the world? What are
we going to really do about AIDS and the breakdown of public health
systems around the world? How are we going to figure out--how do you
deal with global warming and still have economies growing? Unless we can
break the link between putting more stuff into the air, greenhouse
gases, and getting richer, we're going to have a disaster on our hands,
because people are not going to agree not to become wealthier, and they
shouldn't. These big questions, these are things that I care about.
I ran for the White House--sometimes I feel like a fish out of
water, especially like this interview. We spent more than half our time
on kind of like political questions. But the reason that I had some
success as President, I'm convinced more than anything else, is that I
always thought Presidential elections and Presidential administrations
were about ideas that resonated with the values of the American people
but were appropriate to the present and the future. And I still believe
that.
If somebody asked me for advice, I'd say, ``Figure out what you
believe, what's your vision of America; come up with a strategy to
achieve it; then make your specific tactical move here. Decide what
ideas you're going to push.'' I think that's very important.
So when I'm not President, that's what I think I ought to be doing,
fighting for the things that I believe in, helping the people that I'd
like to help, people that would be--people or problems that would be
ignored by a lot of other people. So I hope I can do that. That's what I
care about.
[[Page 2741]]
And finally, of course, the great work of my life has been in racial
and religious and ethnic reconciliation. And I've tried to carry it
forward here as President. And I hope I'll be able to make a
contribution on that in the future.
Future Residences and Offices
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, the clock is running quickly here. First
of all, are you and the First Lady planning on selling the place in
Chappaqua, New York?
The President. Gosh, I hope not. I've gone to a lot of trouble to
fix that place up.
Mr. Rather. Are you buying a place here in Washington, in
Georgetown?
The President. [Laughter] I don't know. But you've got to have a
place to live here. And I hope--we'll either have to rent a place or buy
a place, and we'll figure out what to do about it. But----
Mr. Rather. Haven't bought one yet?
The President. No, we haven't bought one yet, and we're definitely
not going to sell our place in Chappaqua if I've got anything to say
about it. We've just got it all fixed up. We've done lots of work on
that house. It's a delightful place. I'm going to have an office,
Presidential office, in New York City. I'll have a--I'll have my
transition office here for 6 months, but I'll have my permanent office
up there. And I'll have the home in Chappaqua, and I expect we'll spend
virtually all of our weekends there. But you've got to have a place to
sleep down here.
First Lady's Memoirs
Mr. Rather. Now, the First Lady is going to be paid now--I'll go to
my notes here because this figure is a whopping figure--$8 million for
her memoirs. What is she going to say about you in that book?
The President. [Laughter] I don't know. I don't know if there's $8
million worth to say. You all know it all already. But she's had two
bestsellers, and she gave all the money away from the first one. The
second is on the best-seller list, the book on the White House now. It's
a really good book, I think. And she's given all the money away to that.
So she just auctioned this one. I think she was probably as surprised as
anybody that the auction brought that price. But the publisher that won
it published her other bestsellers. I guess they think she's got a third
one in her.
Mr. Rather. I want to say this respectfully, Mr. President. Surely
you don't want her writing about Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, and all
those things again. Is she likely to do that?
The President. You ought to ask her. She can write about whatever
she wants. I tell you, I bet it will be a good book.
Senator-Elect Hillary Clinton's
Political Future
Mr. Rather. The First Lady's future. It's assumed among Democrats
she's going to run for President. I guess the question is, does she do
it in 2004 or 2008?
The President. Well, I'll tell you what I believe. I believe that
that's worse than idle speculation. I can tell you what I've urged her
to do. What I've urged her to do is, number one, solidify her roots and
her ties with the people of New York State; have an agenda for New York;
have an agenda for America, because every Senator is a Senator on
American issues, too; stay on the forefront of ideas, keep pushing and
getting things done; and the future will take care of itself. But I
think--she said she intends to serve her term in the Senate, and I
believe that's what she intends to do.
We already assume there are a lot of other people who will run for
President again 4 years from now, including the Vice President. And of course, he would have a big leg up,
because he won the popular vote this time.
Mr. Rather. Do you consider him head of the Democratic Party now?
The President. I certainly think he is
the leader of the party, and he won the election--the popular vote, I
mean. He won the popular vote. And I think he will decide what he's
going to do. Then other people will decide what they're going to do.
But look, the world will look entirely different--could look
different 6 months from now, a year from now. No one has any idea what
it will be like 4 years from now. When I ran for President--this is why
I said ideas are the most important--when I started running for
President in late '91, my mother was about the only person who thought I
could win. That's not quite true; Hillary did. But the incumbent
President, President Bush, had an approval rating of over 70 percent.
These things are not predictable. And I think people waste so much
energy thinking about them and maneuvering.
I want Hillary to enjoy being a Senator and to be the best Senator
she can be. This seat
[[Page 2742]]
was held by Senator Moynihan and Robert Kennedy, and they were great
Senators. And that's what I want for her.
Mr. Rather. You do, or do not, think it is a given that she'll one
day run for President?
The President. Oh, I don't think anything is a given like that. I
don't think it's a given that any--if you could name me any person in
this country, Democrat or Republican, and say, do you think it's a given
that they'll run for President, I would say no, because I don't.
Abraham Lincoln once said about this--I think he'd always thought
he'd run for President. He's the only person, apparently; we forgive his
ambition. He once said, ``I will work and get ready, and perhaps my
chance will come.'' That's about all anybody can do. But no, I don't
know if any of them are going to run.
Post-Presidency Legal Issues
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, I'm so sorry to step on your line. I'm so
afraid time will run out on us. And you've been very generous with your
time. Do you expect to be indicted after you leave the Presidency, by a
current independent counsel, the successor to Kenneth Starr?
The President. Well, that's up to them. We had a bipartisan panel of
prosecutors testified in the Congress that no ordinary prosecutor would
do such a thing, would even think of it. There were five of them that
testified to that. And the Republicans in the Congress argued that they
didn't have to have an indictable offense; you could impeach somebody
for something that you wouldn't indict them for.
So I don't know. I may have more to say about that later. Look, I
don't have any idea. I don't have any control over that, and I don't
spend much time thinking about it. All I know is, Whitewater was a
fraud; the civil lawsuit was a fraud. They knew that for a long, long
time; everybody did. And a lot of innocent people have already been hurt
for purely political reasons. And if I had to do it all over again, I
still would, because the country is in better shape.
So all I can tell you is, nothing can take away my feeling of
gratitude for having had the chance to serve and my feeling of gratitude
that it worked out so well for the American people.
Mr. Rather. Do you think President Bush will pardon you to keep--
possibly prevent an indictment, or in case of indictment?
The President. I haven't given any thought to that. But I doubt it.
I mean, no, I haven't thought about that.
Mr. Rather. There are those who say, ``Look, it would be a great
unifying thing for the country,'' quote, unquote, for him to do that.
The President. Well, since I don't believe I should be charged, I
don't want that. I'll be happy to stand--I told you before, if that's
what they want, I'll be happy to stand and fight.
Presidential Pardons
Mr. Rather. Speaking of pardons, you still have your power to pardon
people. True or untrue that you've considered pardons for the financier
Milken, for Hubbell, for others involved in the Whitewater case, and for
the killer of two FBI agents, Mr. Peltier? Any truth to that?
The President. I have been asked to consider pardons for hundreds
and hundreds of people, and we are reviewing them all. And I will make
decisions at an appropriate time. I don't want to discuss them until I
make the decision about them.
I'll just mention one. On the Milken
thing, the main thing I've heard from there is the people that are
involved in prostate cancer, because he's been so active in that--I've
heard a lot from people who say, ``He served his time. He paid a big
price. You ought to do this because of the contribution he's made to the
fight against prostate cancer.''
Mr. Rather. It sounds like you might--fair to say you might?
The President. No, it's not fair to say I will or I won't. I haven't
made a decision about that.
North Korea
Mr. Rather. Foreign policy, I wanted to talk to you about your
legacy on foreign policy. This time it didn't work out that way. Are you
planning a trip to North Korea?
The President. I haven't decided yet. We worked hard with North
Korea. We made a big breakthrough there with the Secretary of
State going. I'd like to do what I can
to make sure that--we started this administration with the North Korea
problem being the number one national security threat to the United
States because of their nuclear program. We terminated that, and we're
trying to figure out a way to terminate the missile program. If there
was
[[Page 2743]]
some way to do that, I might consider doing it.
But I wanted to wait until we had a President-elect because they'll
have to have their own Korea policy. It may be something they prefer to
do, maybe something they disagree with doing. So I just thought, while I
don't think that the President-elect should have a veto--like I didn't--
President Bush went--did the Somalia thing after the election 8 years
ago--I think it should be something that we discuss and we just try to
work through what the best thing for America's interest is.
Cuba
Mr. Rather. Do you agree or disagree that U.S. policy in Cuba is out
of step with your approach on other countries and has more to do with
domestic policies and domestic politics than it does, actually, foreign
policy?
The President. Well, I think it had a great deal to do with domestic
policy and politics for a long time, in the sense that we have a lot of
people in America who were personally hurt by the Castro regime and whose families were hurt and who lost their
property, and they even lost their lives, lost their loved ones. So
it's, in that sense, more personal. But I don't think there's any
question that we would have made more progress with Cuba than we have if
they hadn't shot those planes down and murdered those innocent people a
few years ago.
Mr. Rather. The ``Castro regime'' meaning Fidel, himself?
The President. Yes. They shot those Brothers to the Rescue planes
down in blatant violation of international law. We don't believe they
were in Cuban territorial waters. But even if they were in Cuban
territorial waters, it was illegal. Cuba is a signatory to the Chicago
convention, which specifically says how you have to handle planes like
that. It governs what we do when we see planes take off from South
America, small planes that we know are unarmed that may have drugs on
them. A lot of times we have to follow them until they go down
somewhere, or do that. What they did, it was a deliberate, illegal
killing.
Mr. Rather. That's a matter of foreign policy.
The President. Yes. And when they did that, the Congress reacted
basically by passing the so-called Helms-Burton Act, which dramatically
restricted the ability of any President to relax relations with Cuba.
And it made me wonder if the person in the whole world that least wanted
the embargo lifted was Fidel Castro. I mean,
I've often wondered whether he and the people in America that don't want
any change in relations are in some sort of unconscious dance with each
other, because as long as that embargo is there, he's got an excuse for
the failures of his regime.
China
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, last question, China. There are reports
out of China that they're razing church buildings, blowing them up,
burning them down, on the eve of Christmas. And they've been doing this
sort of thing for a year and a half. Are you now ready to recommend that
the United States back this resolution at Geneva, before the United
Nations Human Rights Commission, to condemn this kind of thing?
The President. Well, let me say, I have been--I have worked, I
believe, as hard as any President for religious liberty at home and
around the world, even for people who disagree with me on a lot of
things. And I have had innumerable conversations with Jiang Zemin and with other Chinese officials about this. I think
that their view that people who have strong religious convictions
represent a political threat is just wrong. So I will do what I think is
appropriate at the time on this.
Mr. Rather. Does that include considering backing this resolution?
The President. I gave an answer. That's all the answer I want to
give right now.
Mr. Rather. Mr. President, you have been very generous with your
time, and I appreciate it.
The President. Thank you, Dan.
Mr. Rather. Thank you.
The President. Thank you.
Note: The interview was taped at 4:28 p.m. in the Oval Office at the
White House for later broadcast. In his remarks, the President referred
to Cuban youth Elian Gonzalez, rescued off the coast of Florida on
November 25, 1999, who returned to Cuba on June 28, 2000; Senator Joseph
Lieberman; Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; and
President Jiang Zemin of China. The transcript was embargoed for release
by the Office of the Press Secretary until 9 p.m. on December 19. A tape
was not available for verification of the content of this interview.