[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 44 (Monday, November 7, 1994)]
[Pages 2221-2223]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Bruce Newbury of WPRO Radio, Detroit, Michigan

November 1, 1994

    Mr. Newbury. Mr. President, how are you?
    The President. I'm fine, Bruce. How are you?
    Mr. Newbury. Nice to speak to you this afternoon.
    The President. Nice to speak to you.

Midterm Elections

    Mr. Newbury. And we're looking forward to having your visit with us 
tomorrow in Rhode Island. Now, you'll be here for a Democratic rally 
among some other things, and I think it's safe to say that 7 days before 
the election, any appearance by the President is a political event. But 
what kind of a message does it send for the President of the United 
States to appear on behalf of campaigning politicians this late in the 
game in their home district? I mean could this be construed as pulling 
out all of the stops?
    The President. I hope it is, because that's what I'm trying to do. 
You know, the people of Rhode Island have been very good to me, and 
you've got some races that I'm very interested in and have been asked to 
come and support Representative Kennedy and our candidate for Governor 
and the others on the Democratic ticket, so I'm looking forward to being 
there.
    And after all, our administration has had a good record in Rhode 
Island. In the last 21 months, we've seen over 10,000 new jobs come into 
the State, and in the previous 4 years, you lost almost 10,000 jobs. 
We've been able to give tax cuts to 38,000 working families and almost 
4,800 small businesses, and we've passed the Family and Medical Leave 
Act. We've got middle class student loans available at lower costs than 
before. We're moving this country forward. We're getting things going 
again in the right direction in America, and I want to be able to take 
that message to Rhode Island, and I'd like to have some support from 
people in Rhode Island in the Congress for continuing to do that.
    Mr. Newbury. The Republican contract is going to be a topic of 
discussion when you arrive here tomorrow.
    The President. It should be.
    Mr. Newbury. Is it, as the New York Times did today, is there going 
to be a point-by-point Democratic response to the Republican contract?
    The President. Well, the New York Times gave a point-by-point 
response to it today?
    Mr. Newbury. It's in a graph form, a chart form here in the----
    The President. That's great. I haven't seen it, but let me say what 
we've attempted

[[Page 2222]]

to do is to show what it would take to pay for the Republican contract. 
I mean, in typical Republican fashion, just like they did in the 
eighties, they made all these wild promises and never said how they'd 
pay for it.
    Now, they've promised big tax cuts, big increases in defense 
spending and Star Wars and a balanced budget. And the House Budget 
Committee did an analysis and said that if they did that, that the only 
way you could keep that promise is to cut Social Security about $2,000 a 
year and to cut Medicare about $1,800 a year, because that's what's in 
the rest of the budget. And if they say they're not going to do it, then 
what they're saying is they're not going to keep their promise. Instead, 
they're going to give a tax cut to the wealthy, explode the deficit, 
start shipping our jobs overseas, and put us right back in the same hole 
we were in when they had office the last time.
    So they cannot have it both ways. They can't go out here and give 
the American people $1 trillion worth of promises and say, ``I'll tell 
you how I'm going to pay for this after the election.'' That's what 
they're trying to do. It's a scam. It's a bunch of easy promises. Our 
approach is to challenge the American people, to say, ``Okay, we're 
going to give you the educational opportunities you need, we're going to 
make this Government work for ordinary people to support families again; 
as with family leave and immunizations for little kids, and we're going 
to get the economy going again. And now you've got to make the most of 
your lives.'' We're not going to give you a bunch of promises that can't 
be kept, that will only put this country back in the hole again.
    I think when the American people understand both what we have done 
and what they're offering, that we're going to be in much better shape.

Health Care Reform

    Mr. Newbury. Of course, the State of Rhode Island has been very much 
involved in the health care reform proposals with Senator Chafee and of 
course, Ira Magaziner. Now, when health care comes back on the table in 
the spring, what input can we expect from these gentlemen?
    The President. Well, I hope they'll be very much involved. I will 
say this: If we had more Republicans who were willing to support Senator 
Chafee, we'd have a health care bill today, because he was willing to 
deal with us in good faith, and he really wanted to get a resolution of 
this.
    But as you probably know, they all abandoned him and his plan, his 
original plan, because, unfortunately, the congressional leadership of 
the Republicans has been so bitterly partisan that they would rather 
defeat a bill than have the Democrats involved in helping get health 
care, even if the Republicans got half the credit. They tried to do the 
same thing to the crime bill. The leadership tried to beat the crime 
bill.
    But again, Senator Chafee and a few others said they would not be 
involved in that kind of bitter partisanship, and they did what was 
right for America. So I'm very hopeful that we can get a different and 
more bipartisan approach to crime. It depends in part on how these 
elections come out. You know, we've got Mayor Giuliani, the Republican 
Mayor of New York, endorse Governor Cuomo, the Republican Mayor of Los 
Angeles endorsed Senator Feinstein, Nancy Reagan, our former First Lady, 
has attacked Oliver North in Virginia, and Mrs. Heinz, the wife of the 
former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania has attacked the Republican 
Senate nominee in Pennsylvania. A lot of these mainstream Republicans 
are horrified by the destructive, extremist wing that has taken over the 
Republican Party, either interested in ideological politics or just 
power-grabbing; they don't like it. So there's a lot of good Republicans 
in this country that want to see us work together to solve problems, and 
I'm going to do my best to work with them after this election is over.

White House Security

    Mr. Newbury. I want to get to the security issue with the White 
House. Of course, you're on the road, and it's probably a wise course 
with what's going on back home there. But let me ask you this. 
[Laughter] Until----
    The President. That's great.
    Mr. Newbury. I got a laugh out of the President; it's not a bad day. 
Until the Secret

[[Page 2223]]

Service comes back to you with their findings, have you given thought to 
moving your family out of the White House? In all seriousness.
    The President. Oh, no, no. You know, the thing with the airplane was 
a fluke. First of all, none of us were there. If we had been there, I 
think under the security procedures it would have been handled 
differently. But there was a guy that just came in under the radar and 
was obviously trying to do something to draw attention to himself, not 
trying to hurt us.
    In terms of the shooting incident, we have shootings in the streets 
of America every day. And what I hope the American people got out of 
that shooting incident was that the people in the Congress who voted for 
the crime bill and the assault weapons were right; you don't need people 
to be able to walk around on the streets of America and pull out a gun 
where you can fire off 20 or 30 bullets in one magazine before you know 
it.
    But the Secret Service does a good job protecting the President. We 
will be prudent; we will be safe. But I'm not going to go into a hole 
and hide in a Democratic country where people are free to move around. 
You just have to keep doing that and take all the precautions you can. 
But I feel good about the job they do, and so I'm going to keep being 
out here among the people and take whatever precautions seem 
appropriate.

Chelsea Clinton

    Mr. Newbury. Very good. I wanted to just ask you another quick 
question about Rhode Island. Is Chelsea coming back to Rhode Island next 
summer to take sailing lessons again?
    The President. I don't know. She sure does want to. She loved that. 
She had the most wonderful time up there. She loved the school, she 
loved the people she met. She loved sailing. When I got back from the 
Middle East, I showed her a model of a boat that I brought from the 
Middle East that one of the leaders gave me, and she understood all 
about how it was constructed and how it all worked. So I will say the 
people who taught her last summer in Rhode Island did a good job.
    Mr. Newbury. Well, all right. Well, she's more than welcome to come 
back, and we're looking forward to your visit tomorrow. Well, not 
everybody, the people that have to drive 95 aren't too choked up about 
it.
    The President. Yes, I apologize in advance. I'm trying not to 
inconvenience them too much.
    Mr. Newbury. I hear you, and it's been a pleasure to talk with you 
this afternoon. Thank you very much for giving us your time.
    The President. Are you driving your Chevrolet Impala?
    Mr. Newbury. As a matter of fact, I left it home today because it's 
raining, and it's got the original wipers on it. And those are valuable 
in themselves so I don't want to use them. But I know you're a car buff.
    The President. I love old cars; '64 was a good year for the Impala.
    Mr. Newbury. It sure was. This is a beauty. It's been in a garage 
for about 15 years. It's got the 230 in it, the six, but it's got some 
of the bells and whistles, and it's just a beautiful car. I'm tickled to 
death with it. I was going to drive it today, but I said, wait a minute, 
he's just going to be on the phone; he's not going to see it. But I'll 
send your picture.
    The President. Thanks, man.
    Mr. Newbury. All right, sir. Hey, nice to talk to you. You take good 
care.
    The President. All right. Bye-bye.
    Mr. Newbury. And have a safe trip.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 3:19 p.m. The President spoke by telephone 
from the Westin Hotel in Detroit, MI. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.