[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 3 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[Page 79]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Exchange With Reporters After Taping the President's Radio Address

January 20, 1995

Loan Guarantees and Domestic Politics

    Q. Mr. President, what do you say to Congressman Leach, who suggests 
that the partisanship, the bickering over Speaker Gingrich's book deal 
is poisoning the atmosphere and not allowing this Mexican package to go 
through?
    The President. Well, of course, he has been in Washington many more 
years than I have, but in the 2 years that I have been here, I have seen 
an unusual amount of partisan bickering. But it didn't stop us from 
passing GATT, from dealing with NAFTA, from dealing with the urgent 
problems in Russia that we confronted when I came here early on, and 
from pursuing a course in the Middle East that is having a very positive 
result, from doing any number of other things that were critical to the 
national interest. And it can't stop us now.
    We have to do what we always do in these cases. We have to act, act 
quickly, act with dispatch, and put the national interest first. That's 
what we all have to do.

Note: The exchange began at 11:44 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of 
this exchange.