[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 32 (Monday, August 14, 1995)]
[Pages 1426-1432]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Tabitha Soren of MTV

August 11, 1995

Teenage Smoking

    Ms. Soren. Mr. President, minors buy one billion packs of cigarettes 
a year. How are you going to make not smoking and quitting smoking cool 
and attractive to young people?
    The President. Well, I think we have to do several things. I think, 
first of all, the Government's responsibility is to make sure that the 
young people understand that it's addictive and dangerous and can kill 
them and that about one-third of the young people who start smoking 
every day--about 1,000 people a day, young people, start smoking who 
will have their lives shortened because of it. The second thing I think 
you have to do is make it less accessible. Then the third thing we have 
to do is make it less attractive, that is, we need to change the 
advertising and limit the ability of advertising to be a lure.
    We had a young teenager in here who was part of an antismoking group 
yesterday who said to me--I was so touched--she said, ``We look at these 
TV ads,'' she said, ``these girls smoking, they're always tall; they're 
always thin; they always have long hair; they're always pretty.'' She 
said, ``It's just like when the boys who are young see a movie star 
holding a gun.'' And it was shocking what she said.
    And then what we want the tobacco companies to do is to spend some 
money on an affirmative strategy to put out positive messages--over MTV, 
for example--about how it's cool not to smoke instead of to smoke. So I 
think you make it less accessible, less attractive, and then put out a 
positive message. And of course, we need a lot of help. We need people 
like you to do programs like this, and every parent in this country 
needs to talk to their children--all the parents need to talk to their 
children about it, because we now have done 14 months careful research 
and we know how damaging this is, and we know that the tobacco companies 
know how damaging it is from their own files. We've got to do something 
about it.
    Ms. Soren. Do you worry about making smoking more enticing by making 
it more forbidden to young people?
    The President. I think that's always a concern; there could be some 
of that. But the staggering magnitude of the damage that it's doing is 
so great, I think if young people really understand how dangerous it 
really is and all the things that can happen to them and how it can 
affect their future, I don't think it will be more glamorous.
    Ms. Soren. You know, though, what kids are going to say. In a time 
where they're growing up and sex is associated with AIDS, alcohol with 
drunk driving, going out late at night you could be shot, it's very 
violent, smoking during your adolescence almost seems like a lesser 
evil.
    The President. I know it does, but in some ways it's the thing that 
puts the most at risk over the long run. And we have to do something 
about the other things, too. I've fought very hard to get the assault 
weapons out of the hands of gang members, to pass the Brady bill, to put 
more police officers on the street. The crime rate is going down in 
almost every--almost every big city in this country, the crime rate is 
going down. We have to--we're doing a better job trying to keep big 
shipments of drugs out of the country. We're working hard on that.

[[Page 1427]]

    But this is a serious problem. On alcohol, it's less accessible than 
cigarettes. It's still a problem, but I want a zero tolerance drunk 
driving law for young people in every State in the country or here in 
the Congress. But the cigarettes--the magnitude of the damage caused is 
greater than all of that right now. And we just have to focus on it.
    I know it--because there normally is a period of several years 
between the time you start and keep smoking and the time you face the 
consequences, and when you're young you think you're going to live 
forever, I know that it's going to be harder to get young people to 
focus on that. But we have to. There's a lot of destructive behavior in 
America we need to attack at the same time, and I just think that we can 
get these numbers way, way down.
    You gave the number--a billion packs of cigarettes or a billion 
cigarettes a year--we can get that way down. And when we do, we'll get 
the life expectancy of these young people and their quality of life way 
up.
    Ms. Soren. Did you ever experiment with cigarettes as a teen? Did 
you go through that phase?
    The President. I didn't. But I'm surprised I didn't, but I didn't. 
The reason I didn't is because my mother was a heavy smoker. She smoked 
a couple of packs of cigarettes a day until my daughter got her to quit 
for her 8th birthday. When my daughter turned 8, her grandmother gave 
her that for a present. So I had a bad feeling about it from childhood. 
But it was only because of that. I'm sure I would have done it 
otherwise.
    Ms. Soren. Why were you savvy enough to have a bad feeling about it? 
You didn't like the smell of the house, or you didn't like----
    The President. Yes, I didn't like the smell in the house. And I 
thought it was--it struck me as a bad habit, kind of a nervous habit, a 
reliance. And I had a feeling that it was not good for her health.
    Ms. Soren. What would you say to Chelsea if you saw her fall under 
peer pressure of some of her friends and start smoking or if you found 
ashes in her bedroom in an ashtray or something?
    The President. I would talk to her about it and tell her I thought 
it was a bad idea. She's the most militant person in our house, though.
    Ms. Soren. Yes, it doesn't sound like you're worried.
    The President. She and Hillary are always on me. You know, as I 
confessed yesterday, I still, once in a great while, maybe five, six, 
seven times a year, will smoke a cigar when I'm outside. They think 
that's awful--at all. And I've got to do better with it. But if they see 
me chewing one on the golf course or something, they're on me. So my 
family is doing a better job with it than I am.
    Ms. Soren. Some kids I talk to said that nothing but an outright ban 
on cigarettes would deter them. So why not a ban? Because cigarettes are 
just as deadly, if not more so, for adults.
    The President. They are, but they're not illegal. You have to go 
through all the same problems we went through with prohibition with 
liquor. It would have significant economic dislocations for a large 
number of Americans. And I think as a practical matter, because so many 
adults are, in effect, hooked on it, it would be very, very difficult to 
enforce.
    What I want to do is to phase it out over time by getting--if young 
people stop using cigarettes--if we could get young people, the usage 
down to zero, then eventually it will phase out. That would be my goal. 
I think we just have to start with our young people.
    Ms. Soren. Do you consider tobacco companies evil?
    The President. I wouldn't go that far. I don't think that. And I 
certainly don't consider the tobacco farmers evil. I think they're good 
people. Most of them--a lot of them come from families that have been 
doing it 100, sometimes 200 years.
    I think some of these companies have known for a long time, 
according to their own documents, that nicotine was both addictive and 
destructive. And they have--insofar as they have pretended that they did 
not know that, that is wrong.
    I think some of these companies have said, we don't want teenagers 
to smoke, but they have consciously directed their advertising 
strategies to make it appealing to young people and not just Joe Camel, 
which was obvi- 

[[Page 1428]]

ous, but a lot of other things as well. I think those things are wrong.
    And what I want the tobacco companies to do is stop doing the wrong 
thing and start doing the right thing. I think they ought to come in 
here and support this--these restrictions. I think they ought to ask 
Congress to enact them into law now. If they don't want the FDA to 
regulate them, let's enact the law now. And I think that we ought to 
start the very next day on this campaign together. If the tobacco 
companies really don't want kids to smoke, we can do this together.
    Ms. Soren. Are you going to try to bring back the cigarette tax? 
California has had a lot of success with that in their State.
    The President. Well, this Congress would not adopt that. I have had 
a number of people who've come from tobacco countries suggest that some 
of the cigarette tax ought to be devoted to helping the farmers who want 
to convert their farmland to other purposes, to some sort of buy-out 
program.
    But I think that right now what we ought to do is--the bulk of the 
cigarette tax is available to the States, and a lot of the States now 
are passing cigarette taxes to help to pay for the health care bills of 
people who are suffering from tobacco-related illnesses. And I don't 
want to see the Congress and the Federal Government crowd that out. So 
when I proposed a tobacco tax before, it was to pay for health care. 
That's not going to happen this year.
    Ms. Soren. Right now, advertising is written off as a business 
expense, and that means the public pays in some fashion for all 
advertising, including cigarette advertising. Would you consider getting 
rid of the tax deduction for cigarette advertising?
    The President. You're the first person who's ever suggested it to 
me. I'd never though of that. That's an interesting idea.
    Ms. Soren. So I'll give you a few minutes to absorb it, and I'll 
come back.
    The President. That's an interesting idea. I've never thought of 
that.
    Ms. Soren. Because I think a lot of people would be offended by the 
idea of paying for an unhealthy product to advertise and garner more 
smokers through it. But I'll let you dwell on it.
    Not only do you want to regulate tobacco products, but you're also 
in favor of regulating how they're marketed. And I was wondering, how 
far do you plan to go? When a musician sits down to talk with me and 
they're smoking a cigarette, should I not air that footage on MTV? 
Should I ask Keith Richards to put out his cigarette before he does an 
interview with me? Should this go for all television? Because of lot of 
young people watch MTV.
    The President. I think that's a decision for you to make. I think 
you should ask him to put it out because I think there are a lot of 
young people----
    Ms. Soren. It is Keith Richards.
    The President. I know. [Laughter] And I know he's an icon--for me, 
too.
    Ms. Soren. I don't know if he--his heart might stop if he doesn't 
have a cigarette.
    The President. That's the great thing about their endurance, you 
know.
    But that's a decision that each network, each interviewer, they'll 
have to make. Let me just say this: I believe very strongly in the first 
amendment and the right to free speech, free association, and freedom of 
religion. I believe in a very broad interpretation of it. But I believe 
that we should be restricting advertising directed at children because 
it's illegal to sell cigarettes to children. So, therefore, if it's 
illegal to sell cigarettes to children, it can't be illegal to stop the 
advertising directed at children. So that's what my focus is.
    In terms of the interviews and everything, I would hope every 
American adult, even those who smoke, would think, as I had to when I 
became President and I had this occasional bad habit of having my cigar 
once in a while, I would hope they would think about not doing it in 
public, not doing it around children, not setting a bad example. I think 
we adults have a responsibility to try to set a good standard for our 
young people and to basically say everybody's got a lot of problems, but 
being self-destructive is not a way to deal with them.
    Ms. Soren. Mr. President, I want to say this as politely as I can, 
but I think a lot of our viewers are going to be wondering why should 
they listen to you about this issue?

[[Page 1429]]

    The President. Well, they don't have to listen to me about this 
issue. What we're going to do is change the law. But I'll tell you why 
they should listen to me or to anybody else. I would say that if they 
wanted to listen to me, don't listen to me, look at the medical 
research, look at the evidence. This is about their lives, not mine. 
I've lived most of my life. Their lives are ahead of them. And the 
reason they should listen to me is that the evidence is on my side, not 
just because I'm President. We know that nicotine in cigarettes and 
smokeless tobacco is addictive, is destructive, and will shorten the 
lives of one out of three people who start smoking on a regular basis. 
We know that.
    So what they should do is say, ``Okay, here's the evidence; now, 
what kind of life do I want to live?'' Ultimately, it's going to be 
their decision, because even if the law keeps cigarettes away from them 
in the near-term, soon they'll turn 18, and they'll be able to do 
whatever they want to do. They have to make these decisions. But I 
think--my job, what I'm trying to do here every day and with the 
economy, with saving the college loan program, with trying to preserve 
the environment from this awful assault that the Congress is making on 
it, is to give the young people of our country a good country to grow up 
into and a good life to look forward to. Then they have to make a 
decision about how to live that life.
    And what those of us who are older are supposed to do is to say 
here's what we think will maximize your choices. Here's what we think 
will give you the chance to live up to the fullest of your abilities. 
And that's what I hope they'll listen to, because the evidence is on my 
side. I'm not just preaching here, I have all this evidence.
    Ms. Soren. Right. Right. It's not like you don't have enough things 
to do already.
    The President. But this is a big deal. Look, look. Everything I try 
to do here, if you look at--let's just take trying to save the college 
loan program from attack and trying to preserve the environmental 
protections we have in this country. Why would I do that? Because I want 
my child and our grandchildren and all the young people coming up to 
enjoy a good life. That still requires all these individuals who are 
watching us to make decisions about how they're going to live. And being 
addicted to tobacco is not a smart thing to do if you want to have a 
long, full good life. It's a huge roll of the dice.
    I never will forget a few years ago having to speak at the funeral 
of a very close friend of mine, a man that had literally no other vices. 
He was one of the most perfect human beings I ever knew. But he smoked a 
couple of packs of cigarettes a day, and he died of lung cancer 2\1/2\ 
years after he had his last cigarette because it takes that long to 
clean out your lungs.
    Ms. Soren. Wow.
    The President. And he was younger than me. I never got over it. I 
never will get over it.

Abortion

    Ms. Soren. While I have you, there are a couple of other issues I 
wanted to ask you about that are important to young voters, in addition 
to smoking and their health, which you sort of rattled off very quickly.
    First, though, the woman best known as Jane Roe whose struggle to 
obtain an abortion led to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, has 
come out against anything but first trimester abortions. How big a blow 
do you feel this is to the prochoice movement?
    The President. Well, as I understand it, she's gone through a number 
of changes in her life and had a serious religious conversion and 
believes that abortion is wrong now. The rule of Roe v. Wade is it 
permits everybody in America to make that same decision. That is, I 
think there are too many abortions in America. I have always believed 
that abortion should be rare but that they should be safe and legal 
until the third trimester when the child can live outside the mother's 
womb. If somebody hasn't made the decision by then, unless the life of 
the mother's in danger, I think they should be illegal, and they were in 
my State.
    But I think that leaving the decision to the woman and her doctor 
and whoever else she wishes to consult, I think on balance is still the 
right decision in our country. And that makes it possible for people 
like this woman to make up her own mind and to have her own convictions 
and then try to persuade

[[Page 1430]]

other people that she's right. It leaves her free to say, ``My religious 
conviction is what is right for all of you; I hope you will follow me.'' 
People can do that.
    And we have a very vibrant, as you know, pro-life movement in this 
country of people trying to convince other people of that all the time. 
But we don't say to people who disagree that we're going to criminalize 
your conduct until the child can live outside the mother's womb. And I 
think, on balance, that is the right position for our country, and I 
would stick with it.
    Ms. Soren. Since abortion is under such attack in Congress, do you 
think that you should be doing more to support the prochoice movement?
    The President. Well, I don't know what else I can do. I'm doing--I 
think I'm doing everything I can. I certainly have made it absolutely 
clear where I stand. I have resisted the attempts in the Congress to 
take away the rights of choice to women in the service, to women who 
work for the Federal Government.
    There is a wholesale assault on the right to choose going on in the 
Congress now in all kinds of little, indirect ways. And I hope we can 
beat it back because I think it's--I don't think that's the right thing 
to do. I don't think the law here is the way to resolve all these 
problems.

Opposition in Congress

    Ms. Soren. You've used executive actions in the first 2 years of 
your Presidency for issues like abortion. And in recent months, with the 
Republican majority, you've turned to them more frequently, the 
regulation of teenage smoking being the most recent one. Do you feel 
like you're subverting the will of Congress by tackling issues this way?
    The President. No. I think that I probably should have been doing 
more of this all along. But in the first 2 years, I had to pour all of 
my energies into trying to do something to bring the deficit down, to 
invest more in education, to try to expand trade, and get the economy 
going again. And we were able to do that, but the voters still gave the 
Congress to the Republicans. And now it frees me up, in a way, to--most 
of my efforts, to try to keep them from undoing the gains we have made 
from wrecking an economic strategy or wrecking the education program or 
wrecking the environment.
    But I can now do things like use my executive authority, for 
example, to promote welfare reform in all 50 States, to do the other 
things that we talked about. So I think I probably should have been 
doing more of it all along.

Legal Defense Fund

    Ms. Soren. Today lawyers for the legal defense fund are announcing 
how much money they've raised. Does that make you feel awkward to have 
them up there saying, ``We've collected this money for the President to 
defend him?''
    The President. No. I mean, it's a little--I wish it weren't 
necessary. But I'm not a wealthy person and my adversaries decided that 
they would try to embroil me in all kinds of legal things, and I can't 
afford to take any time off to think about it. So they're dealing with 
it the best they can in a legal and appropriate way. And I did not want 
to go to a few wealthy people and ask them to spend a ton of money to 
pay all my legal bills. So we resolved that the most appropriate thing 
to do would be to raise funds in a legal defense fund that had the same 
financial restrictions that running for Federal office does. And so 
that's what we've tried to do.

Bosnia

    Ms. Soren. Senator Dole and Senator Helms have proposed asking for 
$100 million in arms aid for Bosnia. Do you support this legislation?
    The President. Not now because the arms embargo is on. My position 
is that the United States should not, by ourselves, violate the U.N. 
rule against selling arms into Bosnia because it applies to all 
Yugoslavia, that instead, what we ought to do is have that U.N. mission 
there work to stop aggression against Bosnia by letting NATO use its air 
power and by strengthening the U.N. mission on the ground.
    What happened in Srebrenica was awful. But it happened in large 
measure because the United Nations would not permit the United States 
and the other NATO allies to take strong action from the air against the

[[Page 1431]]

Serbs. Now that there's been a real change on the ground and the Serbs 
have been rolled back in the western part of Bosnia and in Croatia by 
the Croats, I hope we have a chance to make a decent peace there.
    I would not be against--if the U.N. mission fails, I would be for 
selling arms to the Bosnians or making it possible for the Bosnians to 
buy arms, but only when we get everybody to lift the arms embargo at the 
U.N.
    But let me just say this in closing. We have an embargo against 
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and you see what happened. We put a lot of 
pressure on it; we now have some defectors coming over, weakening his 
power. If we say, ``We're going to ignore you, and we're going to sell 
arms to the Bosnians,'' then what's to prevent other countries from 
saying, ``Okay, we'll ignore the U.N. embargo in Iraq, and we'll bolster 
Saddam Hussein?''

Rap Music

    Ms. Soren. I just have two more quick questions. Do you think it's a 
good thing that Time-Warner wants to sell Interscope Records? Do you 
know anything about that?
    The President. No.

Death of Jerry Garcia

    Ms. Soren. I wanted to ask you if you were--well, Jerry Garcia has 
affected millions of Americans.
    The President. Me, too.
    Q. Were you a fan? Have you ever been to a Grateful Dead show? And 
why do you think he affected so many people of different backgrounds and 
generations?
    The President. Well, first of all, he was just a great talent. I 
mean, he was really--he was a genius. And I was really pleased to see 
the Grateful Dead have one more great run around the country, you know, 
in the last couple of years and see all these young teenagers 
gravitating to a group that all of us liked 20 or more years ago. He had 
a great gift. And he even wound up putting out that line of ties. He had 
great ties. I would go around wearing Jerry Garcia ties and giving them 
away to people. So I was very sad when he died.
    But he also had a terrible problem that was a legacy of the life he 
lived and the demons he dealt with. And I would hope that all of us who 
loved his music and valued his contributions would also reflect on the 
consequences of, again, really self-destructive behavior. I mean, the 
lesson of Jerry Garcia's life is that he made a great contribution and 
he really was a--he had at least two generations of Deadheads, you know.
    Ms. Soren. Is Chelsea a fan at all? Has she ever gone to a show?
    The President. Yes, very much. But she and I were talking--we had a 
long talk about it the other day, right before I left to come to the 
office. She called me on the phone. She's out of town, and she called me 
on the phone, and we were talking about it. And she was talking about 
all the kids in her school who are great fans of Jerry Garcia, and we 
had a long talk about it.
    But I would hope that as we mourn him and sort of feel grateful for 
what he did, we also--young people should say, ``I'm not going to die 
that way. I'm not going to die in a clinic with a drug addition. I'm not 
going to do it.'' You don't have to have a destructive lifestyle to be a 
genius and make a contribution. You don't have to do that.

Cigarette Advertising

    Ms. Soren. Any thoughts on the advertising, cigarette advertising 
being a tax deduction?
    The President. I'll look into it. It's an interesting idea. Nobody 
ever even raised it to me before. Maybe you should be here making public 
policy. That's great.
    Ms. Soren. I don't think so. I think I'm quite busy. I wouldn't want 
your job.
    The President. Thanks.

Note: The interview began at 11 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Rolling Stone band member Keith 
Richards; the late Grateful Dead band member Jerry Garcia; and President 
Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

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