[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 4 (Monday, January 31, 2000)]
[Pages 151-159]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Jim Lehrer of PBS' ``NewsHour''

January 26, 2000

State of the Union

    Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, welcome.
    The President. Thank you.
    Mr. Lehrer. Can we assume, sir, that tomorrow night in the State of 
the Union you're going to declare the state of the Union to be in pretty 
good shape?
    The President. It's in good shape. And I'm very grateful. But I'm 
also going to challenge the Congress and the country to make it better.
    Mr. Lehrer. The things that are good about this country right now, 
how much of that do you believe you deserve credit for?
    The President. Well, I think most of the credit, as always, goes to 
the American people. This is a country where citizenship is the most 
important job anybody can have. And I think we should start with that. I 
think the Members of Congress who are working with us deserve a lot of 
credit. But if you look at where we are now, compared to where we were 7 
years ago, I think the fact that we got rid of the deficit and are 
running surpluses; the fact that we changed the philosophy of the 
National Government on welfare, on crime; the fact that we have formed 
unprecedented partnerships with people in the private sector to deal 
with all kinds of social problems--teen pregnancy, which is down, 
adoptions, which are up--the fact that we have protected more land than 
any administration in the country's history, except those of the two 
Roosevelts--I think that those things are things that our Government 
did.
    I also believe that people have a lot more confidence now, that we 
can actually do things as a nation. In '92 we didn't just have economic 
distress and social decline. We had this political gridlock and 
discredited Government. The national Republicans have badmouthed the 
Government for 12 years, and they'd done a pretty good job of convincing 
America that it couldn't do anything. Now we have cut the size of 
Government by over 350,000. It's the smallest it's been since John 
Kennedy was here, and it really

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works to empower people and to create these partnerships.
    So I think that we have played a role in the recovery of the economy 
and in the improvement of the situation with crime, with welfare, with 
education. We've opened the doors of college to virtually all Americans. 
And I think all these things count for something. And of course, our 
country has been a great force for peace and freedom around the world. 
And I'm very grateful for the chance to--all of us--to serve here.

President's Historical Legacy

    Mr. Lehrer. Do you believe that history is going to give you credit 
for all those things you've just enumerated?
    The President. Well, I think that's up to the historians. I think 
that history will be very much--that people who do serious histories of 
this administration will be amazed at the amount of energy and effort 
that went into the wide variety of areas that we worked in. And I think 
that it will show that in virtually every area we had progress, from 
helping to reduce poverty to improving the plight of our children, to 
creating an environment with the reform of telecommunications, the 
reform of banking, and getting rid of the deficit and major investments 
in science and technology, to this exploding new economy.
    I think that it will show that we helped America to make this major 
transition into a new economy and an era of globalization.
    Mr. Lehrer. Are you worried about what the historians are going to 
write about you?
    The President. No, I can't control that. But I think time will tend 
to accelerate the positive and put what negative there is into proper 
perspective. And I feel quite comfortable about that. But the main thing 
is, I don't think too much about it because I know that the only thing I 
can do to impact on it is to do the right thing today by the American 
people.
    I mean, my philosophy has been, ever since I got here, is that in 
the modern political world, the most important thing you can do is get 
up and go to work and concentrate on your job and always keep thinking 
about tomorrow. And all the pressures that operate on you are designed 
to prevent you from doing that, to hobble you, to distract you, to 
divide you, to get you to obsess about what somebody said or wrote or is 
doing.
    And so my whole theory has been from the beginning that if we could 
start and give, first 4 years and then 8 years, of unbridled, 
concentrated effort, no matter what else happened, the American people 
would be all right. And that's really all I hired on to do, is to try to 
help them do better.
    Mr. Lehrer. Let me read what the New York Times said in its lead 
editorial on Monday. They're talking about you, your legacy, and your 
Presidency as you go into this last year. It said, ``historians are 
beginning to categorize Mr. Clinton as a politician of splendid natural 
talent and some significant accomplishments who, nonetheless, missed the 
greatness that once seemed within his grasp.'' What's your reaction to 
that ``what might have been'' kind of thing?
    The President. I think that--well, first of all, I think it's not 
productive to talk about what might have been. But I think if you--the 
question is how you keep score, what is this time like, how will you 
measure it? The time that this is most like is the turn of the last 
century. Did we manage the transition of America in the new economy and 
an era of globalization well, or not? I think the answer is, we did. Did 
we make social progress? Did we actually change the way we approach 
social issues? If the issue is crime, welfare, national service, the 
answer is, we did. Were we good stewards of the environment? We were.
    And then, what were the forces you stood against, and what did you 
stop? And if you look at the forces we stood against from 1994 forward 
and what we stopped, I think the answer is, what we did was, A, 
successful, and B, good for America. And then, did we work with 
contending forces when we could to reach common agreement? I think the 
answer is, we did. So I believe that, first of all, there is no such 
thing as history, because this is still going on. We shouldn't worry 
about that. You know, in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years--I got a book the 
other day on President Nixon's Presidency, and then I got one a week 
afterward on President Kennedy's Presidency that are still being 
written.

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    I just read a new book, a great book, on Theodore Roosevelt's 
Presidency. And I think the further away you get from it, the more 
perspective you get and the more you're able to look at all the 
evidence.
    So frankly, my view is not much better than the New York Times' on 
this. Neither one of us really can properly evaluate how this will be 
viewed in the light of history. I think that we have, given what we 
could have accomplished within the framework of possibility that was 
there and the job that was there before us, I think we've done pretty 
well. But all I can tell you is, I've worked every day, and I did the 
best I could, and I'm going to let the historians make their judgment 
after I give it one more hard year.

President's Agenda for Last Year in Office

    Mr. Lehrer. Let's talk about the one more hard year. Is there one 
particular thing that you really want to do before you leave this 
office?
    The President. Well, there are many things that I really want to do 
before I leave this office. Obviously, I'm still heavily engaged in the 
search for peace in the Middle East. But whether we can do that or not 
depends----
    Mr. Lehrer. What's the problem there, Mr. President? Particularly 
Syria and Israel, what's the problem?
    The President. I think the main problem is they haven't talked in a 
long time; there's still a fair measure of distrust; and the decisions 
that have to be made will require of both parties actions which will 
cause difficulty for them with some constituencies in their country.
    But let me say, I'm convinced that both the leaders of Syria and 
Israel want peace, and I'm convinced that substantively they're not that 
far apart. So we have a chance to do that.
    But you asked me what I wanted to do. That's something I would like 
to be involved in if they want to do it. I'm prepared to do whatever I 
can.
    I want to continue to do everything I can to protect the natural 
treasures of this country. I want to lay the foundation for America 
dealing with climate change. I want to lay the foundation for America 
dealing with what I think will be the biggest security challenges of the 
21st century.
    I believe--you know, all the attention today is on whether we can 
develop a missile defense and, if so, whether we can deploy it without 
falling out with the Russians and our friends and other countries who 
question this. But the likeliest threat, in my view, is brought on by 
the intersection of technology and the likelihood that you'll have 
terrorists and narcotraffickers and organized criminals cooperating with 
each other, with smaller and smaller and more difficult to detect 
weapons of mass destruction and powerful traditional weapons. So we've 
tried to lay in a framework for dealing with cyberterrorism, 
bioterrorism, chemical terrorism. This is very important. Now, this is 
not in the headlines, but I think it's very, very important for the next 
10 or 20 years. I think the enemies of the nation-state in this 
interconnected world are likely to be the biggest security threat.
    And then, of course, you know the things that are really close to my 
heart: I'm going to try to get a lot done in education, in health care, 
in bringing opportunity to poor people and reducing poverty in this 
country.

Health Care

    Mr. Lehrer. What about health care? What is it that you would like 
your legacy to be on health care?
    The President. Well, I wish I could have given health insurance to 
all Americans, because I still think it's inexcusable that we are the 
only advanced country in the world that doesn't do that. But I feel good 
about many of the things we have done, in medical research, in letting 
people keep their health insurance when they change jobs, in providing 
much more preventive screening for older people with illnesses or 
potential illnesses, and of course, in the Children's Health Insurance 
Program.
    So I'm going to focus now on what I think I can get done this year. 
I want to try to increase the number of people with health insurance 
dramatically by letting the parents of children in the Children's Health 
Insurance Program buy into it, by letting people between the ages of 55 
and 65 buy into Medicare. And I want to have another big investment in 
biomedical research.

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Education

    Mr. Lehrer. What about education? What mark can you leave in this 
next year on education?
    The President. First of all, if you look at what we have done--we've 
already helped almost all the States to develop higher standards. And 
we've got--test scores in reading, math, and college entrance exams are 
up.
    Mr. Lehrer. And you feel you've done that? You feel the 
administration has done that?
    The President. No, I--I think our administration has contributed to 
it. No, the people that did it were the kids and the parents and the 
teachers. But I think, consistent with our philosophy, which is to be a 
catalyst for new ideas and to be a partner to help people achieve it, 
there's no question we've had an impact.
    Now, one thing we've had a really direct impact on is we've done 
more than any administration ever has to open the doors of college to 
everyone with big increases in Pell grants; the direct student loan 
program, which lets people borrow money at less cost and pay it off at a 
percentage of their income; we've got a million work-study grants; we've 
got AmeriCorps, 150,000 young people there; and the HOPE scholarship tax 
credit and the lifetime tax credit really means people have no excuse 
for not going to school.
    Now, I have also proposed this time, for the first time in history, 
that we make college tuition tax deductible, up to $10,000 a year, which 
will mean that we have guaranteed access to 4 years of college for all 
Americans. I think that is a huge achievement. Since I became President, 
the number of--the percentage of high school graduates going to college 
has gone up to 67 percent. That's an increase of 10 percent. But we need 
for everybody to be able to go. And so I think that this will be a major 
achievement.
    Now let's go back to the beginning. The next big challenge, besides 
making--this is the last piece, making college universally available. 
The next big challenge is to make sure that everybody's diploma means 
something. And we've been working on this all along, starting in early 
childhood, the increases we made in Head Start. We now have 1,000 
colleges sending mentors into grade schools to make sure kids learn to 
read by the third grade. And I think we've increased the emphasis on 
that--you probably noticed that Jim Barksdale gave $100 million to the 
University of Mississippi, to do nothing but focus on how we can teach 
grade school kids to read. This is a huge deal; it's great.
    So what else do we need to do? I think we need a national strategy 
to turn around failing schools or shut them down. I think we need to 
institutionalize reform with more charter schools. And I think we ought 
to make preschool available to everybody. And everybody that needs it 
ought to have access to after-school. I think if you get those things 
done, and we continue to train the teachers, especially in how to use 
the computers as you hook up all the schools to the Internet, I think 
you're going to see really big, continuing improvements in education.
    Mr. Lehrer. But you can't do all that this next year, can you?
    The President. Sure we can. We can--no, but we can take big steps 
toward it. If you look at the whole history of our country--I read 
something President Johnson said the other day, and he got through 
Medicare and the Medicaid and the first steps of major Federal aid to 
education. He talked about how most of our big progress comes in 
deliberate, discrete steps. And if you take enough steps in the right 
direction, you turn back around, you see you've come quite a long way.
    So what I'm going to try to do in my speech tomorrow night is to 
outline what I think the long-term goals for the Nation in the 21st 
century should be and then what steps I think we can realistically hope 
to achieve in this year and urge the Congress to join me in them.

2000 Elections and President's Agenda

    Mr. Lehrer. Now, you're doing this, of course, in a Presidential 
election year. In whose interest is it to help you do this, in terms of 
simple politics of getting it done, to help you improve your legacy or 
get things done before you leave office?
    The President. Well, first of all, it's in none of their interest to 
help me improve my legacy. That's not why they should do it. It is in 
their interest to do the job they

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were hired to do, which is to help the people they represent. And I 
think the people that they represent, whether Republicans or Democrats, 
would find it amazing that someone could suggest they ought to take a 
year off. I mean, anybody who wants to take a year off ought to give up 
their paycheck and say, ``I'm sorry. I'm not going to work this year, 
but I'm not going to take your money.''
    Secondly, in a more mundane way, it is clearly in the interests of 
all the people in Congress to do things that are good for America, 
because the American people will appreciate it. I think it helps the 
Democrats, but I don't think the Republicans--I mean, a bunch of them 
have to run next time, too. And people are going to know--want to know, 
what did you do last year?
    If you look, it's quite interesting. We had a very good year in '96, 
where I had to veto the welfare reform bill twice because the 
Republicans wouldn't agree with me to guarantee child care and health 
care and more nutrition and medical care and transportation for the 
welfare families. And then they did it at the end, and we got this big 
welfare reform. And now we've got 7 million fewer people on welfare. In 
'98 we passed a lot of very important legislation at the end, because it 
was election year.
    So what you might see in terms of Congress now is not an enormous 
amount of activity at the beginning, although I do believe there's a 
good chance we can fairly early pass my proposal to help Colombia fight 
off narcotrafficking and preserve its democracy and work with its 
neighbors along the border. And I think there's a good chance they'll 
pass the China normal trade relations bill--I hope that's true--but I 
think at the end of the year, when people will be held accountable by 
the voters, I think there's a chance we'll get quite a lot done. We did 
in '96. We did in '98. I think we will this year.

Leadership Choice in 2000 Elections

    Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, what do you make of Governor Bush's 
comment the other night after he had won the caucuses in Iowa? He said, 
this is the beginning of the end of the Clinton era, and everybody in 
the room cheered.
    The President. Well, they would. [Laughter] I think if he said that 
he would reverse what we were doing, I think he would. And I think 
that's the choice before the American people. I mean, he's offered a 
$1.4 billion tax cut. And the only thing I'd ask the American people is 
to remember, you know, we've now had 20 years of experience. We tried it 
their way for 12 years, and they quadrupled the national debt. And when 
I took office, we had high unemployment, a massive deficit, a huge debt, 
and totally neglected our domestic affairs. We had rising crime, rising 
welfare rolls, all the social indicators going the wrong way.
    Now, we've tried it our way for 7 years. We've got the biggest 
surpluses in history, the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years. We 
can get this country out of debt now in 13 years--out of debt for the 
first time since Andy Jackson was President in 1835. And all the social 
indicators are going in the right direction.
    So it seems to me that he was being honest with the people, that he 
said that he will reverse this course. And I do think the American 
people ought to vote for change in this election, because things are 
changing so fast around us in this globalized world, we have to keep 
changing. The issue is: Are we going to build on what works or revert to 
what didn't. That's what I think the issue is.
    Mr. Lehrer. You've given kind of your definition of the Clinton era, 
and he has his. Now, what he is--the interpretation of what he's talking 
about is that it's just a continuation of what all the Presidential 
candidates have mentioned to some degree, that Republicans like Governor 
Bush, more than the Democrats, but even Vice President Gore and Senator 
Bradley have said about returning the Presidency back to a nobler 
office, to words like promising to restore dignity and respectability, 
decency, and trust to the Presidency. They're talking about you, aren't 
they, Mr. President?
    The President. Well, first of all, I made one mistake. I apologized 
for it. I paid a high price for it, and I've done my best to atone for 
it by being a good President. But I believe we also endured what history 
will clearly record was a bogus investigation, where there was nothing 
to Whitewater and nothing to

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these other charges, and they were propagated, and tens of millions of 
dollars were spent, and we got a clean bill of health on that.
    And in terms of trust, let me just tell you a story. I went back to 
New Hampshire for the seventh anniversary of the New Hampshire primary 
in 1991--or the eighth anniversary, excuse me, last year, in 1992--so it 
was the seventh anniversary. I went back there last year. And it was 
raining, and there were children standing in the rain, and people 
standing in the rain. And the thing that meant the most to me--not the 
Democratic Party event, just going around, because they heard the 
campaign in the most detail--was people saying, you know, ``We're so 
much better off now, but the thing that really matters is, you did 
exactly what you said you would do.''
    And it seems to me that all of us in life, we can spend all of our 
time pointing our finger at other people and saying we're better than 
they are, or we can work as hard as we can on our own character, on our 
own lives. And if we're in public life, we need to tell people what 
we're going to do and then we need to do it. And if we don't do it, it 
ought to be because we tried and couldn't.
    I think that's what people know about me and this administration. We 
laid out the most detailed set of commitments anybody ever had in '92. 
We've accomplished virtually everything we set out to do. What we 
haven't accomplished, we tried and failed to accomplish. And even there, 
in the health care area, we made a lot of progress. And people know 
that.
    So I'm satisfied that the American people will make a judgment in 
this election based on what's best for them and their families, on 
whatever factors they choose. They're in control again. We're back into 
the biggest job interview in the whole world. And whatever they decide 
and however they decide it, I think they'll get it right. They nearly 
always do.
    Mr. Lehrer. Do you get angry, though, when somebody like Alan Keyes 
said recently, ``We are coming to the end of the most disgraceful, the 
most immoral Presidency in the history of this country''?
    The President. No, because he's a far rightwinger who probably 
thought Iran-Contra was a good thing for America. And you know, there's 
just no evidence to support it. I mean, you know--so it doesn't make me 
mad at all. How could you take that seriously? This is about--one of the 
things that I had to learn when I moved to Washington is, before I ever 
got angry at anything anybody said, was to ask myself whether it was 
about the subject they were discussing, or whether it was really about 
power.
    And I remember once, I had a conversation with a Republican Senator 
in the middle of the D'Amato hearings, when he was trying to convince 
people, or at least the Republican Senators were, that my wife had done 
something wrong in this Whitewater thing, which was totally absurd. And 
so I asked this Senator, I said, ``Do you think either one of us did 
anything wrong? Not illegal, just wrong, even wrong?'' And he started 
laughing. He said, ``You've got to be kidding.'' He said, ``Of course 
you didn't do anything wrong. That's not the purpose of this. The 
purpose of this is to convince the American people you did. It's all 
about power.''
    Now, I made a mistake. I acknowledged it. I've done my best to atone 
for it. But all this broad-brush stuff, you know, people see that for 
what it is. And when I'm criticized now, I try to remember Benjamin 
Franklin's admonition that our critics are our friends, for they show us 
our faults. So, you know, I'm just trying to be a better person and a 
better President every day. I don't know what else to do. And I'm trying 
not to let this stuff get in the way.
    Again let me say, the job of a President is to have a vision and a 
strategy and pursue it; to show up every day and, insofar as possible, 
to think about the American people and their welfare, and to not think 
about himself. The environment in which a President operates is designed 
to prevent him from doing that--as much as possible, to make him torn up 
and upset, full of recriminations and anger, and have his attention 
divided.
    So what I've tried to do is to create a frame of mind and a climate 
around here with our people, so we could do our job. I hope I've

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succeeded. I think the results think for themselves.

Impeachment

    Mr. Lehrer. Difficult question, a matter of history that I feel 
compelled to ask you, Mr. President. We sat, you and I, 2 years ago 
almost to the day, and it was the day that the Monica Lewinsky story 
broke in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. And you denied 
that you had had an improper sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. In 
retrospect, if you had answered that differently right at the beginning, 
not only just my question but all those questions at the beginning, do 
you think there would have been a different result and that, in fact, 
you might not even have been impeached?
    The President. I don't know. I don't know. I just don't know. I wish 
I knew the answer to that, but I don't. But the thing I regret most, 
except for doing the wrong thing, is misleading the American people 
about it. I do not regret the fact that I fought the independent 
counsel. And what they did was, in that case and generally, was 
completely overboard. And now rational retrospectives are beginning to 
come out where people that have no connection to me talking about what 
an abuse of power it was and what a threat to the American system it 
was. And I'm glad that our people stuck with me, and that the American 
people stuck with me, and I was able to resist what it was they 
attempted to do.
    But I do regret the fact that I wasn't straight with the American 
people about it. It was something I was ashamed of and pained about, and 
I regret that.

Independent Counsel's Investigation

    Mr. Lehrer. There was another interview that we did before that, in 
which I asked you if you agreed with Susan McDougal that Kenneth Starr 
was out to get you. And your answer was interpreted by Mr. Starr and 
others that, ``well, the facts speak for themselves,'' is what you said. 
There have been many facts since then. That interview was even before 2 
years ago. Do you think the facts have spoken on that?
    The President. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's not even close anymore. 
Everybody knows what the deal was. And more and more, there will be 
people who didn't have a vested interest in trying to promote some view 
they had previously taken who will evaluate this and come to the same 
conclusion.
    And as I said, even though I'm sorry about what I did and sorry 
about the developments there, I really felt, once the last chapter of 
this played out, that I was defending the Constitution and the 
Presidency. And I feel that more strongly today.
    I think they knew for a long time there was nothing to Whitewater. 
They knew it was a bunch of bull. They had no evidence. In fact, if even 
the law we had, or the one we had before the independent counsel law had 
been in place, there never would have been a special counsel because it 
didn't meet the standard. The only reason I agreed to ask Janet Reno to 
appoint one in the first place was I really believed that the people 
that were talking about it wanted to know the truth, and I knew that 
they'd just look into Whitewater and find out it was a big bunch of bull 
and go on. And what I found out was that a lot of the people who wanted 
it didn't want to know the truth. And they wanted somebody that could 
hang on until they could find something that they could find about me or 
Hillary.
    But they knew for a long time. They knew before 1996 that there was 
nothing to it, which was why they had to get rid of Mr. Fiske and get 
Mr. Starr in there, so it would drag past the '96 election. And I think 
history will show that, too. So I'm relaxed about that, and I don't 
spend much time thinking about it.
    Again, to me, I had to make amends to the American people, and to my 
family and to my friends and my administration. I've done my best to do 
that. Now, the only way I can do that is to just keep looking toward the 
future, to stay excited, to stay upbeat, and to stay focused. And that's 
what I'm trying to do.
    Mr. Lehrer. Do you have moments, private moments, of pleasure and 
satisfaction knowing that if, in fact, there was a conspiracy to run you 
out of office, it didn't work, you're still sitting in the Oval Office?
    The President. I don't spend much time thinking about it like that. 
You know, maybe

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when I'm gone I will. I'm grateful that for whatever reason, my friends 
and my family stayed with me; the American people stayed with me. I 
believe I defended the Constitution against a serious threat. I'm sorry 
I did something wrong, which gave them an excuse to really go overboard. 
I'm very sorry about that. But mostly what I try to do is to focus on 
trying to be a better President, trying to be a better person, trying to 
be a better husband and father, just trying to do the things that I can 
do.
    You know, you can't--none of us ever gets ahead in life, I don't 
think, by taking big satisfaction in victories or looking down on other 
people or keeping our anger pent up. One of the things I learned in this 
whole deal is you've got to let all that go. Life will always humble you 
if you give in to your anger or take some satisfaction that you defeated 
somebody or some satisfaction that, well, no matter how bad I am, at 
least I didn't do this, that, or the other thing. Life will always 
humble you. And I have just tried to be grateful and to keep serving and 
to just worry about myself and not think about other people--in terms of 
whether you're doing right or wrong. That's all I can do.
    But I'm actually--what I feel every day is, I'm just happy. My 
family was all here at Christmas. We had this fabulous Christmas. My 
administration, I've been fortunate by having all these people stay with 
me. The ones that leave are going off to do exciting things. And we've 
got--I feel that when I took office, the country had so many problems in 
it--it's like we've turned it around now, and we're going in the right 
direction. And now we've got a chance to really dream big dreams for our 
children. And that's a great thing to be doing in your last year in 
office. It's great. And not only to dream those dreams but actually take 
some big steps toward achieving them. So I'm just happy. You know, I 
can't be mad or--it's hard for me to think about all that stuff. It just 
happened. I've come to terms with it, and I'm just trying to go on.

Post-Presidential Plans

    Mr. Lehrer. When this next year is over, you'll leave office, and 
you'll be the youngest former President since Teddy Roosevelt. You'll be 
in your fifties. You'll still have a lot of time and energy. Are you 
worried about that at all, about staying connected?
    The President. No, not at all. No, no, I'm so excited about it. I 
mean, I'm worried I'll have to go back to learning basic things. But I'm 
excited about that, too, driving a car, shopping for food, paying the 
bills when the house--the pipes freeze, all that kind of stuff. You've 
got to go back to living your life like an ordinary person. I think 
that's good.
    But Theodore Roosevelt had an interesting life when he left office. 
And of course, I've said this many times; I think President Carter has 
basically set the standard for what Presidents should do in terms of his 
public service at home and around the world. And that shows you that 
there's just worlds of possibilities out there. I'm very excited about 
it.
    There are all kinds of things that I'll have to do. Of course, I'll 
have to make a living, and I hope I'll have to make a living to support 
a wife who's continuing our family's tradition of public service. But--
--

Hillary Clinton's Senate Campaign

    Mr. Lehrer. Do you think she's going to win?
    The President. I do, yes. I do.
    Mr. Lehrer. Why? Why do you think so?
    The President. Well, I think they're both very strong, formidable 
people and strong, formidable candidates. You know, you get all these 
elections, where you've got to bad-mouth one candidate to like another, 
and you'd think I'd certainly be there in the race involving my wife. 
But the truth is, the mayor and Hillary are both strong, formidable 
people. They have impressive achievements in their lives that relate to 
public service.
    But I think that she's much better suited for the work of a Senator 
and this whole legislative process. And I think that the passions of her 
life, 30 years of work and achievement in education and health care and 
the challenges that children and families face, and the whole philosophy 
she has about community are more consistent with where New York is today 
and what they need in the future.
    And so that's why I think she'll win, not because I think he's the 
bad guy or something, because I think they're both very

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strong people, but I think that New York will believe, in the end, that 
what she represents and where she wants to go and what her skills are 
and what she knows and cares most about is a little closer to where they 
are than his whole approach. And I think she'll win.
    So I'll have to worry about that. But once I figure out how to 
support my wife's public service--she supported mine for many years--and 
fulfill my other family obligations, I want to find a way, through the 
center I'm going to build in Arkansas, with my library and in other 
ways, to be a public servant. You don't have to be an elected official 
to be a public servant. You can be a servant in other ways. And I can 
help others and do things, and that's what I want to do.
    Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President, thank you very much.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 3:30 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, the President referred to Jim Barksdale, 
president and chief executive officer, Netscape Communications Corp.; 
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas; former Senator Bill Bradley, Democratic 
Presidential candidate; Republican Presidential candidate Alan Keyes; 
former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato; Susan McDougal, Whitewater 
investigation defendant; former Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, 
Jr., and his successor, Kenneth Starr; and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of 
New York City. A tape was not available for verification of the content 
of this interview.