[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 7 (Monday, February 21, 2000)]
[Pages 299-307]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Wolf Blitzer on CNN.com

February 14, 2000

2000 Presidential Election

    Mr. Blitzer. Thank you very much, Lou. We are in the Oval Office, 
here with President Clinton. Mr. Clinton, thank you so much for doing 
this historic, first-ever on-line news interview with CNN.com.
    I just want to set the scene for you and for our audience. This is 
not only being put forward on CNN.com and other Internet users, but also 
it will be seen simultaneously on CNN and CNN International. Fifteen 
minutes after we're completed, there will be an on-line video that 
people will be able to see, whenever, if they missed it. There will also 
be a transcript. They will be able to stream and see this as it goes on, 
on the Internet. So it's a historic moment for the new technology.
    I know you've been fascinated by this, so let's get right at it. We 
have some E-mail questions. First one from Frank Williams in Tinley 
Park, Illinois: Mr. President, understandably, you're supporting the 
Presidential candidacy of Vice President Al Gore. But please share your 
personal political opinions of Senator John McCain and Governor George 
W. Bush.
    The President. I think I should pass on that. I think--I've tried to 
stay out of this Presidential election. I'm not a candidate, and I don't 
think any headlines that I make should interfere with the ability of 
Senator McCain or Governor Bush to make their point. They're going to 
have an election in South Carolina, and then they'll go on to other 
States. And I think that--and at some point it might become appropriate 
for me to say something, maybe at the Democratic Convention or 
something, or if they make a specific statement about my administration 
or my record.

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    But I really believe that the American people--this is their year, 
their time. And I am going to vote for the Vice President, and I do 
support him, because I think he's been the best Vice President in our 
history by far. And I think he's got a good program for the American 
people, and I know him to be a good man who will make good decisions.
    But I just don't think I should get in the middle of this 
Presidential race. It only interferes with the voters' ability to draw 
their own conclusions. And I trust them; they almost always get it 
right.
    Mr. Blitzer. But you do know Senator McCain and Governor Bush?
    The President. Sure.
    Mr. Blitzer. You've met them, and you have your own opinions of both 
of them.
    The President. I do, and I follow this campaign closely. I'm 
interested. It's the first time in over 20 years when I've just been an 
onlooker, so it's been fascinating to me as a citizen. But I don't think 
that I should say anything right now. And I don't mean to dodge the 
gentleman's question, but I just think that anything I do would only 
complicate their lives. And they're making their case to the people, and 
they're arguing with each other as they should be. And that's the way it 
ought to be done right now.

Hillary Clinton's Senate Campaign

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, we have another E-mail question from Peggy 
Brown: Do you find it difficult, Mr. President, watching, listening to 
criticisms of the First Lady as she attempts to capture the Senate seat 
in New York?
    The President. Sure. I mean, of course, I do. I now know how she 
felt all those years. You know, I love her very much, and I think--I 
know her better than anybody else, and I believe she'd be a great public 
official. And I hope the people of New York will put her to work. But if 
she's criticized, particularly if somebody says something I know is 
flatout wrong, it drives me nuts. I want to be able to say, ``Gosh, I 
wish I could answer that one.''

Middle East Peace Process

    Mr. Blitzer. All right. We have a chat room that's going on even as 
we speak right now. There's a question from one person: Are you 
optimistic, Mr. President, about the future for Middle East peace?
    The President. Yes, I am. This is--we're in a little tough patch 
right now, because a lot of things are going on in the Middle East, the 
trouble in Lebanon right now. And we're down to the last strokes, if you 
will. We're down to the hard decisions. But I believe it is so clearly 
in the interests of the long-term security of Israel and the long-term 
interests of the Palestinians and the Syrians and the Lebanese to have a 
comprehensive peace. And I think we're so close on the substance, that I 
am optimistic.
    Now, it will require courage, and it will require courage not just 
by the leaders but the people of those countries have to recognize that 
you cannot make peace unless you're willing to give as well as to get. 
But they ought to do it, and they ought to do it sooner rather than 
later. I think that the longer you delay something like this, when you 
have a moment of opportunity, the more you put it at risk. But I am 
basically optimistic.
    Mr. Blitzer. You've invested a lot of your personal time and energy 
in the Israeli-Palestinian and the Israeli-Syrian peace process. Is it 
time for you, once again, to personally get involved and bring the 
parties together, do something to make sure this opportunity is not 
lost?
    The President. Well, I am personally involved, even when I'm not in 
a public way. I'm always on the phone, always working this issue. But I 
think that there will have to be some forward progress here in the next 
few weeks, and I'll do whatever I can to facilitate it in whatever way I 
can. But beyond that, I don't want to say anything right now. We're 
working it, and the parties are working it.

Internet Security

    Mr. Blitzer. Okay. Let's take another question from an E-mail that 
we received: Do you think, Mr. President, the Federal Government could 
do more for Internet security? I know you have a big conference, a big 
meeting coming up here at the White House tomorrow to deal with this 
sensitive issue, especially given the hacker problem that we saw in the 
last few weeks.

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    The President. Well, the short answer to that is, we probably can. 
And I'm bringing in a group of people to meet with me tomorrow, a lot of 
people from the high-tech
community and from all our Government agencies. These denial-of-service 
attacks are obviously very disturbing, and I think there is a way that 
we can clearly promote security.
    I think it's important that the American people not overreact to 
this. That is, we're into a whole new world with the Internet, and 
whenever we sort of cross another plateau in our development, there are 
those who seek to take advantage of it. So this is a replay of things 
that have happened throughout our history, and we'll figure out how to 
do it and go forward.
    But I think on balance, no one could dispute what a great thing the 
Internet has been for our country and for the world. There are now over 
200 million people that use it every day, about half of them here in the 
United States. And we just need to keep pushing it.

National Economy

    Mr. Blitzer. And we're using it right now. Let's take another 
question from our chat room, from our CNN.com chat room: Mr. President, 
how will you advise Vice President Gore to keep this economy growing?
    The President. Well, I think he's got a pretty good idea because 
he's been here with us and has been part of all the decisions that have 
been made the last 7 years. But if you look at where we are, the 
question is--we have the longest economic expansion in history; how do 
we keep it going?
    I think we need to remember the fundamentals. We need to keep the 
debt being paid down, because that allows people in the private sector 
to borrow money not only to invest in new businesses or in their 
existing business but also to purchase things. So the continuing debt 
repayment is important. Keeping our markets open, to make us competitive 
and keep inflation down, is important. Investing in science and 
technology and research and in education and training and closing the 
digital divide to make sure access to the Internet is available to all 
Americans, those are the kinds of things that will keep this economy 
going.
    Especially, I would say, we have both the moral obligation and an 
economic opportunity, by increasing investment in the areas which have 
been not so helped by the economic recovery--in the Indian reservations, 
the inner-city communities, the rural communities, where there haven't 
been a lot of new jobs. If you get growth there, it is by definition 
non-inflationary, because you get--they haven't had much. So you can 
lower the unemployment rate there, and you create new businesses, new 
employees, and new consumers at the same time.
    Mr. Blitzer. Mr. President, there's another E-mail question that we 
have: How would you respond to arguments that you personally have had 
very little to do with the economic boom that the country has 
experienced during your administration?
    The President. Well, I would respond by asking them to remember what 
it was like before we announced and implemented our deficit reduction 
plan and remember what a direct impact that had on interest rates, on 
investment, and on the stock market.
    The American people deserve the lion's share of the credit. The 
high-tech community--we're part of it today--they deserve a lot of the 
credit. High-technology companies employ only 8 percent of our people; 
they're responsible for 30 percent of our growth. The companies that 
restructured in the eighties deserve a lot of credit. Everybody who's 
kept our markets open, guaranteeing low inflation and more competition, 
they deserve a lot of credit.
    But nonetheless, we had a completely jobless recovery, what some 
people called a ``triple dip'' economy, until we finally said we're 
going to do something about this deficit. And when we did it, it was 
like breaking a dam, and the interest rates came down, and people 
started being able to get money and investing at an unprecedented rate, 
and the stock market started its upward march.
    So I think the critical things we did--we had a good fiscal policy; 
we had a good policy on the markets; and we had a good policy on 
investing in technology and in people and education and training. And I 
don't think there's any question that had we not taken that first big 
bite out of the deficit, then the

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growth would have been much slower than it has been.
    Mr. Blitzer. Okay. I guess the person asking this question was also 
suggesting that the Republicans in Congress, Alan Greenspan, and the 
Internet economy, all of that combined to help you.
    The President. And I agree with that. I agree. I think Chairman 
Greenspan did a good job. The main thing he's done, that I think he 
deserves a lot of credit for, is that he has been able to look at the 
evidence of the new economy and act on the evidence, instead of what you 
might call the old theology; otherwise he could have killed this 
recovery by raising interest rates too much too frequently in the past.
    I think the Republicans in Congress--not a one of them voted for the 
economic plan in '93. But we did have a bipartisan majority in both 
Houses in '97 for the Balanced Budget Act, which continued what we were 
doing. And they deserve credit for that. And I have never--I try never 
to deny anybody else credit. This is an American achievement, not just 
mine. But if we hadn't taken that first big bite out of the deficit, I 
don't think we'd be where we are today.

Situation in Chechnya

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, Mr. President, we have another question, an 
E-mail question: Why are the Western nations, why have they not done 
enough for Chechnya like they did for Kosovo?
    The President. Well, first of all, I don't think the situations are 
parallel. But I think the Western nations have spoken out against the 
excesses. We believe--I think I speak for all the Western leaders; I 
certainly will speak for myself--that Russia had a right to take on the 
paramilitary forces who were practicing terrorist tactics but that it 
was a mistake to adopt the position that, in effect, ruled out 
negotiations with the elected officials in Kosovo, who weren't part of 
the terrorism, and to adopt tactics that cause a lot of civilian losses 
without any kind of corresponding gain. So I think we've been pretty 
clear about that. That's different from what happened in Kosovo, where 
Milosevic basically ran the whole country out based on their ethnic 
origin and had no intention of letting them come back until he had 
crushed anybody's ability to say anything.
    So I don't think that the situations are paralleled. But I think we 
have spoken out against the excesses in Chechnya and tried to get 
humanitarian aid in there and will continue to try to help the people of 
Chechnya and the legitimate political forces there. That's very 
different from what the paramilitary forces did. They have to bear their 
share of responsibility for what happened as well. I think some of them 
actually wanted the Chechnyan civilians attacked because they thought it 
would help improve their political views.

Russia-U.S. Relations

    Mr. Blitzer. Okay, we have a followup question from our chat room. 
Let me read it to you as it's coming in: How can Americans know that 
America is really at peace with Russia?
    The President. Because we're neither fighting with them nor on the 
edge of fighting. We've detargeted the nuclear weapons against each 
other. We are working to secure the nuclear weapons in Russia, to help 
them destroy nuclear weapons, to help safeguard the materials that 
remain. And I hope very much that after the next Russian election, we'll 
be able to make further progress on reducing the nuclear weapons there 
that we both hold.
    Mr. Blitzer. And Vladimir Putin, the Acting President, is he someone 
that you can deal with?
    The President. Based on what I have seen so far, I think that the 
United States can do business with this man. I think he's obviously 
highly intelligent; he's highly motivated; he has strong views. We don't 
agree with him on everything, but what I have seen of him so far 
indicates to me that he's capable of being a very strong and effective 
and straightforward leader.

Taxes and the Internet

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, let's go back to another issue involving the 
Internet. This is a question: Mr. President, what role will you play in 
the debate on taxing Internet commerce?

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    The President. Well, we've played some role already. I signed a bill 
last year to have a 3-year moratorium on any kind of discriminatory or 
transactional tax, if you will, on the commerce on the Internet. I don't 
think that there should be any access or any other kind of 
discriminatory taxes, from my point of view, ever on the Internet.
    The tough question is the whole question of what happens to sales 
that if they were not on the Internet would be subject to State and 
local sales tax. And the Governors are trying to work through that. I 
know Governor Leavitt has taken a particular interest in that--the 
Governor of Utah. I think that's something that we have to work through 
because we need--there are whole questions about the need for States to 
simplify their tax structures, and there are other questions there that 
have to be resolved. And I think that's going to take some time to 
resolve.
    But I don't think we should have access taxes on the Internet or any 
other kind of discriminatory taxes because this is an important part of 
our economy, and we want it to grow. I think that for the States and the 
localities, they're going to have to keep working until they work 
through what the operational problems are.
    Mr. Blitzer. Doesn't that discriminate, though, against stores--a 
bookstore, for example----
    The President. Of course it does.
    Mr. Blitzer. ----that you have to pay tax----
    The President. Absolutely, it does.
    Mr. Blitzer. ----but if you go to Amazon.com you don't have to pay 
taxes?
    The President. It does, and that's the argument that the Governors 
are making and the argument a lot of the merchants are making.
    Mr. Blitzer. Well, where's your position on that?
    The President. Well, what I'm trying to do is get them together. 
There are also--the Internet people point out that there are also a lot 
of complications in the way State taxes are. And they have on their side 
the weight of Supreme Court law which basically was made from mail-order 
sales. The same argument was made against mail-order sales. And the 
prevailing legal position is that if you don't have enough connections 
to a State, you don't have the obligation to collect and remit the sales 
tax.
    Keep in mind, the sales taxes do--it's just that the seller doesn't 
have to collect and remit it. So most of the people I know who have 
Internet businesses are concerned about trying to make sure they get a 
simplified system, and they know what the drill is. Their main concern, 
however, is not having access to the Internet itself taxed. And I'm with 
them on that. And I'm trying to support the process that now exists to 
resolve the issue of how State taxes, the sales taxes, can best be 
collected in the way that's not too burdensome on the Internet.
    You don't want to burden the Internet, but you don't want to put 
people who aren't making sales on it out of business. And we've got to 
find that right balance, and that's what we're working on.

Austria

    Mr. Blitzer. We have another question from our chat room, an 
international question involving the political situation in Austria 
given the fact that Joerg Haider is now--his party is part of the 
Austrian Government. Let me read to you the question: What does the 
United States plan to do to make sure that Austria knows that Nazi 
sympathy will not be accepted?
    The President. Well, I think we've made it quite clear that we do 
not support any expression of either sympathy with the Nazis in the past 
or ultranationalist race-based politics, anti-immigrant politics in the 
future. That, I think, is equally important here. And we've also tried 
to stay pretty close to where the European Union has been because, after 
all, Austria is a part of Europe, and they've been very tough in 
condemning what the Austrians have done here. So I think we're on the 
right track.
    There is a delicate balance, however. You know, Austria is a 
democracy; this man's party got a certain percentage of the vote. He did 
it based on appeals that went well beyond a narrow race-based appeal. 
And we don't want to say or do anything that builds his support even 
further. But I think it ought to be clear to every Austrian citizen that 
we

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in the United States do not approve of his political program or his 
excessive rhetoric.

Iran-U.S. Relations

    Mr. Blitzer. Let's stay overseas. We have another E-mail question 
about U.S.-Iranian relations: I'd like to know, Mr. President, your view 
on the recent developments of
Iranian-American relations as we, the Iranian youth, are really 
anxiously following political developments between the two countries and 
no doubt willing to finally see a healthy and mutually respectful 
relationship between the two.
    The President. Well, that's what I want. You know, I said several 
weeks ago now--maybe a few months ago--that the United States had not 
been entirely blameless in the past in our relationships with Iran, and 
that we wanted a good relationship with Iran, that we did not support 
and did not condone anyone who would support terrorist actions, and that 
we had some difficulties with Iran, but we were viewing with interest 
affairs within Iran. We wanted the Iranian people to have a good 
democracy. We like to see these elections, and we want to be supportive 
of better relationships if we can work them out on ways that are 
mutually agreeable.
    I think that one of the best things we could do for the long-term 
peace and health of the Middle East and, indeed, much of the rest of the 
world, is to have a constructive partnership with Iran. And I'm still 
hoping that that can materialize. A lot of that is now in the hands of 
the Iranian people and their elections and also the leaders of Iran. 
Some of them don't want that, but I think some of them may want that. 
And I think it's important that the genuine reformers there not be, in 
effect, weakened because of their willingness to at least talk to us, 
because I think the United States should always remain open to a 
constructive dialog to people of good will.
    And I think that the estrangement between these two countries is not 
a good thing. I think it would be better if we could have a 
relationship.
    Mr. Blitzer. As you know, Mr. President, in this regard, 13 Iranian 
Jews were accused of spying, and they're being held. Is this an irritant 
in this? What do you want the Iranian Government to do on that front?
    The President. Well, I have been assured by the Israelis that they 
were not spies. And I've done quite a bit of work on it. I'm very, very 
concerned about this, because people cannot--it is an irritant. The 
American Jewish community is very, very concerned about it, and we've 
done a lot of work on it. And I'm hopeful that justice will be done 
there and that no one will be punished for being a spy who isn't. That's 
not a good thing to do. And that, obviously, is a real--it's one of the 
sticking points.
    But I think that there are other people of good will who the 
Iranians recognize are their friends, who want better relationships with 
them, who have also talked to them about this, and I'm hoping that it 
will be worked out in a satisfactory manner.

Media Mergers

    Mr. Blitzer. Okay, Mr. President, I think we have another question 
from our chat room. Let's see what it is: How can we keep the media 
giants from squashing the little guy? I guess they might be referring to 
the recent merger of our own CNN-Time Warner-AOL. What's your answer to 
that?
    The President. Well, I think the main things to me are--there are 
two sets of little guys, I guess--the one thing is you don't want to--
and Steve Case has talked about this for many years, himself----
    Mr. Blitzer. He's the chairman of AOL.
    The President. The chairman of AOL--that it's important not to have 
access choked off. We want all these--if these mergers go through, we 
want them to lead to greater access to greater options to consumers at 
more affordable prices. Then the second thing is, you want other 
competitors to be able to get into the game. That's what all the big 
controversy was over the antitrust suit involving Microsoft. And that's 
handled in the Justice Department, strictly apart from the White House. 
So we had no role in that one way or the other.
    And without expressing an opinion on that case one way or the other, 
I think what I favor is an American economy where people who have good 
ideas and new messages they want to get out ought to have some way to

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do that, if they can generate a following. So that's what needs to be 
monitored here.
    Some of this amalgamation I think is inevitable, given the possible 
synergy that could exist, for example, between a company like AOL and 
Time Warner, with all of its myriad publications and programs and 
networks. But you've got to have--there has to be some room for people 
who want to compete, and then there has to be a guarantee that consumers 
will not be choked off and their prices hiked and, in fact, they will 
have more access to more programs at more affordable prices. And I think 
those are the touchstones that ought to guide Government policy.

Small Business

    Mr. Blitzer. All right. Let's take another question from our chat 
room, CNN.com chat room: What will the current and future 
administrations do to keep small business alive? Sort of related to the 
last question.
    The President. One of the things that I'm very proud of about this 
economy--and again, I don't take total credit for this; this is part of 
our prosperity--but in every year I've been President, we've set a new 
record for starting small businesses--every single year.
    I think that the Small Business Administration has an important role 
to play. I think that we have dramatically increased the number of small 
business loans that we finance, and we've concentrated on women and 
minorities, others who have been traditionally denied credit.
    We have promoted aggressively for the first time what we call 
community development financial institutions, where we put Federal money 
into banks to try to help them make small loans to people who never 
could have gotten credit before. Just as we do around the world, we're 
now doing that here. And that's helping.
    We've tried to continue to minimize the burden of Government 
regulations on small business. And I think that's important--to keep an 
entrepreneurial environment in America, so people can get access to 
venture capital if they've got an idea and start it.
    So I think having the right conditions, and then having specific 
access to capital and technical support through the Small Business 
Administration and the community financial institutions--that's the best 
thing we can do for small business.

President's Legacy

    Mr. Blitzer. We have another question about the future in our chat 
room: What will the history books say about the Clinton Presidency?
    The President. Well, I'm not sure, because that's for the historians 
to decide. But I think they will say, among other things, that we had 
a--we came into office with a different approach that was attuned better 
to the changes that were going on in the economy, in the society and in 
the world, and that we helped America get through this enormous period 
of change and transition--in the metaphor I use, to build our bridge to 
the 21st century--and that our country was stronger when we finished 
than it was when we began. I hope that's what they'll say, and I believe 
they will.

Post-Presidential Plans

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, we have a follow-up question from our chat 
room. Let's take a look at that one: Mr. President, what are you going 
to do when you leave office? Which is now less than a year away. You 
probably--are you counting the days?
    The President. No, not in a negative way. I mean, I'm not eager for 
them to be over. In fact, one of the problems I have is, I want to work 
even harder now to try to get as much done as I can.
    When I leave, I'm going to establish a library and a public policy 
center.
    Mr. Blitzer. That will be in Little Rock.
    The President. And that will take a couple years to do. And I'm 
going to try to maintain a high level of activity in the areas that I'm 
particularly interested in. I've spent a lot of my life working on 
reconciliation of people across racial, religious, and other lines. I'm 
very interested in using the power of technology, like what we're doing 
now, to help poor countries and poor areas overcome what would 
ordinarily take years in economic development and education.
    I'm very interested in continuing my work to try to convince 
Americans and the rest of the world that we can beat global warming

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without shutting down the economy, that it's no longer necessary to use 
more greenhouse gases to grow economically. I'm very interested in 
promoting the concept of public service among young people and trying to 
get more young Americans to take some time off to serve in our National 
Government or the State and local government.
    Those are four things I'll do. Basically, I want to try to be a good 
citizen. America's given me a lot, and more than I could have ever 
dreamed. I've loved being President. And I feel that I've acquired a 
certain level of experience and knowledge, that I owe that to my 
country. And along the way, I hope to write a few books and have a 
little fun, too. And I hope I'll be a member of the Senate spouses' 
club. I'm going to do my best to support my wife in every way I can.
    But I just want to be a good citizen. I want to try to put what I've 
learned in a lifetime to use in a way that benefits the people of 
America and others around the world who I care about.
    Mr. Blitzer. And you'll commute between Chappaqua, New York, and 
Little Rock, sort of?
    The President. Yes, I'll spend some time in Little Rock for the next 
couple of years, you know, like I said, getting the facility up. And 
I'll spend some time with Hillary, as much as I possibly can, in New 
York. And then I'll probably travel some. And I hope we'll be able to 
travel some together. It depends on what happens in the next year.
    But I'm really looking forward to it. I love this job. I don't know 
if I'll ever do anything again that I love the work as much as I love 
this. John Kennedy described it well. He said, basically, it challenges 
all your abilities. It challenges your mind, your emotions, even your 
physical strength. But I think that I can do a lot of things that will 
help other people when I leave here, and I'm going to do my best to do 
that.

President's Favorite Websites

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, Mr. President, if you'll take a look at our 
chat room, the people who are participating in the CNN.com chat, they're 
participating in huge numbers right now. Let's take another question, 
though, from an E-mail person named Seth. He says this: Mr. President, I 
have heard that you are an avid web surfer and on-line shopper. What are 
your favorite websites?
    The President. Well, I wouldn't say I am avid. I did do some 
Christmas shopping for the first time on-line this year, though. And I 
even--I bought some things from the Native American craftspeople up in 
South Dakota, at Pine Ridge, which was really interesting to me.
    But I love books, so I like Amazon.com. And I'm fascinated by eBay, 
because I like to swap and trade, and it reminds me of the old kind of 
farmer's markets and town markets I used to visit when I started out in 
politics in Arkansas so many years ago. I think the whole concept of 
people being able to get on-line and sort of trade with each other, and 
almost barter, is utterly fascinating to me.

Issues of the New Millennium

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, we have another question, Mr. President. We 
only have a little time left. Let's take this from the chat room: Mr. 
President, what is the biggest issue facing Americans in the new 
millennium?
    The President. Well, I think the most important thing that we have 
to do is to make up our minds that we are actually going to build a more 
united country out of our diversity and out of our groundbreaking 
technology and advances in science and technology. That is, I think that 
if you look around the world today, the biggest problems seem to be 
rooted in racial, ethnic, religious strife. If you look at America and 
how well we fit with a positive vision of the 21st century world and you 
look at the continuing problems we've had here, with these hate crimes, 
for example, the most important thing we could do is get our minds right 
and get our spirits right and realize that we have to learn to live with 
people who are different from us. We have to learn to keep our conflicts 
with them within proper bounds, so that our common goals override the 
differences between us.
    If we build one America, that's the most important thing. The 
American people are so innovative, so creative, and we're so well-
positioned for the future, everything else will work out. But if we 
allow ourselves to fall

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into these deep divisions over--including political ones--differences of 
opinion are healthy; demonization is destructive and self-indulgent. And 
that's basically what we've got to work on.
    If we can keep working together enough in creative tension, then 
everything else will work out. I'm confident of it.

Social Security Earning Limits

    Mr. Blitzer. All right, Mr. President. We have time for one final 
question. It's from Wolf in Washington, DC--that would be me, by 
prerogative, as the moderator of this discussion, this on-line interview 
we're having: You know the Republicans today in the House of 
Representatives are pushing legislation that would remove the limits, 
ease the limits on Social Security recipients as far as their earnings 
after they reach 65 until 70--a very sensitive subject, affects a lot of 
people watching right now, how much money they could earn and still be 
eligible for Social Security. Will you work with the Republicans, 
support them, in eliminating those caps on earnings?
    The President. Absolutely. I'm thrilled by this. I hope this is just 
the beginning of a signal from them that they're willing to work on this 
whole Social Security area.
    I think we should lift the earnings limit for two reasons. One is, I 
don't really think it's fair for people--if you're 65 today in America, 
your life expectancy is 83. And you want to be alert; you want to be 
physically strong. And we know as people stay more active, they're going 
to live better, not just longer. So I don't think we should penalize 
them.
    Secondly, I think as the baby boomers retire, it's going to be 
important to have a higher percentage of people over 65, if they want 
to, working. This will be good for our society. I'm strongly in favor of 
it.
    If they will send me a bill--what we call in Washington-speak, a 
clean bill--that is, doesn't have a lot of other things unrelated to 
that littered to it--I will be happy to sign it.
    Then the second thing I'd like to urge them to do is to think about 
my proposal to dedicate the interest savings that we get from paying 
down the debt because of the surplus in the Social Security tax to the 
Social Security Trust Fund to do two things: Number one, put the life of 
the Trust Fund out to 2050; that will take care of most of the baby boom 
generation; and number two, do something about a single woman's poverty 
on Social Security. Married women's poverty on Social Security, about 5 
percent; overall, seniors over 65, under 10 percent now. Single women on 
Social Security tend to live longer, tend to have less money. Their 
poverty rate is somewhere between 18 and 20 percent.
    So I like getting rid of the earnings limitation. It's the right 
thing to do. Let's just do it. But then let's lengthen the life of the 
Trust Fund and do something about the poverty rate among women who are 
retired.
    Mr. Blitzer. Mr. President, thank you so much for joining us, from 
the Oval Office. Always of course, great to be in the Oval Office, and 
one day when you're not in the Oval Office, you'll probably be excited 
coming back here as well.
    The President. I will be. I'll always be excited to come here. And 
maybe I'll even get to do a web chat with you afterward.

Note: The interview began at 1:43 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, the President referred to Gov. George W. Bush of 
Texas; President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of 
Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); Gov. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah; 
Austria's Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider; and Steve Case, chairman 
and chief executive officer, America Online. A tape was not available 
for verification of the content of this interview.