[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 33 (Monday, August 21, 2000)]
[Pages 1889-1899]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Ron Brownstein
of the Los Angeles Times

August 11, 2000

Republican National Convention

    Mr. Brownstein. One of the things that was a little surprising at 
the Republican Convention was the extent to which they tried to 
characterize the meaning of your 8 years. Bush said you had coasted 
through prosperity. Cheney said these have been years of prosperity in 
the Nation but little purpose in the White House.
    What is your response to that? How do you feel hearing that?
    The President.  Well, first of all, it was, on the facts, absurd. So 
I think what they're trying to do, their strategy seems to be to hope 
people think it all happened by accident. You know, when they had the 
White House for 12 years, they took credit every time the Sun came up in 
the morning. And also I think they did it because they fought so much of 
what we did.
    You remember what they all said when they opposed the economic plan 
in '93, they said it would bring on another recession. They practically 
said it was the end of civilization as we know it. Then they fought the 
crime bill. They were against the 100,000 police. They were against the 
Brady bill. On welfare reform, we agreed that work should be mandatory 
and that the States should be able to design their own programs, but we 
disagreed on the requirements for national standards for nutrition and 
medical care and transportation and all that. So we just differed on so 
many things.
    I think they were just trying somehow to get the American people to 
discount what's happened.

Economic Decisionmaking

    Mr. Brownstein. In your mind--this is a legitimate debate--how 
significant a role did your economic decisions, the '93, the '97 budget, 
the other things that you've done, how important has that been in the 
prosperity of the last 8 years?
    The President.  I think it was pivotal. Because if you remember when 
we just announced what we were going to do--we announced we would have a 
deficit reduction plan that would cut the deficit by at least $500 
billion. After the election, but before we took office, there was this 
huge boom in the stock market and interest rates dropped. And then when 
we passed it, it happened all over again.
    And if you look at what's happened, Alan Greenspan said many times 
our fiscal responsibility in bringing the deficit down is what kept 
inflation pressures down and enabled him to leave interest rates lower 
so this whole thing would unfold. Otherwise, we would have had what had 
happened so long in the past--the productive capacity of the American 
people would lift the economy, then it would sag again, lift and sag, 
which is just what had happened before.

Social Indicators

    Mr. Brownstein. A little bit on social policy, on crime, other 
social trends. Do you think that Federal decisions have been 
significant----
    The President.  Yes.
    Mr. Brownstein. ----in things we've seen on those areas?
    The President.  Yes. I think if you look at it, I saw a study the 
other day--and I'm sorry; I don't remember who did it--which said that 
about 30 percent of the drop in the crime rate could be clearly 
attributable to the improvement in the economy. But I think the rest is 
due to better policing strategies and to more sensible efforts to keep 
guns out of the wrong hands.
    The crime bill that we passed in '94 basically was the product of 
law enforcement officers, community activists, prosecutors, who were 
beginning to do things that were working at the neighborhood level. But 
since 1965, between then and 1992, the violent crime rate had tripled 
and the police forces of the country had gone up only by 10 percent.

[[Page 1890]]

    So I don't think there's any question that putting 100,000 police in 
the streets, supporting more community prevention efforts, and doing the 
Brady bill, the assault weapons ban made a significant contribution. 
They don't think--the law enforcement people agree. I was in a suburban 
Republican community yesterday, outside Chicago, and I did what I always 
do when I leave, line up the police officers--and they had police 
officers from three different jurisdictions there--and two of them 
mentioned how important the COPS program had been to them and how much 
better they were doing as a result of it.
    On welfare reform, I think starting with all the waivers we gave to 
States to experiment with welfare-to-work projects, right through the 
passage of the bill, and then getting 12,000 companies in the Welfare to 
Work Partnership to commit to hire people off welfare, I don't think 
there is any question that we have maximized the efforts. There again, 
some of the welfare decline has to be attributed to the improving 
economy. But the rest of it has to be attributed to changes in the law 
and the policies.

Choices in 2000 Election

    Mr. Brownstein. So when you look at all of that, the economy, the 
social trends, to what extent do you consider this election, the 
November election, a referendum on your two terms, the good and the bad?
    The President.  I think it depends entirely on whether people 
understand what the choices are. And first, even before that, whether 
they think it's a significant election. I mean, the most troubling thing 
to me is--at least before the two conventions--there are a lot of people 
that are saying, ``Well, things are going along well. This probably 
doesn't make much difference, and I don't know what their differences 
are--economy, crime, whatever.''
    I think if people understand with clarity what the choices are, they 
will clearly make a decision to keep changing in the right direction, 
because all the surveys show over 60 percent of the people approve of 
the economic policy, the crime policy, the welfare policy, the health 
care policy, the general direction of the country--the people support 
us.

Policy Differences

    Mr. Brownstein. So you're saying in your mind you do view this as a 
choice between maintaining the direction you've set out and reverting 
back to the previous, or what?
    The President.  Well, it's different. I think in some ways you could 
argue that the Republican ticket this year is more conservative than 
President Bush in '92 or Senator Dole in '96. They've been quite adroit 
in the presentation of it and adopted a lot of our rhetoric and our 
positioning. And I suppose that's a step forward.
    But the difference is, when we started in '92 we actually changed 
the policies of the Democratic Party, the economic policy, the trade 
policy, the welfare policy, the crime policy, the education policy, 
right across the board. And I think that's important to emphasize that 
distinction.
    So again, from my point of view, for example, their tax policies, 
when you slice them up salami-like, like they're doing now, which is 
better politics for them, there's a compelling argument for each one of 
them individually. But when you add them all up, you're basically back 
in the deficit suit. And that's a big difference.
    So in my view, that would be a reversion. It would take a while to 
have effect, because we've built in a strong base. But once it was clear 
that we were going to get rid of the surplus right off the bat and then 
stop paying down the debt, I think the pressures for--well, Greenspan 
has said if there's a big tax cut, he'll have to raise interest rates 
more. So most people would lose more money in the interest rate increase 
than they'll get in the tax cut.

Democratic National Convention

    Mr. Brownstein. Is defining the stakes in the election one of the 
goals for your speech?
    The President.  Yes. But I think primarily that has to be done by 
Gore and Lieberman. Now, I do that when I'm out on the stump, you know, 
with our groups, because I want them to be able to go out and talk to 
other people and communicate that. But I think the American--I can say a 
few things about

[[Page 1891]]

what I think the choice should be. But this convention is very important 
that it belong to Al Gore and, to a lesser extent, to Joe Lieberman and 
that they define the choices.
    I think that it should be the mission of this convention to have 
clarity of choice--first, to understand the importance of the election, 
then to have clarity of choice, then to make clear what our positions 
are. And that we're not--as I said, if somebody said, ``Vote for me, 
I'll do just what President Clinton did,'' I would not vote for that 
person, because the times are very dynamic. There are still a lot of big 
challenges out there. But I think to keep changing in the direction 
we've taken is clearly what's best for America.

Choices in 2000 Election/Tone of Politics

    Mr. Brownstein. In terms of defining the choices, when Bush and the 
Republicans define the choice, they put a lot of emphasis on changing 
the tone in Washington, changing the climate in Washington. When he 
talks about restoring honor and decency to the White House, do you feel 
as though he's talking about you, personally? Do you take that 
personally?
    The President.  Well, yes and no. Yes, he's talking about me 
personally; no, I don't take it personally. It's what they have to say. 
They're wrong on economics. They know the people don't agree with them 
on crime. They know the people don't agree with them on turning the 
environment back over to the polluters. They know the people don't agree 
with them on these issues. They know they can't make the case anymore 
that helping the environment hurts the economy. So they basically can't 
win any of the issues that affect the American people, so they have to 
divert the attention of the American people. So, no, I don't take it 
personally.
    I think that what we have to do is talk about what we did for the 
people and the fact that we made specific commitments, and we honored 
them. Five years ago Thomas Patterson, the Presidential scholar, said I 
had already kept a higher percentage of my commitments to the American 
people than the previous five Presidents. And the number has gone up 
since then, and the ones that I haven't kept are ones that I tried and 
couldn't prevail on.
    And the other thing I think is truly ironic, they're saying--they're 
responsible for the tone in Washington. I mean, I gave Bob Dole and Bob 
Michel the Medal of Freedom. I bent over backwards to work with Newt 
Gingrich and Dick Armey, and did, whenever I could. The truth is that 
the harsh tone in Washington, as the American people know, was set by 
the far right. They got rewarded for it in 1994, when there was a high 
level of frustration. They overread their mandate. And they basically 
turned up the volume on a strategy they had really been pursuing in the 
far right since 1980 or before. And then the people didn't like it.
    So now they say they want to change it. What they're basically 
saying is, ``It's Republicans that do this, so put us in. If you let us 
rule, we'll be nice, and the Democrats don't do this sort of thing, so 
you'll have a nicer tone. So reward us for our past misconduct, and then 
everything will be sweet.''
    What I'd like to see the American people do is to say, we want you 
to work together. If they ratify this choice--what we call the New 
Democratic choice--if they ratify the choice of the Republicans when 
they vote with us on balanced budget and welfare reform, and when we 
work together on trade and foreign policy, then that's the direction the 
country will take.
    I think it's predictable that if they essentially reward them for 
first being mean and now being nice, that they will think that as long 
as they're nice they can then implement the policies that they were 
going to implement anyway. And I don't think the American people will 
like that, and I don't think it's good for the country.

Bipartisanship

    Mr. Brownstein. Are you disappointed or frustrated at all, though, 
if you think back from when you first ran against brain-dead politics in 
both parties in '92, and you--with really the exception of the '96-'97 
period of welfare reform, Kennedy-Kassebaum, and in the balanced budget 
deal--it's been very hard to get bipartisan, significant bipartisan 
agreement. And there have been significant

[[Page 1892]]

voices in the Democratic Party that have basically been cool to the 
idea, post the impeachment fight, very partisan atmosphere.
    Is it tougher to bring the parties together than you would have 
thought?
    The President.  We got a lot done in '98. We got a lot done in '99--
especially, mostly in the budget process; both times a lot of our 
education reforms went through. Even in 2000, we passed the Africa CBI 
bill with big bipartisan votes; we passed the China bill in the House; 
and the Senate, I think there will be probably more than half of both 
caucuses for the bill when they come back in September.
    So I think it's important not to obscure the fact that things are 
still being done. And I wouldn't be surprised when they come back--if we 
do a good job at our convention, I wouldn't be surprised if we still 
don't get this year a Patients' Bill of Rights, a minimum wage increase, 
and maybe some of the other things we're working on.
    So you know, it's harder, but I think we shouldn't obscure the fact 
that a lot of things still get done. I think we're going to pass a new 
markets initiative, thanks to the fact that the Speaker of the House has 
made it a priority in a bipartisan way. It got almost 400 votes in the 
House. It is a major, major piece of social legislation. It's basically 
the next big block on top of the empowerment zone program we adopted in 
'93.
    So do I wish I could do everything? Yes. Do I wish it were less 
partisan? Yes. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that we're still 
getting quite a lot done.

Lieberman Selection/Tone of Politics

    Mr. Brownstein. I asked you a moment ago if you thought that Bush 
was referring to you when he talks about honor and decency in the White 
House. The Lieberman selection as Vice President has been widely 
interpreted as signaling at once continuity with your policy, in terms 
of picking the chair of the DLC, but also an effort to separate from 
you, personally. Did you view it that way?
    The President.  Well, I think the far more important thing is the 
continuity of policy, because the thing that has always bothered me 
about these polls--until the last few days, where I think they are 
beginning to tighten up and firm up--is that the Vice President wasn't 
getting the credit he deserved for the role he played in the 
administration.
    I never believed, not for a minute, that the American people were 
going to, in effect, vote against their own interests and their own 
values by holding Al Gore responsible for a personal mistake I made--for 
a second. The whole record here has been obscured. Joe Lieberman was the 
first Democrat to say it, but he didn't say anything different than Al 
Gore said. He certainly didn't say anything different than I said 
contemporaneously.
    The issue is not--as a matter of fact, I think what he proposed was 
right. That doesn't mean that what they did was right. What they did was 
wrong. And what Lieberman said was right, and that's what Gore said. 
That's all Gore said.
    So you know, sooner or--the American people would figure that out 
and they--people are so much more fair than politicians and, sometimes, 
press pundits.
    Mr. Brownstein. Right.
    The President.  And they're also--you know, they don't cut off their 
nose to spite their face very long. All these tactics, even going back 
to the '92 campaign, the Republicans knew that what we were doing was 
best for the American people and that, if the American people understood 
that, we'd win.
    So what have they done from '92 on? They've tried to divert the 
attention of the American people to make them vote against something, 
vote on the basis of something other than their families, their lives, 
their kids' future, and the need to change America in a constructive 
way. So this is just the latest and most subtle incarnation of what I 
see as a very constant strategy, going back until '92.

Impeachment Process

    Mr. Brownstein. I want to ask you one last question in this area. 
That rather extraordinary session you had yesterday, talking with the 
ministers, and you talked at great length about your personal feelings, 
about the whole controversy. You didn't say much about looking back and 
how you felt about the impeachment process itself.

[[Page 1893]]

    Do you feel now that it was only partisanship at work, or could 
there have been legitimate reasons for some Republicans to feel the way 
they did?
    The President.  Well, first of all, some of them--I think Peter King 
gave the best speech on that. I'll use his words. Peter King said, ``I'm 
voting against this because if it was a Republican President you'd be 
against it, too.'' It's basically what I think. But you know, the 
American people can evaluate that. The most important thing was not what 
I say; it's what those 800 or 900 constitutional experts said. Way over 
90 percent of the people with an informed opinion about the history and 
the law said it was wrong. Two-thirds of the American people thought it 
was wrong.
    But that's all behind us. What the American people need to vote, in 
my judgment, the way they nearly always vote--they need to vote based on 
what kind of future they want. And if they believe that I have kept 
faith with the commitments I made and that we implemented those things 
and they had a good impact on the American way of life and our future 
and they understand what the choices are between the two candidates now 
and the two parties, I think we'll do fine.

Direction of Democratic Party

    Mr. Brownstein. So it is the public record, in effect, the outward-
looking record on which you think the judgment should be rendered and 
the vote should be based?
    The President.  Because that's the only thing that matters to them 
in their lives. And because, you know, if I were running again, they 
could evaluate me in whole, all my strengths and all my weaknesses. But 
I'm not running.
    However, the things that we stood for--the reason I was thrilled 
about Lieberman's selection is that we've been working together in the 
DLC for years. It was a clear statement from Al Gore that he's going to 
continue this New Democratic course. It should be encouraging to 
independents and moderate Republicans that there will be a basis for 
bipartisan cooperation and that we're going to continue the kinds of 
change that have wrought so much good in this country in the last 8 
years.
    One of the things that will happen--as I said, I think Lieberman's 
selection will help the Vice President to get more of the credit he 
deserves for the good things that have happened the last 8 years.
    Mr. Brownstein. You know, I wasn't planning to ask you this, but 
since you brought it up, one thing that's interesting about that, what 
you just said, though, is that the policy direction of the Vice 
President is quite similar to yours, overwhelmingly extending the kinds 
of things the administration has done, in some cases, literally, like 
CHIPS for adults or class size reductions through 12th grade or more 
police officers. But the music is a little different. He talks in a more 
traditionally Democratic language. He talks about big oil, big tobacco, 
whose side are you on. And some people feel that he's a more partisan--
more comfortable in the Democratic Party, less comfortable reaching out 
across party lines.
    Do you think there is a difference between the two of you and the 
extent to which you are comfortable challenging the party base and/or 
working with Republicans?
    The President.  Not really. I think that we're living in a time when 
the issues at hand and our frustration at not being able to pass the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, for example, not being able to close the gun 
show loophole, having the NRA say they'll have an office in the White 
House if the Republicans are elected, have highlighted the differences 
between the special interests that dominate policy in their party and 
what we believe is in the public interest. And I think that accounts for 
some of the rhetoric.
    I also believe, you know, when you're--if you go back to '92, the 
two New Democrats in the race were Tsongas and me, and Kerrey was, to 
some extent a New Democrat, we all had some pretty populist rhetoric. 
And there was reason for it then because people were suffering, really 
suffering. The reason for it now is that specific interest groups are 
holding up progress on issues even that a majority of the Republicans in 
the country favor.
    For example, I think a majority of the Republicans clearly favor the 
Patients' Bill of Rights we're supporting. That's just one example. 
That's why I'm saying I think Lieberman coming on ticket sends a clear

[[Page 1894]]

signal. I also think he--Joe and I spent more years and just had the 
opportunity, for different reasons, to spend more time in the DLC than 
the Vice President did. If he hadn't become Vice President, I think one 
of these last 8 years he would have been chairman of the DLC. You think, 
if you have a chance to think about all this in a different way.
    But I don't see it as a big substantive problem. I know how 
important it is to him, personally, to try to get bipartisan support for 
the work of a country. I know how important it is to try to get 
bipartisan support out in the country. I know how profoundly troubled he 
was in the last 2 or 3 years that even foreign policy began to get more 
partisan--the most amazing expression was the defeat of the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the first time in 80 years the Congress 
had defeated a major treaty like this.

Electoral Fortunes of the Democratic Party

    Mr. Brownstein. Let me ask you to sort of take a step back and think 
about the political ledger for a minute. You've become the first 
Democrat to be reelected since Roosevelt. The party was averaging about 
50 electoral votes an election in the three elections before you. So 
clearly, there has been a restoration of the capacity to compete at the 
Presidential level.
    On the other hand, you've lost Congress, fewer Governors, and Gore 
is in this ambiguous position here as the campaign begins--or in the 
middle of the campaign. Do you feel that you are leaving the Democratic 
Party in a stronger position than, in effect, when you found it in the 
fall of '91?
    The President.  Oh, yes, I do. Because a lot of those congressional 
seats we held because we had a guy who had been there for a long, long 
time, while the districts had been changing, more Republican. I feel 
terrible about what I did to weaken our position in Congress and, by 
extension, probably in the governorships in '94, because we got all the 
downside of voting for the crime bill. That is, the NRA was out there 
telling all those people we're going to take their guns away, and they 
hadn't seen it work, and they hadn't seen that the fear tactics were 
wrong.
    We got the downside of voting for the economic plan because people 
didn't feel the economy going better, and the Republicans were out there 
telling everybody we raised their taxes. In fact, you know, for most 
people, the vast majority, they didn't get their taxes raised. We had 
more tax cuts than tax increases. But there was this general sense of, 
well, nothing is really all that much better yet. And I felt terrible 
because--you know, I got the benefit in '96, and we began to win seats 
back.
    But what I think now is, the '98 election I think was a true 
watershed election, because the President's party won seats in the House 
for the first time since 1822, in the sixth year of a Presidency. That 
was a long time ago. And even though we only won 5, they thought they 
were going to win 20 or 30, and they spent $100 million more than we 
did. They thought they were going to win four to six Senate seats, and 
they didn't win any.
    This year we're well positioned to pick up seats in the House and 
the Senate. In '98 Senator Hollings was reelected; we got a Democratic 
Governor in South Carolina; we got a Democratic Governor in Alabama; we 
got a Democratic Governor in Georgia; we got two African-American State-
elected officials in Georgia. I think Zell Miller will be elected in 
Georgia in November.
    So I think that the Democratic Party is coming back, and I think 
that it is a party reborn in the direction that we have taken in the 
last 8 years.

Status of Democratic Party Changes

    Mr. Brownstein. Do you think Gore has to win in 2000 to 
institutionalize that in the party? Or do you think it is cemented now, 
the big things that you have changed--on crime, welfare, the budget--are 
they--free trade--are these cemented, regardless? Or if Gore loses, or 
do we reopen the debates?
    The President.  First of all, I've always thought he would win, and 
I still believe he's going to win. I thought he would win when he was 
down 18 points. Vice Presidents have always had a difficult time 
winning, but I believe he'll win. And I believe he'll win in a positive 
way.

[[Page 1895]]

    President Bush won, basically, by demolishing Mike Dukakis. I think 
Al Gore will win for the right reasons, because the country is better 
off than it was 8 years ago, and it's a stronger country. It's also a 
more just country. And I think when people understand where we were, 
where we are now, where he wants to lead us, I think after they see Al 
and Joe and Tipper and Hadassah and their families and they hear him 
talk, I think the comfort level will go way up. And I think they'll have 
what I believe this election is about. I think they have four fine 
people running for President and Vice President with very different 
levels of experience and very different positions on the issues about 
the future. And I think they'll choose him. That's what I think will 
happen. I've always thought that would happen.

Republican Strategy

    Mr. Brownstein. And that question of experience--your comments the 
other night in Rhode Island, sort of the humorous comments about Bush 
that sort of sparked a little--let me just ask you, so we can interpret 
those correctly. In your mind, does he have sufficient experience and 
those personal qualities it takes to be President?
    The President.  First, let me say I was surprised by the reaction. 
It isn't true that I was trying to get him. And I think it came probably 
because sometimes when I'm talking without notes I lapse into southern 
talk. We don't mean anything disparaging by ``daddy.'' I talk about my 
daddy all the time. I think if I had said ``father,'' it would have had 
a different resonance with them. And I didn't mean to do that.
    But the point I'm making is, Bush has been a Governor for, what, 5 
years. And I was a Governor for 11 years when I took office, and had 
been involved in a lot of these things. The point I was trying to make 
was a different one. It's not that being Governor of a State, big State, 
for 5 years is not enough to be President. It is that the argument that 
they're making is based far more on atmospherics and the rhetorical 
positioning of the candidate than on specific positions on the issues. 
That was the argument I'm making.
    In other words, you didn't hear anybody up there talking about, 
here's how I'm going to change the environmental policy; here's how I'm 
going to change the way I appoint judges to the Supreme Court; here's 
how I'm going to change the tax policy.
    Oh, they talked about particular popular tax cuts, but they didn't 
say, here's the difference in my approach than theirs. That's the 
argument I was making. Their argument is: This economy is on automatic; 
nobody can mess it up; nobody was responsible for it; the Government 
doesn't have anything to do with it; we're going to give you the money 
back; let us govern. That's what I was trying to say.
    It wasn't meant to be a personal barb in any way. I was actually 
complimenting their strategy, because it's the only way they can win. 
That is, the only way they can win is to take all the guys that really 
run the Republican Party--in other words, Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay and 
all those guys, they still have their positions--if they took everybody 
that's really in control and they didn't show them to the American 
people, then they took their policies on--whether it was guns or the 
environment or health care or hate crimes or choice--and they put them 
in a closet for the convention, and they showed a whole different face 
to America to try to make people say, ``Well, I feel okay about these 
guys. I'm going to give them job. You know, the other guy has had it for 
8 years. Maybe we'll give it to them.'' That is their strategy. That's 
plainly their strategy and I----
    Mr. Brownstein. Is it meant to deceive the American people about 
what they really intend?
    The President.  Well, that's your word, not mine. I just think that 
they would prefer not to talk about the issue differences. I don't think 
they think of it as deceit, because if you talk to any of them, they 
basically think they should always rule. They thought I was an 
historical accident. They thought they'd never lose the White House 
again. They thought they had sort of a proven strategy for beating all 
Democrats, which is, basically, if you listen to all their campaigns 
from the beginning, that we're not like normal folks, and they are, so 
we ought to vote for them.
    And I think they obviously have two candidates of enormous skill, 
enormous political skill, running. And I don't think they think

[[Page 1896]]

of it as deceit. I think they think, if they get elected, they'll do the 
best job they can. But they ought to tell the American people what 
they're going to do in all these areas, and we ought to tell the 
American people what we're going to do. And that's what the debates 
ought to be about.

Qualifications of the Candidates

    Mr. Brownstein. Let me go back to my question, though, from a moment 
ago. Even if you didn't intend anything to that effect in Rhode Island--
let me ask you directly--do you think Governor Bush is sufficiently 
experienced to serve as President?
    The President.  Well, that's always a relative question. The point 
I've made about Al Gore is that he had a distinguished record in 
Congress, a distinguished record in the Senate. And he had the most 
extraordinary record of achievement in his present job than anyone in 
history. So he is much better qualified. He's also shown a peculiar 
qualification for this moment in history. That is, he's one of the most 
future-oriented people in American public life in the last 25 years. And 
he always has been.
    Contrary to Governor Bush's jab at him, he never claimed to have 
invented the Internet. He did sponsor legislation which transformed what 
was called something else into the Internet, a public access means of 
communication that's the fastest growing one in history. And that's just 
one example. He understood all this genetic business before everybody 
else did. He was talking about climate change when they were still 
making fun of him in '92. Now the oil companies say it's real. So I 
think that he has had more relevant experience.
    So compared to the Vice President, he's not experienced enough. If 
you think experience is important, the Vice President has much more than 
he does. So that's not an objective statement; it's a relevant 
statement. No disrespect to his service as Governor, but look at Al 
Gore's experience and look at the results of that experience. I think he 
wins on that experience hands down.

Post-Presidential Plans

    Mr. Brownstein. Would you accept any kind of position--special 
ambassadorship--in a Gore administration? Do you have any interest in 
the Supreme Court?
    The President.  Well, I can't imagine that that would happen. I told 
Al once that if he got elected President my main goal would be to stay 
out of his way--because America can only have one President at a time. 
But if he ever wanted to talk to me, I'd be glad to talk to him. If he 
ever wanted me to do anything, I'd be glad to do it. If he just wanted 
me to go to funerals for him, I'd be glad to go. I will do whatever I 
can to be helpful to him, because I know what it's like to have that job 
and have to make the calls.
    So my main concern as I look ahead is to try to find ways that I can 
use all the experience and the knowledge that I've acquired to be an 
effective citizen of America and to do some positive things around the 
world in ways that absolutely do not interfere in any way, shape, or 
form with his performance of his responsibilities, which are unique.
    So if I ever did anything, it would be strictly within the confines 
of what I was asked to do. And I would guess if it ever amounted to 
anything, it would be one specific something that might come up in some 
area where I had a lot of involvement. But my main focus is on--I'm 
going to be a private citizen again, and I just want to be a good one, 
and that's what I expect to be.

Defining the Vice President's Role

    Mr. Brownstein. In the last few minutes I have, I was asked by 
colleague Ed Chen to ask you a couple of questions for a profile of the 
Vice President that will be running during convention week. And I'm 
wondering if--this goes back to '92--but the first question he wanted me 
to ask was, when you talked with then-Senator Gore about the Vice 
Presidency, did he have any specific ideas of what he wanted the job to 
be? And how did they jibe with your view of what the Vice President--did 
you negotiate in advance about what the Vice Presidency would be?
    The President.  I don't know if I would say ``negotiate.'' But yes, 
he did, particularly after we talked a second time. He knew that 
basically--that Vice President Mondale and

[[Page 1897]]

Vice President Bush had had more institutional--had a more 
institutionalized partnership than any Vice Presidents before them. So 
he said, ``You know, if I do this I want to know that we'll have lunch 
once a week,'' and we have, faithfully, until he got involved in more 
important things. ``I want to know that I can be a part of any meeting 
and a part of all important decisions.'' And I said he would.
    And then he said, ``What do you have in mind? What do you want me to 
do?'' And I said, ``Well, I'm asking you to do this because I think 
you'd be a good President. I think you'd be a good partner, and because 
you know things I don't know--arms control, defense, the environment, 
technology, principally.'' And I said, ``As we unfold this 
administration, I will want you to do specific things. I want you to 
have adequate staff to do it. I want you to have adequate support to do 
it, and I don't want you to have some separate satellite operation. I 
want us to have an integrated White House operation--you, the Cabinet, 
the staff--I want us all working as a team.''
    And I rather suspect that the model that we have established 
operationally will be followed by subsequent administrations, Republican 
and Democrat, because it's just crazy that other people haven't used the 
Vice President more. I mean, I think it doesn't make any sense.
    Mr. Brownstein. It very well leads into question two, which was--the 
question is, how aware were you in the early days of the administration 
to resistance within the Presidential staff to the Vice President having 
an active role? And what did you do to let people--and here it says, 
like George or Harold Ickes--know that Gore had to be a central part of 
decisionmaking? Was there resistance, in your mind, originally, among 
some of the White House staff to this--what you describe as a kind of 
unique, new, and different integrated role.
    The President.  Well, I don't know if I would--let me just say this. 
I don't know if I would describe it in that way. But when we got 
started, we had to create a culture, and we had thousands and thousands 
of decisions to make. And the deal I made with him, which I initiated, I 
said, ``Look, if you think we're not doing something right or if you 
feel you should be involved in something you're not, the one thing I 
cannot tolerate, we'll never survive around here if this happens, is if 
you or anyone else sits around and fumes about something instead of 
bringing it out.'' I said, ``If you think that we've messed up, you come 
and tell me, personally. And if I agree with you, we'll fix it.''
    So over the last 8 years maybe--maybe once a year something would 
come up where he'd say, ``Look, this is how I think it should be, and 
we'd like to be more involved, and we're not,'' or, ``This is something 
I think I should run myself.'' But it hasn't happened a lot. But in the 
beginning, you know, it took us a while to get this up and going. It's 
not easy. If you read these accounts of previous White Houses and how 
they operated, I mean, you would see--you've got a thousand different 
external pressures operating on you; you feel like you're in the fourth 
quarter of a game every day with the time running out. So it took us a 
while to work it out, but we did work it out, and I think on balance 
it's worked quite well.

Unfinished Agenda

    Mr. Brownstein. My last question, so I'm going back to one of my own 
questions, instead of the Gore questions, which is: In the last few 
years, despite what we've talked about before, a lot of what you have 
proposed has been blocked. I mean, there has been, sort of, gridlock on 
a lot of things in Washington.
    If you were going to look at one or two things, try to narrow it 
down, of the unfinished business of your Presidency that you think 
should be the top priority for the next President, areas or even 
specific proposals that you think are really right at the top of the 
agenda for a new Congress and a new President should focus, what would 
those be?
    The President.  Well, before they spend the whole surplus, in my 
judgment, they need to do the following things. There needs to be a 
long-term plan for what we're going to do on Social Security and 
Medicare that will require some more money and some substantive reform. 
I really regret--basically, neither party wanted to tackle Social 
Security

[[Page 1898]]

this year, because we could have done it. So they need to think about 
that.
    Then I think they need a longer term strategy--I would advise the 
Vice President when he becomes President to think about this--really 
longer term strategy for education, because we're really beginning to 
see some improvement in these schools now. And we need to accelerate the 
pace of it, because now we know what works. And we're going to hit a 
roadblock when you have 2 million teachers retire over the next few 
years, really over the service of the next President, if the President 
is a two-termer.
    Then I think--the third thing I think that really needs to be 
thought through is this whole complex of health care issues. I would 
recommend that we block out everything. For example, we could take a lot 
of the--the most vulnerable people without health insurance, we could 
take care of if we let all the parents of the CHIP kids buy into CHIP, 
if we let everybody over 55 who lost their health insurance at work buy 
into Medicare and give them a little tax credit to do it. And if then we 
let all young single people have access at least to some sort of 
catastrophic plan, along the lines of the slimmest plan offered by the 
Federal employees plan. And then we should beef up the public health 
network in America. I think that's important.
    So those three areas, domestically.
    Now, in foreign policy, I think that there are two things that need 
to be more work done. The one area, as you know, that I have failed to 
get a majority consensus in my party on is for the imperative of 
continuing world trade networks and to continue to have America benefit 
from the increasing interdependence of the global economic system. And I 
failed to get the Republicans to agree that you can't have an economic 
system that is interdependent without more of an interdependent social 
system. That's what the labor and environmental standards are all about. 
I think there ought to be a serious effort on that.
    And then one other thing on foreign policy that I think is 
important. I've talked a lot about this, but we don't have the 
institutionalized commitment that I think we need to deal with the new 
security threats and the new opportunities in the 21st century. The 
Republicans made fun of me when we said AIDS was a security threat, but 
it is. The breakdown of public health networks all over the world and 
the rise of AIDS, TB, and malaria, but also just a breakdown of health 
care systems--in Russia, not just in Africa, in Russia and lots of other 
countries in the former Soviet Union and other places--it's a serious 
problem. And I think there should be much more money spent in 
nonmilitary massive security, foreign policy areas.
    We do real well on an ad-hoc basis, like we've got a great 
bipartisan commitment on Plan Colombia. I know it's controversial, but I 
think it's right. I think we're going to do it right, and I think my 
successors will do it right. But we're spending much less in nonmilitary 
foreign policy expenditures than we were at the end of the cold war. 
That budget has been cut in real dollar terms even more than the defense 
budget. The difference is that we could cut the defense budget because 
we didn't need 200,000 troops in Europe. We can cut back some other 
places and still have the dominant military in the world. And even now 
we're starting to replenish, rebuild the defense budget, which we have 
to, because we need more investment and readiness and weapons 
modernization and things like that. We have got to invest more money in 
development.
    If we get a Middle East peace, the Congress, I'm sure, will do what 
we should do.
    If time permitted, I could give you a dozen examples where the 
direct, long-term interests of the United States are adversely affected 
by our inability to invest nonmilitary money in certain areas. And I'm 
not talking about just writing people a blank check and throwing the 
money away. But those are the areas, if I were in charge of a transition 
planning team for the new administration, those are the things that I 
would urge them to be looking at.

 Note:  The interview began at 4:43 p.m. aboard Air Force One en route 
to Los Angeles, CA. In his remarks, the President referred to former 
Senator Bob Dole; former Representative Robert H. Michel; 1988 
Democratic Presidential candidate former Gov. Michael Dukakis of 
Massachusetts; Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joseph I. 
Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah;

[[Page 1899]]

newly appointed Senator Zell Miller, who filled the seat of the late 
Senator Paul Coverdell from Georgia; and former Assistant to the 
President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Political Affairs 
Harold Ickes. This interview was released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on August 15. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of this interview.