And that was so successful there that then moved him to a task force for the whole southern border, across the 2,000 miles, the border between our country and Mexico. And again success, and the figures sound so great, except that with the boundaries such as we have and the two great seacoasts, that is not really the answer to the problem because of all of the thousands of tons of drugs and the planes and ships and trucks and so forth that we have confiscated, and the hundreds of millions of dollars that we have confiscated. As long as there is a demand, the drug dealers can get the drugs through-with these task forces. I do not think it would be helpful to eliminate them and just let them come in free with no interference, because we are doing that. At the same time, we are trying to win the battle where it must be won, and that is in taking the user away from the drugs, not the other way around-to convince the people that they should not. I know I am taking a great deal of time. My wife has been very active in that area, and all on her own. But she answered a little girl's question in a schoolroom one day when she was talking to them about drugs and why they, as children, should not engage in this. And the little girl stood up and said to her, Well, what do we do when someone offers us drugs? And that is why we are going to try to win that battle. But that all started from what you were saying about differences with the Vice President. And, no, I think that, as I say, he is been a part of all that we have done here with regard to the economy. We have had the longest period of economic expansion in the history of our country. In the last 5 years, we have created 16 million new jobs for the workers in our work force. We have the lowest unemployment rate in many years. And we have the highest rate of employment among what is considered the potential employment pool-all of the people that could be considered as potential for jobs-the highest percentage of them today are employed than has ever been true in our history. And as I say, the Vice President's been a part of all of the things that helped bring this about. ENTITY, do you consider Mikhail Gorbachev as a friend-I mean, a real friend?


And we begin with ENTITY. We met in the Roosevelt Room, just off the Oval Office, for a spirited conversation on several topics, starting with the president's big push on health care. Probably the most definitive promise you made in the campaign is that no one in the middle class would get a tax increase on your watch. Yet this week, Senator Rockefeller and several other Democrats say that this bill by Senator Baucus is a big middle class tax increase. Do you agree and does that mean you cannot sign it? I think that what they were referring to -- and I have not looked at the quotes, but I think that they were concerned about whether or not this was actually affordable. If you are saying to people, you have got to get health insurance, but they cannot actually afford it and they have to pay a penalty if they do not get it, then that is a pretty big burden on middle class families. But the first thing we have got to understand is you have got what is effectively a tax increase taking place on American families right now. Health care premiums went up 5.5 percent last year at a time when the rest of the economy, inflation was actually negative. So that is a huge bite out of people's pockets. And part of what I have been trying to say throughout this campaign --- this effort to get health care done is that if we do not do anything, guaranteed, Americans' costs are going to go up, more people are going to lose health care coverage, the insurance companies are going to continue to prevent people from getting it for pre-existing conditions. Those are all burdens on people who have health insurance right now. And so just to close the loop on this, the principles I have put forward very clearly when I spoke to the joint session of Congress, is that we are going to make sure that, number one, if you do not have health insurance, you are going to be able to get affordable health insurance. Number two, if you have health insurance, we are going to have insurance reforms that give you more security. You know what you are going to get. You know that if you are paying your premiums, you are actually going to have coverage when you get sick. Number three, it is going to be deficit neutral -- it is not going to add a dime to the deficit, now or in the future. Number four, it is going to start driving down our costs over the long-term.

Interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' This Week


Now, 80 percent of what I'd like to see is actually already in all the various bills that are in Congress. That last 20 percent is tough because we have got to figure out -- making sure that we are paying for it properly, making sure that it really is relief to families who do not have health insurance, making sure that all the various details that are out there line up. And that is going to take some time. But I think that the effort by the Senate Finance Committee is a serious, strong effort to move an agenda forward. We have seen some positive signs from people who might have been otherwise a little bit shaky on health care, including Republican Olympia Snowe, I think, had some nice things to -- Has not signed on, but has said that this is a legitimate effort to try to solve the problem. What I want to see is that we just keep on working on it over the next several weeks. You mentioned these premium increases. But they are not happening as a result of a decision by the government. You were against the individual mandate -- Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you do not . You and I are both paying $900, on average -- our families -- in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now, what I have said is that if you cannot afford health insurance, you certainly should not be punished for that. If, on the other hand, we are giving tax credits, we have set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we have driven down the costs, we have done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you have just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that is -- The -- for us to say that you have got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it is saying is, is that we are not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America , just about, has to get auto insurance. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I am not covering all the costs. No, but, George, you cannot just make up that language and decide that that is called a tax increase.


If I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that is not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I do not want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then -- I do not think I am making it up. George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you are stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you would not have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. what you are saying is -- I wanted to check for myself. My critics say that I am taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we are going to have an individual mandate or not, but -- I absolutely reject that notion. Let us go to Medicare then -- because you also said that no one will lose what they have. Right. are going to force people to lose coverage they now have. These are essentially private HMOs who are getting, on average -- and this is not my estimate, this is Democrats and Republicans, experts have said -- they are getting, on average, about 14 percent more over payments, basically subsidies from taxpayers for a program that ordinary Medicare does just as good, if not better, at keeping people healthy. Now, they package these things in ways that in some cases may make it more convenient for some consumers, but they are overcharging massively for it. And so what we have said is instead of spending $17 billion, $18 billion a year, $177 billion over 10 years on that, why would not we use that to close the doughnut hole so the people are actually getting better prescription drugs? Why do not we make sure that we are using some of that money to actually make people healthier? But he said it is going to cause beneficiaries right now to lose what they have. If what you are saying is that people who are currently signed up for Medicare advantage are going to have Medicare and the same level of benefits, but they may not be having their insurer get a 14 percent premium, that is absolutely true. They may drop the coverage.


No, these folks are going to be able to get Medicare that is just as good, provides the same benefits, but we are not subsidizing them for $18 billion a year. So Senator Nelson, he wants to pass an amendment that shields anyone currently on Medicare advantage from any cuts. Do you support that? George, I am not going to be negotiating a particular provision of the bill sitting down with you here right now. the basic principle that is indisputable is that we are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare that is not making people healthier. I want to make sure that we are using that money to actually make people healthier. But if people lose their Medicare advantage? What I have said is we are not going to take a dollar out of the Medicare trust fund. We are not going to subsidize insurance companies in ways that end up creating a situation that Medicare is actually weaker and has a less sound financial foundation because right now we have got eight years from now potentially Medicare going into the red. Let me ask you about the broader debate around this, and you have seen a lot of your allies look at this whole debate around health care and see the issue of race being injected after Joe Wilson's outburst. This week, President Carter -- I know you disagree with that -- that race is involved here. And, you know, we have talked about this in several interviews, about these kinds of issues. You always dismiss it. Does it frustrate you when your own supporters see racism when you do not think it exists? Look, I think that race is such a volatile issue in this society -- always has been -- that it becomes hard for people to separate out race being sort of a part of the backdrop of American society versus race being a predominant factor in any given debate. And what I have said -- what we talked about during the campaign, are there some people who do not like me because of my race? Are there some people who vote for me only because of my race? The overwhelming part of the American population I think is right now following this debate and trying to figure out is this going to help me? Now, there're some who, setting aside the issue of race, actually I think are more passionate about the idea of whether government can do anything right. And I think that that is probably the biggest driver of some of the vitriol right now. Whether you are going to raise their taxes.


Well, it goes beyond taxes. I mean, I think that what we are seeing right now is a part of a running debate that we saw during FDR, we saw during Ronald Reagan. Anytime there is a president who is proposing big changes that seem to implicate the size of government, that gets everybody's juices flowing and sometimes you get some pretty noisy debate. But you are in a different -- But just to finish the thought, I think what I am proposing is a very modest attempt to make sure that hard-working families out there are going to have the security of health insurance that they can count on. This is not grafting a single payer model onto the United States . I think that there are some opponents who have used -- seized on this and tried to use this as a proxy for saying that somehow we are vastly expanding government and taking over every sector of the economy. That is what a lot of this debate is about. The one thing I hope is, is that we can have a civil argument about it and that we are able to acknowledge good motives on both sides. Each of us are Americans that care deeply about this country. And sometimes I think that, frankly, the media encourages some of the outliers in behavior because, let us face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude. If you are just being sensible and giving people the benefit of the doubt and you are making your arguments, you do not get time on the nightly news. You might on Sunday morning, but -- But if you say something outrageous, you are there in a hot second. But have your --- have some of your allies made it easier for -- handed your opponents some ammunition, like ACORN, for example -- Well, look, the -- you know, I think that -- are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the left who have not always operated ways that I'd appreciate? Is -- is -- -- all funding for ACORN. Are you for that? Is that true on the other side, as well? I did not even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money. Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off. You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated. So you are not committing to -- to cut off the federal funding?


George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It is not something I am paying a lot of attention to. Afghanistan is a big issue facing the country right now. You were for a flexible time line in Iraq . Some people now are saying that is exactly what should happen in Afghanistan if the same conditions hold. Do you agree with that? Here is what I think. When we came in, basically there had been drift in our Afghan strategy. Everybody acknowledges that. And I ordered a top to bottom review. We are there because al Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans and we cannot allow extremists who want to do violence to the United States to be able to operate with impunity. Now, I think we have lost -- we lost that focus for a while and you started seeing a classic case of mission creep where we are just there and we start taking on a whole bunch of different missions. I wanted to narrow it. I did order 21,000 additional troops there to make sure that we could secure the election because I thought that was important. I also said after the election I want to do another review. We have just gotten those 21,000 in. General McChrystal, who is only been there a few months, has done his own assessment. I am now going to take all this information and we are going to test whatever resources we have against our strategy, which is if by sending young men and women into harm's way, we are defeating al Qaeda and -- and that can be shown to a skeptical audience, namely me -- somebody who is always asking hard questions about deploying troops, then we will do what is required to keep the American people safe. I just have one -- one last question -- Now, the only thing I want to say, though, is that what we -- I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you do not make decisions about resources before you have the strategy right. I just have time for one final question. I am sure you know the story about John Kennedy's first summit with Nikita Khrushchev back in his first year in office. He meets with Khrushchev. Khrushchev cleans his clock. I know there are no perfect analogies, but what is the moment in the last eight months where you took a step back and said, 'Wow, I am going to have to step up my game'?


ENTITY, I want to thank you very much for your time. And as you know, I am neither a politician nor a journalist, but being given the opportunity to sit down with you here and talk about an issue like global warming was an opportunity as a concerned citizen that I could not pass up. So my first question is, global warming is obviously a controversial topic among scientists and politicians. What is your understanding of what the effects of climate change will have on our future if preventative steps are not taken immediately? Well, let me, first of all, thank you for your interest in this because I think it is important that we get citizens more involved in it; and secondly say, I do not think it is all that controversial a topic among scientists. There are a few who say that it is not proven, but we know that the hottest years in recorded history, and certainly in the last 600 years, that 9 of the hottest 11 years have occurred in the last decade. So, the climate is changing, and the globe is warming at an unsustainable rate. And if it is not slowed and ultimately reversed, what will happen is, the polar ice caps will melt more rapidly; sea levels will rise; you will have the danger of flooding in places like the precious Florida Everglades or the sugarcane fields of Louisiana; island nations could literally be buried. The whole climate of the United States, for example, could be changed where you would have more flooding, more heat waves, more storms, more extreme weather events generally. And then you will have some public health consequences. For example, we are already seeing in Africa, for example, malaria being found at higher and higher altitudes where it used to be too cool for the mosquitoes. While growing up, I always felt that environmental issues were constantly overlooked, and I watched people band together for various causes which seemed to come and go, and it was almost like they were going in and out of style. So how do we take a misunderstood issue like climate change and not only raise awareness but make its prevention an ongoing commitment? Well, I think we have to make climate change a local and a personal matter in the same way other successful environmental issues are. You know, since I have been here, we have been able to strengthen the quality of our air, strengthen the quality of our water.

Interview With Leonardo DiCaprio for ABC News' Planet Earth 2000


We have set aside more land for protection and protected forests than virtually any administration in history, except those of the two Roosevelts, because they were things people could understand and identify with, and they knew how to advocate for, and they understood the benefits. So I think we have to bring this down to practical applications and convince people that they can do something about it, number one; and number two, we have to talk about the first question you asked me what the consequences of not doing anything. We started a project here at the White House called the Greening of the White House. Just by changing the lighting in this whole building, we lowered our electric bills by $100,000 a year. Then we put in a different sort of roofing system which kept out more heat and cold. Then we put in a more energy-efficient heating system and water system. We brought more energy-efficient equipment copiers, computers all with the Energy Star label, which is a totally voluntary thing the Department of Energy provides. Now, these are things that businesses all across America could be doing. They are things that homes all across America could be doing. We have worked with the Home Builders to help build lower cost housing that will cut energy use by 50 percent. There is one housing development built in the Inland Empire out in southern California, east of L.A., for lower income working people where the average utility bills are 65 percent lower than in houses of comparable size in the rest of California just by putting the most modern, thin solar panels on the roofs, by having sensible insulation, by having energyefficient lighting, and by taking new windows that let in more light and keep out more heat and cold. These things are out there now, and I think when people know there is actually something they can do, as well as what the consequences of our not acting and not pushing Congress and other countries to act are, then I think you will see action. Well, my other question pertaining to that is, if there was a profit incentive there, would that make us pay more attention? I mean, right now, for example, if you take the most energy-efficient lighting, it costs you more now, up front, but it lasts so much longer, eventually you turn a profit. And this is true in many processes in all the energy fields. So what I have proposed to the Congress is that we do basically two things.


First of all, we give significant tax breaks to consumers to buy energy-efficient products of all kinds, and that we also give tax breaks for people to manufacture and develop them. And then, that we spend more money on research, like the project we have had that the Vice President headed for new generation vehicles, that we work with the auto companies and the autoworkers union to develop more energy-efficient vehicles and to develop alternative forms of fuel, including biofuels, which could dramatically change the whole future with regard to the greenhouse gases we have put into the atmosphere. So there is a lot more we can do, and we ought to provide tax incentives to the private sector to help us. But what I want to drive home is that right now it is no longer necessary, in order to grow our economy, to put more greenhouse gases which cause global warming into the atmosphere. You do not have to burn more oil and coal to get richer now not in America, not anywhere else. Now, in Kyoto, in the 1997 Global Conference on Climate Change, it asked industrialized countries to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. And when we tried to enforce such protocols in developing countries, they came right back to us and said that the U.S. is responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere. How can we not practice what we preach? Well first, I think we should practice what we preach. And that is why I think it is so important that the Congress pass the budget that I recommended, that would dramatically increase our investment in developing the kinds of technologies and alternative fuels that would cut our greenhouse gas emissions. But I also believe that we have a big stake in working with other countries to convince them that they, too, can grow without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. For example, no matter how much we cut emissions in the United States, since this is a global problem, unless we also get China and India and the countries that have the big rain forests to work with us, we are going to be in real trouble. So, for example, when I was in Bangladesh recently, I announced a debt-for-nature swap that we were going to help finance with them. I signed a bill to do the same thing with the South American rain forest last year.


In India, we signed an agreement by which they committed that as they continue to grow and need more power, that they will have more and more coming from natural and renewable sources in the future, so that we can work together, because it is a global problem. But we should lead the way. And since we have already so much technology, and since, as I have just explained, just with these minor things we cut the power bills here at the White House by $100,000, and we are going to do it across the Federal Government if the Federal Government alone will do what we did at the White House, we will save $750 million a year, and it will be the equivalent in terms of greenhouse gases and climate change of taking 1.7 million cars off the road. We should be doing that. But we should also work with other countries. I tell other countries, the developing countries, I am not asking you to give up your growth; I am not asking you to give jobs up. I am asking you to pursue a different pattern of energy use, which will give you more growth, more jobs, and a healthier population over the long run. You can grow an economy and use less energy if you do it right. Why do you think this issue is so constantly overlooked, and why do you think people do not take it seriously enough? And for you, is it as important as something like health care or education? Oh, yes, over the long run, it is one of the two or three major issues facing the world over the next 30 years. I think it is because it takes a long time for the climate to change in a way that people feel it, and because it seems sort of abstract now. That is why I think it is important that programs like this are aired and people like you, not politicians or scientific experts but citizens, express their concern. And then it is important that citizens know that it ought to be an issue; it ought to be a voting issue at election time. And I do not say this in a hateful way. It is just that people need to tell the politicians and the candidates they care about this; they want action. But our citizens need to follow the lead of a lot of our religious groups and other civic groups in actually doing things themselves. Right now, if the American people knew all the options that are available to them and understood the economics, we could do much better.


And of course, if my plan were to pass the Congress and we were to give the tax breaks to consumers and manufacturers of these products and technologies, we could do it even faster. Now, the major polluters are obviously the big industries, such as the oil companies, who are one of the most powerful lobbies in the world. How do we convince them to change the way they have been doing business for the last century? Well, for one thing, oil is a depleting resource. And I think that oil companies and coal companies should be given incentives to become energy companies and to promote energy efficiency, so that the oil they have will last longer and provide them a more steady stream of income and so that they can develop other ways of earning money. They should become they should think of themselves as energy companies, not oil companies. And if you look at the record, starting with British Petroleum and its leader, some members of the oil industry are beginning to come over to support action on climate change. Some leaders of the auto industry are beginning to come over and support action on climate change. They understand that this is real and that when these gases get up in the atmosphere, it takes at least 50 years for them to dissipate. So we need to begin now a disciplined effort, which will be good for our economy. I will say again, this is good for the American economy and good for public health. We need to do this, and if we did it from today until the time you are my age, we'd be a much wealthier country, a much healthier country. And with that kind of effort over that length of time, we could head off this crisis. How do we get power companies to replace their coal plants with cleaner technologies? And why do not we make it so expensive for power companies to keep their old coal plants that they have to invest in cleaner fuels? Well, I think you can do it in two or three ways. I think, first of all, it is important to have very rigorous clean air standards. And I think it is important also to provide them the tax incentives they need to move as quickly as possible to alternative energy sources. A lot of the most enlightened utilities in America also see conservation itself as an energy source, PG&E in California, for example. But other utilities have understood that our inefficient patterns of using electricity are pressing them to use more traditional energy and emit more greenhouse gases and warm the climate.


So I think what we should do is to have a system where we finance not only the conversion to alternative energy but also looking at conservation itself as a form of energy. When you save, you do the same amount of work with less energy, and it is like creating more energy in a totally clean way. And I think that we should be financing those things in part with tax breaks from the American Government. And I have pushed for that, and I will continue to do so. Now, you have enacted tax credits for people who want to buy electric and fuel-cell vehicles. What are we doing to encourage oil companies to research alternative fuel technologies like fuel cells? Well, I want to give tax credits to them, too, to make it easier for them to spend money on that kind of research. And we are doing a lot of the basic research in the Government. A hybrid vehicle. hybrid vehicles the work that we have done to try to help them develop cars that run on electricity, but where the electricity regenerates, the capacity regenerates so they do not have to pull in every 80 miles and juice up the battery again; and a lot of the research we are doing through the Agriculture Department in biofuels all these things I think are very important. As we do more of that research, the basic research, we then make it more cost effective for the energy companies and for the auto companies to take that basic research and quickly convert it into commercially viable research to develop products. So I think our research at the national level should increase as well. I think it is very, very important that the Federal Government do that. You know, to get out of the energy context, the Internet basically began as a federally funded research project. So a lot of the things we take for granted today in the private sector began with a heavy investment of basic research from the National Government. And I think we are still at a point where the National Government should be doing a lot of this basic research. I will just give you one example. If we could suppose we get cars that will get 70 miles to the gallon, 80 miles to the gallon. And then suppose they can run on clean biofuels that do not have any greenhouse gas emissions, instead of gasoline. The problem today is it takes about 7 gallons of gasoline to produce 8 gallons of ethanol or other biofuel. So the researchers today are working on a chemical breakthrough which would permit you to produce 8 gallons of biofuel with 1 gallon of gasoline.


If you did that, if you improve the ratio 8 to 1, and you had a car getting 70 miles to the gallon, it would be like getting 500 miles to the gallon of gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Then the whole future of the world would be different. And then Americans, simply by buying fuel that would be cost effective, could whip this problem. And we are on the verge of those kinds of breakthroughs, but we need the energy companies to think of themselves as that, not oil and coal but energy. We need the auto companies to keep supporting the work of combating global warming, not pretending it does not exist, and many of them are today. And we need more action from ordinary citizens, smaller businesses, and the Government to promote energy conservation and alternative energy sources. But again I say, this is not a problem that requires big taxes, big regulation, and slow economic growth. It is no longer necessary in the information economy, with the dramatic scientific breakthroughs already made, we can grow economies faster by conserving energy rather than burning it up. And that is what people do not yet believe. If we can get people to really believe that we could have a great future using less energy, not more traditional energy, I mean then we'd have the battle half won. And maybe that will come out of this program. Because there is nothing so dangerous to society than being in the grip of a big idea that is not true anymore. And it is just no longer true that for America or India or China or Latin America or any other place to grow wealthy, they have to put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by burning up more coal and oil. And so we have to show people that that is not true, and show them how they can make a difference, and then keep making these products and technologies available so that it becomes easier and easier and easier to do what is not only the right thing environmentally but the right thing for our long-term economic and public health purposes. Many people have said in the past that the American dream was to buy a car and live in the suburbs. But it has created massive problems that have made us more reliant on our cars. Since it is so difficult for us to convince people to use mass transportation, how can we promote hybrid vehicles and convince people to give up their SUV's? For instance, if it only costs $575 a car to make them cleaner, why cannot you make it a law, like seatbelts?


Well, I am not sure that it only costs $575 to make them cleaner in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. I think first of all, I think if these SUV's are going to be sustainable over the long run, they also are going to have to become much more fuel-efficient and be able to run on alternative fuels. And I think the American people would pay a little more if they would do that. And the auto companies for the first time have said now that they want to bring in the SUV's and their other less efficient vehicles into this sort of new energy future that we are trying to build. Secondly, I think that people will take mass transit more if it works better. I have worked very hard to support more investments in mass transit to make it more convenient and faster, including more high-speed rail. And I still believe that as our urban areas become more and more populated and traffic becomes more congested, quite apart from pollution in the air, if we can have clean, efficient, and fast mass transit, people will begin to take it more and more and more because they can do other things; they are not wasting so much time if they are riding the train. So I am hopeful that you will see that. I very much hope that we will continue to develop mass transit alternatives, and I believe they will become much more popular with people, especially in the highly populated areas. But we cannot stop the development of fuel efficiency because a lot of our people live in rural areas and drive a long way to work, and that is not going to change anytime soon. Now, Louisiana is the second largest consumer of fossil fuels and the city most at risk for sea level rise. Cannot something be done, like in Atlanta, where the Government withheld highway funds, making it the model city for environmental responsibility? But under the law, we can only withhold these highway funds if the air pollution of a given metropolitan area is so high and they have not done anything about it, anything else about it. Then we can withhold the highway funds. They have to come up with an alternative program, which usually involves mass transit or carpooling or some other means to reduce air pollution, and in this case, also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And I am sorry to say I do not know exactly the answer to your question, but it may be that for other reasons, New Orleans is in full compliance with the Federal laws on air pollution.


But we have tried to do that in more than one other place, to use the obligation of a city, a big metropolitan area to have clean air to promote the development of alternative energy technologies and alternative travel patterns. In other words, instead of telling people we are going to shut you down, or imposing big, heavy, complicated regulations, say, Here is the standard; if you want the money, meet the standard. And then, in Atlanta, they figured out something to do that was very good for the environment, and they got their money. Now, I am sure you have heard so many reports from scientists and politicians and citizens. What do you think the best course for American citizens is, within the next 20 years, as far as helping the environment is concerned? Well, the biggest global problem by far on the environment is global warming. The biggest problem in many developing countries right now is safe water. We still have huge numbers of children dying from diarrhea and other related diseases and problems because they do not have safe water. And there are local air pollution problems that are horrible in various places. And I think the most important thing we can do is, every citizen must first understand that he or she can do something about this, and it will not bankrupt them. They should have their homes, their cars, their businesses everything they do should be oriented toward energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies. And then they should make this one of the issues that has to be discussed by public officials running for office at every level. This has to become not just an issue that we talk about once a year on Earth Day but an issue that is debated along with health care and education and national security and other issues at every election. You know, I was fortunate when I asked Vice President Gore to join me in 1992 that he had written a book on this, that he was interested in it. He talked to me about it. And so we just, on our own initiative, have done a lot of these things. But we could have had a whole environmental agenda and not dealt with this really very much. And then we had Kyoto, which we strongly supported, the Kyoto Protocol. But this needs to become an issue for every public official. It needs to become a matter of citizen debate.


It is great to be with you. In your State of the Union you proposed a series of measures that you say would create jobs that would help the economy, strengthen the economy. Can you move forward on any of them without Congress, without the support of Congress? Well, I think there are a number of things we can do without Congress. As you know, we started back in the fall saying we cannot wait. And so helping families refinance their homes, we went ahead and did it administratively. Some of the changes that we are making on immigration, we are trying to make sure that we are prioritizing criminals. That the three in 10 program is something that we can change administratively so that families are not separated so long, when they have the opportunity to apply for citizenship. There are things that we are doing with community colleges, and on education that we can do administratively. But ultimately, we can obviously do a lot more if Congress is willing to move. There is no doubt that when it comes to jobs, our biggest priority is manufacturing. We are here at this Intel plant that is going to provide 1,000 jobs here in Arizona. And thousands of construction jobs building this facility. And companies like Intel are not unique. What they are finding is they can be competitive here in the United States, but we have got to change our tax codes in order to provide even more incentives to invest in the United States. When it comes to American energy. There are a lot of things that we can do administratively, for example, natural gas. We think that we are going to be looking at 600,000 jobs in natural gas extraction here in the United States and all the industries that come with it. But we could be doing more if we are investing in clean energy. So on each of these areas, making sure that we are building the skills of American workers, making sure that we are encouraging American manufacturing. Making sure that we have got a strong American energy program. That we can do some things administratively, but ultimately Congress, which has the power of the purse, is going to have to act as well. Unemployment is about 11 percent among Latinos, much higher than the national average. What can you say to Latinos? And what can you do for Latinos who are looking for jobs? Well, there are a couple of things that obviously would make a huge difference. One of them is all the construction workers who were laid off.

Interview with Maria Elena Salinas of Univision


Latinos were highly represented in the construction trade, and when the housing bubble went bust a lot of people got laid off. That is one of the reasons why we are going to continue to encourage refinancing, and we are actually expanding the refinancing program that we talked about a few months ago so that it can reach more people. And that should help shore up the housing market. And that could help create jobs. But we are also going to make sure that we try to push Congress to fund infrastructure projects that put a lot of construction workers back to work all across the country. Latinos are just unfortunately represented when it comes to small businesses. And so one of the things that we want to do is to continue to get more effective financing programs to small businesses and startups, because they create most of the jobs here in the United States. So everything that we do is designed to help America as a whole grow, but there are certain industries that have been badly affected because of the housing crisis. Latinos have been badly affected by them. If we can start helping those areas, then that is going to give a big boost. You spoke a lot about fairness in your speech. You mentioned the importance or the need for all to pay their fair share. Governor Romney we know that recently said that he is paid only 13.9 percent on 46 million income. Does he represent the inequities in our tax system? Well, I will let Governor Romney speak to his own taxes. What I know is that as a general rule, those who are making the most in the top one percent or in the top one-tenth of one percent often times pay lower tax rates than their secretaries, or their drivers, or the people who are working in their homes. Now what makes it especially important is because right now we have got a big deficit. And we are all debating how do we reduce the government debt and the deficit, so we have a stable fiscal environment. We cannot reduce the deficit if people like me or anybody else who is making a lot of money are in a position where they are paying the lowest rate in taxes in 50 years, even lower than they were under Ronald Reagan, lower than they were under Bill Clinton. It is not good for the economy. It is not good for our deficit. And ultimately what we do not want to do is to cut more programs for higher education or cut more programs in basic science and research that create these tremendous innovations like you see here in Intel.


If instead we could be making those investments, also closing our deficit by making sure that everybody is paying their fair share. Well, you have been strongly criticized by Republican contenders. For example, Romney says, that you are you failed America. And Newt Gingrich told Univision today that your presidency is littered with broken promises. He challenged you to three or seven three-hour debates. When are you going to respond to them? Well, I will let them determine who their standard bear is going to be. Until the Republicans have a nominee, we do not have a campaign. Right now they have to decide who it is that they want representing them. Who will be a more challenging contender for you? You know, I do not really think about that. What I can say is this. That whoever their nominee is, they represent ideas that I think are wrong for America. They believe that we should not provide a pathway to citizenship for young people who were brought here when they were very young children, and are basically American kids, but right now are still in a shadow. They have said that they would veto the Dream Act. They both believe that we should repeal a healthcare law that stands to provide millions of Latinos who work every single day the opportunity to make sure that they have got health insurance. And so on a whole range of issues I think that whether it is Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Santorum or whoever else they might decide to select, they represent a fundamentally different vision of America. And it is not the bold generous forward looking optimistic America that I think built this country. Republicans are also criticizing you saying that you are campaigning instead of governing. Now as an incumbent, you have the right to campaign for your re-election. But how will people be able to differentiate between your campaigning and your governing? Well, you know, the truth of the matter is, is that I think a lot of commentators have said that I spent most of my first three years not doing a lot of politics, 'cause we were so busy with policy. And you know, my general instinct is to focus on doing my job because my attitude is, if I am doing my job well, people will recognize it, and the politics will follow. Obviously right now we are having a big debate in the country as a whole about the direction that we are going in. And the views that are held by the presidential candidates are the same views that are held in the House of Representatives.


You know, when we had an argument back in December about whether or not we should extend the payroll tax cut, or as some Republicans were arguing, we should go ahead and let middle class families suffer a $40 per paycheck increase in their taxes. You know, there were politics involved in that debate. But politics in the sense of how we are determining what is best for our country. And so I cannot really separate these debates. What I am trying to do is persuade as many members of Congress as possible, as well as the American people, that we are making progress. We have created three million jobs in the last 22 months. We have seen a recovery in manufacturing. And probably the best manufacturing hiring that we have seen since the 1990's. We are moving in the right direction. What we cannot do is go back to the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. It also means by the way that when I am out on, you know, in Arizona or other states I am going to be arguing about issues like regulation. One of the things that we have been talking about is the reason we had this housing crisis was because we did not have strong regulations in place. And people were subject to predatory lending. They were fooled into buying homes that they could not afford. And so we have had to, for example, appoint Richard Cordray as the head of the Consumer Protection Bureau that we have setup. And I want to build a case as to why that is important. Because for Latino families it is very important to make sure that they are not cheated when they are purchasing a home. It is very important that when they send remittances to Mexico that somebody is not taking too much of their hard-earned paychecks. So those are the kinds of fights that we are going to have. And you know, some people may interpret that as campaigning. I consider that to be important to my leadership in governing this country. Talking about Latino families there is a new Univision/ABC /Latino Decisions poll that has good and bad news for you. Hispanics continue to support you. Fifty-three percent they are less excited about your performance. In part, because they feel that you did not keep your promise for immigration reform. Can you explain to them why? We could not get any Republican votes. Yeah, Senate, even if you have a majority of votes, even if you have 51 votes you still cannot pass something through the Senate.


And a lot of Republicans who used to support comprehensive immigration reform decided that it was bad politics and they would not support it anymore. So I have continued to advocate on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform. Obviously in the State of Union yesterday, I could not have been clearer about not only my interest in comprehensive immigration reform, but if we cannot do the whole package, at minimum let us get the Dream Act done. But we now have two Republican candidates who said they'd veto a Dream Act. And you know, that kind of lack of responsiveness to the very real stories that are out there of families who work hard, who are contributing to our society, young people who should be our next engineers here at Intel or next teachers in our schools, are not able to access the kind of opportunity that I think everybody feels they should. So this is the kind of barrier that we are meeting in Congress. We are just going to keep on pushing and pushing until hopefully we finally get a break. But ENTITY, one of the concerns is the deportations. Over 1.2 million people have been deported under your administration. You could not do anything administratively for this? Well, there are some things that we are doing. Now first of all, the fact is Congress allocates this money. Whoever was president, you were going to see some increase in terms of enforcement. But, but, well, because that is the law that is on the books right now. And the way our system works, the president does not have the authority to simply ignore Congress and say, we are not going to enforce the laws that you have passed. What we do have the ability to do, and what we have systematically done, is to use our administrative authority to prioritize and say, let us not focus on Dream Act kids. Let us not focus on a law-abiding family that is out there trying to, you know, make their way. Let us focus on folks who are engaged in criminal activity. Let us focus on those that are breaking laws not just immigration laws. And in fact you have seen a steady increase in the percentage of those who are deported who have committed crimes. Now I cannot , again, just wave away the laws the Congress has put in place. But what we have tried to do is to, you know, create a system that is more humane, that is better prioritized. And until we get comprehensive immigration reform, there is going to continue to be heartbreaking stories.


That is what we are trying to change. But ultimately the way we change it, is we have got to change our politics. And that is why I talked about it at the State of the Union and that is why I am going to keep on talking about it. One is, as you know, your government expelled the Consul of Venezuela in Miami. After a Univision documentary showed that she was participating in some kind of cyber espionage against the U.S. Were you involved in the decision making? You know, I will not go into the details of this. Obviously there were investigations and follow-up that took place. My wish is that we could see improved relations with Venezuela. We do not desire ruptured relations with any country. But you know, we are going to continue to try to pursue a diplomatic path in Latin America that upholds the values that we care about. Democracy, you know, respect for human rights, respect for freedom of the press, making sure that no country is interfering with, you know, the legitimate claims of their neighbors. And so you know, that is going to create some tensions with Venezuela. But you know, there are tensions that we can manage. Is the growing influence of Iran in Latin America including Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, does that concern you? You know, I think Iran is an example of a country that has become more and more isolated because of its own actions. Obviously it is trying to reach out to some countries in Latin America. But overall Iran has never been more isolated, because they are pursuing nuclear weapons that violate international law. And I think the world community recognizes that the last thing we need is an arms race in the Middle East. What we have done is organized international sanctions. We have worked collectively with other countries to try to put pressure on Iran. But we have also said, you have a path to reintegrate with the world community. You can pursue peaceful nuclear power, forego nuclear weapons, and the international community I think will accept you. But so far at least they have not been willing to take that path. And we are going to be relentless in continuing to apply pressure on them until they make a better choice. We have run out of time. By any chance have you been practicing your Spanish? I heard somewhere that you have and that you have a few words or lines that you can say. You know, I have to say, Malia and Sasha are both studying Spanish. And already they are much better than me.


Why has it been so easy for critics to say the administration does not have its story straight on Benghazi? Well, look, the fact of the matter is that this is a tragedy. There is all kinds of legitimate questions to ask because anytime a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans who were serving our country get killed, we have to figure out what happened, and fix it. And most importantly, we have got to bring those folks who carried that out to justice. That is exactly what we are going to do. But I do take offense, as I have said at one of the debates, with some suggestion that in any way, we have not tried to make sure that the American people knew, as information was coming in what we believed happened. Was it the intel community that gave you bad information early on? Well, that is what we are going to find out from the investigation. But the truth is that across the board, when this happened, my number 1 priority was, secure Americans, figure out what happened, bring those folks to justice. We are in the process of doing that right now. Congress has been getting the flow of information continuously from day 1. And what my attitude on this is, if we find out we that there was a big breakdown, and somebody did not do their job, they will be held accountable. Ultimately, as commander-in-chief, I am responsible, and I do not shy away from that responsibility. My number 1 responsibility is to go after the folks who did this, and we are going to make sure we get them. I have got a pretty good track record of doing that. But at the same time, it is like Dr. J, when he went around, you only have 9 more days to do this. One of the things that happens at this point is - it is just kinetic energy. You are just running, and you just want to make sure that your voters are enthusiastic, that you are getting your message out in a clear and concise way. Why did you look at me when you said concise? Because some people accuse ENTITY of maybe not being clear enough about the next four years. I do not know who would do that. Well, but it is also, you know - in rallies like this, at this point, what people just want to know is not every point on every plan.

Interview with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough of MSNBC


What they want to know what is the vision that you have got for the country, and the good news is, I am feeling very optimistic about the next four years. I think the country is bouncing back, as we always do from tough times. I want to make sure that I lead over these next four years. When I say that this is like Dr. J, you know. This has to be bittersweet for you. Cause I saw you out there, and I thought, Oh my god. This guy is not going to be doing this again, after and then, you are going to have to be like Bill Clinton and find other people to campaign... It has to be bittersweet for you. I mean, you start thinking about your first campaign. I was thinking about my first campaign, when I was running for state senate. We had like four volunteers around the kitchen table, designing our own flier, taking it over to Kinko's, you know? And now, I am not going to be doing this much longer. And you know, the nice thing is though, the energy, the crowds that we have seen, makes me feel as if we are running this campaign in the right way. So, let us talk about the next 4 years, and try and get specific as possible. What is- How would you define your mandate for the next four years? I'd like to know the sacrifice that will not be asked of just the 1% but of the 99% as well? Well, there is no doubt that our first order of business is going to be to get our deficits and debt under control. You know, the Bush tax cuts end at the end of the year. That would not be the right way to do things, that is taking a machete to something, as opposed to a scalpel, and after the election, I think that both Democrats and Republicans have to step back and say, You know what, this is something that the country wants to solve. If I have won, then I believe that is a mandate for doing it in a balanced way. We have already made a trillion dollars worth of cuts. We can do some more cuts. We can look at how we deal with the health care costs in particular under Medicaid and Medicare in a serious way, but we are also going to need some revenue.


If we get that piece done, and we kind of settle on the big question, how much government are we going to have, and how are we going to pay for it? Then, a lot of the other stuff falls into place. Because Republicans demagogue it. Democrats demagogue it. Everyone's demagogued it through the years. Can you go to the Republicans, and say, Guys, wait a minute, we got to do this together? Well, look, here is what we can do. I mean, look, I am on record. I think turning it into a voucher, premium support is a bad idea. I do think though that anybody realistically looks at it and says, you know, if we are spending 17% of our GDP on health care, and every other country is spending 11%, and their outcomes are better, that difference is 6%, that is our deficit and our debt, and so, let us find good ideas. Now, I stole a whole bunch of ideas from a Massachusetts governor that I think over time is going to save us money, and you know, part-the $716 billion dollars that Governor Romney suggests that I stole from Medicare is actually money that we are saving in the system, and extending the life of Medicare, so I think there are ways that we can do this in a creative way, but if we get that piece done, then, immigration reform, I think is there to get done. And I think your side is going to need to get it done because you cannot continue to alienate the fastest growing segment of the country, and it is the right thing to do. I think that infrastructure, ENTITY, when you were in Congress, since when did roads and bridges become Democratic issues? A guy named Ike kind of liked infrastructure, did not he? But the thing is, we got a whole bunch of deferred maintenance. Contractors are begging for work ? Putting folks back to work right now as part of an overall package, This has also got long term deficit reduction, can jumpstart the economy, at the same time that housing is starting to recover. And the education agenda that I have got is one that even Jeb Bush has occasionally complimented, because you know, we have said, you cannot just give more money into a system without reforming it, and there is got to be a lot more accountability. How do Republicans react in Congress post-election? It is been unified, in opposition to me.


Boehner still is Speaker, and the House goes either Democratic or Republican by 1. You are still in the same situation in the next four years, you were in the last four years. So, what is going to make the difference. We have talked about this to you, one-on-one before, what makes the difference over the next 4 years? I truly believe that if we can get the deficit and debt issue solved, which I believe we can get done, you know, in the lame duck, or in the immediate aftermath, of the lame duck, then that clears away a lot of the ideological underbrush. And then, you know, now, we can start looking at a whole bunch of other issues, as I have said has historically not been that ideological. Let us take an example. Now, the truth is, I put out fewer regulations than George Bush did. Obviously, Dodd-Frank, welfare reform, Wall Street reform is a big example of that. But I have actually initiated a whole process to look back at all the old regulations to see, are there ones that do not work? That should be a project Republicans are happy to work with me on, because you know, if we are going to streamline government, we are going to do it smartly. I have said I want to consolidate a whole bunch of government agencies. We should have one Secretary of Business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like getting loans to SBA or helping companies with exports. Now, the reason we have not done that is not because of some big ideological difference. It has something to do with Congress talking a good game about streamlining government, but protective about giving up their jurisdiction over various pieces of government. So, there are going to be a whole things of government that I think we can work on, the first thing though is, let us go ahead and get settled, how big a government, how do we pay for it? If we solve that problem, and I think we can solve it, and we have to solve it, then, I think we will be in a position to make some progress in the last four...


Well, I sure appreciate you joining us. I guess you folks down in Washington are officially in the thick of the budget battle. Your reaction to the rescission package just passed by the House was that it favors pork over people, and you promised a veto. How comfortable are you with the prospect that your role may be shaping up more and more to be a blocker of action rather than an initiator? Well, I do not want to block action. I have offered even more spending cuts than is in their bill. This is not about cutting spending, and they know it. I worked in good faith with the Republican majority in the Senate to shape a rescission bill that would be better for the American people and would still cut spending. For example, I worked with the Senate to add back some of the money in the LIHEAP program, which goes to States like New Hampshire to help older people with their utility bills, but we cut spending somewhere else. So we had an agreement that I would go along with this bill, and we worked in good faith. Then the Senate and the House Members went behind closed doors when nobody was looking and remember, this is not a partisan issue members of both parties put a lot of pork in the bill and took a billion and a half dollars in education funding out. And so let me just finish so all I told them was, I am all for it, cutting this much spending. Indeed, I think we should cut a little more spending. I offered another $100 million in spending cuts. But I do not believe if we are going to balance this budget and cut back on Government spending, then we need to be very careful about how we spend the money we do spend. We ought to target it to education. We ought to target it to things that will raise incomes and grow jobs in America and improve the security of the American people. Instead, they took out money to make our schools safer and more drug-free. They took out money to fund college educations for young people who are working in their community in the national service program that is received broad bipartisan support in New Hampshire. They instead, they put in $100 million for a courthouse. They put in even more road projects into a Congressman's district who now has nine special-purpose road projects in his district. They even put in a million dolllars for a city street in a State in the Midwest where the mayor did not ask for the money.

Interview With Peter Malof of New Hampshire Public Radio


Now, that is what was done behind closed doors. If we are going to change things around here, we have got to move away from the old politics, cut unnecessary spending, and then when we do spend money, the money ought to be well spent. We should not be trading in pork for people, behind closed doors. That is what we did, and it was wrong. And I want to change that. But I am all for the spending cuts. Now, it is my impression that the only new spending in the House bill is disaster relief, antiterrorism laws, and Oklahoma City aid. You originally signed on to items that you are now calling pork, such as the highway construction and That is when we had a that is right. But that is when we were spending more money. But let us just let us look at the real facts. If we are going to cut $16 billion worth of spending, and I signed let me remind you that I signed on to it because the Congress has the ability to put these special projects in there and because I do not have the line-item veto, which the Republicans say they are for and which I have agreed with the Republicans for. Now, they passed the line-item veto in the House, they passed one in the Senate, but they are different. If they had they still have not appointed the conferees to resolve the difference between the House and the Senate. If they had sent me the line-item veto, we would not be having this discussion today. But if you say if they say we want to cut $16 billion and I say we want to cut $16 billion and then we reach an agreement I reached a good-faith agreement with the Senate, and then they go behind closed doors and they say, No, no, no, we do not want to do all this education business; we want some of our pork-barrel projects. So we will cut education a billion and a half and put pork in. If you are going to cut spending, you have to make choices, what you cut and what you keep. If you are going to spend more money, you can spend more money on different things. But I will say again, I think they are wrong to put in pork-barrel projects and cut education. And I do not think they can defend it. And they are not trying to defend it very hard; they are just talking about process. Obviously, nobody's saying we do not need deficit reduction.


Do you consider yourself at odds with those who are determined to actually balance the budget by the year 2002? Well, I am first of all, I am not certainly not at odds with those who are determined to balance the budget by a date certain. And I invited the Congress to do what the law required them to do and submit a budget and then to work it through. They are now in the process of working through that budget. I want to evaluate it, and then I would including the date. But I think we have to balance the budget. I think we have to do it by a date certain, and I agree with that. And I think we ought to do it in a bipartisan fashion. And I will support them. They have not had let me just point out I am prepared to work with them to reduce the deficit and to bring the budget into balance. For 2 years, for 2 years, they said no to all my efforts to get them to work with me. So we reduced the deficit 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman, with nobody helping us in the other party, none of them. And they were all saying we were going to have a big recession, and it would wreck the economy. A lot of those people who are up there in New Hampshire running for ENTITY said, If President Clinton's budget passes, it will wreck the economy. Well, New Hampshire had a 7.6 percent unemployment rate when I became ENTITY, and it is 4 1/2 percent today. You have got almost 40,000 new jobs, and in the previous 4 years you lost over 40,000 jobs. So now they believe in deficit reduction. And I say, welcome to the party, I am glad to have you here, and I will work with you on it. And if we are going to cut spending more quickly, I will support that. I think people in New Hampshire will really identify with that. If you are going to spend if you spent $10 yesterday and you are going to spend $8 today, then you have got to be more careful about how you spend the $8. That is my argument over this rescission package. If they will take the pork out and put the people back, I will sign even more deficit reduction than they have. Finally, Granite Staters are by no stretch of the imagination a tax-friendly bunch. But according to surveys, we are in step with the rest of the country in preferring deficit reduction to tax cuts.


Are you determined to stick to fulfilling your long-delayed promise to cut taxes on the middle class even though it would set back the pace of deficit reduction? Because I would think if you back away from tax cuts, you'd be opening yourself up to more attacks that once again you have not done what you'd say you would. Well, first of all, let us look at what I did do, before we get all carried away here. Let us look at what we let us look at what we did do. In 1993, we cut taxes for lower middle income working families with children an average, this year, of $1,000 a family, for working people with incomes of $27,000 a year or less. We have already done that. We also cut taxes for 90 percent of the small businesses in America that increased their investments in their own business. So we did do that while reducing the deficit. Do I believe that we can bring the budget into balance within the next few years and still have a tax cut? I do, but not one the size that the House of Representatives has adopted. You cannot , you cannot cut taxes as much as the House has and balance the budget. And it is not right, frankly, to cut taxes in ways that largely benefit upper income people and to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and disabled. When I was in New Hampshire 4 years ago, I met people who were already making a decision every week between buying drugs and paying for food. So my answer to you is, if we have a targeted tax cut that focuses on the middle class and rewards education and childrearing, we can do that and we can afford to do that in the context of deficit reduction. But we cannot afford a big, broad-based, huge tax cut in the magnitude that the House passed and balance this budget without doing severe damage to the elderly of this country, including the elderly people in New Hampshire. And do I understand you correctly that you are not prepared at this point to set a date for balancing the budget, a year? No, but I can say this. Well, it can first of all, it can be done in 7 years. I think it clearly can be done in less than 10 years. I think we can get there by a date certain. But I want to evaluate the actual budget that the Republicans finally agree on. That is, the Senate has to adopt their budget proposal.


ENTITY, as you may know, we are preparing a story for this Sunday's Post on the third anniversary-right after the third anniversary of your inauguration, that is going to try to look at what is been accomplished and what might lie ahead. We'd like to ask you, what is it you feel that you have achieved as ENTITY-as a central achievement? And assuming on our part that you intend to seek a second term-we are not going to step on your announcement, but if that should happen, why is it you would want to run again? What would you want to accomplish in that second term? skyrocketing interest rates, higher than they have been in a hundred years; inflation in double digits; a continued decline in business; and a continued increase in unemployment. And today we are in the midst of a recovery. We have returned to economic growth without inflation. In fact, we have brought inflation down to about a fourth or so of what it was. It is 3.2 for the year. Personal earnings, after taxes, increased last year about 5 percent-real income, about 5 percent. All of this turnaround, this economic turnaround, I think, is one of the great accomplishments, because a great many economists are suggesting that it not only is a recovery from the recession but that it is the beginning of growth and expansion. Prior to this time, we were told that we might-you will remember, voices were saying that we might have to give up the idea that there is any future growth in America, that it would be a no-growth society. Voices were saying that inflation was institutionalized and it would take a decade at least of great effort before it could ever be brought under control. We have about 4 million more people working today than we had working a year ago at this time, and that is one of the biggest increases-or decreases, I should say, in unemployment in a great many years. You seem to have done so much. I said repeatedly-and long before I was ever a candidate for this job-in recent years there is been a growing hunger in our land for what I called a spiritual revival. We know that, in the defense field, that our national security had been badly eroded. We know that we did not have the approval or respect of many of our neighbors and allies and certainly of our adversaries. All of this has changed also.

Interview With Lou Cannon, David Hoffman, and Juan Williams of the Washington Post on Foreign and Domestic Issues


Well now, without saying what I am going to say on the 29th, one way or the other, no, the job is not finished. Not with those deficits out there that have to be brought under control. We have not gotten all of the economic improvements that we asked for. And no one ever wants to walk away from a job unfinished. If there was to be a second Reagan administration, a second term, what would be your central purpose in it? What would you want most to accomplish in that second term? To continue on the same economic path to where we did have not only just a recovery but a return to a growth economy in this country. To continue what I think we have started, and that is a real, viable search for peace, particularly by way of disarmament. And that is the goal above all that-must meet. I remember as a small boy the war to end all wars, World War I. But I also remember coming out of World War II and coming out of uniform with the firm conviction, this must never happen again. And I still have that conviction. We have only begun in the area of trying to better international relations and bring about reduction of armaments, and particularly a reduction of nuclear weapons, and, hopefully, one day, the total elimination of them. There are things like reforms in our budgetary system, the adoption of constitutional amendments to require a balanced budget as so many of our States do, line-item veto power for a ENTITY to help curb spending and keep it under control. There are things of that kind that I have not fallen back from or retreated from and we still have not made much progress with. When you took office, some of those things that you mentioned were items like the line-item veto, which you have in Sacramento. And there were people in your administration who described Washington kind of as a big Sacramento and said that you could deal with the problems here much the way you did there. Has that turned out to be true, and has there been anything that you have learned from being here in the White House specifically that you did not bring when you came from Sacramento? Well, of course, there is one phase and one facet of this job that no one has at the State level, and that is foreign policy. I think I was surprised at how much a part of the job that is, how much, what percentage of your time and effort and thinking is devoted to the international situation.


But with regard to domestic policies-and I never referred to it as just a big Sacramento-but the same situation-it is a very funny thing-prevailed When I became Governor of California, California was in a desperate economic strait. It was spending a million dollars a day more than we were taking in. I know the figures are a little different at the State level than they are at the Federal level. California is about 10 percent of the population of the Nation. But we had to deal with that, and there we had a time consideration in dealing with it, because California does have a constitutional provision that you cannot have a deficit. And you come into office in the middle of the fiscal year. So, a deficit had already been piled up, and we only had 6 months to treat with that problem. But that and the other part of the situation is I had a legislature the majority of which belonged to the other party, in that case, in both houses. Here, at least, we have a majority in one House. I was kind of geared-the only experience I'd had was dealing with that kind of a situation. When you entered office here you were preoccupied, as you said, with the problems of the economy- and 3 months into your term you are the target of an assassination attempt and are wounded. Looking back on it, do you think that in the first year you left, perhaps of necessity, foreign policy issues too much to your subordinates, or how do you feel about that period now? No, from the very first, as a matter of fact, lying in that hospital bed after that assassination attempt, I wrote a letter to Leonid Brezhnev on our relationship and sent it to him in longhand as I had written it. No, you cannot be here very long without realizing that that is very much an important part of this job. When I expressed earlier my surprise, I guess it was just that, as I say, I had not anticipated that it was that much of a daily problem. From my own experience in California, it is true I came here with my attention fixed on the great economic problems that faced us. At the same time, I had declared over and over again that I was going to see if we could not embark on a refurbishing of our defensive capability, which had been allowed to decline so much. It did not take me long, as I say, to find out that the international situation was very much a part of the daily schedule.


How much does the President-you, any President-control this international situation? I mean, as a President do you feel you can effect control of these foreign situations from the Oval Office, or are you pretty well governed by events over which neither you nor anybody else has any control? But you have to deal with those, and you have to deal very definitely with the problem of your relations with the friendly nations of the world, as well as the adversarial ones. And you'd better start right in doing that, which I did. Let me, just if I could, illustrate a surprise, a real physical surprise that came to me. And that was my first awareness, leaving the White House just that distance, to discover that now, wherever a ENTITY of the United States goes, phones have been installed, all the communication equipment and so forth, that keeps you in touch with every corner of the world. I was overwhelmed to discover that, that I could not do something of that kind without having that kind of preparation take place. And it brought home to you that-and when you stop to think about it, I had to say to myself, I understand the necessity for this. This is not something in which I could say, Well, this is foolish. And you know that there is one person, yourself, who must be available for instant communication worldwide. You said in a recent interview that you would not use the phrase now focus of evil to apply to the Soviet Union. Your language today in this speech was obviously very careful. Do you think that some of your own rhetoric, phrases like evil empire and so forth have-whether or not those are accurate descriptions, do you think those phrases have contributed to the difficulty of negotiating, dealing with the Soviets? And really, I think they have been overplayed and overexaggerated in much of the talk about the present international situation. We are not in greater danger. We are not closer to a war than we were a few years ago. The rhetoric-and all you have to do is look back at the pattern of Soviet rhetoric, no matter who is in the White House, and what has been going on for years, that we are imperialists, we are aggressors, we are all of these things that they have been saying about us.


No, I am not repeating some of those things simply because I said them, and what I felt was necessary was for the Soviet Union to know that we were facing reality and that there was some realism on our part with regard to them and their style. ENTITY, let me take advantage of this to straighten something out, that ever since the first press conference, there has been a distortion of an answer of mine to a question there that has become just accepted, and that is that I called the Soviets a lot of names, gave an answer to a question about dealing with the Soviets. And everyone seems to have forgotten that I was quoting them with regard to lying, cheating, and so forth. I did not say that, that that was my opinion of them. I made it very plain that they themselves, in their writing and speaking over the years, have said that anything of this kind that furthers socialism is moral. They do not view it as immoral if it furthers their cause. Lenin's famous line that Treaties are like pie crusts. Well, even if they said it, do you think it was wise of you to bring it up? Now, I did not volunteer that as a statement. It was an answer to a question. But I think it was necessary for them to know that we were looking at them realistically from here. There was an end to what, I think, maybe has been prevalent in some dealings for several years, and that is the idea that, well, they were just a mirror image of ourselves, and you could shake hands on someone's word and walk away confident that a deal had been made. That, no, we were aware of the differences between our two societies in our approach to things, and we intended to deal with that realism. You said-you touched on this today in your speech-and you said today that we are safer than we were when, I think, when you took office. With the negotiations broken off and a pretty good stream of rhetoric from the other side, what is the evidence that we are safer and that this defense buildup which you advocated and achieved has made this country safer than it was? Because-with realism on their part-we have a deterrent capacity we did not have 3 years ago. Now, you are in danger if a possible adversary thinks that an action of his would not lead to unacceptable punishment.


And I think the very fact that we have proceeded on this path would require them, with their realism, to say, this, it would be unacceptable, the damage to ourselves. Excuse me, can I just interject here to ask you if you think that the American people have not heard that message from you, and do you really think that they feel safer today than they did when you were elected? I have to say that, from all the reports that I am getting, and from all the contact that I, myself, have-whether it is through mail or personal meetings or meeting new people, as well as old friends-that, yes, there is a new feeling on the part of the American people. They have a confidence that they did not have just a short time ago when they knew that the Soviet Union had engaged in this massive arms buildup and they saw evidences that we had not . Not only the decline in quality, as well as in quantity, the restiveness of our NATO allies about whether we were dependable as an ally-I think there is a great change in the feeling of our people now. I think a little evidence of that-granted, this was not any great military operation, but I think the reaction of our people to the success of our rescue mission in Grenada was an indication. ENTITY, speaking of Grenada, and turning to another foreign policy issue, when we sent American forces to Grenada, they were welcomed. When you sent American forces to Lebanon, they have been shot at. What, in your mind, accounts for the difference in that reception? Oh, well, let me put two things out. For one thing, there was no question that we rescued some people that-not just Americans. The Grenadians, themselves, made it plain that they were not happy with the form of government that they saw being imposed on themselves. But let us go back to when we first sent the marines to Beirut. And remember, they went in answer to a request from the Lebanese Government. Thousands and thousands of civilians were being killed, were being wounded and maimed because a battle-a war was being fought right within the streets of the city. We arrived and were well received by the people there. As a matter of fact, our American marines in a typical American military fashion, pretty soon were organizing helpful things for kids, teaching them to play ball, and all the sort of things of this kind in the city.


I have mail that indicates that the people felt that finally they had a chance to live relatively normal lives. Now, granted, that very much divided society is a place where you are never quite sure that there is not going to be a sniper in the street, some terrorism of some account. the agreement between Lebanon and Israel, Israel's withdrawal, the beginning of communications between some of the internal factions and the Lebanese Government; the progress in the Lebanese-in building their own military, in which we were very much a part. Our training, our provision of weapons built that army up to about 35,000, as it is right now, and it is continuing to build up. And it has conducted itself well in the battles that it has been engaged in. Now, all of this-I have a letter from a young man-actually, he is Greek, but his job and his life is in Lebanon. And this letter did not come to me; it was sent to his girlfriend, who does not live in Lebanon. And she thought I would like to see this letter. And he was telling her of the experiences and what the marines meant, and telling her what the slaughter would have been if it was not for the presence of marines. But now, a few months ago, this started, the thing that you have mentioned-this attack not only on our marines but on the others of the multinational force. And it started, I think, for one reason, and it is very obvious, one reason only. There are terrorist elements who know that they cannot succeed in their cause while the multinational force is there. And they are trying to take advantage of what they see as criticism here, lack of public support in the hope that public opinion will force the withdrawal of the multinational force. But what we should see is that the very fact they are doing that is proof of the fact that the multinational force was being successful in its purpose. Given that these terrorist attacks began, do you agree with the Long commission that the mission of the marines changed while they were there and that they were unwisely deployed, specifically at the Beirut Airport? Well, I have read that report very carefully. I thought they had great understanding in everything that they were criticizing there. I do not interpret their suggesting a change in the mission as meaning that they had one purpose when they went there and now, suddenly, they have changed and have a different purpose.


The only incident that could be interpreted as them participating in a military action, say, in alliance with the Lebanese forces had to do with one in which the decision was very carefully considered and before it was made, and that is at Suq al-Gharb, the little village of Suq al-Gharb, which looks down the throat of our forces there, as well as others. It is about the situation of Capitol Hill with regard to the White House, geographically. And the Lebanese Armed Forces were in an engagement, and this was at a period before they were as well built-up as they are now, to retake and preserve Suq al-Gharb from being possessed by the same forces that are creating the terror and so forth. Well, we believed that if we were going to have the marines at the airport there, that we had a stake in their security and safety. And so, we joined in during that engagement with naval offshore artillery, in support of the Lebanese Armed Force. Now, I do not think that that makes us as presently changing our purpose or our mission. The decision was made based on the fact that our marines would be in an untenable position if that area in the hills looking down on them fell into those hostile hands. So, we helped in the preservation of it as a neutral territory. No, the mission is still what it was, and that is that-remember that the main goal was the departure from Lebanon of foreign forces. We helped in the evacuation of the PLO, which was definitely one of the host fie foreign forces. Granted, many of them then came back in by way of Syria and other places, but that was out. We had had the word previously that both Israel and Syria would withdraw when the Lebanese Government was able to take over the policing of its own territory. The multinational force was to be there, you might say, behind the Lebanese ENTITY, helping preserve order in that divided land while they went out and restored sovereignty. Well, Israel withdrew to much closer to their own borders. And so, the mission still remains to enable the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Lebanese Government to resume control over their own sovereignty, their own territory. That remains the mission, but, ENTITY, you are well known for your optimism. Do you think, in retrospect, you were just too optimistic in believing that sending the marines there could bring about a prompt diplomatic solution, given what is happened in the past year?


No, I never set any timetable on it, never thought it was something that was going to happen in 48 hours. We had-remember, with Phil Habib, the long time and before any marines were ever, anything of that kind ever sent there-his shuttle diplomacy and the successes that he had. Incidentally, this was at a time when Israel had invaded, and all the way into Beirut, and was battling the PLO in Beirut. If you look at what has been achieved, and if you look at the difference in spite of the still ongoing fire and fighting that is going on, there has been great progress made. This was part of our whole, overall peace plan for the Middle East. We did not feel since a fair, legitimate settlement of the PLO problem-the Palestinian problem must be a part of the peace proposal that I made a year ago September-that it could not go forward while you had that war going on in Lebanon. So, Lebanon, which is not really, you might say, the primary part of what we are trying to achieve, which is finally a peace between the Arab nations and Israel To date, other than Lebanon, the only peace treaty that we have is between Egypt and Israel. What we are aspiring to are more Egypts, more Arab nations that will drop that claim that Israel has no right to exist, will recognize their right to exist, will come into peace negotiations with them. But it seemed that you could not move on that until you settled this Lebanon issue and then proceeded on. Maybe now it has reached a point that we can begin to proceed with the broader peace initiatives. All of this is part of the diplomatic exchanges that are going on. We have two questions. Could we ask them both? Do you have time? ENTITY, in 1980 you-is this not the one- In 1980 you expressed a lot of confidence that you could balance the budget, build up the defense budget, and cut taxes, and you could accomplish all three of these. In retrospect-and one of your officials said last week that it was good that you accomplished two out of the three-do you think you promised too much in terms of reducing the deficit? No, but, again, with all of this having to project economic situations 5 years ahead and so forth, which I do not believe in-I think the best of economists are not very much good beyond the first year, and most of them will privately admit it to you.


The thing was no one-there had been no prediction of the sudden deepening of the recession. That caught everyone by surprise. And that has had a lot to do with the fact that only two out of three so far. We have not balanced the budget. Fifty percent of the deficit is occasioned by the recession, the fact that people, instead of being employed and paying taxes, suddenly became dependents, you might say, of government because they were no longer working and paying taxes-the great increase in unemployment that took place. There was one other thing that none of us could foresee, and again it comes down to projections. None of us ever dreamed that we could be as successful in lowering inflation as we were. And you must realize that inflation accounts for some of your tax revenue-the bracket-squeeze that takes place on people. And our tax revenues dropped below what had been projected by us because of the effect of the reduced inflation. So, we had to readjust our projections based on how far down we had brought inflation. So, we did not foresee that. I still believe that, in spite of this setback, that we can-and with the cooperation of Congress, proceeding on the same lines involving both further spending, getting the spending measures or the cuts that we asked for and have not yet gotten. Remember, our deficits would be considerably smaller if Congress had given us all the cuts in spending that we asked for. But we are going to continue on that path. And we are going to continue looking at the longer range on planning and reviewing those things that you might say are structural changes in government that have not been dealt with as yet, so that you do not have a built-in increase in spending that is-well, as Congress itself refers to it-as uncontrollable. You know, if you pass something that guarantees a constant increase in spending, and you have passed the measure, and then you never have to lay hands on it again, it just automatically keeps increasing. That is uncontrollable only to the sense that you and Congress and the government are not willing to deal with it and change what you did that was wrong. Juan, do you want to take the last question? And many people celebrate that because of the efforts he put into bringing about changes in the laws in the country-put in civil rights laws so that blacks and whites would have equal treatment under the law.


Do you think there is anything more to be done now by the government, by anyone, to bring about equality between the races? Oh, yes, although I do think that-you know, you cannot , I guess, ever totally erase anyplace in the world among human beings, bigotry and prejudice, one way or the other. But, having lived longer than anybody in this room, I have firsthand memories of the situation as it was, and I sometimes wonder if some of you who are younger realize how far we have come, how totally different this country is than what it was then. Occupations, let us say, and jobs and so forth that were once denied to a segment of our society and now are open to them, but they do not have a past history and tradition going way back in them. So that, you have to be alert, and you have to continue making sure that we do not fall back into any of the other patterns. Well, as a followup to that, if you were a young-let us say that Ronald Reagan was a young black woman in Dixon, Illinois, today, trying to make it in America, and Ronald Reagan was the ENTITY, do you think that that young black woman would prosper? And I think that much of what we have done in our economic recovery has been more beneficial at the bottom of the economic ladder. And we have to admit that because of past practices, that a disproportionate number of blacks and other minorities are in that segment of the population, at the bottom of the ladder. But there are also a great many whites that are in that too. But the things that we have done in the economic recovery benefited them first and most of all. Let us take someone who only had an income of $5,000, which is way below the poverty line, as we know, at the beginning of 1979. By the end of 1980, in just those 2 years, that $5,000 had lost 20 percent in purchasing power. It would only buy $4,000 worth of food and shelter and clothing. Now, the very fact of inflation alone, look what it has done for those same people. Today, the person at the-the average family, the median income has $3,300 more in purchasing power than they would have had if we had stayed at the same tax and inflation rates of 1980.


The very fact that now the-even with the unemployment-the fact that there are more people working than have ever worked before in our history, and not just more in numbers, that you could say, Well, it is accounted for by the growth in our population. No, a higher percentage of all the people between 16 and 65, which is taken as the work force in-the potential work force; a higher percentage of those people are actually employed today, even with our continued, above-normal unemployment, than at any time in our previous history. And the truth is that for both women and for minorities, the percentage of decline in unemployment is greater for both women and minorities than it has been for the adult male-or white male. So, I think we have done those things. I am going to be referring to this young lady in a speech. She was on the air the other night; a story of-she did not come from Dixon, Illinois, but 90 miles away-Chicago, out of a ghetto. And she is the sole head and proprietor of this successful operation. And it is not the case that that person would get the breaks only because of tax breaks given to the rich or something like that? As a matter of fact, that again-that, too, is a distortion, that our tax program gave the breaks to the rich. Let me just draw a contrast with numbers so I will not have to try and convince you by rhetoric. John F. Kennedy had a tax reduction program somewhat similar to ours back in the early sixties. Some of his own party opposed him very much on this, but he went forward with it and said it will stimulate the economy. It will actually increase, eventually, revenues, more than decrease them. Now, 29 percent of his tax relief went to business; only 23 percent of ours did. And he gave greater cuts to the top five tax brackets than we did with ours; our greater percentage of ours is below the top brackets in this 25 percent across the board that we put in. But in addition to that, we put in some other things, like giving working mothers more tax credit or deduction for child care that they might have to provide; like giving the working wives-there is a tax penalty on them in the income tax. We reduced that very sizably. Now most two-earner families are two earners because they are at the lower end of the earning scale.