The difference is that in the information age, which gives us these vast new opportunities because the creation of wealth is based on knowledge and that these people have access to more knowledge than ever before, it is also a great burden because words have greater power today than ever before, not only to build up but also to tear down, to divide, to destroy, to distract. And therefore, in a very profound sense in the modern world, it is more important that people be striving for the kind of spiritual presence of mind and peace of mind that will lead you to use words to build up and to unify, instead of to divide and tear down. And I really do believe that. I think that it is clearly different from any previous time. Words have always been able to wound in letters or speeches or whatever. But the omnipresence of information today and the fact that we are buried in it, it seems to me, imposes an even greater responsibility on people in positions of respect and trust and power to use those words more carefully. The moral crusade elements of the State of the Union Address, teenage pregnancy, as an example, sits well, except that there are investigations into your own conduct which some people say leaves an impression. Is this interfering with your ability to lead that type of crusade? But the one thing that I would say today we live in an age where anybody can say anything and, unlike in previous times, it gets into print. And even if they admit they took money to say it which is what happened in my case a couple of times it still gets wide currency. So there is not much I can do about that. The work I have tried to do to reduce teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births generally is something I have been involved in for many years. The life of these young people was very, very different than my life was when I was their age. Their temptations, their travails, it is very, very different and much more difficult for them. And I think we have got to try to find a way to help them walk back from what is now happening. Interestingly enough this is a statistical comment I am making now there is some evidence that the efforts may be beginning to have some impact. The actual numbers of out-of-wedlock births have stabilized in the last 2 or 3 years.


The rate of illegitimacy is going up because the rate of childbearing by couples who are young and successful is going down, which is another problem for another discussion. But anyway, I do not see that we have any choice as a people to deal with it, and it is and you know, if folks want to use that as another excuse to attack me, that is their problem, not mine. Related to that, some people suggest that both your welfare reform proposals and the Contract With America's welfare reform proposal takes such Draconian measures against these unwed teen mothers in terms of limits that what it is likely to do is to drive up the abortion rate, not stop the unwanted pregnancy rate but drive up the abortion rate. Well, I do not agree with that in my proposal, and obviously I do not know what would happen in the others, but let us look at that. The abortion rate has been going down in America. And I think it is been going down for maybe because of all the protest against abortion. But I also think that most Americans have deeply ambivalent feelings. That is, I believe that a majority of Americans are pro-choice and anti-abortion. That is, they do not believe that the decision should be criminalized because there are too many different circumstances where most of us feel that decisions should be left to the people who are involved rather than having a totally legal prohibition. On the other hand, most people think in most circumstances that abortion is wrong and that it should not be done. So the abortion rate is going down in America. It is still very much too high, and we have tried to do some things to make adoption more attractive. And there was a law signed last year, that is gotten almost no notice because it was part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, to try to remove the prohibitions or the discriminations in courts across the country in cross-racial adoptions to try to do whatever we could to just encourage more adoptions. But let me back up to your question and to explain, if I might, why I do not agree that our position would cause more abortions. There is the Contract approach which is deny benefits to the second welfare child born out of wedlock. And then this extreme version is deny benefits to any teenager who has a child out of wedlock and to that child for up to 18 years.

Interview With Religious Affairs Journalists


That is what then there is the people who say, turn it over to the States and let them do whatever they want, which could include that. Our position is give the States a lot more flexibility, but do not punish the children; take care of their basic needs. And we say do not cut the parents off of public assistance unless, number one, they are bad parents or, number two, they do things which will undermine their ability to either be successful workers or successful parents. So for example, the way our plan works is if you are a teenager and you have a baby, in order to draw the public assistance in a normal way you'd have to stay in school, you'd have to live at home with your parents, and if you lived in a bad home you'd have to live in some other supervised setting. You'd have to cooperate and help identify the father so we could attempt to get the father to pay child support and support the child. If at the end of your education period and training, if 2 years have elapsed and you have not gone to work, then you would have to go to work if there were a job available. And if you turned down a job, you could lose your benefits. Under their proposal, the second problem is, you'd be cut off after 2 years whether there is a job there or not. So the two differences are, I say cut people off after a limited amount of time if there is a job there. They say cut them off altogether. I say only take benefits away from people if they misbehave as parents or in their own responsibilities. They say if you have a child out of wedlock and you are a teenager, you should never get benefits and neither should your child. I will leave it to you to conclude what impact that might have on the abortion rate; I do not know. You have to have more requirements on people; you cannot just continue to perpetuate the present system. But I do not think you should punish the children or punish people for their past mistakes. You should deal with their present conduct. What about the suggestion that, particularly of Speaker Gingrich, that the churches and the charities should be able to take over much of the responsibility, including the financial responsibility that the Government now has for foster children and various other tough social situations? Is that an appropriate way for these problems to be taken care of, for these people to be cared for?


Well, I think the churches could well be involved in more activities. For example, I think that you might and one of the things that I want to do is to give more flexibility in how to implement welfare reform to State and local government. If they want to involve the church, particularly, for example, in developing supervised settings for young girls and their children who cannot , and should not , be living in their homes because of the problems in their homes, that is the sort of partnership that I would certainly not oppose. But I do not think you can say from that that there is no national interest which should command some taxpayer support to make sure that these children have minimal levels of nutrition and medical care and just the basic things that it seems to me we have got an interest in doing, because we do not want to lose any more of these kids than we have to. The welfare benefits themselves, by the way, are not a problem. So nobody goes on welfare for the check. It is the child care; it is the food stamps; it is the medical care for your children. Therefore, nearly anybody who can will get off and go to work if they can take care of their children and their children will not lose their health care. But do I think the churches should do more? And one of the things that we want to do is to give more operational control of this program to the States and let them use churches or community organizations or others to do whatever they can to repair the families. Much of what the churches already do for instance, Catholic Charities, their money comes from contracts through Federal agencies. In essence, what some of the Republican proposals are asking them to do is to continue doing the sort of work but without those contracts, without the money. Well, it will just be harder for them, will not it? The Government does not we are not a particularly generous country in terms of social welfare. The thing I do not think the American people object to spending tax money on poor people. I think what they object to is spending tax money on a system that perpetuates destructive conduct and irresponsible conduct. I think that the issue is for example, I do not think most Americans really think that it would be a great idea to cut out all spending on poor children in order to afford a capital gains tax cut. On the other hand, would they rather have a tax cut or just waste money on any program, including a program that perpetuated dependency?


I think they would or reduce the deficit or whatever. So I think the what my goal is, is to say there is a national interest in the health and welfare of our children. I think it requires some investment of taxpayer money in the areas of particularly basic health care and nutrition and immunization of children against serious diseases. So I think we ought to try to fix them. In a meeting of Baptist leaders back in October you were asked a question about some of your critics who were attacking you with unsubstantiated charges. I am thinking specifically of Reverend Falwell pushing a video on his TV program. And your response to the question was that you were busy running the country and did not want to respond to your critics, but you were surprised that the Christian community was not taking these men on. Since that time, I know American Baptist Tony Campollo was asked for equal time on his show to try to defend you.  There have been an awful lot of attempts I think there have been a lot of press stories refuting some of the specific allegations. But I would just say again, in the world we are living in I will say what I said at the prayer breakfast today there is an inordinate premium put on the use of words to destroy or to distract people. And it takes away from my ability to be ENTITY, to do the job with a clear head and a clear heart and to focus on the American people, if I have to spend all my time trying to answer charges about what people say that I did years ago. And I just cannot do it; I just cannot do it. I do the very best I can. Sometimes you can actually disprove something someone says about you. A lot of times, some people could lie about you in ways that you cannot disprove. You cannot always disprove every assertion. I think it is I think I have if I'd done anything, even though I have tried not to deal with it at all, I think whatever time I have spent kind of trying to absorb those blows since I have been ENTITY has been time and effort and energy, emotional as well as intellectual energy, has taken away from the American people. And I am not going to cheat them anymore; I am just not going to do it. I am tired of letting other people say things that require me to deprive the American people of the best effort I can make. They will have to make whatever evaluation of this they want to.


There is a difference between reputation and character, and I have increasingly less control over my reputation but still full control over my character. That is between me and God, and I have just got to try to be purified by this. I also noticed, Winston Churchill said I ran across this the other day that just because someone strays from the truth in criticizing you does not mean you cannot learn something from their criticism. So I have decided that I will try need to learn a little something from my critics, even if what they say is not so. None of us are perfect, and I am certainly not. But I just cannot I really think I made the right decision to try to just tune it out and go forward. Is there a place in the Scriptures where you find a source for the kind of faith you talked about earlier and stillness in facing these things, a story or a parable or a reading that you have turned to? Well, it is interesting, I just finished reading the entire Psalms. I also read this is ironic Lloyd Ogilvie's book on the Psalms that I did not I read it before he was selected to be Chaplain of the Senate. And there are a lot of the Psalms where David is sort of praying for the strength to be sort of purified in the face of adversity and in the face of his own failures. There are a lot of the Proverbs which talk about the importance of keeping a quiet tongue and at least not getting in your own way, which I have done a lot in my life and which I have tried, even still, to grow out of. And I have spent a lot of time dealing with that over the last 2 years, as you would imagine I would have to. I think the important thing, and I find this in the Scriptures over and over again, the important thing that I have to keep focusing on is what am I going to do today, what am I going to do tomorrow, how can I be free to call on the power of God to make the most of this job that I have for a little bit of time in the grand sweep of things. And that is just what I keep focusing on every day. But I think you'd be amazed how many people write me little fax notes, from friends of mine on a daily basis, saying look at this Scripture, look at that Scripture, look at the other Scripture.


During this difficult period, a lot of people were giving me different Psalms to read Sir, when you talk about destructive language, if you you refer to personal attacks on yourself. But what about some of the uncivil language which has been so much in the news over the past months that has been in Congress? Are you including that in I said today at the prayer breakfast, I do not think anybody in public life, including me, is blameless. I think it is that there are general excuse me, genuine differences that people have on issues, and they ought to express them. But our public life needs more of the spirit of reconciliation, it needs more civility, it needs more humility. Sometimes we think we know things we do not . And I think on debates over public issues, that is true as well. The American people very much want us to they respond to these negative things, but they do not like it. The reason it keeps happening is because they respond to it. The politicians read polls, you know, and they know very often that the negative campaigns work and elect people. And they know that if you just constantly demean and run down people, like, after a while it sticks. They know that, so they keep on doing it. And the people respond to it, but they hate it. It is almost saying, I wish you'd lock this liquor store up so I could not drink anymore. And so somehow we have to crawl back off of this wedge because it has, as I said, it is today people get more information that is sort of argumentative and editorial and often less accurate, and then get in a more negative context than ever before. And it is a function of the information explosion. And so I do believe that I and others have a heavier responsibility even than we might have had in a former time, when in order to just get people's attention, you might take a little license with your language, you know. proven through the words and your actions that you are a genuinely religious person, since you were very young, and your wife as well. And a lot of religious people I talk to do not seem to accept that, who do not seem to feel it is genuine, feel that you are using it in the course of making politics.  I mean, I think the First Amendment is a good thing for our country, that we protect the right of everybody to be faithful to whatever they believe by not uniting church and state.


But I do not think you can change people or who they are. They have the convictions they have. They have the beliefs they have. And what I have tried to do is to draw the proper balance by encouraging people of all faiths, including people who disagree with me, to be activist citizens. I think the the book that Stephen Carter wrote on that, he makes a better statement about that than I can make, in terms of why they do not accept that about me. I think it is hard to make a case that I have tried to use this. I have never tried to say that for example, I never tried to say that there was a Christian coalition behind anything I did, you know, that God had ordained us to do these following things and I knew it, and anybody that did not was seized by the Devil. I never said that. I have said that like every other person, I consider myself a sinner because I believe I consider myself forgiven. I consider you know, I need the power of God. This is a humble thing for me. But it is an important part of my life and has been for a long time, but especially again in recent years and before I became ENTITY. And the same thing is true for Hillary. I think the truth is that there are people who do not believe it is genuine because they disagree with me politically. They do not believe that you could be a committed Christian and not want to criminalize all abortions. I just do not believe you can be that is what they think. They do not believe that you could be a committed Christian and believe that take the position that I took on gays in the military. They thought think the Bible dictated the previous policy on gays in the military, even though we fought two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam with a different policy. But they do not believe that. So then I think there are people, once they disagree with you so much, who will believe who will believe in perpetuating anything anybody says about you, and so they think that is evidence of that. But you know, the Bible is full of refutations of the latter point. All they had to do was read the Scripture to know better than to make that argument. But I cannot worry about them; that is their problem. Let them think what they want.


I literally you know, the one thing I realize is, is I wasted too much time when I got here, and it caused me to be a less effective ENTITY, either being hurt by or paying a great deal of attention to what people said about me in the past. And I have just got to try to keep going and fight against it, because the people that wanted to really blow that up either wanted to do it for their own purposes or wanted to do it literally without regard to whether the Government of the United States functions or the public interest is furthered. It is just a crazy way to behave; you cannot do it. It never happened before in our history to this extent, and it should not be happening now. And if it is happening, I cannot control it. So what I should do is just do my job and shut it out; that is what I have to do. Sir, do you think that religious groups such as the Christian Coalition risk their credibility by wholesale endorsement of the Contract With America? Well, I think that is for others to judge, I think, but I would say this. You know, I think that they will come to be seen more and more like a political party with an agenda, rather than people who are driven into politics based on one or two issues that they believe the Bible dictates a position different from the present policy of the United States. Nobody considers him to be, how should I say, sacrilegious because he is part of a party called the Christian Democratic Party that has religious roots, but no one anymore seriously believes that every position they take is rooted in their reading of the Scripture. And I think that the Christian Coalition is long since at that point. Now, the thing I do think they have to be careful about with their credibility is the very, very hard hits they put on office holders who do not do as they believe. I remember one of the Members of Congress who lost in the last election told me of an encounter with a Christian Coalition minister who said to this Member, Well, you want to see what we are going to put out in our churches on Sunday, tomorrow? And she said, Yes, I'd like to see it. And she went to these ten items; she said, But these two things are not true.


We are very grateful you'd take the time. ENTITY, the figure of $92 billion is an unfathomable figure. It is almost imperceivable to us. We do know that to satisfy the deficit, to meet that deficit, the government's going to have to borrow. That is going to necessarily take away some borrowing availability of the newlywed looking for money to borrow for a home, for an automobile. You have asked the people to tough it out, to be patient on this kind of thing. And I realize I have reduced this to a simplistic term, but can you regard the question in that light, ENTITY? because this is not new, what has been happening to us. This has been the result of policies that were deliberately instituted sometime ago with a belief that they could control inflation. And we have just begun to apply the medicine. But Mr. Stockman has said that it'll be at least 1987 or through 1987 before the budget can be balanced. But at the same time there is this difference that with our tax cuts and the increase in savings, which has already begun, you know it does not take much more than a 1- or 2-percent increase in savings to add billions and billions of dollars to the capital pool. The person that either buys an insurance policy or puts the money in a bank, in a savings account that money is subsequently loaned, then, by the banks or the insurance companies, invested in industry, in growth, in mortgages, and so forth. And so, you have a pool of money that can probably handle the government borrowing as well as the rest. Those people who were advocating a tax increase as a method of trying to hold down the deficit and remember, it never has-in all the years past we have had nothing but tax increases and the deficits, and the deficits grew bigger. What is the difference whether the government has to borrow the money from the people and take it out of private circulation, or take it out of circulation by taxes? Either way, the people are without the money. Are you counting, ENTITY, on the people to use that 10 percent to put into IRA's and other protective securities, and not spend the money? We already some will spend it. There will be people who have long unmet needs. But we know also and much earlier than we thought remember that and the present recession might have been mitigated greatly had we gotten what we originally asked for.

Interview With Local Reporters in Bloomington, Minnesota, on Budget Issues and the Federalism Initiative


We wanted a 10-percent cut in the income tax, retroactive to a year ago January. We finally to compromise, to get the bill at all, we finally had to cut to 5 percent instead of 10 in the first year. And then we retreated to July instead of the last January, and finally to October 1st. So, for 1941 our tax cut has only amounted to 1 1/4 percent. And yet even with that, and even with only these 4 months now since October, there is an increase in the rate of savings, and we have been probably the lowest rate of almost all of the industrial countries in that. ENTITY, a question about the current budget as it relates to your new federalism. And last year there was a safety net, programs that would protect the truly needy, and now more cuts or savings. Obviously, last year's safety net is different from this year's safety net. Where is that safety net now, and ultimately, in your new federalism plan, will it be the province of the States to establish that safety net? No, the Federal Government, I think, will be responsible for the standards, the basic standards. But the federalism program, which would be phased in over an 8-year period and this is one of the reasons I am out in the country right now we proposed a conceptual framework. That has to be fleshed out with specifics as to how it is going to operate. We are consulting with mayors, with Governors, with State legislators, with county executives all over the country for their help. Do you like it? And we are getting their input as to how we can phase these more than 40 programs over to State and local control a mandatory pass-through of those programs where the money should go on through to local governments, not just to the State level. And we believe that the savings will be tremendous, because trying to run these programs from the Federal level and the Federal Government is never equipped to do that; the Constitution even provides against it the Federal Government has tried to make rules and regulations that will fit Wyoming and Montana and Los Angeles and New York City, not recognizing the great diversity of this country. They also-and I say this as a Governor who for 8 years was implementing programs under the Federal regulations they with their red tape and with their regulations they impose extravagance on you.


They so dictate the spending of every dollar that you have no leeway to say, Well, this is a higher priority in this area, in this other program. We should be doing more of this and less of this. You had no right to do that. You had to spend the money the way they told you to spend it. ENTITY --last year, and now with the additional cuts in your present budget, the safety net this year is something different than what it was last year. And last year we promised that there had to be some $70 billion more in cuts over the next couple of years, and this is one of the couple of years coming up '83. No, we are going to take care of the people who really must be helped and who have real need. What we are trying to do is give those who are administering the programs the freedom to get rid of programs that do not work or at the same time get rid of people who actually under the technical rules may be eligible but who do not have the need that justifies their being there. ENTITY, maybe I revert to my original question. How long would you expect the unemployed schoolteacher, of whom there will be about 8,000 in Minnesota, how long would you expect them to wait? Well, unfortunately and as one who lived through of the Great Depression, in fact entered the work force at the depths of the Great Depression as I did, there is no one who feels more deeply than I do about the tragedy of unemployment. But I also, I hate to say this, with them listening, if you look back over the recessions, that the policies that we have known for the last few decades have brought us the '70 depression , the 1974 depression , and the one that we had that began in '79, this one. But I believe that under our program we are going to begin to see an economic turn along about the late spring or early summer. ENTITY, how would you expect industry to absorb these and I am talking about the unemployed middle class; I am talking about the white-collar worker, the professional careers, the schoolteacher-how would you expect industry to absorb that great number? Well, for one reason, we are only operating at about 70 percent of capacity now. When our economy expands to full production, a great many of our unemployed are people who have been laid off now plants that are standing there idle.


ENTITY, how is the economy going to expand when the interest rates go up and companies do not expand to take on these people? When would you expect to see the first signs of recovery, the first hint? Well, I think we have seen a few indicators right now. Not in unemployment, because I believe that is even going to get worse for a little while. But I would say that along about midyear and along about the spring, early summer, we are going to see a turn and an upward turn in the economy. Even though the budget has been projected into 1987 by Mr. Stockman, the deficit, that is, would not begin to show a recovery, the budget itself. Because Mr. Stockman and I and all the others in the administration, by law, are forced to project deficits out 5 years in advance. I will tell you now I do not believe anyone can. I do not believe in those. There are so many imponderables that we have complied with the law, but I will tell you that I did it knowing we do not know what we are talking about, nor does anyone else who tells you they are projecting deficits 5 years in advance. ENTITY, let us go back to your new federalism plan and how it is going to affect the States. As you obviously are aware, Minnesota is one of those States which does not enjoy a good financial picture right now. The legislature has recently patched up a 700-million-plus deficit. With the shift of government programs to the States, even with the trust fund, which you mentioned, it is going to have a strong and a heavy impact on States like Minnesota and the other north. We are going to transfer the funds that are necessary to perform the programs. And the trade that we proposed, of the Federal Government taking Medicaid and in return them taking food stamps and the Aid to Dependent Children, was because the increase, annual increase in spending on Medicaid is several times greater than the increase in those other programs. So, the Federal Government, by taking that program on, is going to relieve the States of an increased burden that will begin to be reflected in them having more of their own tax revenues as well as what we give them than they would have had, had they continued participating in Medicaid. Some members of your party do not agree with those numbers, thinking that the 28 really may not be enough.


I want to talk to you about guns, gun legislation. But the day's news is on Elian Gonzalez. How soon can he expect to see the child? And the Justice Department is working on that, and I think in a way we are fortunate to have an Attorney General who understands this issue, because Janet Reno was the prosecutor in Dade County for many years. And they are working on it. I do not know, I cannot answer with any specifics. But I have confidence that they will do the best they can to handle it in an expeditious and sensitive way. ENTITY, from almost all other citizens, if the Immigration Service rules, and a Federal judge backs the ruling, then people will obey the law. Well, I think the people-you can ask them; they can speak for themselves better than I do. But they, I think they feel that they are not sure that the process was adequate since it occurred in Cuba. And you know, some of the people there are just against anybody going back to Cuba. But I think there are a lot of people who have genuine questions about it. And I think the fact that the father has come here and will be in a position to show his concern for and desire to be reunited with his son should be a big help. And as I said, I think the Justice Department will do a good job here, and I think Attorney General Reno really understands what is going on. And I think we will work through it. You have consistently said that the father speaks for the son. You stand by that? Well, that is the decision that was made by the INS. They went down and interviewed the father extensively. And they concluded that based on his previous contacts, which were regular, with his son, that he was a fit representative to speak for his son. And under our law, since Elian Gonzalez is a very young child, someone must be the designated person to speak for him. And under our law, the parent, as long as he is a fit parent, is that person. So the INS made the decision that they felt was appropriate, and the judge ruled that they had the authority to make it. And now the family members in Miami are appealing to the Court of Appeals and arguing that there ought to be a more extensive inquiry into his best interests. But I think that the main thing is that the Justice Department is handling it and that in the end the law ought to prevail.

Interview With Dan Rather of the CBS Evening News


And I do not think that the young man's best interests are served by the rest of us talking about it too much. I think the Justice Department is going to try to work through this, and I have confidence that Janet Reno will handle it in a good way. I respect what you say about perhaps we should not discuss it too much. But the mayor of Miami-I have in mind you saying, well, the law takes care of this. But the mayor of Miami has said that if anything bad happens, he will hold you and Janet Reno directly responsible, and-I think I quote him, at least indirectly, correctly-do not expect any help from him or the city of Miami in enforcing the law. Did that surprise you? But I think there is been some indication since then that he and others want to get this back in a lawful process. And I think the mayor of Miami is a fine young leader with an enormous amount of potential. But he represents the Cuban-American community. He is part of it. They have-I think that it is fair to say they have a big presumption against anything that happens in Cuba, including an INS proceeding. But I think that in the end, the rule of law will prevail in this country. The overwhelming majority of Cuban-Americans are law-abiding good citizens. They have made a great contribution to our country. And I think in the end, the rule of law will prevail. And I think we ought to have-just take a deep breath here and realize this is a highly unusual case, and let the Attorney General work through it. I believe she will do a good job on this. ENTITY, you have consistently said that we should not politicize the case of this 6-year-old boy. But your Vice President has broken with your administration's position, a clearly political move. One, were you surprised by that? And two, are you irritated or angry about it? Well, first of all, I do not know that it was clearly political, in the sense that there was a bill introduced in the Congress to deal with what the people in Miami say is the main defect in the INS proceeding. If you notice, they have not attacked the father. Their claim is that even if he is a fit father, that it is not in Elian Gonzalez's best interests to be returned, at least at this moment.


So they say, if the INS followed the law, then the law ought to be changed so that a determination of his best interests can be made. Now, once the bill was introduced-there are a lot of reasons I do not agree with the bill. I do not support the bill. But once the bill was introduced, I think every public figure in America, national figure, was going to have to take a position on it. And as a matter of fact, I do not believe it was a purely political position. I know the conventional wisdom is that the Vice President's position was purely political, but he talked to me-I do not know, a day or two after Elian Gonzalez's case became public, weeks and weeks and weeks ago, and said, You know, I am very worried about this process. I am afraid we are going to have a lot of problems with this process. So you know, he personally and privately said that to me long before this bill was introduced and long before it became a matter of big public debate. And because of that and, I think, because he is himself a candidate now, I think he had to take a position and say what he thought. Respectfully, ENTITY, a member of the Vice President's staff has been quoted as saying that it was a political decision. And too, he went on to say, the Vice President is not going to fall on his sword for you. That would lead a reasonable person to believe that it was a political decision. You know, if I knew who said that and they were quoted by name, I would have more regard for the quote. I do not think he should fall on his sword for me. He is out there now making his own case to the American people. All I can tell you is, I will bet you that staff member did not know that I talked to Al Gore shortly after this case became public, and he said to me privately that he was disturbed about the process and whether it could adequately account for this young man's best interests. That is what he told me a long time ago, purely privately, and long before he ever said anything publicly about it. I want to move on to the subject of guns, but before we-just as we leave this-- He might have meant, you know, that falling on your sword sometimes means that you have to agree with the President, whether you really agree with the President or not.


That is what Vice Presidents do when they are not independent candidates. And since I do not think he agrees with me, and since he is a candidate, I do not think he should mask an honest disagreement. And it is one that I believe that he actually believes, based on a private conversation I had long before he ever made a public statement. So you do not have any problem with it? Let us talk about guns. Next week, is it fair to say you are dedicating the week to doing what you can to get increased, at least, handgun control? You are going to Maryland to be seen with the Governor as he signs a new handgun control law into law. Then you are going to Colorado, where there is a State ballot initiative that you are backing, and this initiative contains many of the provisions that you seek in Federal law. Question, why no focus on getting new State laws passed, rather than press forward with Federal legislation? And because if you have Federal laws, they can be more efficiently administered. I think gun control is still sort of an explosive term to the American people, because they think we are going to take somebody's guns away from them. And the truth is, all we have tried to do is to take preventive measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children. And I think that on the specific measures, I think the overwhelming majority of the American people support us. And Colorado, which is a predominately Republican State, I believe this initiative will pass because they have had experience with it. And I think that it is unconscionable for Congress to hide behind the fact that there are States taking action. Maryland required child trigger locks this week, for example, and required safety training courses and things of that kind for handgun purchases. The State of Massachusetts applied its consumer protection laws to handguns, and Colorado has got this initiative to close the gun show loophole, which I think is very important. But it will take forever and a day for all the States to do that, and the Federal Government ought to do it. You know, it is simply an extension of what we did with the Brady bill. We had all this hoopla when I signed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban about how damaging it was to the rights of gun owners, the legitimate hunters and sports people. Not a single hunter has missed a day in the deer woods; not a single sports person has missed a sport shooting contest.


Nobody has been burdened by this, and a half-million felons, fugitives, and stalkers have not gotten handguns as a result. Gun crime is at a 30-year low in America, not just because we have increased gun prosecutions, which we have, but because we have done more prevention. That is what this is about. You are in a fierce fight on Capitol Hill to get Federal additional gun safety legislation passed. And you set April 20th, the anniversary of the Columbine, Colorado, high school shootings as the goal. Is there any chance that it would get passed by that time? We have a majority for it in both Houses, I think. But the Republican leadership in the Senate may be able to keep it from coming to a vote. They cannot really keep things from coming to a vote in the House, so I think there is a majority for closing the gun show loophole, a majority for banning the importation of large scale ammunition clips. Who could be against that? We have got an assault weapons ban in the country, and then we turn around and make a mockery of it by letting people import these big ammunition clips which they can put on the guns and convert them into assault weapons. Most manufacturers do it anyway. But I think we are making progress. I think the action in these States indicates it; the initiative in Colorado, with the support of many Republican officials in Colorado; the incredibly brave action that Smith & Wesson has taken to try to improve the way it markets and distributes guns and the way those handguns are sold. I hope they will find some resonance among other gun manufacturers. So we are making progress. The interest behind it, the status quo, are very strong. Do you suppose, if I may-I do not mean to interrupt-you say the interest behind this is very strong. As Butch Cassidy said to the Sundance Kid, Who are these guys? Well, the NRA and other groups even to the right of them, and a lot of people in the Congress, in the Republican Party, really agree with them. A handful of Democrats do. And again I say, if they had any evidence that we had undermined hunting or undermined sport shooting or even undermined legitimate self-defense, it would be one thing. The only evidence they have is we have kept handguns out of the hands of half million felons, fugitives, and stalkers.


And the last place, besides person-to-person transactions, that such people can get handguns with impunity is at these gun shows. So we ought to close the gun show loophole and do a background check. There are some minor details of adjustment that would have to be undertaken to do these background checks, to make it work when you do these one-day shows out in rural areas. But they can easily be taken care of, and we ought to do it. You mentioned the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate. What I and other reporters talk to them, they say, basically, Look, the President could get a lot of what he wants. He could get the trigger locks for children on handguns. He could get the ban on importing the extra long clips-if the President would simply compromise on the criminal background checks for gun shows. Well, first of all, we already offered a compromise. John Conyers has offered a compromise to Representative Henry Hyde that we were hoping could prevail in the conference. You know, the bill is in conference now. We got a good bill out of the Senate on this gun show loophole because the Vice President broke the tie. The bill is in conference, and Mr. Conyers offered a compromise. Let me say, if you look at the gun shows, they want insta-check. When you do these background checks-let us just look at the facts-when you do the background checks, you can get over 70 percent of the background checks done in the first hour. You can get 95 percent of them done-or over 90 percent in the first day. So they say, Well, just agree to a 24-hour background check or an insta-check system. The real difficulty is, of the roughly 10 percent you cannot finish in one day, the rejection rate in that 10 percent is 20 times higher than the rejection rate in the 90 percent. So what we tried to do was to work out an agreement where we let everybody who would be cleared, be cleared, but we did not have an automatic release for the others, because they are 20 times more likely to have background problems which would not enable them to purchase these guns. So I think it is an almost bizarre development, since we are more than willing to meet them halfway.


We have offered them a good compromise-that they would hold this whole bill up to protect that 10 percent when they know that is where a huge percentage of the problem gun-buyers are, people that are likely to use those guns for criminal conduct. So we have offered a compromise. John Conyers offered a good compromise to Representative Henry Hyde, and I hope and pray that they will take it or something like it. I am willing to compromise, but I do not think that we ought to gut the main purposes of the background check. And again, you know, they say, Well, we have these shows out in the country. They occur on the weekend. They are not all basically at big-city convention centers. But the gun could be deposited with the local sheriff's office for the weekend while the background check is completed, for example. You could deposit the gun and the check and return one or the other or both. It would be easy to work through this if they really wanted to. I just think it is important-I think the child trigger locks are important because the accidental death rate in America of the children are so high, 9 times higher than the next 25 biggest countries combined. But we ought to close the loophole in the Brady law. I am willing to compromise, but I do not want to destroy the purposes of the background check. Our correspondent Maureen Maher has been doing some investigation of some of the loopholes in the Brady law, which turn out to be pretty extensive. If you could close one loophole in the Brady law, what would it be? There are some other loopholes in the Brady law, but if you look at the numbers, it is been quite successful. For all of its problems, it is been quite successful. And when you do the insta-check, you know, we have to do instant checks whenever we can-when you do the insta-check, you actually-you lose some people, because if you cannot wait 3 days, there are some records that have not been logged in, for example, that will not be picked up on the insta-check. But when we passed the Brady bill, that is the best we could do. We had to take a bill that would say a 3-day waiting period, but insta-check whenever possible when it became possible. And so we are stuck with that for the time being. I have a totally different view of this than the people on the other side of the issue.


I think I have demonstrated in 7 years here I have never tried to take a gun away from a lawabiding citizen. I have never tried to interfere with hunting or sport shooting. But I believe that guns are like every other area of national life where there is a lot of loss of life and injury. Prevention is always the first line of defense. Punish people that violate the law; throw the book at them; but in this area alone, let us do not have much prevention, because we are worried about the second amendment or a slippery slope or whatever. I think that we can save so many more lives by sensible prevention and not interfere with legitimate gun owners. ENTITY, did you ever own a gun? I have owned a shotgun. I had a .22 when I was little kid. I had a couple of handguns when I was a Governor. I suppose I was 12 the first time I had target practice, you know, shooting cans off fenceposts. And I normally went hunting, duck hunting, once a year when I was Governor. On occasion, I went bird hunting. I have been duck hunting a couple of times since I have been President. Let me follow up on this Smith & Wesson deal. A number of people, none of whom want their name attached to it, say, ENTITY, you have to look into this deal, because, one, Smith & Wesson was about to go bankrupt, and so this was a form of what they call financial blackmail. Not that I know of. I do not know that-if it is true, I do not know it. Any agreement that you know of, the Federal Government has agreed to supply Federal law enforcement officers with Smith & Wesson weapons? No, that was not a part of the agreement. Since then, we have looked into the question of whether we-as have many local jurisdictions looked into the question-whether they can give any kind of preference or consideration to Smith & Wesson in their purchases because they have taken this action. But obviously, whatever they do will have to take account of the need to get the best possible weapons for their law enforcement officials. And we are looking into-I wanted to look into to see what, if anything, we can do as well. But I know that a lot of cities were so appreciative of what Smith & Wesson did. This is like the Brady bill gun show loophole.


The main thing Smith & Wesson did in changing its marketing and distribution policies was to focus on a fact that I would think that the NRA would want us to focus on, and that is that an inordinately high percentage of guns used in crimes are sold through a very small percentage of the gun sellers. So the main thing, when you strip away everything else Smith & Wesson did, what they are really trying to do is to stop providing weapons to people who obviously are careless in enforcing the Brady bill or have a criminal clientele or otherwise just are not taking care of their business. I would have thought when Smith & Wesson came forward, since this had nothing to do with the Brady bill or anything else-this was about having gun dealers clean up their act and gun manufacturers putting the hammer on them to do it, rewarding those that are good, punishing those that are not . I would have thought that is the kind of thing the NRA would like. I was actually kind of surprised that they and the gun dealers went so totally the other way about this, because you cannot get out of the fact-we now have evidence-a very small percentage of gun dealers sell a very high percentage of the guns used in serious crimes. That is what we are trying to get at. ENTITY, I have all kinds of things I'd like to ask you about, including China and the World Trade Organization, but the clock is running on us. Let me ask you two questions, and I will let you get on to your next meeting. You recently said at a meeting that the First Lady, in her bid for a Senate seat in New York, faces-I think this is your direct quote- a right-wing venom machine that is collecting double tons of money to defeat her. Was that too strong, on reflection? Well, it depends on how you interpret the facts. Richard Viguerie is doing Mayor Giuliani's mail. Mayor Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York, basically said, I am not a Reagan Republican anymore. I am for the Brady bill. I am for the assault weapons ban. I am for the President's crime program. We had a good relationship. Now he is got Richard Viguerie doing this venomous mailing, talking about what a left-wing crazy my wife is, when-while he was mayor of New York, he was in agreement with her and me on most issues. While he was helping the mayor.


But the Viguerie mailings, which are being sent to people who have fought me the whole time I am here-which is fine-are basically using the same old standard hard-core right-wing stuff, the kind of stuff we saw Governor Bush do to Senator McCain in South Carolina, that kind of-sort of that kind of thing. And I think if he is going to do it and get the benefit of it, he can raise a lot of money, because a lot of us folks see beating Hillary or beating the Vice President as another way of going after us for what we have tried to do here on issues like gun safety and vetoing the big tax cuts to keep a balanced budget and the surplus and other things we have fought for. They see that as a way of continuing the battle. He can raise a lot of money that way, but I do not think he should be able to raise it for free. That is, I think he ought to have to be accountable for the rhetoric being used in his behalf and the money that is coming in as a result of that kind of inflammatory right-wing rhetoric. Would you be surprised if I told you that tonight's CBS poll indicates the First Lady is up by 8 points now in the race with Giuliani? She knows what she wants to do for New York. I am really proud of her, and I just-I think these polls will change a lot between now and November. You do not think that what one newspaper has called the wealthy hate Hillary campaign will, in the end, sink her? I think the main thing that she is got to think about is not what they are saying about her but what she is going to say to the people of New York. I think a lot of that is-when you have opposition in politics, a lot of times what they are trying to do is distract you from doing your main job, which is to communicate with the people and to serve the people. And I think if she will just focus on that, talk about her life, her work, and what she wants to do, I think she will do fine. ENTITY, I am getting the cut signal. I so much appreciate you taking the time to do this.


You have argued that ISIS has been on the defensive. Are we actually losing this war, or would you not go that far? No, I do not think we are losing, and I just talked to our CENTCOM commanders and the folks on the ground. There is no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time, primarily because these are not Iraqi security forces that we have trained or reinforced. They have been there essentially for a year without sufficient reinforcements, and the number of ISIL that have come into the city now are relatively small compared to what happened in Mosul. But it is indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the Sunni parts of the country. You have seen actually significant progress in the north, and those areas where the Peshmerga are participating. Those predominantly Shia areas, you are not seeing any forward momentum by ISIL, and ISIL has been significantly degraded across the country. You have got to worry about the Iraqi forces I am getting to that, ENTITY. You asked me a question, and there is no doubt that in the Sunni areas, we are going to have to ramp up not just training, but also commitment, and we better get Sunni tribes more activated than they currently have been. So it is a source of concern. We are eight months into what we have always anticipated to be a multi-year campaign, and I think Prime Minister Abadi recognizes many of these problems, but they are going to have to be addressed. There is this interesting conversation going on in Republican circles right now, debating a question that you answered for yourself 13 years ago, about whether it was right or wrong to go into Iraq. What is this conversation actually about? You are under virtually no pressure correct me if I am wrong but you are under virtually no pressure domestically to get more deeply involved in the Middle East. That seems to be one of the downstream consequences of the Iraq invasion 12 years ago. As you said, I am very clear on the lessons of Iraq. I think it was a mistake for us to go in in the first place, despite the incredible efforts that were made by our men and women in uniform. Despite that error, those sacrifices allowed the Iraqis to take back their country. That opportunity was squandered by Prime Minister Maliki and the unwillingness to reach out effectively to the Sunni and Kurdish populations.

Interview with Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic


But today the question is not whether or not we are sending in contingents of U.S. ground troops. How do we find effective partners to govern in those parts of Iraq that right now are ungovernable and effectively defeat ISIL, not just in Iraq but in Syria? It is important to have a clear idea of the past because we do not want to repeat mistakes. I know that there are some in Republican quarters who have suggested that I have overlearned the mistake of Iraq, and that, in fact, just because the 2003 invasion did not go well does not argue that we should not go back in. And one lesson that I think is important to draw from what happened is that if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them. I think Prime Minister Abadi is sincere and committed to an inclusive Iraqi state, and I will continue to order our military to provide the Iraqi security forces all assistance that they need in order to secure their country, and I will provide diplomatic and economic assistance that is necessary for them to stabilize. But we cannot do it for them, and one of the central flaws I think of the decision back in 2003 was the sense that if we simply went in and deposed a dictator, or simply went in and cleared out the bad guys, that somehow peace and prosperity would automatically emerge, and that lesson we should have learned a long time ago. How do we find effective partners not just in Iraq, but in Syria, and in Yemen, and in Libya that we can work with, and how do we create the international coalition and atmosphere in which people across sectarian lines are willing to compromise and are willing to work together in order to provide the next generation a fighting chance for a better future? Let me do two or three on Iran, and then we will move to Israel and Jews. By the way, you are coming to my synagogue to speak on Friday. I am very much looking forward to it. This is the biggest thing that is happened there since the last Goldberg bar mitzvah. So in 2012 you told me, when we were talking about Iran, It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons if Iran got them.


Now we are in this kind of weird situation in which there is talk that Saudi Arabia, maybe Turkey, maybe Egypt would go build nuclear infrastructures come the finalization of this deal to match the infrastructure that your deal is going to leave in place in Iran. Have you asked the Saudis not to go down any kind of nuclear path? What have they told you about this? And what are the consequences if other countries in the region say, Well you know what, they have 5,000 centrifuges? We are going to have 5,000 centrifuges. Well, Prince Turki said it publicly Well, he is not in the government. There has been no indication from the Saudis or any other countries that they have an intention to pursue their own nuclear program. Part of the reason why they would not pursue their own nuclear program assuming that we have been successful in preventing Iran from continuing down the path of obtaining a nuclear weapon is that the protection that we provide as their partner is a far greater deterrent than they could ever hope to achieve by developing their own nuclear stockpile or trying to achieve breakout capacity when it comes to nuclear weapons, and they understand that. What we saw at the GCC summit was, I think, legitimate skepticism and concern, not simply about the Iranian nuclear program itself but also the consequences of sanctions coming down. We walked through the four pathways that would be shut off in any agreement that I would be signing off on. Technically, we showed them how it would be accomplished what the verification mechanisms will be, how the UN snapback provisions might work. They were satisfied that if in fact the agreement meant the benchmarks that we have set forth, that it would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and given that, they understand that ultimately their own security and defense is much better served by working with us. Their covert presumably pursuit of a nuclear program would greatly strain the relationship they have got with the United States. I just want you to help me square something. So you have argued, quite eloquently in fact, that the Iranian regime has at its highest levels been infected by a kind of anti-Semitic worldview. You talked about that with Tom . Venomous anti-Semitism I think is the term that you used.


You have argued not that it even needs arguing but you have argued that people who subscribe to an anti-Semitic worldview, who explain the world through the prism of anti-Semitic ideology, are not rational, are not built for success, are not grounded in a reality that you and I might understand. And yet, you have also argued that the regime in Tehran a regime you have described as anti-Semitic, among other problems that they have is practical, and is responsive to incentive, and shows signs of rationality. So I do not understand how these things fit together in your mind. Well the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, does not preclude you from being interested in survival. It does not preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it does not preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic does not mean that this overrides all of his other considerations. You know, if you look at the history of anti-Semitism, ENTITY, there were a whole lot of European leaders and there were deep strains of anti-Semitism in this country  They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what we have been very clear to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. That is what the sanctions represent. That is what the military option I have made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that we have put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.


One of the other issues that is troubling about this is and I am quoting Jack Lew here, who said a couple of weeks ago at the Washington Institute when talking about Iran's various nefarious activities, he said, Most of the money Iran receives from sanctions relief will not be used to support those activities. To me that sounds like a little bit of wishful thinking that is going to want to get paid, Hezbollah is going to see, among other groups, might see a little bit of a windfall from these billions of dollars that might pour in. I am not assuming something completely in the other direction either, but I just do not know where your confidence comes from. Well I do not think Jack or anybody in this administration said that no money will go to the military as a consequence of sanctions relief. The question is, if Iran has $150 billion parked outside the country, does the IRGC automatically get $150 billion? Does that $150 billion then translate by orders of magnitude into their capacity to project power throughout the region? And that is what we contest, because when you look at the math, first of all they are going to have to deliver on their obligations under any agreement, which would take a certain period of time. Then there are the mechanics of unwinding the existing restraints they have on getting that money, which takes a certain amount of time. Then Rouhani and, by extension, the supreme leader have made a series of commitments to improve the Iranian economy, and the expectations are outsized. You saw the reaction of people in the streets of Tehran after the signing of the agreement. You have Iranian elites who are champing at the bit to start moving business and getting out from under the restraints that they have been under. And what is also true is that the IRGC right now, precisely because of sanctions, in some ways are able to exploit existing restrictions to have a monopoly on what comes in and out of the country, and they have got their own revenue sources that they have been able to develop, some of which may actually lessen as a consequence of sanctions relief. So I do not think this is a science, and this is an issue that came up with the GCC countries during the summit. It is not a mathematical formula whereby get a certain amount of sanctions relief and automatically they are causing more problems in the neighborhood.


What makes that particularly important is, in the discussion with the GCC countries, we pointed out that the biggest vulnerabilities that they have to Iran, and the most effective destabilizing activities of the IRGC and Quds Force are actually low-cost. They are not a threat to the region because of their hardware. They have a missile program. We have to think about missile-defense systems and how those are integrated and coordinated. But the big problems we have are weapons going in to Hezbollah, or them sending agents into Yemen, or other low-tech asymmetric threats that they are very effective at exploiting, which they are already doing they have been doing despite sanctions. They will continue to do unless we are developing greater capacity to prevent them from doing those things, which is part of what our discussion was in terms of the security assurances with the GCC countries. You know, if you look at a situation like Yemen, part of the problem is the chronic, endemic weakness in a state like that, and the instability that Iran then seeks to exploit. If you had GCC countries who were more capable of maritime interdiction, effective intelligence, cutting off financing sources, and are more effective in terms of working and training with allied forces in a place like Yemen, so that Houthis cannot just march into Sana'a, well, if all those things are being done, Iran having some additional dollars from sanctions relief is not going to override those improvements and capabilities, and that is really where we have to focus. Hezbollah has a certain number of fighters who are hardened and effective. If Iran has some additional resources, then perhaps they are less strained in trying to make payroll when it comes to Hezbollah, but it is not as if they can suddenly train up and successfully deploy 10 times the number of Hezbollah fighters that are currently in Syria. That is not something that they have automatic capacity to do.  You could buy more rockets and put them in south Lebanon. Well, and the issue though with respect to rockets in south Lebanon is not whether enough money to do so. They have shown a commitment to doing that even when their economy is in the tank. Are we able to interdict those shipments more effectively than we do right now? And that is the kind of thing that we have to continue to partner with Israel and other countries to stop. Let me go to these questions related to Israel and your relationship to the American Jewish community.


So a number of years ago, I made the case that you are America's first Jewish president. the number of Jewish mentors you have had Abner Mikva, Newton Minow, and so on teachers, law professors, fellow community organizers, Jewish literature, Jewish thought, and of course your early political base in Chicago. There are obviously Jews in America who are immune to the charms of this argument, led by Sheldon Adelson but not only him. All the steps he is taken he meaning you against the State of Israel are liable to bring about the destruction of the state. I have my own theories about why there is this bifurcation in the American Jewish community, and we have discussed this in past interviews, but what is going on? Is this the byproduct of well-intentioned anxiety about Iran, about the explosive growth of anti-Semitism in Europe? Let me depersonalize it a little bit. I consistently received overwhelming majority support from the Jewish community, and even after all the publicity around the recent differences that I have had with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the majority of the Jewish American community still supports me, and supports me strongly. It was 70 percent in the last election. I think that there are a lot of crosscurrents that are going on right now. There is no doubt that the environment worldwide is scary for a lot of Jewish families. You have mentioned some of those trends. You have a Middle East that is turbulent and chaotic, and where extremists seem to be full of enthusiasm and momentum. You have Europe, where, as you have very effectively chronicled, there is an emergence of a more overt and dangerous anti-Semitism. And so part of the concern in the Jewish community is that, only a generation removed from the Holocaust, it seems that anti-Semitic rhetoric and anti-Israeli rhetoric is on the rise. What I also think is that there has been a very concerted effort on the part of some political forces to equate being pro-Israel, and hence being supportive of the Jewish people, with a rubber stamp on a particular set of policies coming out of the Israeli government. So if you are questioning settlement policy, that indicates you are anti-Israeli, or that indicates you are anti-Jewish. If you express compassion or empathy towards Palestinian youth, who are dealing with checkpoints or restrictions on their ability to travel, then you are suspect in terms of your support of Israel.


If you are willing to get into public disagreements with the Israeli government, then the notion is that you are being anti-Israel, and by extension, anti-Jewish. I completely reject that. Is that a cynical ploy by somebody? Well I will not ascribe motives to them. I think that some of those folks may sincerely believe that the Jewish state is consistently embattled, that it is in a very bad neighborhood and either you are with them or against them, and end of story. And they may sincerely believe it. My response to them is that, precisely because I care so deeply about the State of Israel, precisely because I care so much about the Jewish people, I feel obliged to speak honestly and truthfully about what I think will be most likely to lead to long-term security, and will best position us to continue to combat anti-Semitism, and I make no apologies for that precisely because I am secure and confident about how deeply I care about Israel and the Jewish people. I think it would be a moral failing for me as president of the United States, and a moral failing for America, and a moral failing for the world, if we did not protect Israel and stand up for its right to exist, because that would negate not just the history of the 20th century, it would negate the history of the past millennium. And it would violate what we have learned, what humanity should have learned, over that past millennium, which is that when you show intolerance and when you are persecuting minorities and when you are objectifying them and making them the Other, you are destroying something in yourself, and the world goes into a tailspin. And so, to me, being pro-Israel and pro-Jewish is part and parcel with the values that I have been fighting for since I was politically conscious and started getting involved in politics. These things are indivisible in my mind. But what is also true, by extension, is that I have to show that same kind of regard to other peoples. And I think it is true to Israel's traditions and its values its founding principles that it has to care about those Palestinian kids. And when I was in Jerusalem and I spoke, the biggest applause that I got was when I spoke about those kids I had visited in Ramallah, and I said to a Israeli audience that it is profoundly Jewish, it is profoundly consistent with Israel's traditions to care about them.


So if that is not translated into policy if we are not willing to take risks on behalf of those values then those principles become empty words, and in fact, in my mind, it makes it more difficult for us to continue to promote those values when it comes to protecting Israel internationally. You are not known as an overly emotive politician, but there was a period in which the relationship between you and the prime minister, and therefore the U.S. government and the Israeli government, seemed very fraught and very emotional. Yeah, and I have to say, ENTITY, I completely disagree with that assessment, and I know you wrote that. And I objected to it. I mean, the fact of the matter is that there was a very particular circumstance in which we had a policy difference that should not be papered over because it goes to the nature of the friendship between the United States and Israel, and how we deal government to government, and how we sort through those issues. Now, a couple of things that I'd say at the outset. In every public pronouncement I have made, I said that the bedrock security relationships between our two countries these are sacrosanct. Military cooperation, intelligence cooperation none of that has been affected. I have maintained, and I think I can show that no U.S. president has been more forceful in making sure that we help Israel protect itself, and even some of my critics in Israel have acknowledged as much. I said that none of this should impact the core strategic relationship that exists between the United States and Israel, or the people-to-people relations that are so deep that they transcend any particular president or prime minister and will continue until the end of time. But what I did say is that when, going into an election, Prime Minister Netanyahu said a Palestinian state would not happen under his watch, or there discussion in which it appeared that Arab-Israeli citizens were somehow portrayed as an invading force that might vote, and that this should be guarded against this is contrary to the very language of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which explicitly states that all people regardless of race or religion are full participants in the democracy. When something like that happens, that has foreign-policy consequences, and precisely because we are so close to Israel, for us to simply stand there and say nothing would have meant that this office, the Oval Office, lost credibility when it came to speaking out on these issues.


And when I am then required to come to Israel's defense internationally, when there is anti-Semitism out there, when there is anti-Israeli policy that is based not on the particulars of the Palestinian cause but based simply on hostility, I have to make sure that I am entirely credible in speaking out against those things, and that requires me then to also be honest with friends about how I view these issues. Now that makes, understandably, folks both in Israel and here in the United States uncomfortable. But the one argument that I very much have been concerned about, and it has gotten stronger over the last 10 years ... it is less overt than the arguments that a Sheldon Adelson makes, but in some ways can be just as pernicious, is this argument that there should not be disagreements in public. So a lot of times the criticism that was leveled during this period including from you, ENTITY was not that you disagreed with me on the assessment, but rather that it is dangerous or unseemly for us to air these disagreements You did not make that argument I did not make that argument. I spend half my life airing those arguments. But you understand what I am saying, ENTITY. I would get letters from people saying, Listen, ENTITY, I completely support you. I agree with you on this issue, but you should not say these things publicly. Now the truth of the matter is that what we said publicly was fairly spare and mild, and then would be built up it seemed like an article a day, partly because when you get in arguments with friends it is a lot more newsworthy than arguments with enemies. Well, and it is the same problem that I am having right now with the trade deals up on Capitol Hill. The fact that I agree with Elizabeth Warren on 90 percent of issues is not news. That we disagree on one thing is news. But my point, ENTITY, is that we are at enough of an inflection point in terms of the region that trying to pretend like these important, difficult policy questions are not controversial, and that they do not have to be sorted out, I think is a problem. And one of the great things about Israel is, these are arguments that take place in Israel every day. If you sit down in some cafe in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, you are hearing far more contentious arguments, and that is healthy.


That is part of why Americans love Israel, it is part of the reason why I love Israel because it is a genuine democracy and you can express your opinions. But the most important thing, I think, that we can do right now in strengthening Israel's position is to describe very clearly why I have believed that a two-state solution is the best security plan for Israel over the long term; for me to take very seriously Israel's security concerns about what a two-state solution might look like; to try to work through systematically those issues; but also, at the end of the day, to say to any Israeli prime minister that it will require some risks in order to achieve peace. How do you weigh those risks against the risks of doing nothing and just perpetuating the status quo? My argument is that the risks of doing nothing are far greater, and I ultimately it is important for the Israeli people and the Israeli government to make its own decisions about what it needs to secure the people of that nation. But my hope is that over time that debate gets back on a path where there is some semblance of hope and not simply fear, because it feels to me as if ... all we are talking about is based from fear. As a Jewish-majority democracy. We talked about this once. Kibbutzim, and Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meir, and the sense that not only are we creating a safe Jewish homeland, but also we are remaking the world. We are repairing it. We are going to do it the right way. We are going to make sure that the lessons we have learned from our hardships and our persecutions are applied to how we govern and how we treat others. And it goes back to the values questions that we talked about earlier those are the values that helped to nurture me and my political beliefs. It is interesting, when I spoke to some leaders of Jewish organizations a few months back, I said to them, it is true, I have high expectations for Israel, and they are not unrealistic expectations, they are not stupid expectations, they are not the expectations that Israel would risk its own security blindly in pursuit of some idealistic pie-in-the-sky notions. But you want Israel to embody Jewish values.


I want Israel, in the same way that I want the United States, to embody the Judeo-Christian and, ultimately then, what I believe are human or universal values that have led to progress over a millennium. The same values that led to the end of Jim Crow and slavery. The same values that led to Nelson Mandela being freed and a multiracial democracy emerging in South Africa. The same values that animate our discussion on human rights and our concern that people on the other side of the world who may be tortured or jailed for speaking their mind or worshipping the same values that lead us to speak out against anti-Semitism. I want Israel to embody these values because Israel is aligned with us in that fight for what I believe to be true. Hard decisions. And hard decisions that in peace we will not make. Those are decisions that I have to make every time I deploy U.S. forces. Those are choices that we make with respect to drones, and with respect to our intelligence agencies. And so when I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu, for example, about can we come up with a peace plan, I sent out our top military folks to go through systematically every contingency, every possible concern that Israel might have on its own terms about maintaining security in a two-state agreement, and what would it mean for the Jordan Valley, and what would it mean with respect to the West Bank, and I was the first one to acknowledge that you cannot have the risk of terrorists coming up right to the edge of Jerusalem and exposing populations. So this is not an issue of being naive or unrealistic, but ultimately yes, I think there are certain values that the United States, at its best, exemplifies. I think there are certain values that Israel, and the Jewish tradition, at its best exemplifies. And I am willing to fight for those values. Hollande's government Manuel Valls, the prime minister David Cameron we were talking about the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And I know that you have talked about this with Jewish organizations, with some of your Jewish friends how you define the differences and the similarities between these two concepts. Do you think that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, and are you aware of the particular circumstances of Jewish history that might prompt that need and desire?


And if your answer is no, if your notion is somehow that that history does not matter, then that is a problem, in my mind. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge the justness of the Jewish homeland, you acknowledge the active presence of anti-Semitism that it is not just something in the past, but it is current if you acknowledge that there are people and nations that, if convenient, would do the Jewish people harm because of a warped ideology. If you acknowledge those things, then you should be able to align yourself with Israel where its security is at stake, you should be able to align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not held to a double standard in international fora, you should align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not isolated. But you should be able to say to Israel, we disagree with you on this particular policy. We disagree with you on settlements. We disagree with you on a Jewish-nationalist law that would potentially undermine the rights of Arab citizens. And to me, that is entirely consistent with being supportive of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Now for someone in Israel, including the prime minister, to disagree with those policy positions that is OK too. And we can have a debate, and we can have an argument. But you cannot equate people of good will who are concerned about those issues with somebody who is hostile towards Israel. And you know, I actually believe that most American Jews, most Jews around the world, and most Jews in Israel recognize as much. And that is part of the reason why I do still have broad-based support among American Jews. It is not because they dislike Israel, it is not because they are not worried about Iran having a nuclear weapon or what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon. It is because I think they recognize, having looked at my history and having seen the actions of my administration, that I have got Israel's back, but there are values that I share with them that may be at stake if we are not able to find a better path forward than what feels like a potential dead-end right now.


ENTITY, I have been talking with some grain farmers who are very upset because your Administration has urged full production, your Secretary of Agriculture talks about a free market, and yet, when push comes to shove, they feel that their sales are being blocked by the grain embargo We have to look at that problem in the long range and still be very cognizant of the short-term difficulties. What we want are stable, substantial markets abroad. We have one with Japan. We are in the process of negotiating one with Poland. We have others that are in being with European countries. But the big potential market on a long-range basis for substantial annual sales is with the Soviet Union, and we are very close. I believe that we will end up with at least a 5-year program that will mean firm, sizable sales 5 million tons or more per year with a possibility of more sales, and all at free market prices in the marketplace in the United States. Now, the problem in the past has been in the last 5 years. One year we sold to the Soviet Union 74 million bushels of grain. Another year we sold 550 million bushels. This year, so far, we have sold 320 million bushels. Well, these wide fluctuations, peaks and valleys, they are not good for the farmer; they are not good for the country. So, we are trying to stabilize a huge market on a firm basis over a period of time. And if my good farmer friends will just be a little patient, I think we will do something they will be very happy with. ENTITY, John Dunlop says that he now favors extending the tax cut. What will you recommend, and are you prepared to at this time? We are in the process right now of finalizing my recommendation in that area. I cannot on this program tell you what the decision is, but we are trying to coordinate a potential tax reduction program with a rigid restriction on expenditures. I think this combination, if we can come up with the right formula, will give our taxpayers a greater opportunity to spend their own money and will cut down Federal expenditures so that we will have a better fiscal situation for the Federal Government. Now, that is one possibility, and hopefully within the next week or so I will be in a position to submit a specific recommendation to the Congress. Now, to follow up, how does Alan Greenspan feel about that at this time? I do not think I ought to reveal his recommendation to me.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.


Until we finalize this whole package and the timing of it, I do not think I should indicate how any one of my advisers do feel. John Dunlop, of course, as Secretary of Labor, was in a position to publicly state his view because he is Chairman of our labor-management advisory committee, and that Committee, under his leadership, did recommend that these tax reductions that were put into law earlier this year should be extended. So, that is why he was in a position to indicate his personal view. ENTITY, on the grain deal, you indicate that if the farmers will be patient, that they will be happy. They have, to a great degree, been patient with Secretary of Agriculture Butz, and they have been calling for him being taken out as Secretary and many times saying he might be, and there has even been talk of former Nebraskan Clayton Yeutter being put into that office. Can you give us any indication of whether there is any offing in the future of replacing the Secretary, and could you also tell us the value of the Secretary in that position? First, let me indicate that I selected Clayton Yeutter,1 who I think is an outstanding individual, to be one of our top people in our foreign trade negotiations. I think that is an indication of my great feeling for Clayton Yeutter. I happen to believe that Earl Butz has done an excellent job of defending the interests of agriculture across the board. He has been a great exponent of the free marketplace. He has fought Government restrictions so that farmers can run their farms as they see fit. I think Earl Butz has done a fine job, and I asked him to stay and he has agreed to stay until the end of this term. I think most farmers support him. I fully back him. ENTITY, recent disclosures about the Central Intelligence Agency seemed to have weakened our entire intelligence-gathering and interpreting apparatus and as a result also weakened our defense posture. If this is true, what is being done to shore up our intelligence and our defense? I am disturbed about the actions that are being taken by some to expose some of the past operations of the Central Intelligence Agency and our intelligence-gathering capability generally. On the other hand, I think the Congress has a responsibility in a proper way to investigate the intelligence community of the Federal Government. I have been disappointed in some respects. On the other hand, you may have heard that this morning I came to an agreement with Chairman Pike on a method by which we can handle declassified material.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.


The vote was l0 to 3 in that committee, which shows that we are working together to handle these delicate matters together, in a proper way. Now in the meantime, or prior to that, I appointed the Rockefeller Commission that investigated the allegations of improper domestic spying by the Central Intelligence Agency. They made some recommendations to me. The Murphy Commission did the same. The net result is, sometime in the very near future I will make specific recommendations to improve the internal workings of the Central Intelligence Agency and the other intelligence groups, and they will not only be administrative but legislative proposals. In that way, I think we can restore confidence in the public for the CIA and at the same time lift the morale of the CIA, which unfortunately has suffered in the last few months. Under no circumstances and I want to be very clear on this will I permit the dismantling or the destruction of an intelligence agency or community, because that does involve our national security. ENTITY, do you believe that the United States should ever consider a position of using food as a weapon or at least as a bargaining agent against oil cartel countries in order to lessen this Nation's dependence on those countries? I would not put it that way. I think the great agricultural productivity of this country can be used affirmatively, one, for humanitarian purposes, and if my recollection is accurate, we, over the past 10 years, provided some $20 billion of P.L. 480 to help many nations in a humane way. In addition, we can use discretely and properly our surpluses for other reasons-and I do not want to expand for other reasons but it is better to put it that way than to come out and say, yes, we are going to do it as a hard-line bargaining principle. We can use it effectively, and we have and will. ENTITY, you voiced your support for Secretary Butz and pointed to his support among the farm community. There has been some concern among farm people in connection with that, that the Secretary has not been sufficiently involved in these grain negotiations as compared to State Department people. What input does Secretary Butz have? We have a grain subcommittee of the Economic Policy Board, and on at least three occasions where I have attended those meetings, Secretary Butz has been present, and I have had several meetings. I can assure you that Secretary Butz is an affirmative spokesman for agriculture in these areas.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.


On the other hand, he does recognize that we have to look at it in the long range, and I am sure that when the results of these negotiations are published, Secretary Butz part in it will be a big plus for agriculture as well as for the department. As a follow-up on that, if I may, a large grain exporter in the upper Midwest the other day contended that a mid-October lifting of the moratorium on the grain shipments will come too late, that the Russians will have gone elsewhere. Is this being taken into consideration in your planning? We keep a daily check on world grain supplies. And from our point of view, fortunately, we are about the only grain supplier left in the world. And if anybody really wants to buy sizable amounts of grain in the future in 1975, they will have to come to the United States. ENTITY, I am told that 100 years ago today ENTITY Grant visited Omaha. I do not have a question related to that, but I thought you would like to know that. And as you all know, I was born in Omaha not quite 100 years ago. You have adopted Vice ENTITY Rockefeller's plan for an energy independence authority, which involves about $100 billion over a 10-year period. Now, this is a mammoth Federal intervention in the capital marketplace, which is the exact opposite, really, of what you have always said-as a governmental policy, you wanted hands off. Now, does this mean you have given up on the idea that the oil companies can come up with alternate sources if you decontrol oil prices? Well, that authority is primarily for the purpose of undertaking the financing of the synthetic fuel programs which are new, where there could be some failure, where there is a certain degree of uncertainty as to whether they will be productive, whether they will be financially responsible. You have to have, in my opinion, this kind of authority to get those synthetic fuel programs underway. And there are some other areas in addition to synthetic fuels, but it is basically an instrument like the RFC back in the '30s and '40s for example, the synthetic rubber program which was financed by RFC. This is not an attempt to take over the private financing of ordinary and regular programs and projects, but it does aim at helping us exploit breakthroughs in the scientific world so that synthetic fuels can be more readily made available to the public.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.


I do not think anybody would disagree with that goal, but my question was more to the point of, will not this really create another huge bureaucracy, whereas your whole thrust has been to shrink the bureaucracy? But if you will recall my State of the Union Message, I said I would advocate no new programs except those related to energy. So this falls within that exception. ENTITY, you have been urging the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to report out on the Sinai agreements by Friday. The problem there is that the two parties Israel and Egypt had agreed by, I think, early next week to sign the necessary documents and start the implementation of the withdrawal and the change of lines and so forth. Israel has said that it will not start the implementation until the Congress approves the utilization of up to 200 American technicians. So, we want it through by the time of the signing so that Israel and Egypt will both sign. Egypt has already signed, but Israel has this reservation. So, time is of the essence, so we can get both of those parties to move toward the actual implementation. You have said that you would like to see the orderly development of nuclear power, and this would certainly be a help in gaining our independence as far as energy is concerned. What do you see in the future for getting it straightened out so that we can look at it as a hopeful sign? We have had too many plant cancellations of nuclear power in the last 12 months very few if any for safety reasons, most of them for financing reasons. We expect there will be a resurgence of these projects in the months ahead. In the meantime, of course, we are spending vast amounts of money in the Federal Government to make even more certain the safety of nuclear powerplants. It is interesting to point out, however, of all of the nuclear powerplants in operation today in the United States, there has never been one fatality not one. But that does not mean we should not continue to find safer and better ways for the development of nuclear power. And I am optimistic as we try to make ourselves less vulnerable to foreign oil cartels, that nuclear powerplants will come on the line in greater numbers. But they are starting to question what the amount of uranium is at this point, while we are talking about millions and millions going into these plants, and then question the shortage already. I have recommended to the Congress what we call a uranium enrichment program which will take care of that contingency. That problem will not arise for 4 or 5 years.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.


But we have to get underway with this supplementary program through either the diffusion process or the centrifuge process-so that we can take care of that difficulty when it arises in 5 years or thereabouts. ENTITY, your airplane landed today just a short distance from the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command. Fifteen years ago, this country's strategic superiority stood unchallenged in the world. Today, instead of superiority we talk of equivalency. There has been a slide on our side at the same time the U.S.S.R. has become more and more powerful and is continuing to do so. Either through the Vladivostok agreement, where we set the 2,400 limit on launchers and 1,320 limit on MIRVing, either through that process, setting a cap which will provide equivalency, or through us maintaining our program to meet the challenge of the Soviet Union, we will maintain, I can assure you, as far as I am concerned, an adequate equivalency in strategic capability. I would prefer to do it through a SALT II agreement if we can get one. That is fair to both sides and sets a cap. But if we cannot , I can assure you that I will recommend whatever the budget requirements are adequate fundings for SAC operations and for all other related strategic programs. Do you believe that the B-1 will continue at full speed in spite of the problems in Congress with the budget? I cannot guarantee what Congress is going to do. I can only doubly guarantee you what I will do. We are going to keep the B-1 program going to the maximum capability productionwise, trainingwise, deploymentwise. I get very upset when the Congress slows it down for one reason or another. But we are going to keep after them because it is vitally important. ENTITY, is your Administration proposing any new means to lessen the welfare redtape and expenditures in this country? Yes, we are, on an almost daily basis, trying to do it in HEW. I have got my Domestic Council now working on a way to try and remedy some of the defects in the food stamp program and there are many of them, not only cost but bad management.

Interview With Reporters in Omaha.