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I think that the-- the risk to all the progress we have made was at stake in the election because not just the president-elect but a lot of members of Congress, including now the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader, have said that their principal agenda was to undo a lot of this progress. But as I have been talking about over the last several days when it comes to health care, the gains that we have made are there. Twenty million people have health insurance that did not have it before. The rise in health care costs since Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act was passed, have been at their lowest rate in 50 years. Those savings have extended the Medicare trust fund by 11 years. So we-- we have got-- we have got a baseline of facts. So it is true theoretically that all that progress can be undone, and suddenly 20 million people or more do not have health insurance. But as I think Republicans now are recognizing that is -- may not be what the American people, including even Trump voters, are looking for. And my hope is that the president-elect, members of Congress from both parties look at, Where have we objectively made progress, where things are working better? Do not undo things just because I did them. I do not have pride of authorship. I said today in a forum on health care if the Republicans can come up with a system that insures more people cheaper, better I will be the first one-- And I can tell by your smile you do not think they can do it? Well, I am skeptical that they can do it mainly because for seven years now, including when we first tried to pass health care, I said to 'em, Okay, if-- if this does not work tell me what does. In this room I remember having meetings with Republican senators who initially had been trying to engage but saw that the politics of 'no' were growing inside the Republican Party. And I remember having a conversation in the Oval Office with one of those senators who was-- was starting to get a little sheepish about what compromises might-- garner his support. And finally I asked him, Is there any changes I could make that would get you to support this? And he said, Probably not, ENTITY, which was a nice change in terms of just candor. But what-- what that means then is, is that now the burden is to take a look.

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All right, if-- if-- if-- if you think that we have overregulated in the environmental space what I can show you is that we have tripled the amount of wind power in this country, increased by tenfold the amount of solar power. We are producing as much oil and gas as we have ever produced. Gas is at two bucks a gallon. If you think you got a better idea in terms of how to approach this that is not gonna result in more pollution, and more asthma, and more illness then put your ideas out there. But do not just oppose things because, This was Obama's agenda. Well, that is what is happening at the moment. But you know, the American people-- are-- are both anxious for change. We are in a time of-- of flux. You know, the-- the globe is shrinking, the inform age-- information age is-- is bringing a lot of changes. People are anxious about their future and their children's futures. But they do not want folks to be reckless and they do not want this town to just be tit-for-tat. And-- you know, one of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency-- even though admittedly-- my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we have made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority. Even on health care what you have seen is a lot of stories surfacing lately about people who said, Well, I voted for Trump but I do not think he is really gonna take away my health care-- If in fact the Republicans make some modifications, some of which I may have been seeking previously, but they would not cooperate because they did not wanna-- make the system work, and re-label it as Trumpcare, I am fine with that. Because what I am thinking about are the millions of people, many of whom write me very personal letters-- Dear ENTITY, I did not vote for you. I was against Obamacare. And then my son who did not have health insurance signed up and we just found out that he had an illness. And thankfully he is now covered, otherwise he might not have gotten treatment and I might have lost my house.

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Dear ENTITY, You know, my husband got hooked on opioids and thank God we have coverage and were able to access substance abuse. He is clean now, he is gone back to work. You have people around the country who are benefitting from the steps that we have taken and as long as they continue to get helped, then at least I will know in my own mind that the work we did here had a lasting impact. You have often said that your toughest day in office was the day of the Newtown shootings. Toughest decision was early in my presidency when I ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. As somebody who had run to end a large troop presence overseas. Now, I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we had not been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan. And since that time we have been able to build up the Afghan security forces and stabilize it. But that was the first time in which I looked out at a crowd of West Point graduates and knew that some of those might not come back because of-- because of that decision-- How disappointing --then how disappointing is it to you that even though it is far fewer, there would still be troops in Afghanistan, still be troops in Iraq as you leave? Well, one of the things that I have learned, and I think we have all learned, is that we are not going to get the kind of decisive, permanent victories in this fight against terrorism that we would get from fighting another country. We are not going to get that MacArthur/Emperor moment, because by definition, even after decimating Al Qaeda in the Fata, even after taking out bin Laden there is still people there who have both the--the interest and the capacity if we do not maintain vigilance to strike against the United States. And these are still countries that are fragile enough that we are gonna have to partner with them in some way. But what we have done, I think, is build a model from a lot of hard lessons in Afghanistan and Iraq-- but in other places around the world, where we are working with them in an advisory capacity. It still puts burden on some troops of ours who are there as advisors and facilitators.

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But we do not have this huge footprint, we are less likely to be targeted as, you know, occupiers. And if you look at the current Mosul campaign again-- against ISIL, for example the-- the few thousand troops that we have there to support that effort allows the Iraqi military to move forward in an effective way. Now, would they do it as fast as if we had 50,000 or 100,000 Marines in there? But it does give us the ability to make sure that we are strengthening those folk who are interested in building up their countries rather than destroying them, and doing so in a way that is sustainable and does not put a constant burden on the amazing men and women that we have got in uniform. What has to be a disappointment on the home front is that-- it looks like the Democratic Party got pretty hollowed out on your watch, about 1,000 seats lost in the Congress, Senate, governors, state houses. Is that on you? I take some responsibility on that. I-- I think that some of it was circumstances. If you look at-- what happened, I came in in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And unlike FDR who waited-- well, did not take office until about three years into the Great Depression, it was happening just as I was elected. I think we did a really good job in saving this economy and putting us back on the track of growth. But what that meant is in 2010 there were a lot of folks who were still out of work. There were a lot of folks who had lost their homes or saw their home values plummet, their 401k's plummet. And we were just at the beginnings of a recovery. And the, you know, whoever is president at that point is gonna get hit and his party's gonna get hit. That then means that suddenly you have got a redistricting in which a lot of state legislatures are now Republican. They draw lines that give a huge structural advantage in subsequent elections. So-- so some of this was circumstances. But what I think that what is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I could not be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.

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Well, I think that it is something that I have an interest in. As-- as you know, George, my entire career, I started as a community organizer. Every one of my campaigns was premised on getting new people involved. And if there is a theme in my public career it is that if ordinary people get involved then good things happen. So I want to see the Democratic Party move in that direction. And what that means is that we are not just micro-targeting to eke out presidential victories; it means that we are showing up in places where right now we are not winning a lot. And if you look at sort of how politics has divided itself here in this country, the big divide right now is between urban areas, which have become increasingly Democratic, and rural or exurban areas that feel as if they are being ignored. if Democrats are not showing up in those places, even if you-- even if you are not gonna win right away but if you are not in there at least making an argument that, Hey, you know what? It is the Democrats who are trying to raise your minimum wage. It is the Democrats who are trying to make sure you got health care or that your health care costs are not killing ya. It is Democrats who were making sure that your kids are not drinking polluted water. It is Democrats who are trying to reign in the banks if they engage in excesses so that you do not end up having a problem. they are all looking down on you, they do not care about you. They are just trying to help out their various special interest constituencies, that argument ends up being successful. And so we have got to do a better job of showing up. And I was able to do that when I was the candidate. But I have not-- I have not seen or-- or presided over that kind of systematic outreach that I think needs to happen. He used it. Clare Booth Luce, the diplomat, former Congresswoman goes to him in 1962. He asks her, What is on your mind? She says, The greater the man, the easier it is to describe him in a single sentence. And she said to him, What is your sentence? I do not care what history thinks. I'd like to think that-- maybe the sentence is-- President Obama believed deeply in this democracy and the American people.

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Because-- as I reflect back on what is worked for me in this office it is been that I have -- I have gotten people who maybe did not believe in the process to get engaged. Ironically, I have even gotten the other side that maybe did not believe in the process to get engaged. I, you know, I-- I-- I am -- I gather I am the-- the father of the Tea Party. I-- I invigorated the grassroots in the Republican Party as well as the Democratic Party. So, you know, I-- if-- health care got done because there were a lot of people out there who are not professional politicians, but are citizens, who pushed for it even when the politics was hard. But did you succeed on your own terms? Back in the campaign you talked about Ronald Reagan changing the trajectory of the country, setting on a fundamentally different path. Do you think you did that? I think I did in the sense that there is a whole generation coming up behind us that was engaged, inspired, worked for change during the course of my presidency, saw what was possible. And when you look at what they believe in, when they, you look at how they value diversity, how they believe in science, how they care about the environment, how they believe in, you know, everybody getting a fair shot, how they believe in not discriminating against people for sexual orientation and you know, their belief that we have to work with other countries to create a more peaceful world and-- and to alleviate poverty, that is the majority of-- of an entire generation that is coming up behind us. Well, you know, they came out to vote for me. The next phase and this is part of what I am interested in doing after I get out of the presidency is to make sure that I am working with that next generation so that they understand you cannot just rely on inspiration. You have to be involved during midterm elections, you have to care about what happens at a school board level. You have to be involved in terms of what is happening in your local neighborhood and what issues are there. So-- so I think that there is gonna be a lot of work to do in order to consolidate the transformations that I was interested in. I think if you look at surveys and attitudes among young people, you see it. I imagine you think the presidency's something you get better at over time?

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And what put this in my mind was reading Bob Gates' memoir. And he talks about being in the meetings with you and talking about the raid on Osama bin Laden, saying, Maybe he is getting too cautious; he is been there too long. I believe in term limits for presidents because I think that there is no doubt I am a better president now than I was when I start. In fact, I-- I would argue that I-- I am the best president I have ever been over the last year or-- or two. And sustaining the energy and focus involved in doing a good job I think starts to-- starts to gets tougher the longer you do it. And-- and I think we have done a pretty good job staying in touch with the American people. But at a certain point you cannot help but lose some feel for what is on the ground because you are not on the ground and-- and-- So-- so that tells me that there is-- there-- there is a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis. And-- and that is part of what I tried to describe to my team and supporters after the election, there was a lot of disappointment. You know, I--what I have said to them is, Look, we-- we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job. I can document-- in fact, this past week we are -- we have put out memos from every agency showing what did we do. We-- we feel some pride about it. And-- and I can honestly say, George-- and I do not think there is a lot of dispute for this. You-- you can argue that we did not get everything done that we wanted to get done, but I can make a really strong argument, and I think prove, that by almost every measure the country's better off now than when I started. And so just to finish the thought, what that means then is that if we started here and we are now here, just like I described in health care, yeah, somebody comes in, they got new ideas, maybe ideas that are completely opposite of my ideas. Maybe some of it goes, maybe some of that progress goes back. Maybe they think of some things we did not think of, and so in some other areas-- we can learn something.

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But that just gives sort of the democracy an opportunity to test ideas, for those who lost to catch their breath, regain energy, reenergize themselves and then get back in the arena, and then we will make some more progress in the future. One-- one possible big exception: In the first line of your biography it is probably going to be first African-American president. The heart of your promise when you first burst on the national scene, bringing everyone together. And you look now and most African-Americans think we have gone backwards on race relations over the last eight years. What do you say to that? I-- I am absolutely convinced that race relations on the whole are actually better now than they were 20 years-- But we have greater awareness of where we are falling short than we used to. Let us just take the example of-- community police relations. I mean, the truth of the matter is that-- that the problem of police shootings and reactions in the community-- George, you and I are about the same age. I-- I think you remember what happened in Los Angeles after Rodney King, I think you remember what-- the divisions that happened after the O.J. trial. I think you -- the-- the notion that somehow any of that is new is not the case. What is true, though, is now we have got a bunch of videos that whatever side of the issue you are on, raises the temperature on these issues and makes people really focused and-- and-- and-- and trying to figure out, What exactly is this? And that is an example of something that it is not as if that is the first time that a hate crime has taken place in this country. Hate crimes have been taking place for hundreds of years in this country, but it is there on video. And the-- the-- the sort of seeing cruelty and callousness of that sort from young people is heartbreaking. And so naturally if you see a video like that you are gonna say to yourself, My God, this is horrible, and-- and rightfully so. But that allows us then to talk about how-- how-- how do we break free from those kinds of attitudes? And I think that we are in a position to continue to make progress, but it is gonna require us to both recognize what the problems are, also recognize the-- the-- the progress we have made

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During the course of my presidency crime has been the lowest it is been probably since the '60s. But you would not know it if you were watching TV or looking at the internet, and you certainly would not know it, listening to this past campaign. But overall in the country this is a much safer place than it used to be. But if you ask the average person they'd tell ya, Naw, it is much more dangerous, despite the fact that violent crime has dropped precipitously. And so we have to recognize we have got some big problems on race, just like we got still big problems on crime, just like we got big problems on just about everything. But we also have to make sure that we have -- draw confidence from the progress that we have made, 'cause otherwise, you get into this cycle of cynicism. And you are also-- and I warn young people that I interact with about this-- you get into unrealistic expectations where you think that, Oh, we are gonna eliminate racism like that. I have one final question. I have a very strong memory of your inaugural. In that moment you are walking out of the Capitol, you see them all for the first time and you kind of pause and take it all in. Do you remember what you were thinking and feeling at that moment? The first inauguration I was thinking to myself, Let us make sure I do not screw this up. JFK gave probably the greatest inauguration speech ever that first time, but I guarantee you when he first walked out there he was thinking, Goodness gracious this is-- this is-- this is big and I better be up to the task. You turned around-- --I was walking out and I decided, You know what? Let me turn back and-- and remember this. And-- and what I remember thinking at that point, having gone through both the ups and downs of my first four years, and seeing the sea of people was, What a remarkable country this is and how lucky am I that-- that we live in a place where the son of a single mom, not born into any kind of fame or fortune, in a pretty remote state somehow can end up be in a position to-- to make a difference. And at that moment, just a little under two weeks from now, when President-elect Trump finishes the oath, power passes from you to him, what emotion will you be left with?

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ENTITY, do you think it is a good idea for Prime Minister Netanyahu to sit down with Yasser Arafat personally and try to work out the problems between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Well, I think it is a good idea for him to sit down with me. And we are looking forward to it. We will be able to-we will answer your questions later. I think we should wait until after we have a chance to visit to answer questions. Has there been any progress in determining who was responsible for the terrorist action in Saudi Arabia? Well, I got an update yesterday. I do not know how to-I do not want to answer your question specifically. I feel confident that the investigation is being handled in the proper way and it is progressing. If it is state-sponsored, though, is there going to be U.S. retaliation if you can conclude that a state was responsible for this action? Let me-let us do the investigation first. Prime Minister, are you bringing the President information about Palestinian violations of the accord, sir? Prime Minister, do you think there are any Syrian links to the bombing in Saudi Arabia? Well, I thought that the President's suggestion of first investigating and then declaring may be not that frequent among political leaders, but I think it is wise. It is a wise suggestion in which I will follow. Do you have any evidence of Syrian involvement? We will answer more later. ENTITY, Secretary Perry seems to be getting a pretty tough grilling right now up on the Hill. Do you still have confidence in Secretary Perry? That is why I appointed General Downing to look at it all, to get the facts, and to evaluate the security situation there and elsewhere where our people might be at risk. And we will do a good job of that. But I think the American people recognize that, on balance, our military people have done a good job and that he is been quite a good and effective Defense Secretary. I have full confidence in him. And I believe that every fairminded person, when they look at his record, will feel the same way. Let us get everyone in first. Let me, first of all, say I am delighted to have the Prime Minister here. I have looked forward to having a chance to have this conversation. And I think that I should defer answering any substantive questions until we have a chance to visit.

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ENTITY, after the customary preliminaries of reception, invited them to be seated, when at once the conversation commenced by ENTITY informing him that they were a delegation from the State Convention of South Carolina, sent there to present certain memorials of that body. These memorials had been very carefully considered in the Convention, and he believed they told exactly the truth. ENTITY inquired the object of the memorials. ENTITY informed him that one of them was in behalf of Jefferson Davis, A. H. Stephens, George A. Trenholm and Governor Magrath. He said they had understood that by the late interference of ENTITY, Messrs. Stephens and Trenholm had already been released from close confinement and permitted to return to their homes. He would ask for Governor Magrath either a pardon or that he might be released on his parole. They could assure ENTITY no harm would result from such an act of clemency. The business must be proceeded with gradually, and an effort made to execute the law. It was a too common expression, by way of argument in regard to clemency, that such a one had been pardoned, and that he was just as bad as another who had not been pardoned. ENTITY replied that the delegation presented no such argument as that. ENTITY said sometimes the peculiar locality had much to do with pardons. Like many other things in human affairs we cannot have a fixed rule. Much depends on discretion and circumstances. If we know ourselves, we want to do what is best and just, and to show a proper degree of humanity on the part of the Government. ENTITY remarked that they had not come there to express their own hopes and desires, but as delegates from the South Carolina Convention to present the memorials of that body in a formal manner. We will, gentlemen, extend all the facilities and courtesies which the question requires. We would prefer to pardon twenty men than to refuse one. ENTITY replied, that they did not design to say anything with reference to Governor Magrath, further than that they believed much good would result by the exercise of the Executive clemency toward him. ENTITY said if they could get Governor Magrath paroled it would be a great relief to him at the present time. ENTITY thanked ENTITY for having released Messrs. Stephens and Trenholm. We have thus far, then, anticipated your memorial.

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ENTITY said Mr. Trenholm was one of their most useful men, and there was no doubt he would exert all his power with a view to entire harmony between the State and the Government. ENTITY replied that he understood that was so; adding, if treason was committed, there ought to be some test to determine the power of the Government to punish the crime. He was free to say that it was not a mere contest between political parties, or a question as to de facto governments. Looking at the Government as we do, the laws violated, and an attempt made at the life of the nation, there should be a vindication of the Government and the Constitution, even if the pardoning power were exercised thereafter. If treason has been committed, it ought to be determined by the highest tribunal, and the fact declared, even if clemency should come afterward. ENTITY remarked they were well aware of that. ENTITY resuming, said there might be some unkind feeling on this subject, but it did not exist to any great extent ENTITY said, although not instructed by the Convention, he was induced to ask whether Mrs. Jefferson Davis, who was now confined to Georgia, could not cross into South Carolina to see her friends. ENTITY replied that he had received letters from Mrs. Davis, but they were not very commendable. The tone of one of them, however, was considerably improved, but the others were not of the character beseeming one asking leniency. ENTITY interposed by saying she was a woman of strong feeling. Yes; I suppose she is a woman of strong feeling and temper, but there is no intention to persecute her. True magnanimity takes things as they are, and when taken in the proper way I disconnect them from humiliation. Manifestations of temper and defiance do no good. ENTITY remarked that the tone of the newspapers was more favorable, and different from what it was. He then asked if ENTITY had seen a copy of the amended Constitution of South Carolina. Of course he had seen they accepted emancipation. He felt perfectly satisfied that the person and property of the negro would be protected, and spoke of the great difficulties of regulating labor and restraining vagrancy, etc. ENTITY remarked that they had a deep consciousness of the truth of all president said. ENTITY, resuming, observed that the character of an individual may characterize a nation, which is nothing but an aggregate of individuals; and when a proper spirit is manifested, all can act harmoniously.

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it lifts him above humiliation. In these cases, gentlemen, we will do the best we can. While there is sympathy, there is a public judgment which must be met But, I assure you, gentlemen, no disposition exists for persecution, or thirst for blood. ENTITY thought many of the evils would disappear if they inaugurated the right system. Pass laws protecting the colored man in his person and property, and he can collect his debts. He knew how it was in the South. The question when first presented of putting a colored man in the witness stand, made them shrug their shoulders. But the colored man's testimony was to be taken for what it is worth by those who examined him, and the jury who hear it. Those coming out of slavery cannot do without work; they cannot lie down in dissipation; they must work; they ought to understand that liberty means simply the right to work and enjoy the products of labor, and that the laws protect them. That being done, and when we come to the period to feel that men must work or starve, the country will be prepared to receive a system applicable to both white and black-prepared to receive a system necessary to the case. A short time back you could not enforce the vagrant law on the black, but could on the white man. But get the public mind right and you can treat both alike. Let us get the general principles, and the details and collaterals will follow. We must be practical, and come up to surrounding circumstances. ENTITY, ENTITY and ENTITY, all expressed to ENTITY their conviction that the State had accepted in good faith the result of the issue which had been made; that the people felt that ENTITY had stood between them and a harsh use of the power of the Government; that they felt entire confidence in his purposes and actions, and hoped, in return, to entitle themselves to his confidence as to their feelings and actions. ENTITY replied, he was glad to hear it; that whenever such mutual confidence existed, there would, he thought, be an open road to the restoration of good feeling and a prosperous condition and that if he knew himself, and he thought he did, he would recommend nothing but what would advance their interests. So far from pandering or looking to future elevation, he must be believed, when he said he had not an eye single to such preferment.

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Because we have to get out now and raise our funds. And if I can do it in a regular, disciplined way, then I can maintain as much time as possible for my job even next year when the election begins. Is it hard to run a country and run for office? It is if you have to do it fulltime. And I just determined that the best thing to do would be to try to handle the fundraising in a regular way this year and try to get it out of the way so I could spend as much time as possible being ENTITY next year and defer the campaign as long as possible. Oh, so next year the campaign is going to come late to you. But what I'd like to do is to work as much as I can. Even on this trip we have done several official things. This morning I was up in San Francisco with 19 executives of major information firms announcing that we were going to provide computer hookups for all the schools in California over the next couple of years and challenging the rest of the country to follow the lead. And over the next few weeks, I will be trying to put together a national plan for this sort of thing. We know we can get computers in all of the schools, and if we can get the teachers trained, have good software , we are going to do very well, indeed. He was not, although I know him quite well, and I expect that he will be very supportive of this. Because he said recently on a show we did on television that he would be very supportive. Yes, he-I know him quite well, and we have talked about this extensively. We had lots and lots of other people there. There is a great feeling that California ought to lead the way because the State is now only 45th in students- computers per student-but they have the- they are the technological leader of the world. So I am encouraged by it. This is the audience's show, but let us cover some bases right up front. And again, I would like to put it off as long as possible. In the next 60 days, in the working out of this budget, we are going to define in some measure what our country is going to be like for the next several years.

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And I just want to continue to focus on the substance of the changes we ought to make and the values we ought to put up front in protecting families and individuals and trying to bring our country together and give people a chance to make the most of their own lives and try to write that into the budget. And I think the less politics, the less partisanship we have, the better off we are going to be. I think-you know, he is plainly the most influential and effective Vice President in the history of the country, what he is done with technology, what he is done with the environment, what he has done with reinventing the Government. We have done more than any previous administration, Republican or Democratic, to shrink the size of Government, reduce regulation, and basically make Government more entrepreneurial. And he is led that effort. And of course, he is been the leading voice in what we have done in foreign policy as well. So I am looking forward to running with him, and I like working with him. I do not even have to ask a question, I just say a name. Colin Powell-what do you make of it? Well, as you know, I have worked with him and I like him and I think he is got a very compelling life story and he is a very appealing man. I have no idea what he is going to do, and I cannot -I do not really have any influence over it. So what I have to do is-- You have to think about it, though. Believe it or not-well, and you would expect that. I mean, he is a very impressive man, and he is gotten a lot of very favorable publicity, much of it very well deserved. And so that is just a part of it. But I have no control over that. What I have to do is to do the job the people gave me. And I really believe, in the world we are living in, with so much change going on and people being bombarded from all sides with so much information, people like me who are in office should not worry so much about being popular. We ought to do what we think is right for the long run and then hope-believe the election can be our friend. Because only when the election starts do people really begin to focus on it.

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Are you, though, concerned about this apparent feeling in the country-Powell said it the other night on my television show-a plague on both the Houses, the Democrats, the Republicans. Bill Bradley is a classic example- he leaves the Senate. Both parties seem to be in disfavor. Well, I think they are in disfavor right now because the American people have seen them fighting in the Congress and they have seen few results since the last election and because in the previous election they did not understand what results had actually occurred. But if you look at the facts-first, I think there is a good chance that we will get a budget agreement that will both balance the budget, which both parties want, but which will preserve our fundamental obligations to our children in terms of education and technology in the future-- And that will change the feelings? and to the elderly in terms of having-reducing the rate at which Medicare and Medicaid grow but still not really hurting a lot of the older people of the country. If we get a good balanced budget, if we can get a decent welfare reform bill, if the people see the system working, then I think they will not have such negative feelings about both parties. But I also believe, in fairness, that the Democratic Party has done a lot of things that most Americans never thought they would. I mean, the Democrats took the lead alone in reducing the deficit from $290 billion to $160 billion a year. They passed a crime bill that increased the death penalty but also invested more in prevention, that had three strikes and you are out but also put 100,000 police on the street. The crime rate is going down in every State in the country. Well, because we still have troubles and because it is an unsettling time. If you look at what is happened all over the world, you have got this global economy that is going from an information society to a technology and- I mean, it is going from an industrial society to a technology and informational economy-- And you-look at all this, yes. And you have got-people are going to be faxing us; they are going to be E-mailing us; they are going to be doing all this stuff on the Internet. We do not have the cold war anymore, with nation-states organized in roughly two different camps. We have got instead a global economy. And the good news is you have got economic integration.

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The bad news is there is all this pressure for unsettling people's lives, whether it is people being less secure in their jobs or working harder for less or being subject to smaller fanatic groups who practice destruction like the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway or the Oklahoma City bombing or a bus blowing up in Israel. So it is a time of great ferment and upheaval where there are a lot of wonderful things going on and a lot of very troubling things going on. And the United States has-our job now, all of us in positions of authority and all of our citizens, is to embrace new ideas and change to try to create a new economy in which we can grow the middle class and shrink the under class, to try to create a social policy which rewards work and family and freedom and responsibility and to try to give us a different kind of Government that is more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic but helps people solve their own problems. Now, this has only happened-the last time this happened to this extent was 100 years ago. And it is not surprising in a period like this that people would be looking around at all their options because they think there are so many balls up in the air. So, therefore, come independent candidates and disfavor and people leaving politics. And not only that, if you have got-look, if you go home at night and you have got 40 channels on television, and they say, which would you rather have, three parties or two, you'd say three. And if you ask five or four, they might say five. But I think that if this system that we have, which has made us the oldest democracy in human history, the longest lasting one, if it produces a balanced budget with a commitment to our children and our future and being decent to the seniors on Medicare and Medicaid, if it produces welfare reform that promotes work and responsibility without hurting innocent children, if it shows that it can come to grips with the fundamental challenges of the time, then it will generate more support. If it does not solve the problems, then it will not . Would you welcome an independent candidate? Is that good for the mix? You ran against it last time. I think it depends on who the candidate is, what the person says, what the issues are. What Powell would be for? Could we elect a black President?

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Oh, I think the American people-I would hope the American people would judge any candidate based on his or her merits, without regard to race or gender. That is what I hope, and that is the America I have worked for all my life. If you look at my appointments, if you look at the policies I have pursued, that is the America I have worked for. But I think-again, I will say it takes almost all the concentration I can muster every day to do the job I was hired to do. And that is what I am going to work on. But you love it. I love it. You told me once, My bad days are good days. Yes, because of-it is an incredible gift, with all the difficulties, to be given the opportunity to meet these challenges. And as I said, I honestly believe, when the history of this era is written people will say this was the period of the biggest change in the way we work and live in 100 years. So who could not be grateful to do that for a day, a week, a month, 4 years? If I get 8 years, that is so much the better. I am working hard at it. We are going to turn it over to the public. Are you going to sign off on this welfare bill? It depends on what it looks like. The Senate bill-I still have a few problems with the Senate bill. They took a lot of the extreme, kind of right-wing ideological things out of it. They have put in a bonus for moving people to work. They require people to sign personal responsibility contracts. They have put in a lot more funds for child care so people can go to work and still be good parents. These are all ideas that I have been pressing a long time. So I like it. It really would end welfare as we know it. And I think we can make it-if we can make it a little better in conference, I will be happy to sign it. If they make it a lot worse, they could kill it. I think it would not even get back to the Senate again. Right now you are leaning toward yes? Well, right now I like a lot of-the changes in the Senate bill that were made in the last 2 weeks were very good. If that is the direction the Congress is going in, we are going to have a great welfare reform proposal. But it still could get off the track.

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I just hope they will keep going in that direction. You are listening to ENTITY with ENTITY. What have we done in the last 4 years to help the environment? We do not hear a lot about ENTITY and environment? We have, first of all, faithfully advanced the cause of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Secondly, we have done a great deal to try to promote public health in dealing with problems like the cryptosporidium problem that-that was the thing that got into the water in Milwaukee that killed all the people. We are trying to deal with that. Only you would know the actual name. We have also tried to improve public health through improving the food testing, like dealing with the problems with E. coli that caused the deaths from eating the meat. Would you say you have kept your promises? I have pushed through the California Desert Protection Act here, which was the biggest single land protection act and that kind of legislation in history. We worked very hard to solve the problems of the old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest-which the Congress has kind of messed up now-to get that out of court to protect the old-growth forests and to try at the same time to permit responsible logging. We reached an accord between the environmentalists and the farmers here in this so-called Bay Delta accord, in the farming area of California. We have worked to try to reduce the global warming and hazardous emissions through working on the clean car project with Detroit. We have supported the development of electric cars and natural gasburning cars and other things to promote clean air. Those are just some of the many things we have done in the environment. And in addition to that, I am obviously carrying on a vigorous fight now to prevent this Congress from using the budget process to undermine our ability to stick up for clean air, clean water, and the other basic environmental protections of the country. Well, I think it is a terrible mistake to neglect education funding in favor of building prisons. On the other hand, you still have to have strong criminal justice laws. The crime rate is going down in almost every State in the country-- It is not the only answer, but some people need to be sent to prison.

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Now, when we passed the crime bill last year, in addition to providing for three strikes and you are out and more funds to help States build prisons, we also gave the States and the communities of our country a good deal of money to promote prevention through education, through community activities and recreation, to give our young people something to say yes to. And in addition to that, our administration has worked very hard to give the States and the schools of this country and the young people of this country more educational opportunities, everything from getting kids off to a better start in school, to giving the school districts money for smaller classes, more computers, higher standards, to more scholarships and national service opportunities to pay for college education, to many, many more low-cost, easier repayment college loans. We have to be tough on crime, but we have to be smart about prevention and we have to continue to invest in education. You know, we have got 7 1/2 million new jobs in this country and an economic explosion by conventional measures, but half the people are still working harder for no raise. We have got to increase the skill level. So I agree with the questioner. You know, in California the cost of education has been increased so much and the funding decreased, that enrollment here has gone down in colleges by 10 percent at a time when it ought to be exploding. So I do want to reverse that, and I do think one of my fundamental obligations as ENTITY is to help our young people make the most of their own lives by getting a good education. And we cannot sacrifice that; that is the most important thing we can invest in for the future. Based on that, are you surprised that Governor Wilson got into the Presidential primaries? I have no opinion about that. Let the Republicans pick their nominees. All I am saying is, my obligation is to try to make sure that people like that caller can make the most of their own lives, and education is perhaps the critical element of that. We have an E-mail question. By the way, do you expect it to be Bob Dole? One of the things I learned is that you cannot predict, just as nobody predicted that much that I would be nominated and elected. I am going to be ENTITY, work on being ENTITY, and let them make their own decision. With Mexico in an economic and social tailspin, is NAFTA dead or jeopardized? And let me tell you why.

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NAFTA gives us a chance to have more access to Mexican markets and not to have a permanent trade deficit with Mexico just because their wages are lower than ours. In the first year of NAFTA's existence, we had a huge surplus with Mexico and generated many thousands of jobs. The truth is that the Mexicans expanded too quickly, borrowed too much money, and got in trouble. But now, under President Zedillo, they are slowly working their way back into a stable situation. Over the long run, NAFTA means more opportunities for Americans to sell products that bring higher wages to our workers, it means more stability in Mexico, it means less illegal immigration, it means better partnerships in Mexico and in Canada and then throughout Latin America for the long run. We have to make these decisions in this period of change not just on what might be good next month but on what will be good for America 10 or 20 or 30 years from now, and I am convinced that NAFTA and the GATT world trade agreement will be very good for America over the long run. A report just in, , from Reuters, that all the factions in Bosnia are going to meet in New York this week. What can you tell us? We just released that information, I think, from our plane. Ambassador Holbrooke, who is handling those negotiations for me, has been working very hard. I believe that a combination of factors, including the firm resolve of our NATO allies in the United Nations in stopping the siege of Sarajevo with the air campaign, some changes on the ground there in Bosnia, and the willingness of parties to work with Mr. Holbrooke and with our partners in Europe in Russia to get a negotiated settlement, give us some hope. Now, I want to caution everybody, this is Bosnia, and it is tough. But I feel better than I have in a long time. Well, they are coming to New York, as I understand it, in part for the United Nations. So it is convenient for them, and it is good for us. So we will be working- we talked for a long time today. I talked with the Secretary of State and my National Security Adviser and Mr. Holbrooke; we had an extended talk and we agreed on what the agenda was going to be, and I feel good about the process. But I want to caution the American people, this is Bosnia, we have got a long way to go. Are you hands-on in this?

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Yes, I have been very involved in it, and I feel that we are doing the right thing and we have a chance to put an end to the misery and to limit once and for all the possibility that this could spread into a wider war that can involve our people. This is the ENTITY special on Westwood One, if you have just joined us, with the ENTITY of the United States. Let us knock everything off. Well, let me first of all say that we have been doing a version of that. When we took the deficit from $290 billion down to $160 billion in the first three budgets that I was involved with, the first time since President Truman was office that we had a three-yearin-a-row reduction of the deficit, we eliminated hundreds of programs, we cut others, and we cut domestic discretionary spending and defense spending in the aggregate and then tried to make our priorities within them. Now what we are trying to do is to agree on a timetable for going to zero, and instead of- we are cutting categories, if you will, as you suggest. But within those categories, I still believe we ought to preserve our commitment to education, to technology, to research and development, to the things that will generate the jobs and the opportunities of the future for Americans, because that is an important value. But we are doing, in general terms, what you suggest. The reason you cannot take the politics out of it is because there is so much difference between the various Members of Congress and the administration on what should and should not be funded. But I do believe that what we need is an automatic mechanism to say that if in any year we miss our deficit reduction targets, then there will be some sort of across-the-board cut. Now, that is what we did when I was a Governor, and it worked very well. So I'd like to see us make our priority decisions now over the next 60 days, and then say if, in these years, these out-years we miss it and we have a bigger deficit than we thought, then there ought to be some sort of across-the-board shaving so that we can keep faith with the American people and take that process out of politics. Someone by fax wants to know where you draw the line in sand? What would you definitely veto that is a Republican proposal? Well, I have issued a lot of those things.

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The veto threats, if you will, or veto notices, I do not want this balanced budget process to be a pretext for destroying our ability to protect clean air and clean water. I do not want the balanced budget process to lead to massive cuts in our efforts to give our young people a chance to make the most of their own lives through education investments. And I do not want the balanced budget to be a pretext for really hurting the elderly, the disabled, and the poorest children in this country with excessive reductions in Medicare and Medicaid just to meet the 7-year target and mostly to meet this very large tax cut that benefits the upper income people like you and me who really have not asked for it. Now, I think we can have a tax cut targeted to the childrearing and to education and still balance the budget in a timely fashion. But we should not just jerk the rug out from under the health care of the most vulnerable people in this country. Have you asked Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich about the conference committee on the line-item veto? And what do they say? We have less than a minute because I have got to get an on-time break here. and they had the Congress so they were in charge of the spending, they did not want to give me the line-item veto. So you think there is no doubt it is just deliberate because of ENTITY? Well, I do not even know if they'd do that. They have got the Congress, and so now they like the spending. When they were in the minority, they liked the line-item veto. I have been consistent on this. I have always believed in the line-item veto. It imposes some discipline on the process. It is not a cure-all, but it gives you much more discipline. We have more to come. We are going to take a break, and then when we come back, more from ENTITY, more E-mail, more faxes overseas, in the United States, phone calls, et cetera, in this kind of historic town meeting. This in Westwood One, and you are listening to ENTITY with ENTITY. I guess this is from America Online. Due to the fiasco surrounding the O.J. Simpson trial, what is its effect on the American justice system? How do you see that trial-they are going into the jury next week? Well, I think it depends in part on things that still have to happen.

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But I would hope neither the American people nor our friends in the United Kingdom would judge the American justice system entirely on this trial, because the facts are so unusual. First of all, the trial was televised, which I think contributed to the circus-like atmosphere and some of the developments. You are opposed to televising? Well, I just think that you run a serious risk when you do it in a high-profile trial. Secondly, you had a very excellent defense, and you have had a lot of-in terms of-and they are famous, they are well-known, and they are able. And then you had all these extraneous elements coming in that do not normally come in a murder trial. So I would just say, we should be hesitant to recommend sweeping changes in the American justice system based on this trial, which is unlike any one in my experience. As an Attorney General in-which you were in Arkansas-- Did you ever have a televised trial? And I just think-on balance-I think all criminal trials can be heavily covered in the press and then reported on by television. But I think on balance, you run the risk of having more derailments and distractions if you have televised trials. Yes, we have got problems there, do not we? And it is a much more rare occurrence in Japan, unfortunately, than it is here But I would say to you that we will first of all make it clear that the United States deeply regrets the incident, that we do not condone any misconduct or any abuse of the Japanese people. We think that anybody who violates any laws should be treated accordingly. But we have been a good partner with Japan. And even though we have had some differences over trade matters, for example, when we had to have a real conflict over the treatment of automobiles and the auto parts, the Japanese are a great democracy and a strong ally for us, and our forces have been there now for quite a long time in genuine partnership. So if they think there is any kind of procedures we ought to take to improve things, we obviously are open to that. But I think as long as they know that we are not turning a blind eye to this, that we are outraged, that our heart goes out to them, they know that we have been a good partner and we respect them and we will continue to be. Is Vice President Mondale doing a good job of being up front with the Japanese?

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I think it is fair to say that he has exceeded the expectations even of his biggest fans in both showing the Japanese that we are deeply committed to our friendship and partnership with them and that we respect them in every way but that there must be some changes in our trading relationship. He has been very tough and very strong and, at the same time, very supportive of them. He is struck just the right balance. Well, it was a decision that we made together. Everybody said that it was bad politics- the people who said that if she went it would be condoning their human rights record and then if she went and said it was strong, that she would upset our developing relationship with the Chinese. But I felt that she has invested so much of her life in the welfare of women and children in our country and then around the world, and I thought that she could speak for our American values and about conditions that exist, not only in China but in other countries, even here in the United States, that are bad for the future of women and little girls-that it would be a good thing. And I think now everyone sees that it was a wonderful thing for our country and for the cause of freedom and human rights around the world. I am sitting in an office in the middle of our farmyard in the middle of North Dakota. The information highway is open to us, but the long-distance charges are much too heavy. Can we expect equal access for rural America in the future? That is one of the things that we have worked very hard on. The Vice President and I strongly feel that we have got to have equal and affordable access, whether people are isolated in rural areas or whether they are low-income people in innercities or whether they are small business people or people in schools and hospitals and libraries. And so one of the things that we are looking for, for example, in this telecommunications bill is a bill that will guarantee genuine competition to bring prices down and the quality and variety of services up. Rural America actually is in a position perhaps to benefit more than any other part of America by putting America into the information superhighway because you can bring all-everything to the smallest rural hamlet in North Dakota or in North Arkansas. It is going to be a big issue in the telecommunications bill, and it will continue to be a big issue for us. And I do believe the answer to your question is, I think this will be like all technology.

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I think the more of it there is, and the more competition there is, the lower your prices will be. In that regard, this legislation might remove all ownership restrictions for radio and television, meaning we could own anything in any amount. Do you favor it? Now there are restrictions now on how many-what percentage of the national television stations you can own-it is at 35 percent, I think-but the present bill has no restrictions in local markets. You could own five stations. Well, no, you could own two television stations, the radio stations, and the town newspaper. You are against that. I am against that. You might say, well, look at Los Angeles, we have so many television stations, but most places have three television stations, a handful of radio stations, and one newspaper. So I think the local concentration provisions ought to be changed before they send the bill to me. You got into criticizing Calvin Klein. I have no judgment about whether whatever they did violated the law. The crime rate's coming down, and the murder rate's coming down Drug use by people 18 to 34 is coming down. But violent crime among people between the ages of 12 and 17 is going up, casual drug use between-about people between 12 and 17 is going up. And these young people, in their most vulnerable years, trying to come to grips with their physical developments, with their intellectual challenges, where the world may seem bewildering to them, I just do not think they ought to be used as commercial objects. I do not think you ought to put teenagers out there selling jeans where you show their underwear. And basically, you send a message to all these kids out there that are struggling to try to come to grips with the world that what is really important is how they look in jeans and whether they can show their underwear and whether they can basically be sex objects when they are teenagers. And it was an emotional, visceral reaction on my part. It has nothing to do with the law. And I think the American people are going to have to reassert some things are important-more important than commerce, and the welfare of children is one of them. And speaking of nothing to do with the law, was Senator Dole also right in his criticism of what some of the things Hollywood turns out? And I know you are supported here very well-tonight there is going to be a gala with a lot of those people there.

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Yes, but I think that the general comments he made were correct; the specific ones I do not have a judgment about. That is, the general thrust of saying that we need more sensitivity on the part of everybody in our culture-all the cultural influences in society, not just movies and not just records but all cultural influences in terms of the welfare of our children and their future, I think that is accurate. Now, having said that, let me remind you that this was an issue that I raised before when I was Governor in the 1992 campaign. In '93, instead of attacking Hollywood, I came to Hollywood and challenged the people here-and in television, which I think is a bigger problem just because kids watch more of it-to join with me in trying to deal with this issue. And one of the things that came out of that meeting- and I want to compliment the networks on this-I think the major networks and I believe Fox was involved with this-commissioned UCLA to do an annual study of the violent content of television programs. And UCLA recently issued their first report. So that is something positive that the networks are doing. Now we will have to see-will they act on those reports. But again, you do not want laws. No, I am not interested in censorship. What I am interested in is asking all of us in American society to be accountable for what we do. The more freedom you have, the more responsibility you have to exercise, in any area of life. And I think these things should become open for public debate, not because we want to gag people with laws, not because we want to be unrealistic but because our children, large numbers of our children are in deep trouble, and we all ought to be trying to rescue as many of them as we can and give them a good start in life. You are listening to ENTITY with ENTITY. Brandon, I'd say you are off to a good start just the way you handled the question. I want to compliment you for calling in and-- By the way, it is appropriate because the ENTITY planned on being ENTITY when he was 6. It is not so, but it is not too soon for you to think about it. I think you should- I would give you just a little simple advice. Number one, I think you should devote yourself to learning as much as you can in school. Learn as much as you can in school.

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Number two, I think you should try to make friends with and understand all different kinds of people because in a democracy like America, many different kinds of people make up our country and get to vote. And number three, when you are old enough, I think you should start to work for people you believe in in elections and learn how the election system works. So I would do those things. If you like people and you understand them, if you learn a lot in school and you develop your mind, and then you understand how the political system works, you might grow up to be ENTITY. Have we redressed that grievance? Well, it is interesting that you would ask that because I have-our administration has spent a great deal of time with the Native American tribes. And we now recognize in our country a government-to-government relationship with the American Indian tribes. We are trying to do things that recognize their integrity, that recognize their right to exist, their right to make many autonomous decisions, and that give them more support in trying to become more independent and to overcome some of the economic and other problems they have. since James Monroe in the 1820's to do that. So we are working on having the right kind of relationship with the Native Americans, and I think we are making some good progress. And I hope we will not see that progress reversed in this Congress. Before we take the next call, if we can capsulize it, what is happening today with Medicare? I presented a balanced budget that balanced the budget in 10 years and had a smaller but still sizable tax cut than the Republican congressional cut. Mine was basically targeted to middle income people to help them raise their kids and to deduct the cost of education after high school. They presented a 7 year balanced budget with a $250 billion tax cut and then basically made an arbitrary decision that they had to cut Medicare and Medicaid. Together, they had to reduce that spending by $450 billion over the next 7 years. With regard to Medicare, the problem with that is if you try to reduce it that much you either have to take so much out of the hospitals and doctors and other Medicare providers that you run the risk that they will not stay in the program or cannot stay afloat, or you have to excessively increase premiums and copays and other costs for seniors. And keep in mind, threequarters of our seniors live on less than $24,000 a year.

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So what I am trying to do is to find some common ground with the Republicans to say we have to bail out the Medicare Trust Fund and lengthen its life. We have to slow the rate of medical inflation, but your cuts are simply too big and will cost too much hardship for the seniors of this country or to the health care system. Are they going to change them? Well, we are trying to find a way to work through to an agreement. There are lots of possibilities, and you know, the details are probably too complicated to go into here now. But that is basically the difference between us. And I am working hard to-because Medicare is a program that has integrity, it works, but it needs to be preserved for the future. May I ask if you are confident that we are going to see a compromised Medicare bill? I believe the chances are 50/ 50 or slightly better that we will ultimately reach a good faith agreement which balances the budget, preserves the integrity of Medicare and Medicaid, increases our investment in our children's future, and protects our environment. In other words, what is this? Or raising money. Yes, I have been doing fundraisers, and I have made addresses. But even the speeches I have given at my fundraisers have been reasonably nonpolitical, and then I am mostly trying to explain to the American people what I think we are going through right now and how I think we need to embrace new ideas based on old-fashioned American values and try to come together. I am really doing my best to see the American people go beyond partisanship to reach some common ground. Does the party pay, then, for part of this trip? Well, my campaign pays for all-if I do anything political, my campaign pays 100 percent of it. The taxpayers cannot pay for it. They do not pay for it. So even if you work 5 hours and you do politics 6 hours, politics pays? Unless I take a separate and distinct trip that is solely for the purpose of dealing with an issue before my job. Like the other day, for example, I flew to Colorado to do a fundraiser. My campaign paid for that. I left and went to another small town that was completely an educational event, and that was a public part of my job. What have you learned?

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Well, I think the most significant thing I have learned is that the ENTITY- being ENTITY and being an effective ENTITY and a good leader for our country is about more than actually what you accomplish. It is about more than the bills you pass in Congress or the executive actions you take. It is also about the words that you say and how you say them. And I have learned that, for example, the ENTITY has to be much more careful, much more clear, much more unambiguous than, for example, a Governor can in discussing an issue. And I am much more, I think, sensitive to the impact of my words and the way the decisions are made and the way they are communicated to the American people since Washington is so far from Boulder, Colorado, and all the other places that have called in today. And I think that giving the American people the understanding that we are making the decisions based on my convictions about American values, even though I know some of my decisions, whether it is to go into Haiti or to take on the NRA over the assault weapons ban or to take on the cigarette companies on teen smoking, may be wildly unpopular in the short run-I am trying to do things that are good for the long run. And I think I have to communicate to the American people clearly what the basic values are that animate my decisions and why I am doing this even though it may be unpopular because I think it will be good for the country over the long run. And that is a real lesson I had to learn, because when you are Governor, being Governor is more about whether you accomplish things and what you actually do in terms of the day-to-day work. Now, that is very important for a ENTITY, but very often it is almost impossible for people even to keep up with that until the election starts. So I have learned that. And if I were to win another term, I would try constantly, because I believe we are in a period of historic change, as I said earlier, to bring the American people together around shared values and a willingness to take bold steps and embrace new ideas even if they seem to be unpopular in the moment. By the way, you will be participating in many debates in this campaign? We can count on it. I believe the ENTITY should be accountable, and I think debates are a good way to do it. So I have always been willing to do that. Basically I would be opposed to those changes.

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Our education budget preserves the commitment to special-needs children. My Domestic Policy Adviser, Carol Rasco, has a child who is almost-about grown now. But he had cerebral palsy. I have known him since he was 5. And I watched him come up through our public schools and develop and flower and get to the point where he could live in his own apartment. My college roommate for 4 years adopted a special-needs child. And I think the commitment of our Nation to let every child live up to the fullest of his or her own ability is something that we should not abandon. And we do not have to abandon it to balance the budget. Well, as you know, I believe the tobacco industry has made two great mistakes in the last several years. First of all, it is now clear that at least a couple of the big companies have been aware for years that tobacco was both addictive and harmful and that it was concealed. And secondly, it is clear that many of the tobacco companies definitely market to teenagers to get more customers because they lose customers every year even though it is illegal to sell cigarettes to teenagers, I think, in every State in the country. So I would like to see a firm effort against teen smoking. I do not really care, as I made it clear, whether the FDA does it or whether the Congress does it by law. But if the Congress does it by law, I expect them to adopt all the restrictions in substance that we have recommended. Now, many Congressmen are very loath to take on the tobacco companies because they are very wealthy, they have massive informational capacity to communicate to smokers, they have the ability to incite, inflame, and terrify the tobacco farmers who are really good, oldfashioned American hard-working people but who can be frightened by the tobacco companies. And so they do have a lot of influence, and frankly, all my political advisers told me that it was bad politics to take on the tobacco companies and there was a reason why no other living ENTITY had ever done it and that it was dangerous. But we had evidence that for 30 years companies had known that tobacco was addictive and dangerous and that 3,000 kids start smoking a day and 1,000 kids will have their lives ended sooner because of it. So if we can save 1,000 kids a day, that is worth a lot of political damage to me.

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I think it is the right thing to do, and I hope they will not have so much influence in Congress that they will try to undermine this important effort. Should it come under the FDA? It should come under the FDA unless Congress is willing to write these requirements into law. Now, the FDA itself, Dr. Kessler said he did not care about regulating tobacco. If Congress would take the things we want to do and put it into law, the FDA would lose jurisdiction. They would not be able to do it on an ongoing basis, but the benefit we would get is then the move against teen smoking would begin right away whereas tobacco companies can tie us up in court for a while otherwise. So the FDA head, Dr. Kessler, has said that he will do it either way. But he would gladly give up jurisdiction to the Congress if, but only if, the Congress would take the same tough stand that we have recommended. Well, we are all over the board today. I believe on balance that both NAFTA and GATT will be a major boon to American agriculture. I was just out in California meeting with a lot of farmers there. And virtually all of them talked about how much stronger agriculture was as a result of it. With regard to NAFTA and Mexico, some of our livestock people have been concerned about how NAFTA would play and whether it would hurt them. With the GATT agreement, which is a worldwide trade agreement, there is no question that our farmers will be better off because other countries subsidize their farmers more than we subsidize ours. So if everybody has to reduce subsidies to an equal basis, American farmers will come out way ahead because we have the best, most competitive, most productive farmers in the world. If we can get a decent farm bill out of the Congress, that is, one that continues to reduce the cost of the farm programs but does not take us out of global competition and does not really wreck the family farm, then I think the future of agriculture is bright. In fact, I think we may have seen a bottoming out of the number of farmers. We may see the same or even a larger number of farms in the years ahead because global population would probably outstrip the ability of other countries to produce food. So farming should do very well in America for the next 20 or 30 years if we have a good farm bill and if these trade agreements are faithfully followed by all the countries.

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What did you think of what the Post and Times did? I might add, the FBI praised them today. Just for the reason that the caller said, I thought it took a lot of real courage on the part of the Post and Times to do what they did because our country has basically taken a very hard line in not cooperating with terrorists of any kind, not being blackmailed and not being subject to blackmail. The FBI recommended to the Attorney General, and she recommended to the Post and Times, after careful consideration, that they publish this for two reasons. One is they really felt, based on the best psychological profile they had of the Unabomber, that he would honor his commitment and stop killing people, stop trying to kill people. And secondly, they felt that the publication of the document, if it could be widely read, might actually help Federal authorities who have been looking for this person for nearly 20 years now, to identify a range of potential suspects. And they thought that this was not like, you know, like asking for a million dollars or asking to swap hostages or anything like that. So it was for that reason, with great reluctance, that the FBI recommended, that the Attorney General recommended, and that the Times and the Post did it. And you agree with it? I do agree with it under these circumstances. I sympathize with the comments of the gentleman that just called in. Our basic policy is strictly to not cooperate with terrorists of any kind. But under these circumstances, this narrow case, I think the Post and the Times did the right thing. And I appreciate the risks that they took with their journalistic integrity and with their principles to try to save lives and help us to finish this case. Do you plan to read Colin Powell's book? You know, I was kind of hoping he'd send me an autographed copy. I have not gotten one yet, but I was kind of hoping he would. He is autographed every other one in America. He might as well send one to you. By the way, would you-I know this happened once with Mr. Gingrich in New Hampshire. Would you sit down with Colin Powell and Ross Perot and others who are critical and semicritical-- I know you like-discussions in the White House.

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It is election day, and you know, they give frequent flyer miles on Air Force One, you are going to get a free trip to anywhere. But you know, I had to take that very important trip to the Middle East, and when I came back, a lot of our candidates asked me to get out there and campaign, including Governor Cuomo, so I tried to do all I could to make the best argument for why we are moving our country in the right direction and we do not want to go back to the policies that failed us before in the eighties. So this morning I am just taking a last opportunity to encourage the American people to go out and vote, to make their voices heard today. The stakes in this election are quite high, as they always are in any midterm election, but especially in this one. So I hope the people within the sound of my voice will exercise their citizenship today and get out there and vote. Interesting contrast for you; maybe you can talk about it for just a second, between the events of the Middle East and our political system and the fact that the peace treaty signing coming so close to our election. Well, of course, we have been working on that very hard for a couple of years. It is just a coincidence that it came as close as it did to our election. But I would hope that it would remind the American people of the great potential of this country and the greatness of this country. And I hope it would keep our people in a positive frame of mind. One of the unfortunate aspects of so much of modern campaigning is that the negative tends to outweigh the positive, and the negative television ads, the whole business about the tone and tenor of our elections. This is actually quite a great country with a great past and an even greater future if the people who are going to be affected by it will invest in it and vote for it and vote for people who will build the country, not just place blame, vote for people who will keep moving us into the future. That is really the lesson of the Middle East, that people want the United States involved in the peacemaking and the problem solving of the world, whether in the Middle East or in Haiti or Northern Ireland, just to name three, because they think we have a good system and that we are a good people. And sometimes I think we forget it, and we need to remember it. We can go out, be heard, and make a difference.

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As a man that has spent his entire life in politics, how do you define politics? Is it program or is it more the essence and the basics of hope, security, fulfillment? I think giving voice to people's hopes to getting people together, giving energy to other people is very important. So much of what we do down here in Washington basically is an effort to empower people to take responsibility for their own lives. There are not so many things that the Government does directly. I mean, we pay for medical care for the elderly through Medicare. We finance the Social Security system. We run a wonderful National Park System. the student loan program, the Head Start program, the crime bill which enables the city of New York to hire more police officers and have programs for kids to keep them out of trouble. All these things basically give people in their individual, family, or community lives the ability to take responsibility for themselves. So part of it is programs, but a lot of it is setting the right tone and the right direction, looking to the future all the time. This country is always at its best when it is coming together and moving to the future. I hear a frustration in your voice about the mood of the country, the cynicism, the negative advertising that is taking place on all sides in the past weeks. I think it has too much sway over our national life, but I think our communications in general with one another are too negative these days. We ought to be having more honest conversations with one another and doing less verbal bomb-throwing. I think the American people are frustrated by it, and that is why I hope that there will be a good turnout today for candidates like Mario Cuomo who have essentially been a positive force throughout their public careers. Because it is just so easy to give in to the kind of pounding-attack communications that tend to dominate not just the elections but often the daily communication of our public life. And it is not a very good way to run a railroad or a country, and we are better than that. And whatever happens today in these elections, I am going to be determined over the next few years to try to lift our country out of that. Along those lines, if, as predicted by some, the Republicans gain control of the Senate, will your agenda for the next couple of years have to change? No, but I will have to have more responsible bipartisan efforts on all parts.

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ENTITY, minors buy one billion packs of cigarettes a year. How are you going to make not smoking and quitting smoking cool and attractive to young people? Well, I think we have to do several things. I think, first of all, the Government's responsibility is to make sure that the young people understand that it is addictive and dangerous and can kill them and that about one-third of the young people who start smoking every day-about 1,000 people a day, young people, start smoking who will have their lives shortened because of it. Then the third thing we have to do is make it less attractive, that is, we need to change the advertising and limit the ability of advertising to be a lure. We had a young teenager in here who was part of an antismoking group yesterday who said to me-I was so touched-she said, We look at these TV ads, she said, these girls smoking, they are always tall; they are always thin; they always have long hair; they are always pretty. She said, It is just like when the boys who are young see a movie star holding a gun. And it was shocking what she said. And then what we want the tobacco companies to do is to spend some money on an affirmative strategy to put out positive messages-over MTV, for example-about how it is cool not to smoke instead of to smoke. So I think you make it less accessible, less attractive, and then put out a positive message. And of course, we need a lot of help. We need people like you to do programs like this, and every parent in this country needs to talk to their children-all the parents need to talk to their children about it, because we now have done 14 months careful research and we know how damaging this is, and we know that the tobacco companies know how damaging it is from their own files. We have got to do something about it. Do you worry about making smoking more enticing by making it more forbidden to young people? I think that is always a concern; there could be some of that. But the staggering magnitude of the damage that it is doing is so great, I think if young people really understand how dangerous it really is and all the things that can happen to them and how it can affect their future, I do not think it will be more glamorous. You know, though, what kids are going to say.

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In a time where they are growing up and sex is associated with ENTITY, alcohol with drunk driving, going out late at night you could be shot, it is very violent, smoking during your adolescence almost seems like a lesser evil. I know it does, but in some ways it is the thing that puts the most at risk over the long run. And we have to do something about the other things, too. I have fought very hard to get the assault weapons out of the hands of gang members, to pass the Brady bill, to put more police officers on the street. The crime rate is going down in almost every-almost every big city in this country, the crime rate is going down. We have to-we are doing a better job trying to keep big shipments of drugs out of the country. We are working hard on that. On alcohol, it is less accessible than cigarettes. It is still a problem, but I want a zero tolerance drunk driving law for young people in every State in the country or here in the Congress. But the cigarettes-the magnitude of the damage caused is greater than all of that right now. And we just have to focus on it. I know it-because there normally is a period of several years between the time you start and keep smoking and the time you face the consequences, and when you are young you think you are going to live forever I know that it is going to be harder to get young people to focus on that. There is a lot of destructive behavior in America we need to attack at the same time, and I just think that we can get these numbers way, way down. You gave the number-a billion packs of cigarettes or a billion cigarettes a year-we can get that way down. And when we do, we will get the life expectancy of these young people and their quality of life way up. Did you ever experiment with cigarettes as a teen? Did you go through that phase? She smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day until my daughter got her to quit for her 8th birthday. When my daughter turned 8, her grandmother gave her that for a present. So I had a bad feeling about it from childhood. But it was only because of that. I am sure I would have done it otherwise. Why were you savvy enough to have a bad feeling about it? You did not like the smell of the house, or you did not like-- Yes, I did not like the smell in the house.

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And I thought it was-it struck me as a bad habit, kind of a nervous habit, a reliance. And I had a feeling that it was not good for her health. What would you say to Chelsea if you saw her fall under peer pressure of some of her friends and start smoking or if you found ashes in her bedroom in an ashtray or something? I would talk to her about it and tell her I thought it was a bad idea. She is the most militant person in our house, though. She and Hillary are always on me. You know, as I confessed yesterday, I still, once in a great while, maybe five, six, seven times a year, will smoke a cigar when I am outside. And I have got to do better with it. But if they see me chewing one on the golf course or something, they are on me. So my family is doing a better job with it than I am. Some kids I talk to said that nothing but an outright ban on cigarettes would deter them. Because cigarettes are just as deadly, if not more so, for adults. You have to go through all the same problems we went through with prohibition with liquor. It would have significant economic dislocations for a large number of Americans. And I think as a practical matter, because so many adults are, in effect, hooked on it, it would be very, very difficult to enforce. What I want to do is to phase it out over time by getting-if young people stop using cigarettes-if we could get young people, the usage down to zero, then eventually it will phase out. I think we just have to start with our young people. I do not think that. Most of them-a lot of them come from families that have been doing it 100, sometimes 200 years. I think some of these companies have known for a long time, according to their own documents, that nicotine was both addictive and destructive. And they have-insofar as they have pretended that they did not know that, that is wrong. I think some of these companies have said, we do not want teenagers to smoke, but they have consciously directed their advertising strategies to make it appealing to young people and not just Joe Camel, which was obvious, but a lot of other things as well. And what I want the tobacco companies to do is stop doing the wrong thing and start doing the right thing. I think they ought to come in here and support this-these restrictions.

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I think they ought to ask Congress to enact them into law now. If they do not want the FDA to regulate them, let us enact the law now. And I think that we ought to start the very next day on this campaign together. If the tobacco companies really do not want kids to smoke, we can do this together. Are you going to try to bring back the cigarette tax? California has had a lot of success with that in their State. Well, this Congress would not adopt that. I have had a number of people who've come from tobacco countries suggest that some of the cigarette tax ought to be devoted to helping the farmers who want to convert their farmland to other purposes, to some sort of buy-out program. But I think that right now what we ought to do is-the bulk of the cigarette tax is available to the States, and a lot of the States now are passing cigarette taxes to help to pay for the health care bills of people who are suffering from tobacco-related illnesses. And I do not want to see the Congress and the Federal Government crowd that out. So when I proposed a tobacco tax before, it was to pay for health care. Right now, advertising is written off as a business expense, and that means the public pays in some fashion for all advertising, including cigarette advertising. Would you consider getting rid of the tax deduction for cigarette advertising? You are the first person who is ever suggested it to me. I'd never though of that. So I will give you a few minutes to absorb it, and I will come back. I have never thought of that. Because I think a lot of people would be offended by the idea of paying for an unhealthy product to advertise and garner more smokers through it. But I will let you dwell on it. Not only do you want to regulate tobacco products, but you are also in favor of regulating how they are marketed. When a musician sits down to talk with me and they are smoking a cigarette, should I not air that footage on MTV? Should I ask Keith Richards to put out his cigarette before he does an interview with me? Should this go for all television? Because of lot of young people watch MTV. I think you should ask him to put it out because I think there are a lot of young people-- And I know he is an icon-for me, too. I do not know if he-his heart might stop if he does not have a cigarette.

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That is the great thing about their endurance, you know. But that is a decision that each network, each interviewer, they will have to make. I believe very strongly in the first amendment and the right to free speech, free association, and freedom of religion. I believe in a very broad interpretation of it. But I believe that we should be restricting advertising directed at children because it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children. So, therefore, if it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children, it cannot be illegal to stop the advertising directed at children. In terms of the interviews and everything, I would hope every American adult, even those who smoke, would think, as I had to when I became ENTITY and I had this occasional bad habit of having my cigar once in a while, I would hope they would think about not doing it in public, not doing it around children, not setting a bad example. I think we adults have a responsibility to try to set a good standard for our young people and to basically say everybody's got a lot of problems, but being self-destructive is not a way to deal with them. ENTITY, I want to say this as politely as I can, but I think a lot of our viewers are going to be wondering why should they listen to you about this issue? Well, they do not have to listen to me about this issue. What we are going to do is change the law. But I will tell you why they should listen to me or to anybody else. I would say that if they wanted to listen to me, do not listen to me, look at the medical research, look at the evidence. This is about their lives, not mine. I have lived most of my life. Their lives are ahead of them. And the reason they should listen to me is that the evidence is on my side, not just because I am ENTITY. We know that nicotine in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is addictive, is destructive, and will shorten the lives of one out of three people who start smoking on a regular basis. We know that. So what they should do is say, Okay, here is the evidence; now, what kind of life do I want to live? Ultimately, it is going to be their decision, because even if the law keeps cigarettes away from them in the near-term, soon they will turn 18, and they will be able to do whatever they want to do. They have to make these decisions.

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But I think-my job, what I am trying to do here every day and with the economy, with saving the college loan program, with trying to preserve the environment from this awful assault that the Congress is making on it , is to give the young people of our country a good country to grow up into and a good life to look forward to. Then they have to make a decision about how to live that life. And what those of us who are older are supposed to do is to say here is what we think will maximize your choices. Here is what we think will give you the chance to live up to the fullest of your abilities. And that is what I hope they will listen to, because the evidence is on my side. I am not just preaching here, I have all this evidence. It is not like you do not have enough things to do already. Everything I try to do here, if you look at-let us just take trying to save the college loan program from attack and trying to preserve the environmental protections we have in this country. Why would I do that? Because I want my child and our grandchildren and all the young people coming up to enjoy a good life. That still requires all these individuals who are watching us to make decisions about how they are going to live. And being addicted to tobacco is not a smart thing to do if you want to have a long, full, good life. It is a huge roll of the dice. I never will forget a few years ago having to speak at the funeral of a very close friend of mine, a man that had literally no other vices. He was one of the most perfect human beings I ever knew. But he smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day, and he died of lung cancer 2 1/2 years after he had his last cigarette because it takes that long to clean out your lungs. And he was younger than me. I never got over it. I never will get over it. While I have you, there are a couple of other issues I wanted to ask you about that are important to young voters, in addition to smoking and their health, which you sort of rattled off very quickly. First, though, the woman best known as Jane Roe, whose struggle to obtain an abortion led to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, has come out against anything but first trimester abortions. How big a blow do you feel this is to the pro-choice movement?

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Well, as I understand it, she is gone through a number of changes in her life and had a serious religious conversion and believes that abortion is wrong now. The rule of Roe v. Wade is it permits everybody in America to make that same decision. That is, I think there are too many abortions in America. I have always believed that abortion should be rare but that they should be safe and legal until the third trimester when the child can live outside the mother's womb. If somebody has not made the decision by then, unless the life of the mother's in danger, I think they should be illegal, and they were in my State. But I think that leaving the decision to the woman and her doctor and whoever else she wishes to consult, I think on balance is still the right decision in our country. And that makes it possible for people like this woman to make up her own mind and to have her own convictions and then try to persuade other people that she is right. It leaves her free to say, My religious conviction is what is right for all of you; I hope you will follow me. People can do that. And we have a very vibrant, as you know, pro-life movement in this country of people trying to convince other people of that all the time. But we do not say to people who disagree that we are going to criminalize your conduct until the child can live outside the mother's womb. And I think, on balance, that is the right position for our country, and I would stick with it. Since abortion is under such attack in Congress, do you think that you should be doing more to support the pro-choice movement? Well, I do not know what else I can do. I am doing-I think I am doing everything I can. I have resisted the attempts in the Congress to take away the rights of choice to women in the service, to women who work for the Federal Government. And I hope we can beat it back because I think it is -I do not think that is the right thing to do. I do not think the law here is the way to resolve all these problems. You have used executive actions in the first 2 years of your Presidency for issues like abortion. And in recent months, with the Republican majority, you have turned to them more frequently, the regulation of teenage smoking being the most recent one. Do you feel like you are subverting the will of Congress by tackling issues this way?

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I think that I probably should have been doing more of this all along. But in the first 2 years, I had to pour all of my energies into trying to do something to bring the deficit down, to invest more in education, to try to expand trade, and get the economy going again. And we were able to do that, but the voters still gave the Congress to the Republicans. And now it frees me up, in a way, to-most of my efforts, to try to keep them from undoing the gains we have made from wrecking an economic strategy or wrecking the education program or wrecking the environment. But I can now do things like use my executive authority, for example, to promote welfare reform in all 50 States, to do the other things that we talked about. So I think I probably should have been doing more of it all along. Today lawyers for the legal defense fund are announcing how much money they have raised. Does that make you feel awkward to have them up there saying, We have collected this money for the ENTITY to defend him? But I am not a wealthy person and my adversaries decided that they would try to embroil me in all kinds of legal things, and I cannot afford to take any time off to think about it. So they are dealing with it the best they can in a legal and appropriate way. And I did not want to go to a few wealthy people and ask them to spend a ton of money to pay all my legal bills. So we resolved that the most appropriate thing to do would be to raise funds in a legal defense fund that had the same financial restrictions that running for Federal office does. And so that is what we have tried to do. Senator Dole and Senator Helms have proposed asking for $100 million in arms aid for Bosnia. Do you support this legislation? My position is that the United States should not, by ourselves, violate the U.N. rule against selling arms into Bosnia because it applies to all Yugoslavia, that instead, what we ought to do is have that U.N. mission there work to stop aggression against Bosnia by letting NATO use its air power and by strengthening the U.N. mission on the ground. What happened in Srebrenica was awful. But it happened in large measure because the United Nations would not permit the United States and the other NATO allies to take strong action from the air against the Serbs.

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Now that there is been a real change on the ground and the Serbs have been rolled back in the western part of Bosnia and in Croatia by the Croats, I hope we have a chance to make a decent peace there. I would not be against-if the U.N. mission fails, I would be for selling arms to the Bosnians or making it possible for the Bosnians to buy arms, but only when we get everybody to lift the arms embargo at the U.N. But let me just say this in closing. We have an embargo against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and you see what happened. We put a lot of pressure on it; we now have some defectors coming over, weakening his power. If we say, We are going to ignore you, and we are going to sell arms to the Bosnians, then what is to prevent other countries from saying, Okay, we will ignore the U.N. embargo in Iraq, and we will bolster Saddam Hussein? I just have two more quick questions. Do you think it is a good thing that Time-Warner wants to sell Interscope Records? Do you know anything about that? I wanted to ask you if you were-well, Jerry Garcia has affected millions of Americans. Have you ever been to a Grateful Dead show? And why do you think he affected so many people of different backgrounds and generations? Well, first of all, he was just a great talent. And I was really pleased to see the Grateful Dead have one more great run around the country, you know, in the last couple of years and see all these young teenagers gravitating to a group that all of us liked 20 or more years ago. He had a great gift. And he even wound up putting out that line of ties. He had great ties. I would go around wearing Jerry Garcia ties and giving them away to people. But he also had a terrible problem that was a legacy of the life he lived and the demons he dealt with. And I would hope that all of us who loved his music and valued his contributions would also reflect on the consequences of, again, really self-destructive behavior. I mean, the lesson of Jerry Garcia's life is that he made a great contribution and he really was a-he had at least two generations of Deadheads, you know. Has she ever gone to a show?

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We certainly appreciate that. Before we get on to talking about Canada-U.S. relations, I want to deal a little bit with your personal relations with Canadians. Does that matter to you? Does it matter to the relationship? I think I have had very good relations with the Canadians with whom I have dealt. We did not always agree, but I can understand people not agreeing with some of the decisions I made. But that does not necessarily mean there is any problems with the relationship. I guess much has been made about some of the name-calling that went on. That is just part of politics, and it does not bother me in the least. If I was bothered about name-calling from Canada, I'd certainly be bothered about name-calling from the United States as well. The relationship between Canada and the United States is really a relationship not necessarily by government only but by the peoples, by the interchange, by the exchanges we have, by the relatives on both sides of the border. In that regard, Prime Minister Harper, the new-I think this is now the third Prime Minister you have gone through-- He said that of the top priorities that he is got, softwood lumber has to be number one; says it is , in his words, putting a very serious strain on the relationship between the two countries. You have often said that this is something that you want to take care of. I am giving you an opportunity to make some news here. I may not see that. What would be- is there any one thing that you can do to unblock this issue? Well, I can tell our people to try to find common ground. I thought we were pretty close to a deal a couple of years ago-I cannot remember the exact timing of it, but I know we have been working on softwood lumber for quite a while. I fully understand how difficult an issue this is, particularly from Canada's perspective, since there is been some rulings. I told that to Stephen Harper, that I understand its importance. I understand its priority. And I'd like to get the issue resolved once and for all myself. The best thing I can do is tell our negotiators that-see if you can find common ground. Again, we were close to an agreement before-maybe that is a place for people to look for common ground. It is going to require some very quiet consultations to see if we can do what I'd like to see done.

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Can it be solved on your watch? I know it creates anxieties in Canada. I really do not want to create anxieties. On the other hand, I do want to be fair to our folks here as well, and I think we can find ground. We have got the world's largest undefended border; we are both countries at war; we have got boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And yet here at home, we are putting more barriers along that Canadian-American border. You have often said that the reason for this-or what Stephen Harper calls the passport problem-you have said that it is because you want to know who is coming and going across that border. So I guess it begs the question, are the Canadians not telling you who is coming and going? Are we not doing a good enough job? Oh, I think Canada has been very cooperative, and the relationship between our services is very good. It can be a document, a tamper-proof document that will expedite border crossings, not delay border crossings. And right after September the 11th, obviously, our country took a hard look at the procedures enabling people to come back and forth across our borders, both north and south. And the idea was to come up, as I said, with a tamper-proof document. I know they have been focused on the passport, but surely we can design something-the law does not say passport only; the law says, kind of, passport-like, if I am not mistaken. We have found a lot of, for example, driver's license forgeries throughout the United States that make it difficult to-you know, as best as we can, assure our citizens that we know who is coming in and who is not. I guess part of the problem for a lot of people in this is they say, look, it is not so much guys like you and me going across-we have all got passports or identity cards. But it is the minor league, peewee hockey team, or the peewee baseball team that will not be able to play in each other's countries right now because it is too much of a hassle to get this card. I can understand-I mean, on any change of the status quo, you can always find, kind of, the nightmare scenario that makes life- it makes it feel like life is going to be a lot worse.

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I think we can work with our Canadian counterparts to come up with something that is rational and meets the law that has been passed by the Congress and that I signed. Can you foresee-you are going down to Cancun as part of the exercise, I guess, of imagining a new North America and then getting it going. In your vision, can you foresee a day when there would be free travel of people across the borders without identity cards, just free movement of people in North America? That is probably down the road. But I am not imagining an important relationship, though, because we are really building on what our predecessors left behind, which is a trading arrangement that has substantially increased trade between the United States and Canada and Mexico. I am a believer that trade helps grow economies. I think free trade is an important part-and fair trade-something that Canadians want and something that Americans want is free and fair trade-benefits both of us. You know, we traded about nearly $500 billion, two-way trade, in 2005, which is very positive for both our economies. What I am concerned about is that protectionist tendency and isolationist tendency that could emerge in both our countries as well as in Mexico, which would make it harder for us to realize the benefits of collaboration together, make it harder for us to, kind of, grow together. And that would be not beneficial for the hemisphere, and frankly, it will make it a lot harder for future Americans and Canadians and Mexicans to compete with the Chinese, for example. And so there is a relationship which exists which needs to be protected and nurtured and streamlined and made more efficient, and that is really what the discussions will be in Cancun. A quick last question for you-I do not know if you are going to take the bait on this one. I let the cat out of the bag. Are you any happier with the Conservative Government in Canada than a Liberal Government? I am-I respect the will of the Canadian people, and as I say, you know, this is-there were some tense times when I made the decision to go to war in Iraq, and I understand that. I am not the-I fully understand why people, not only in Canada but in the United States, expressed deep concern about the use of force to protect ourselves. I stand by the decision. And therefore, I was not surprised when I heard, you know, members of political parties in both our countries express deep concern about it.

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We want to talk to you first about Medicare and then about new markets. You have got your long-awaited plan out on Medicare. What do you think the prospects are, especially looking at the early initial reaction that you got yesterday? What do you make of that? Well, first, I think it is a good sign that we have the Republican leadership with the door open. That is what having Senator Roth and having Congressman Thomas and the other two Republican congressmen there- McCrery from Louisiana, in particular, is a guy I know and have a regard for. McCrery would like to make an agreement on Medicare and Social Security-very serious man. I think, also, the breadth of the presence of the Democrats indicates that the most liberal Democrats have acknowledged that we need to make serious structural reform; and our moderate-to-conservative Democrats believe that this is enough structural reform to unify and coalesce around. So I think we have got something to go forward on. And what I intend to do is to call the leaders-Senator Lott and the Speaker and Senator Daschle and Mr. Gephardt-and ask them to come and meet with me the day we get back from Fourth of July recess, and let us try to make a plan for how we could do it this summer. Because I believe that I can do the same thing with the Social Security I have done with Medicare, I can offer them something. We could even maybe build on it and get the-done, because we cannot know that we are really going to pay the debt off which, as you know, I believe is profoundly important, unless we understand where we are on both. But I think the first thing to do is to get the Medicare because there is a real interest in it. When you have this meeting with the congressional leadership, are you going to give them a deadline for action? What will you do, specifically, at the meeting? What do you want to come out of it? Well, what I want to come out of it more than anything else is a common commitment to the goal. In other words, if the leaders will all say we want to do this and we think we can, it does not mean we will, but it will get us a lot closer. That will send a signal to the rank and file in both caucuses that this is something we are really going to try to do.

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And it would be a phenomenal gift to the country to do it, and we have the money to do it, and the only reason not to do it, frankly, is if somebody makes a real decision that the money should be diverted to something else. We are close enough now; we are much closer now, frankly, on Medicare than we were before we did the omnibus balanced budget in '97. This meeting or really the release of the plan is the start of a process. Some people think the end of the process could be a deal that enables Republicans to get some of the tax cuts they want and you to get the Medicare plan you want. Is that a possible end of this? Well, I think it depends first on whether we can get close enough so that- on the particulars of the structure of the Medicare-that is, can we get everybody, or more or less everybody for the kind of structural modernization that I think is imperative, where we have some genuine competition, but we do it in a way that does not sacrifice quality-that is why I want to set up this extra fund, because most people believe that in the '97 Balanced Budget Act we had excessive savings in some areas of Medicare from the point of view of providers, so we set aside a fund for the Congress to deal with that-and then whether we can get a general agreement on the structure of the drug benefit. A lot of our people-and I am very sympathetic-and maybe some of theirs would like to accommodate both the people that have huge drug bills and the biotech industry which wants to be able to sell these drugs if they keep investing and pushing the envelope on the big things. But I thought it important not to have a drug benefit that would be subject to the same criticism that we leveled at one of their tax programs back in '97-that, okay, it looks good for 5 years. So now, we have avoided that. But I think that if we can get agreement on the fundamentals of this and then if we can get agreement on real commitment to paying down the debt and taking the interest savings and plowing it into Social Security, then I think there is enough funding left over, not committed to either of those pots, given this new budget, that we can probably make it a kind of omnibus agreement covering other things. Yes, but I think that what we have to focus on is first things first.

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I think that, for the Democrats and for me, the important thing will be having the right kind of Medicare reform, having the prescription drug benefit, and getting the details right here. And so that is why I think we have to really-we have got to focus on that. I think the other stuff-assuming, as I said- it is a big assumption-assuming you get the financing right on the Social Security piece, I'd also like to have an omnibus agreement. I am going to try to get them to agree on Social Security, too. And a lot of people-most people do not think we can do that. I spent a lot of time just quietly thinking about it, on our trip to Europe and other things, trying to write out different scenarios. But I think there is much more energy right now behind the Medicare issue and a much greater sense of urgency. And frankly, you have got one that goes broke in 2015 and the other one, if they just hang with the money I have got, will stay all right until 2053 or 2055. So I think Medicare first, see if they want to do it, see if they will commit to try to do it by the summer. And then I think they can raise their other concerns once we get into the framework of the substance. But we have got to stay- this is a big, big-changes in Medicare, and we need to focus on that first. Are you concerned at all, though, that there may be a good number of Democrats who are afraid there will be a deal that they will not like? But none of them think that so far. In other words, I have worked very, very hard to keep our caucus together. I took a good deal of time to come out with the specifics of this plan, and we did a lot of serious work, all of us-and I include the White House in that, too-really trying to take the politics out of this in terms of what specifics we recommended. That is, I really tried to figure out what I thought had to be done structurally for this program to work, what kinds of savings we had to achieve, whether the economics really would support getting rid of all the copays on the preventive screening if you put in the copays on the lab tests that tend to be-most people believe are overused.

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So I think that-all I can tell you is that the negotiating process that I would support would be designed to produce an agreement that would be supported by the overwhelming majority of our caucus, and I would hope the overwhelming majority of theirs. If you look at the balanced budget agreement, we did a pretty good job. They had a slightly higher percentage of Republicans voting for it in the House than the Democrats, and in the Senate we had a slightly higher percentage of Democrats voting for it than Republicans. I think to get an agreement, we are going to have to do that. Given how important it is to you to try to win the Congress back, or as much as you could, for your party, do you ever feel personally torn about a deal versus trying to give Al Gore and the Democrats an issue? No, because I do not believe- it might help some individual Republicans get reelected to Congress if they voted for such an agreement, but I believe that for Democrats what is good policy is almost always the best politics. The do right rule is almost always best for us because we get hired to do things. The American people, when they vote for Democrats, they hire them. They give you this job, and you get a contract, and your contract is 2 years, 6 years, or 4 years if you are President; and they hire us to go to work every day and to do things. And I do not believe-for example, it did not hurt the Democrats in 1998 that we had a big budget at the end where there was a compromise that a lot of Republicans voted for, and we got the big downpayment on 100,000 teachers and a lot of other educational priorities. It did not hurt them at all. The only-this is not going to turn into a status quo country, and there are too many issues on which we are too deeply divided. If we can reach agreement on-and I am not saying this could happen-if we could reach agreement on Medicare, Social Security, taxes, investments in education, and there would still be differences in 2000 on next steps in education, on guns, on patients' rights, even if we pass a Patients' Bill of Rights, there are going to be differences, unresolved differences, on choice, on a lot of issues. In other words, there will be a vibrant election-year environment in 2000 for issues still to be decided by America that will be clear in the Presidential race and clear in the congressional races.

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Even if both parties-even if the Republicans join us-if you look at George Bush's message, it is assumed he will be nominated on this compassionate conservatism thing-and that both parties are competing for the dynamic center of America , I happen to think that is a healthy thing. If you just look at the real substantive differences, all-just the issues I have mentioned and others, we will have plenty to fight about, argue about in the election. So I think that actually both parties will be better off in dealing with the agenda of the 21st century. If we dealt with the baby boom problems right now, if we dealt with Social Security and Medicare and committed to pay the debt down, if we did all that, the Republicans would still say we need more for tax cuts than maybe we will get, or here is our next round of tax cuts, or whatever. One last question on Medicare, before we turn to new markets. Senator Breaux was critical, saying your plan did not go far enough by addressing structural reforms. And you, yourself, since Putting People First, have supported things like means testing. Are you frustrated that politically it was not possible to go farther than you went in this Medicare plan? No, I think-well, first of all, I think the structural reforms in the health care-there are two issues there. One is the means testing, which was not in his report, either, because some of the Republicans did not go for it. I do not think that is as big a problem as some people do, and I will come back to that. The second is an area on which we have an honest disagreement-Breaux and Thomas and me-and it is an honest disagreement. I want there to be-I want the managed care Medicare people to be given the maximum opportunity to make their program attractive to people in the traditional fee-for-service program, if they can do so. In that regard, I go just as far as they do.

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Now, what I do not do, and I really do not think I should do, especially given the level of anxiety Americans have about managed care-even though I have imposed a Patients' Bill of Rights for federally funded programs, so our guys, our Medicare people, get the Patients' Bill of Rights-what I do not do that they do is I do not permit a level of what they call competition in the fee-for-service program in a way that would permit the cost of the traditional program to the beneficiaries to rise so rapidly that it would force people into managed care, whether they wanted to be there or not. And we just have an honest, philosophical difference about that. Now, on the upper income premium issue- I ran on that in '92. I have never made any secret to the American people that I think that is the right thing to do. We took the income limit off of the Medicare tax in the '93 balanced budget act. So every wealthy person in America today is paying much more in Medicare taxes than they will use anyway. In other words, if you are making a quarter of a million dollars a year, you do not have that $67,000-I think it was $80,000 cap, something like that-you do not have that cap anymore. So since '93, you have been paying a great deal into the Medicare program. So you do not have the equity argument you used to have. One of the reasons that Medicare program was extended in its life-apart from the cost savings we effected and waste, fraud, and abuse stuff, which we really did better about than most of us thought we could-is that we took the earnings limitation off the Medicare tax, and I think that a lot of times people who say upper income people should pay more have forgotten that and forgotten just what a significant amount of money that is to a lot of people. We better turn to new markets, because we want to talk a little about that, too. So you are going next week from Appalachia to Watts. Tell us why you are doing the tour. Well, I am doing it first to shine the light on these areas in America, because I believe that we have both an obligation to give the communities and the neighborhoods that have not been touched by the economic recovery the chance to be a part of it, to go into the new century with us, and

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All the discussion leading up to what the Federal Reserve was going to do today on interest rates was all premised on the fact that we are having a great national debate now, because no one thought 5 years ago, 6 years ago that we could possibly have average growth well in excess of 3 percent and unemployment under 4.5 percent without having inflation. So we do not have any signs of inflation, but should not they be worried about it, since nobody really thought we could have it? Everyone knows that the technology explosion, especially in telecommunications and information technology, has dramatically increased productivity in ways that traditional economic models do not measure. Is there any way we could keep this economic recovery going, creating even more jobs, raising incomes even more, and not have inflation? And the answer is, yes, if you can either find more customers for American goods and services or more workers to come in and produce more so they are not just being added on for the same level of production. Now, what are the possibilities for that? Expanded trade, which is why I have worked very hard to build a consensus in my own party for trade, plus labor and environmental standards- why I went to Geneva and made those speeches, why I went to the University of Chicago and all that-for trade. The most obvious ones in America are more people from welfare to work. Tonight I had Eli Segal at the fundraiser, if you listened in on that. He is now got 12,000 companies in this deal where we are trying to hire even hard-to-place welfare recipients and train them. Because that is adding to the productive capacity. You get people who are both workers and consumers. The other big discrete population are the disabled, which is why this thing that apparently we are going to have an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress do, which is to let disabled people keep their Medicaid in the work force, it is potentially a very big, positive contribution to long-term growth, because, again, you are creating more workers and more consumers. Now, the third big opportunity is to find what areas have not been fully reached with investment and jobs in growth. And that is what this is about. Now, I want to talk about three things when we go there.

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the empowerment zones; the community development banks, including the microenterprise zones and the enterprise communities; the tax credits employers get now for hiring people in those areas; and the Community Reinvestment Act, which, as you know, had been on the books for over 20 years, but over 95 percent of all the lending under the Community Reinvestment Act has been done during our administration. We really pushed it. So we will do a little of that, hear things that are working now. The second thing I want to do is to point out that one of the reasons there has not been more investment in these areas is that there is imperfect knowledge on the part of the American business and investment community. The head of Aetna insurance company, when we went to Atlanta, when we did our pre-trip-on the way back he was ragging me. He said, You know, I am the only guy here who is not happy we did this, because, he said, I'd already figured all this out by myself, and now all my competitors are going to know. I will just give you one example. In Los Angeles it is 35 percent. In East St. Louis, where we are going, it is 40 percent. That is just retail sales, no small-scale manufacturing, no professional services, none of that other stuff, all the other things you could do. So I think there is really a lot I can do just with the bully pulpit and taking these business leaders around and getting them-you know, we are going to have bipartisan political folks there; we have got Jesse Jackson and Al From; we are going to have Republican and Democratic Congressmen and Governors and all. But I think that just getting the business community to focus on the fact-because they are all interested in this question, what I want to say to them is, look, you do not just have to debate what Alan Greenspan is going to do; you can change the underlying reality on the ground if you change the economics. And the third thing that I want to do is to push the specific new markets legislation. Because all these other things we have done-even though the CRA, the Community Investment Act, is a nationwide law, it depends still in part on the vigors of the bankers in specific places, and all the other things have discreet impacts.

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In other words, we do not have a community development bank everywhere; we do not have an enterprise zone or empowerment community everywhere-I mean, an empowerment zone or an enterprise community everywhere. This new markets initiative basically is designed to put in place for the whole Nation, all distressed areas the same incentives that we give America to invest in developing economies overseas. I think they ought to have those incentives, developing economies at home. So, for example, the way this would work is let us suppose someone wanted to build a $150 million shopping center in East St. Louis and open 20 stores-I am just making this up-and they started with $50 million of investments; they have got a $50 million investment fund. On that $50 million they could get tax credits of 25 percent for their investment. They would also be able to go to the bank and borrow $100 million and have that $100 million subject to the Government guarantee, which would dramatically lower the interest rate that they would be charged to borrow the money, because if they defaulted on the loan, the Government would guarantee it. And those are the kinds of mechanisms we have in place now for people who invest in developing markets overseas. The reason that is important is, number one, unlike the empowerment zones, it would be nationwide, and number two, even if you had perfect knowledge on the part of investors, that you do not have now, there would be, in many of these places, somewhat greater risk to the investment than in a traditional investment. So by providing these two big incentives you lower the relative risk of this investment compared to others and make it even more attractive to do. But if you think about it, this is sort of my classic Third Way kind of approach. In the 1980's, we found out for sure that free enterprise alone would not develop these areas into the 1990's. In the 1960's, with the whole Great Society approach, it is not true that it did not accomplish anything. It accomplished a great deal. It fed people; it educated people; it started Head Start; it provided health care in rural areas; it provided some Government-funded jobs. But there was no internal structural change that would allow a lot of these places to become more self-sufficient on a long-term basis.

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If we could do this and really make a big difference over the next few years, then when the next recession comes along in America, it will not hit these areas as hard, because they will have, just like other places, some underlying economic supports, some self-sufficiency. And that means fewer people on the streets. It means you will not lose as many kids. It means a lot of things when times are tough. But it seems to me that there is an enormous interest in this now, in the business community. You can see it in the Wall Street Project that Jesse Jackson and Dick Grasso and others have done for the last few years, and you can see it in the massive commitment that-and NationsBank made to setting up community banks and microenterprise lending over the next 10 years. They made a huge commitment on their own. A lot of great things have happened in our empowerment zones. A lot of these development banks are beginning to really show some results. But there is no either nationwide awareness or nationwide framework which could be applied to every place. And that is what the new markets initiative is all about. It is about just increasing the awareness and the attractiveness of these areas to the investment community and then putting in place a framework that would make it even more attractive to invest now. And if we could get a lot of this done while the economy is growing, I think the benefits to America could be permanent. I think, in that sense, it is the perfect public/private partnership example that I have been trying to develop all along. I am really excited about it. I am just-it is a real dream of mine to prove this can be done. You will apparently be the first sitting ENTITY to ever go to an Indian reservation. I am sorry it has taken me so long, because I spent a lot of time with Native American leaders. I went to reservations back in '92, and I spent enormous time with the leaders of the tribes over the last 6 1/2 years. Some people would say you have done a lot-you have focused on empowerment zones; you have focused on some of these problems of poverty, people who have not participated in the economic good times-but that we have not heard so much about it lately, '95, '96. Why is now the time to put this kind of spotlight on the places that remind people that the economic prosperity has not been good for everybody?

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One is, I think that there is a feeling that the prosperity of the country is broadly shared, and that is right. We have got the lowest minority unemployment rates we have recorded. In the last couple of years, we have finally started to close the inequality gap. We have had substantial increases in wages for people in the lower 40 percent of our earnings. And there is a level of security about the direction of our economy that I think frees people in a way to think about those things that are still not done, because I think most Americans genuinely want to see everybody who is willing to work have a chance to participate in this. Secondly, I believe that it is an essential component of my effort to keep this economy growing without inflation, as I said. In other words, I think moving people from welfare to work is a moral imperative, but I also think it is very good for the economy. I think giving disabled people a chance to take their Medicaid and get in the work force is morally right; I also think it is very good for the economy, and I think this could be even better for the economy, and it is certainly morally right. We tried to do this in the past, and we have gotten kind of sporadic publicity for it. But we worked consistently at it. It is one of the many things that I asked the Vice President to lead. But he has done a superb job of this, and he is been systematic and disciplined. And just slowly, slowly, slowly over the last 6 years, I think we have completely satisfied that a lot of these communities, if they can get enough investment, can really take off and do well. So I think that the timing is really right now for America to think about this as sort of the next economic agenda. I know we have to leave, but speaking of economic good times, George Bush has raised $36 million so far in the first half of this year. What do you think about that? Do you think this has gotten out of-spiraled out of control? Or is this not-what do you think? It just seems like a stunning number today. It is a big number, but you have got to remember, Republicans have more money than Democrats, and they always promise upper income people bigger tax cuts. And he is the Governor of Texas; his brother is the Governor of Florida; and they have been out for 8 years, and they want in. So all those reasons mean big numbers. But what did he raise in Texas?

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When I ran in '92-8 years ago-in a State of 2.5 million people, with a lower per capita income and not nearly as many millionaires, we raised $4 million. That would be the equivalent of $20 million or more in Texas. So he is got a lot going for him. He is a Governor of a State; his brother is a Governor of a State; his father was President. They want to win; they have got more money than we do anyway. So I think that it is a credit to-he is got good people raising that money, obviously, but I am not at all surprised they have raised that kind of money. Which also raises the point that conventional wisdom probably told us the Democratic nomination would be sewed up at this point, but the Republican would not ; and it is actually the opposite, it appears to be actually perhaps the opposite of that. It depends; the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will not be as influenced by the money, probably, just because there is only so many of them. There is only so much you can-but I think the real problem for all these guys, and one reason they can compellingly go out and raise this money-I mean, arguably, if you are talking about the money Bradley raised, he was a national figure for longer than any of the other people running in the Republican primary, except for Elizabeth Dole; maybe she was. But she was in the Cabinet, but Bradley was a nationally known figure for 18 years in the Senate, from the day he got there, and traveled the country extensively all that time building a network, for all 18 years. So I am not particularly surprised that he is raised a good deal of money. But I think that-to go back to the main point-one of the reasons all these people can compellingly argue that they need to get out and raise this money early is that, unfortunately, it not only gets more and more expensive to advertise with every election cycle, the States at the back end get more and more anxietyridden, so they keep moving their dates up. And one of the interesting things to me would be-I do not know the answer to this.

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I will start by saying I do not known the answer to this, but when you write the history of this election in the primary process, it will be interesting to see whether or not, even though the small States have retained their early status-which I happen to think is quite a good thing, having been through it; I think it is a good thing, because I think it is terrible that when you get all these primaries-people running for President from tarmac to tarmac, they will run about the States; they do not really listen to the people's voices, their concerns, and when it is all said and done, they have not learned as much about the country as they should. If you have to run in Iowa and New Hampshire, you have got to know things. You have got to take time. So I believe in that. Keep in mind, on June 2d in 1992-June 2d-you had California, New Jersey, and Ohio. I am not particularly surprised about the amount of money anybody has raised. Are you concerned that it is bad news for Gore? I do not think that at all. I do not think that at all. I mean, I think the Republicans are going to raise more money than us. They outspent $100 million last year. They take care of their interest groups. The NRA's going to give them a ton of money. Look what they have done on the Patients' Bill of Rights. Everybody in the world with an opinion is for the Patients' Bill of Rights, except one, who is health insurance. But the health insurance might wind up giving more money in the election cycle than all the 200 groups that are for us. And so, that is the dynamic of modern politics. And their whole strategy is to rake in that dough and to dominate the communications. It does not matter in our politics if your opponent outraises you if you raise enough. The only issue in modern politics is whether you have enough. And keep in mind, in the primary process-unless Governor Bush is going to slow the campaign finance law and not take any matching funds-in the primary process, the only thing that really matters is whether you can raise all the money you need before the first primary starts so you can rationally plan how to spend it during the remainder of the primary season. Because there is a ceiling on how much you can raise in order to get the matching funds in all of the campaign finance system.

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So he should not -nobody else should be worried about that. The only people who should be worried are people who are not going to have enough to get their message out, and the fact that early money normally means you have got big political support. What you are seeing in the Republicans now is a little bit what you saw in '92. And Governors can raise more money than Senators, especially Governors of big States. I am not too surprised he is got all that money. But it is not bad news for the Vice President, because he is doing very well, and he is got all he needs, and he is going to get his money by the time he needs it. I think you will-my gut feeling is that you will not see that have an appreciable impact on the outcome of the election. Before he actually grabs our arm and drags us out here, I guess we have got to go. I am glad you are covering these things, though. It gives us a chance to really do something important. I am really sorry I kept you waiting. So, can we get a firm and final no from you that you are not going to run for Senate? I have to go out and make a living for my family, and that is-and I am going to spend the first 2 years organizing my life, doing my memoirs, and finishing my library. That is what I am going to be doing. I am not running for the Senate. I do not even know where that story came from. I think the story-the guy that reported the story first said someone said they mentioned it to me, and I did not say no. I do not even remember anybody mentioning it to me. But it is not-I had a lot of people in Arkansas ask me if I'd come home and run for Governor, every time I go home. And I tell them that we have got to get a young crop up there and put them in there. I am not in- I am not going to do that.

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I want to first ask you your reaction-once again, this time Memphis, a fireman is dead, a police officer, and others. What is your reaction to this shooting? Well, as we are doing this interview, of course, we do not know all the facts, but it is a tragic thing for the city and for the families, because firemen and police, they put their lives on the line a lot, but they do not expect to be shot at the scene of a burning house. And we just have to find the facts to know what happened and whether anything could have been done about it. Another tragedy was the death of the 6-year-old, Kayla, in Michigan. I did. What did you tell her? Well, first of all, I told her that as a father I could only imagine her heartbreak, that there is nothing worse in life than having your child die before you, especially in tragic circumstances. And I told her I would do what I could to reduce the chances of it happening again. And I was very impressed with her. She and her husband, Kayla's stepfather, I think they really decided they are going to commit themselves to try to do things that will make the schools safer, the streets safer, the kids less vulnerable to this sort of thing. And we talked about some of the specific things we were working on. And one of the specific things is guns. When you talk about guns-besides being the President of the United States, you are a lawyer-do you think that the responsibility when a young child uses a gun and kills another child, that some of the responsibility may be cast in the direction of a parent or another adult? I think if the custodial adult either knowingly or recklessly leaves a gun where a child can get ahold of it, then I think there should be some liability there. It is outrageous that this 6-year-old boy was able to get that gun. And of course, I think there ought to be child trigger locks on these guns. And I think that we should keep working until we develop the technology which will enable us to make handguns that can only be fired by the adults who own them, which is-it is not that far off. I mean, the accidental gun death rate in America for children under 15 is 9 times higher than the rate of the next 25 countries combined.

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I think there ought to be some responsibility there, not if there is been a reasonable effort and the child finds a key and gets in a safe or something. But if there is-if it is just total irresponsibility or intentionally leaving a gun in a place where a child could easily get it, I think they should be held responsible. Well, you use the words knowingly and recklessly, and that standard, it seems to me, is so different. In some parts of the country where people have lots of guns, the knowingly and recklessly standard is so much different from those who might be unfamiliar. Well, I think maybe if Congress wanted to legislate in this area-this is normally a State law area. And I offered Federal legislation in the post-Columbine era to deal with this. The Congress could have legislative history in which they could actually cite some examples of what in their view falls on one side of the line and what does not . Or what the Congress could do, if they feel that the circumstances are different from State to State, is to give some incentives for the States to pass such legislation. I think there are 17 States which have passed legislation that have some form of adult responsibility if children who are below the age of responsibility get guns. There are two different ways you could do that. You have been battling the gun-trying to get gun legislation for some time, and it seems to be a little bit of a logjam on Capitol Hill. Well, I think the main source of dispute now is over closing the gun show loophole. That is, a lot of these-predominantly, the Republican Members of the House, although not all of them, are reluctant to close the gun show loophole. And a huge number of the Republicans in the Senate, although not everyone, 90 percent of them do not want to close the gun show loophole. That is, they do not want to require people at these gun shows and urban flea markets to have to do the same background checks on people who buy guns there, as gun store owners do, and people who buy guns there. When we passed the Brady bill, 7 years ago now, almost 7 years ago, the NRA and their sympathizers said, Well, the Brady bill will not do any good because criminals do not buy guns at gun stores. Well, it turns out 500,000 people could not get guns because they had a record as a felon, a fugitive, or a stalker.

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So now we ought to go to the huge number of people who do buy them at these gun shows and urban flea markets, which is exactly what the NRA said they did 7 years ago. But now that we are trying to get background checks there, all of a sudden they do not want to do it. Now, there is some chance of a compromise because Representative John Conyers from Michigan and Chairman Henry Hyde from Illinois have talked back and forth about whether there was a way to close the gun show loophole that the Republicans would let get out of the conference committee, and then we could pass it. And I urged them to work on that yesterday. When I look at this loophole, it seems to me-correct me if I am wrong- is that one side wants 72 hours to do the background check, and one side says, no, 24 hours. Is that the dispute, 24 versus 72? That is only part of it, and I will explain that. But there is also the question of what records will be checked and what you do with the people who cannot be checked within 24 hours. That is, John Conyers offered a 24-hour background check to Mr. Hyde. That is, the Democrats offered to the Republicans a 24-hour background check as long as there were some provision for holding roughly 5 to 8 percent of the applications that cannot be cleared in 24 hours. That is, believe it or not, over 70 percent of these background checks are done within a matter of an hour. Over 90 percent are done within 24 hours. And in that small percentage, the people that are likely to be rejected are-20 times the rate of rejections in the last 5 percent as in the first 95 percent . So there is a reason for holding those that cannot be checked when the records are not there. So I think if we can work out something to do with the other 5 percent, we could agree to 95 percent of the people to have a 24-hour waiting period. It is going to be interesting to see whether they will engage us in good faith on that. So what can we do with that 5 percent? Well, you enable them to- you give the 72 hours for that 5 percent.

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And if they are at a rural gun show and they do not know what to do because they want to buy the gun and the gun dealer has got to leave and go on to another place, they should just consummate the sale and have to deposit the gun at the local sheriff's office. And then if it clears, they get their gun. And if it does not clear, the gun dealer gets his gun back. In my prior life as a criminal defense lawyer, I had to represent a lot of people who used guns in murders, armed robberies. And I have got to tell you, I do not think any one of them bought it at a gun show or a gun shop. What can we do about them? What we know is that some of this happens there because we have got-the gun death rate is at a 30-year low. So we know we are doing some good with the Brady bill, and we know we will do some more good with this. And we also know that a lot of these guns are passed among criminals or sold out of a trunk by somebody alone that would not be covered by the gun show law. I think what you have to do there is just do a better job of checking people for guns, and if you find somebody-if we do all this and you still find people with unauthorized guns, they have to be punished for that. I think that people who buy handguns would have to pass a Brady background check and a safety check and be licensed. I think we ought to license handgun owners the way we license car drivers. I think that will make a difference over the long run. The other thing I would say is, you have got over 200 million guns in this country. Now, that is slightly overstating the case in terms of the danger, because a huge number of them are in the hands of collectors who are perfectly law-abiding, who have the guns very well secured. And a lot of them are in the hands of hunters, who are law-abiding and have their guns well secured. But one of the things that I have advocated is a big expansion of the gun buyback program, because in the places where that is occurred, it is done some good-where you must give people money to bring in their guns, and then you melt them or destroy them otherwise.

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And I noted just today-I was just stunned to hear that there are a number of Republicans in the House of Representatives that want to stop us from doing the gun buyback program. I cannot imagine why they want to stop that. A lot of cities with Republican mayors have done gun buyback programs. You bring a gun in; you get a certain amount of money. You gather the guns up, and you destroy them. You are taking that many out of circulation. So those are the kinds of things I think ought to be done. Do you have a gun? Have you ever owned one or shot one? I have owned hunting weapons. I have been given-I have never bought a pistol. I have been given pistols by the State police and others, and I have never kept them. I have never kept a gun in my residence. I have always kept them under secure circumstances outside the house when Chelsea was a little girl coming up and all that. But I have owned guns. I still remember shooting cans off fenceposts in the country with a .22 when I was 12. I have bad ears, so I would be careful how many times a year I'd go hunting. But I understand this culture. I have been a part of it. And I was Governor of a State for a dozen years where half of the people had hunting licenses. But I do not think it is right for people who are law-abiding to prevent the passage of these laws that will plainly save lives. I mean, you know, it is no big deal for people who are gun owners or people who are handgun owners to have to undergo a background check. And if it is a minor inconvenience for them to wait a little bit, it is worth it to save people's lives. We now have evidence that it saves lives. Nobody complains about going through airport metal detectors anymore, even if they have to go through 2 or 3 times, because they know it saves lives. People do not say we ought to repeal every speed limit or-you could say, Well, most car drivers are law-abiding, so let us just stop licensing car drivers. Let us stop giving them driver's license tests, because most of them are law-abiding. Well, there would be an uproar if you did that. So we should do more without eroding lawabiding gun owners' rights to hunt or sport shooting.

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We should do more to protect ourselves as a community, a lot more. We are the only country in the world that is not doing more, and we have got the death rates to show it. And if we want to save lives, we are going to have to continue to do more. We have got the lowest crime rate in 25 years because we have done more. We have got to do more. Taking a look at what happened last week, if you had the legislation that you want or if we had the legislation the Republicans want, Kayla would still be dead. The legislation would not have prevented that gun from getting into that young boy's hands. No, but if you had adult responsibility legislation that was clear and unambiguous, at least people would think about it; guys like that would think about it. Even if- suppose this was a drug house, like they say- also, depending on how old these guns are, they would come with child trigger locks if you required them for all gun sales, prospectively. And I am not at all sure that even a callous, irresponsible drug dealer with a 6-year-old kid in the house would not leave a child trigger lock on a gun. Which raises the other question. Trigger locks are for guns that are from this day forward. What do we do with these millions of guns that are already out there? One of the things I think we ought to look at is see how you retrofit them, where we could sell them, what we should do with them. And I am just-if I could pass this, then I'd start looking at what to do with the guns that are out there now, whether we could get trigger locks for them and how we'd do it. Then the Senate passed a bill; the House passed a much weaker bill. We have been waiting 8 months for these people to get together with the Senate and the House and come up with a bill and send it to me. And so, I have always tried to focus dealing with the Congress not just on what I thought was ideal but on what we would actually achieve. And I think every American now knows that the intense lobbying of the NRA and the other gun groups has had a profound impact on the House and on the Republican caucus in the Senate. But still, there are some people who are brave enough to stand up against it and to do reasonable things.

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I spoke to a representative of the NRA today who said that last summer, they had completely agreed on the bill in Congress, but that it was the Democrats and the White House that felt that the legislation in the House should be aborted. No, they agreed on the House bill because it did not do anything to close the gun show loophole. They did not want-we have got to close the gun show loophole. I think they would come along now with child trigger locks. I think they would, and I know they support the custodial parent being held responsible when there is an egregious act there of intentional or reckless-allowing a child to have a gun. And I appreciate that. I think they support more gun prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and I appreciate that. I do not know where they are-maybe they would go along with the banning of the large ammunition clips. They have never been for that before, but they might be for that. But their new big bottom line is we must never, ever, ever do a background check on somebody at a gun show unless you can do it in 30 seconds or something. I do not mind going to 24 hours, as long as you have got an escape hatch for the people you cannot clear in 24 hours, because I will say again, they are 20 times more likely to be turned down, that small percentage of people, than the general population that we can clear in 24 hours. The Vice President wants-or has suggested that we have photo licensing. What is your reaction to that? Because I think that it will establish a nexus between-first of all, to get a license, you ought to have to pass a safety course and the Brady background check. And I think then it will be easier to track the guns. We are trying to develop technology to track all guns and all bullets used in crimes and ultimately get them back to where they started. And I think for that reason-for crime control reasons and for safety reasons, it would be a good thing to do. Just like with licensed drivers, I think it is a community safety requirement that we ought to do. I think he is absolutely right about it.

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It is an honor and a privilege to welcome my first guest back to the show. It is good to have you back, ENTITY Rebel forces killed by rebel forces. Well, this is somebody who, for 40 years, has terrorized his country and supported terrorism. And he had an opportunity during the Arab spring to finally let loose of his grip on power and to peacefully transition into democracy. We gave him ample opportunity, and he would not do it. people long to be free, and they need to respect the human rights and the universal aspirations of people. they televised the death. You know, obviously, that is not something that I think we should relish. And there was a reason after Bin Laden was killed, for example, we did not release the photograph. You know, I think that there is a certain decorum with which you treat the dead even if it is somebody who has done terrible things. Now, you took some heat for the whole leading-from-behind tactic here with Libya. Well, the truth was, we this was a phrase that the media picked up on. But it is not one that I ever used. We lead from the front. We introduced the resolution in the United Nations that allowed us to protect civilians in Libya when Gaddafi was threatening to slaughter them. It was our extraordinary men and women in uniform, our pilots who took out their air defense systems, set up a no-fly zone. It was our folks in NATO who were helping to coordinate the NATO operation there. And the difference here is we were able to organize the international community. We were able to get the U.N. mandate for the operation. And so there was never this sense that somehow we were unilaterally making a decision to take out somebody. And that is part of the reason why this whole thing only cost us a billion dollars Not a single U.S. troop was on the ground. Not a single U.S. troop was killed or injured, and that, I think, is a recipe for success in the future. Let me ask you about that because, with Osama Bin Laden, I remember the night before you were at the correspondence dinner and the whole deal. How hard was it to make that decision to send in those Navy SEALs? It could have been a disaster, but the reason I was able to do it was when you meet these SEALs and you talk to them, they are the best of the best. They understand what exactly they intend to do.

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They are prepared for the worst in almost every circumstance. So even though it was 50/50 that Bin Laden would be there, I was a hundred percent confident in the men, and I could not have made that decision were it not for the fact that our men and women in uniform are the best there is. Now, you just announced the troops coming out of What did we accomplish there? The Iraqis now have the opportunity to create their own democracy, their own country, determine their own destiny. And I am cautiously optimistic that they realize that the way they should resolve conflict is not through killing each other but, rather, through dialogue and discussion and debate. And so that would not have been possible had it not been for the extraordinary sacrifices not just of our Armed Forces, but also their families. and reservists and National Guardsmen and women and the strain that that placed on those families during this long period, it is remarkable. So I think Americans can rightly be proud that we have given Iraqis an opportunity to determine their own destiny, but I also think that policymakers and future Presidents need to understand what it is that we are getting ourselves into when we make some of these decisions. And there might have been other ways for us to accomplish those same goals. But the main thing right now is to celebrate the extraordinary work that our men and women did. Let me ask you now, many members of many members of the GOP opposed withdrawing from Iraq. It is shocking that they opposed something I proposed. But, I mean, was not it originally did not they want to get out of Iraq? Well, look, I do not know exactly how they are thinking about it. You know, as you said, we have been in there four years, over 4,000 young men and women killed, tens of thousands injured, some of them for life, spent close to a trillion dollars on this operation. I think the vast majority of the American people feel as if it is time to bring this war to a close particularly because we still have You know, we still have work to do in Afghanistan. We are transitioning to Afghan lead there. Our guys are still and gals are still making sacrifices there. We would not have been able to do as good of a job in decimating al Qaeda's leadership over the last two years if we had still been focused solely on Iraq.

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And one of the arguments I made way back in 2007 was, if we were able to bring the war in Iraq to a close, then that would allow us to go after the folks who perpetrated 9/11, and obviously, we have been very successful in doing that. But al Qaeda is weaker than anytime in recent memory. We have taken out their top leadership position. Can I ask you about taking out their top leadership, al-Awlaki, this guy, American-born terrorist? How important was he to al Qaeda? Do you what happened was we put so much pressure on al Qaeda in the Afghan/Pakistan region that their affiliates were actually becoming more of a threat to the United States. So Awlaki was their head of external operations. This is the guy that inspired and helped to facilitate the Christmas Day bomber. This is a guy who was actively planning a whole range of operations here in the homeland and was focused on the homeland. And so this was probably the most important al Qaeda threat that was out there after Bin Laden was taken out, and it was important that working with the enemies, we were able to remove him from the field. I will tell you, we are going to take a break. When we come back, I want to ask you about Hilary Clinton and her role with the President right after this. So tell me about Hilary Clinton and the job she is doing. She has been, I think, as good of a Secretary of State as we have seen in this country. I am really proud of her. And I did a lot of jokes about you guys going after each other, but you come together for the sake of the country. Tell me about how that works. The truth is Hilary and I agree on the vast majority of issues. We did during the campaign. we had a similar world view. She was, I think, understandably tired after the campaign and hesitant about whether or not this would be a good fit, and I told her that I had complete confidence in her, that the country needed her. She stepped up to the plate. She works as hard as anybody I have ever seen. She is tenacious, and we are really very proud of her. The entire national security team that we have had has been outstanding, and it is not just rivals within the Democratic party. My Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates, is a Republican. He was a carryover from the Bush Administration. He made an outstanding contribution.

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So I think one of the things that we have done is been able to restore a sense that whatever our politics, when it comes to our national security, when it comes to the national defense, everybody has to be on the same page. And so the question now is, as we end the war in Iraq, it is time for us to rebuild this country, and can we get that same kind of cooperation when it comes to fixing what is wrong here? Now, let me ask you something. This is stuff I love, this rumor that Joe Biden and Hilary might swap, and she might run for Vice President and he might is there You know, Joe Biden is not only a great Vice President, but he has been a great advisor and a great friend to me So I think that they are doing great where they are, and both of them are racking up a lot of miles. Joe tends to go more to Pittsburgh. Hilary is going to Karachi. But they have both got important work to do. But you do not want to say big f'ing deal in Karachi. That could have some problems. The good news is you are still three times better than Congress. They are at 13 percent. I mean so if you are grading on a curve if you are grading on a curve, you are killing. You know, look, we have gone through the worst financial crisis, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. People are hurting out there, and they have been hurting out there for a while. And people were having a tough time even before the crisis. Costs of everything from college to health care to gas to food, all of it was going up, and so people were feeling a lot of pressure even before this crisis. And so I every day I wake up saying to myself, Look, you cannot expect folks to feel satisfied right now. I am very proud of the work that we have done over the last two or three years, but they are exactly right. We have got more work to do, and that is why, right now, for example, our biggest challenge is to make sure that we are putting people back to work. We stabilize the economy, but there are not enough people working. And so we put forward this jobs bill that has proposals that traditionally have been supported by Democrats and Republicans. I mean, we have got we are putting construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads and our bridges.

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And the thing that angers me and I think a lot of Americans is I did not like what they did to President Bush. I do not like when they do it to you. I mean, why does that anger you? Look, I think the things that folks across the country are most fed up with, whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, is putting party ahead of country or putting the next election ahead of the next generation. And so what we need there are some real differences between the party in terms of where we want to take the country. I believe we have got to invest in education and research and infrastructure in order for us to succeed in the long-term, and I think that there is nothing wrong with us closing the deficit and making our investments by making sure that folks like you and me who have been incredibly blessed by this country are doing a little more of a fair share. They have a different philosophy. We can argue about that, but on things that, traditionally, we have agreed to like infrastructure, like tax cuts for small businesses to give them incentives to hire veterans, on things that traditionally have not been partisan, we should be able to get together. We have got a lot of time, and the last thing we need to be doing is saying to the American people that there is nothing we can do until the next election. We have got to do some work right, putting people back to work. Well, you are by passing congress now and giving these executive orders. Well, look, if Congress is gridlocked, if the Republicans in Congress refuse to act, then there is going to be a limit to some of the things we'd like to do, but there is still some actions that we can take without waiting for Congress. So yesterday, for example, we announced working with some of the federal housing agencies. A lot of these folks, because their homes are underwater now, their mortgages are higher than what their homes are worth, a lot of them are having trouble getting refinanced by their banks. And so they are locked in at high rates when rates should be a lot lower for them. We have said, Let us figure out a way to waive some of the fees, waive some of the provisions that are preventing them from being able to refinance. And that could mean an extra couple thousand bucks in people's pockets right now.

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They then have that money to buy a computer for their kid for school or what have you, and that will get the economy going again. So we are going to look for opportunities to do things without Congress. We cannot afford to keep waiting for them if they are not going to do anything. On the other hand, my hope is that, at some point, they start listening to the American people, and we can work with Congress as well. Well, you are talking about listening to the American people. As President, you look out your window. Do you see this occupy Wall Street movement? Look, people are frustrated, and that frustration has expressed itself in a lot of different ways. It expressed itself in the Tea Party. It is expressing itself in occupy Wall Street. I do think that what this what this signals is that people in leadership, whether it is corporate leadership, leaders in the banks, leaders in Washington, everybody needs to understand that the American people feel like nobody is looking out for them right now. And, traditionally, what held this country together was this notion that if you work hard, if you are playing by the rules, if you are responsible, if you are looking out for your family, you are showing up to work every day and doing a good job, you have got a chance to get ahead. You have got a chance to succeed. And, right now, it feels to people like the deck is stacked against them, and the folks in power do not seem to be paying attention to that. So if everybody is tuned in to that message and we are working every single day to figure out how do we give people a fair shake and how do we make sure that everybody is doing their fair share, then people will not be occupying the streets because they will have a job and they will feel like they are able to get ahead. And part of my job over the next year is to make sure that if they are not seeing it out of Congress at a minimum, they are seeing it out of their President, somebody who is going to be fighting for them. We will take a break. When we come back, we will talk more with the President, ask him some personal issues. We will get to an issue, of course, that is very big here in Hollywood, this issue on the Kardashians. We will find out more about that. We are going to talk about some lighter stuff, about dealing with the pressure of being President. Now, I know you quit smoking.

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Remember you are under oath. So tell me how you cope with the daily pressures. We have got a little gym in the White House. She is in better shape than me, though. She will get up there a half an hour earlier than me. She will have already run 10 miles or something. Speaking of that staggering up to the gym. As ENTITY , everything is public. And I turned on the news last night, and I see my President at a very famous restaurant here in Los Angeles called Roscoes Chicken and Waffles. Now, I think you ordered the Country Boy Special. Now, is Michelle I mean, she is sitting back, watching the news. Here you are scarfing down the waffles. once we got in the car, it smelled pretty good. So, I mean, I am eating the wings. You have got the hot sauce on there. And we were actually going to a fund-raiser So, suddenly, we pull up, and my sleeves were rolled up, and I got a spot on my tie. And my fingers are I am looking for one of those Wet Ones, you know, to see if I have chicken on my teeth. Right. and let us move and get exercise. But ENTITY, as quiet as this is kept, she loves french fries. She loves pizza. She loves chicken. Her point is just in moderation. She does not mind the girls having a having a smack, although Halloween is coming up. And she is been giving, for the last few years, kids fruit and raisins in a bag. You need to throw some candy in there. That is what she tells me. And part of this, I think, is a testimony to Michelle, also having my mother-in-law in the house because she does not take any mess. Do they have cell phones? We have Malia got a cell phone, but their not allowed to use it during the week just like they are not allowed to watch TV during the week. Oh. now, you recently said that you did not like the girls watching the Kardashians. Have you seen the show? No, I have not seen the show. So you are making a judgment without ever seeing the show. I am probably a little biased against reality TV partly because, you know, there is this program on C-SPAN called Congress that is that I that I that No, I have not seen the show. And do you recommend it, Jay?

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Since you announced the agreement with Iran, it appears, if you look at several recent polls, that a majority of the American public oppose it and a majority of the United States Congress oppose it. Because people have not been getting all the information. It is a complicated piece of business and we are negotiating with a regime that chants Death to America! and does not have a high approval rating here in the United States. But the people who know most about the central challenge that we are trying to deal with, which is making sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, they are overwhelmingly in favor of it - experts in nuclear proliferation, nuclear scientists, former ambassadors, Democrat and Republican. And as a consequence, one of my main tasks over the last several weeks - and this will continue into September - is to make sure that people know and understand that this is a diplomatic breakthrough that ensures we are cutting off all the pathways by which Iran might get a nuclear weapon. In your speech at American University, you made a comparison. You said that Iran's hardliners were making common cause with Republicans. It is come under a lot of criticism. Mitch McConnell says even Democrats who oppose the deal should be insulted. The Wall Street Journal says that this rhetoric shows that you have abandoned the hope of getting any Republicans, or even moderate Democrats, and you are targeting this message to the hard core of House Democrats who are going to sustain your veto. Fareed, your question is about politics. Let me talk about substance. What I said is absolutely true factually. The truth of the matter is, inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, hardliners who are implacably opposed to any cooperation with the international community. And there is a reason for that, because they recognize that if, in fact, this deal gets done, that rather than them being in the driver's seat with respect to the Iranian economy, they are in a weaker position. And the point I was simply making is that if you look at the facts, the merits of this deal, then you will conclude that not only does it cut off a pathway for Iran getting a nuclear weapon, but it also establishes the most effective verification and inspection regime that is ever been put in place. It also ensures that we are able to monitor what they do with respect to stockpiles, plutonium, their underground facility.

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And that it does not ask us to relinquish any of the options that we might need to exercise if, in fact, Iran cheated or if at some point they decided to try to break out. And so the reason that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the folks in his caucus who oppose this jumped out and opposed it before they even read it, before it was even posted, is reflective of a ideological commitment not to get a deal done. And in that sense, they do have a lot in common with hardliners who are much more satisfied with the status quo. You do not think you are going to get any Republican... Well, I did not say that. What I said was that there are those who, if they did not read the bill before they announced their opposition, if they are not able to offer plausible reasons why they would not support the bill or plausible alternatives in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, other than potential military strikes, then that would indicate that they are not interested in the substance of the issue, they are interested in the politics of the issue. You talked about Iran's hardliners, the old guard. But one member of Iran's old guard certainly seems to be Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader. His Twitter feed has posted a likeness of you with a gun pointed to your head. Is this a guy you can really make a deal with? Well, as I said, Fareed, you do not negotiate deals with your friends. You negotiate them with your enemies. And superpowers do not respond to taunts. Superpowers focus on what is it that we need to do in order to preserve our national security and the national security of our allies and our friends. And I think that he tweeted that in response to me stating a fact, which is, is that if we were confronted with a situation in which we could not resolve this issue diplomatically, that we could militarily take out much of Iran's military infrastructure. I do not think there is a military expert out there that would contest that. The Supreme Leader, obviously, does not want to hear that, and I understand. But I am not interested in a Twitter back and forth with the Supreme Leader. What I am interested in is the deal itself and can we enforce it.

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Keep in mind, Fareed, when we got the interim deal - as you are aware, the way this thing evolved was, first, we essentially froze their program - they had to roll back their very highly enriched uranium stockpiles. And for that, we turned on the spigot a little bit so that they could access more of their money. All the same critics of this deal suggested that this is terrible, this is a historic mistake. And for the last two years, as we have been negotiating the more comprehensive deal, not only have they continued to suggest that it was a mistake, until very recently, but the Supreme Leader was saying all kinds of anti-American stuff. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. The few times that they did not , we identified it and told them they had to correct it and they did. And, you know, the Supreme Leader is a politician, apparently, just like everybody else. What I am focused on is can we make sure that they are doing what they have to do and that we have sufficient safeguards and verification mechanisms to ensure that they do not have a nuclear weapon. And, again, Fareed, it is very important, I think, over the next several weeks, to not get distracted by tone, vote counts, is Mitch McConnell's feelings hurt. But let us address the argument. And it - the central point I was making yesterday - fairly exhaustively, it was a long speech - was that nobody has presented a plausible alternative, other than military strikes, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Nobody has presented a more effective way to ensure they do not have a nuclear weapon, including military strikes, because we know, actually, if this deal is executed, it will provide more limitations on the Iranian nuclear program for a longer period of time in a more verifiable way. Nobody has had a good answer for that. So I think the answer that some might provide is that the alternative is not war, but more pressure and a better deal and, specifically, that Iran should not have the right to enrich. There are a lot of nuclear countries with nu - peaceful nuclear programs that do not have the right to enrich. Was it impossible to stick hard on that? First of all, there is no support for that position in Iran, including opposition members who were subsequently jailed back in 2009. So you have a consensus inside of Iran that they should have a right to enrich.

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The Non-Proliferation Treaty is very clear about guarding against the weaponization of nuclear power, but it does not speak to prohibitions on peaceful nuclear power. And we did not have the support of that position among our global allies who have been so critical in maintaining sanctions and applying the pressure that was necessary to get Iran to the table. And so in the real world, the alternatives you just described were not available. And, you know, I think that the notion that the United States Congress rejecting a deal that has been negotiated by the U.S. secretary of State, our top nuclear experts, with unanimous support around the world, other than the state of Israel and perhaps behind the scenes some of our allies who are also suspicious of Iran, that somehow in the face of that, countries like Russia or China would continue to voluntarily abide by sanctions in a way that would continue to put pressure on Iran is a fantasy. When we come back, much more of my exclusive interview with ENTITY from the White House. I will ask him about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Is it appropriate for a foreign head of government to inject himself into a debate this is taking place in Washington? More than four months before the Iran deal was even inked, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before a joint meeting of the United States Congress to argue against it. Now that there is a deal between the world and Iran, Netanyahu has publicly and vocally condemned it. The Prime Minister has found many sympathetic ears for certain, but there are others - including some in Israel - who have called his rhetoric and actions into question. Prime Minister Netanyahu has injected himself forcefully into this debate on American foreign policy... Can you recall a time when a foreign head of government has done that? Is it appropriate for a foreign head of government to inject himself into an American debate? You know, I will let you ask Prime Minister Netanyahu that question if he gives you an interview. I do not recall a similar example. Obviously, the relationship between the United States and Israel is deep. It is reflected in my policies, because I have said repeatedly and, more importantly, acted on the basic notion that our commitment to Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is something that I take very seriously, which is why we provided more assistance, more military cooperation, more intelligence cooperation to Israel than any previous administration. But as I said in the speech yesterday, on the substance, the Prime Minister is wrong on this.

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And I think that I can show that the basic assumptions that he is made are incorrect. If, in fact, my argument is right - that this is the best way for Iran not to get a nuclear weapon - then that is not just good for the United States, that is very good for Israel. In fact, historically, this has been the argument that has driven Prime Minister Netanyahu and achieved consensus throughout Israel. So the question has to be is there, in fact, a better path to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon than this one? And I have repeatedly asked both Prime Minister Netanyahu and others to present me a reasonable, realistic plan that would achieve exactly what this deal achieves, and I have yet to get a response. So, as I said yesterday, I completely understand why both he and the broad Israeli public would be suspicious, cautious about entering into any deal with Iran. But what I also try to remind everyone yesterday is, is that when we entered into arms treaties with the Soviet Union, they had missiles pointed at every single major American city. We actually had to constrain ourselves and reduce our firepower. Here, we are preserving all our options so that if Iran does cheat, we can still exercise the same set of options that we have in place today. And I have been very clear about the fact that if Israel were attacked by Iran, for example, there is no doubt that not just me, but any U.S. administration would do everything that we needed to do to make sure that Israel was protected. So there are all kinds of hedges if, in fact, Iran were not to abide by the deal. But if, in fact, Iran does abide by the deal, as it has the interim deal over the last two years, then we have purchased, at a very small price, one of the single most important national security objectives that both the United States and Israel has. There is been some debate about the amount of money that Iran will get as a result of sanctions relief. Whatever the amount is, it is clear, they are going to get some resources... and some part of it, and they being out of the sanctions regime, will be... will be - will be applied to their economy, but some of it...

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So I want to be clear, are you saying to the region, to the Gulf States, to other Arab - to Arab countries, look, this is inevitable, Iran is going to play an increased role in the region, get used to it? I think the message is that the nefarious activities that Iran engages in, whether it is providing arms to Hezbollah or stirring up destabilizing activities among some of their Gulf neighbors, is something that they have been able to do consistently at very low cost - that I have no doubt that as Iran's economy improved or they got some financial inflows that relieves some fiscal pressure on their military, they may be able to fund some additional activities. And the reason that Iran has been effective has less to do with the amount of money they have spent. It has more to do with the fact that although Gulf countries, for example, spend eight times more, at least combined, on defense than Iran's entire defense budget, they have not deployed it in ways that have been as strategically effective. And part of the function of our meeting up at Camp David with Gulf leaders was to describe how we can work with them to create a more effective counter to these kinds of activities. And, you know, whether it is countering cyber-attacks or a possible ballistic missile threat, but more typically, the kinds of asymmetric proxy activities that Iran has developed over the last several decades, you know, those are things that we know how to do if all those countries are cooperating and we are doing it systematically. That will have a greater impact than simply preventing this deal from taking place. The flip side of it is if Iran is able to get a nuclear weapon, if its breakout time remains as short it is - as it is right now and they are installing advanced centrifuges and so on, then they will be emboldened to engage in more of the activities that have been discussed, which are not constrained or bound by the amount of money Iran has, but rather have to do with the very strategic decisions that Iran is making at any given time. We will be back with the ENTITY in just a moment. We are in the Map Room of the White House. The Map House was essentially an early version of the Situation Room during World War II. It was where Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to ponder next moves in the war. I will ask ENTITY if he will need to seriously think about a war with Iran if this deal falls through.

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Back now with ENTITY on Iran, ISIS, the Taliban, and what happens if the nuclear deal falls through. Right now, Iran is probably one of the strongest fighting forces against ISIS. In Afghanistan, it has historically been opposed to the Taliban, just as the United States has. Do you think that this - these overlapping interests might allow for a more productive and constructive relation between the United States and Iran? I think it is conceivable but the premise of this deal is not that Iran warms toward the United States or that we are engaging in any kind of strategic reassessment of the relationship. Within the four corners of the agreement, we deal with the nuclear problem. I think we are doing that better than any other alternative. Is there the possibility that having begun conversations around this narrow issue that you start getting some broader discussions about Syria, for example, and the ability of all the parties involved to try to arrive at a political transition that keeps the country intact and does not further fuel the growth of ISIL and other terrorist organizations - I think that is possible. Well, I... you know, what I have been encouraged by is that the Russians are now more interested in discussions around what a political transition - or at least framework for talks - would look like inside of Syria. And presumably, Iran is seeing some of the same trends that are not good for them. And I do think that it is even conceivable that Saudi Arabia and Iran, at some point, would begin to recognize that their enemy is chaos as much as anything else. And what ISIL represents and what the collapse of Syria or Yemen or others represent is far more dangerous than whatever rivalries that may exist between those two nation states. If this deal falls through somehow and what you predict does happen - Iran does go back to trying to produce centrifuges on an industrial scale; it perhaps restarts some of the weaponization programs - are you worried that you would confront, within your remaining term, the strong possibility that you might have to use nuclear - that you might have to use military force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? I have a general policy on big issues like this not to anticipate failure. And I am not going to anticipate failure now because I think we have the better argument. And I just go back again and again, Fareed, to those who are opposed to the deal cannot just say we want a better deal.

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The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas . In your second term, you have focused on policies to try to reduce the inequity and the gap between rich and poor people. What kind of concrete commitments are you expecting from the Summit and how US can help the region to fight inequity As ENTITY, I have pledged to our brothers and sisters in Latin America that the United States will work with the countries and people of the region as equal partners, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. That is because I believe the opportunities and challenges we face as a hemisphere can only be solved by all of us working together, in a spirit of shared responsibility-and that includes addressing the injustice of economic inequality. I think this summit can build on the incredible progress the region has made in recent decades. Economic growth, trade and a shared commitment to expanding opportunity has lifted countless millions of people from poverty. Since 2002 the middle class has nearly doubled, and countries like Brazil and Mexico have middle class majorities for the first time in history. That said, alongside the region's new wealth, about a third of people across the region still endure grinding poverty, and it is still too hard for them to access the education, health care and basic service their families need. This is not just a drag on economic growth, it is a moral challenge to us all. I believe that the most effective way to close this gap is to unleash broad-based economic growth that creates new opportunities and to expand access to the tools people need to lift themselves out of poverty-including education, skills and job training. That is why we have boosted the trade and investment that creates jobs. Across the region, we are expanding access to electricity and connecting families and communities to the global economy. Our Small Business Network of the Americas is helping grow 250,000 small businesses throughout the region, and our WEAmericas initiative is helping to empower women entrepreneurs. And through our 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative and other educational exchange programs, we are connecting our students, young people, and entrepreneurs with each other and with the skills and networks they need to collaborate and succeed in the 21st century. My trip this week will build on this work. In Jamaica, I will be announcing a new initiative to empower young entrepreneurs and civil society leaders across the Americas, and I will be working with Caribbean leaders to promote cleaner and more sustainable energy.

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The Summit of the Americas in Panama is an opportunity to keep improving the competitiveness of the region, which is why the United States will be encouraging all the countries in the Americas to ratify the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. I also look forward to meeting again with leaders from across Central America as part of our continuing effort to partner with their countries to strengthen governance and improve economic and security conditions so more people in these countries have the opportunity to live in safety and prosperity. At the same time, every government has a responsibility to do its part by ensuring the good governance and transparency that attracts trade, investment and the economic partnerships that lead to greater prosperity for all, as well as promoting the social inclusion that gives people of all backgrounds the opportunity to succeed. Cuba will be making its first-ever appearance at the Summit, which will bring all the countries of the region together for the first time. Are you ready, along with the Cuban, to announce in this Summit the reopening of the embassies in Washington and Havana? Do you think that the Cuban regime is doing enough to improve the situation of human rights in the country and make progress in that field? The historic policy changes that I announced in December represented a break with an approach that for more than 50 years had failed to promote improved political or economic conditions for the Cuban people. As part of that announcement, both the Cuban and U.S. governments committed to negotiate the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, broken since 1961, and the United States intends to carry through with this commitment. Secretary of State Kerry and his team have already engaged in our highest-level and most intense set of bilateral discussions with Cuba in decades. Our diplomats are making significant progress and I am confident that we will be able to move forward with the re-opening of embassies. That said, re-opening embassies is only one part of the broader process of normalizing relations between our two countries. In the meantime, our governments have already begun talks on issues such as civil aviation, human rights, and telecommunications and other issues affecting the citizens of both our countries. I strongly believe that this engagement will be good for the United States and Cuba; improve the lives of the Cuban people; and promote more effective cooperation across the hemisphere. Our new approach toward Cuba will also facilitate increased engagement with the Cuban people, including an increased flow of resources and information to the Cuban people-and it is already showing results.

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We are seeing increased contacts between the people of Cuba and the United States, and the enthusiasm of the Cuba people for these changes proves that we are on the right path. As I said in December, we will continue to have significant differences with the Cuban government, including on issues related to human rights. The United States will always support universal values such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. During the Summit of the Americas, I will be meeting with civil society leaders from across the region, including Cuba, as I regularly do in different countries around the world, because we believe that civil society has a critical role to play in supporting progress in all of our societies. The request of 1 billion dollars to help Central America countries to improve their security in order to contain illegal immigration to US still need the approval by Congress. Besides, your executive orders on immigration are stuck in courts. So, what are you going to do to try to move forward in both issues? The $1 billion that I have requested for our strategy in Central America is not simply for security alone or focused exclusively on the spike in migration that we saw. Rather, it is part of our comprehensive approach to partner with Central American countries as they address the underlying factors that have led many in the past to take the dangerous journey north, including violence and poverty. It builds my Administration's ongoing efforts to promote security and prosperity in the region, including successful, community-level violence prevention programs. Throughout my trip this week, I will continue to make the case for our $1 billion request to Congress, which aims to help Central America's leaders make the difficult reforms and investments required to address the region's interlocking security, governance and economic challenges. The people of the region are seeking the same things as people everywhere-institutions that are democratic, effective, accountable and transparent, communities that are safe for their families, and economies that are integrated so the region can compete in the global economy. The United States is determined to be their partner in building that future. At the same time, I remain deeply committed to fixing our broken immigration system. The executive actions that I announced last year are designed to fix some of our current problems, and while some of these actions are temporarily on hold by our courts, I am confident that the law is on our side and that we will ultimately prevail.

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Still, the actions I took are not a substitute for the comprehensive, bipartisan reform that we need to improve our broader immigration system, where millions of people continue to live in the shadows. And so I remain committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. ENTITY, there is a global perception about US losing influence and presence in the Americas. Regional organizations like Unasur or Celac are seen more effective and powerful than OAS and, for example, Brazil has joined the China-led bank known as AIIB. Do you think US is still the main and most important ally for the region? Yes, because the relationship between the United States and the Americas is like no other in the world. We are inextricably linked by ties of family, commerce, culture, shared values and our aspirations for the future. We are bound by tens of millions of Hispanic Americans, the fastest-growing group in America that will only become more influential in the decades ahead. And since I took office, we have deepened our partnerships with Latin America, including economic ties-boosting U.S. exports to the region by nearly 70 percent. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that our relationship with the Americas is the best it is been in many decades. The new chapter of engagement that we have begun with Cuba has been welcomed across the region and is an historic opportunity to also advance regional cooperation and progress. The United States is leading the international effort to support Caribbean nations as they secure their energy future. We are the partner of choice for the countries of the Northern Triangle as they tackle the region's security and developmental challenges. We are working in partnership with Canada, Chile, Mexico, and Peru to conclude a 21st century trade agreement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. When it comes to standing up for the security, prosperity and human rights of the people of the Americas, no one does as much, in more places, as the United States. While it is true that the region has changed dramatically over the last two decades, it has done so in a way that largely aligns with our values and advances our national interests. We can take pride in the fact that the inter-American community today is a region free of inter-state conflicts and broadly dedicated to democratic principles, social progress, and sustainable growth. We very much want countries in the Americas reaching out and cementing commercial relationships with Europe, Africa, India, and Asia-it can mean more prosperity and opportunity for us all.

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We welcome the contributions of any country and regional organization that is actively working toward our shared objective of achieving a hemisphere that is democratic, more prosperous and secure from Canada to Chile. As the countries of the Americas expand their international relationships and take on a more active global role - a role that largely advances our shared values and interests - it is natural that other international actors and new sub-regional organizations will play a greater role in the region. If those countries and organizations work to uphold regional security, prosperity and human rights, then it is a good thing. In March, you issued an executive order to impose sanctions to Venezuela and declaring Venezuela a national security threat . That executive order has been rejected by some countries in the region. Why do you think this order was the right choice to confront the situation in Venezuela? Are you open to have a direct dialogue with Venezuelan? I want to be clear-our deep and abiding interest is in a Venezuela that is prosperous, stable, democratic, and secure. The United States is Venezuela's largest trading partner, with over $40 billion in bilateral trade a year. We have deep and long-standing connections between families and our citizens. I am a firm believer in diplomatic engagement, and the United States remains open to direct dialogue with the Venezuelan government to discuss any matter of mutual concern. Venezuela is confronting enormous challenges right now. For many months Venezuela's neighbors sought to promote an internal dialogue and a political solution to the divisions tearing at Venezuelan society, hoping to prevent the situation in Venezuela from negatively impacting others in the region. We have consistently supported that kind of dialogue, and we continue to see it as the best way for Venezuela to move forward. This does not mean that we, or any other member of the inter-American community, should remain silent about our concerns regarding the situation in Venezuela. We do not believe that Venezuela poses a threat to the United States, nor does the United States threaten the Venezuelan government. But we do remain very troubled by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents, including the arrest and prosecution of elected officials on political charges, and the continued erosion of human rights, as we would be troubled by such developments in any other country in the world. That is why the sanctions that we imposed were focused on discouraging human rights violations and corruption. These sanctions are focused specifically on individuals responsible for the persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and arbitrary arrest and detention.

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I am going to put out a perception I have always had of you, and if I am wrong you can riff off it. You being born in Hawaii, and the ancestry that you have had, and beyond that you having a cosmopolitan experience very early on living elsewhere-this is a blunt way to say it, but it occurs to me you had an opportunity to just check out. I never perceived myself as having much choice about being black, and I have always wondered why you have made the choice. And I do not know if you perceived it as a choice-maybe you felt the same way, like you did not have one. You could have been one of these rootless cosmopolitans working on some other issues. I wonder how you came to think of yourself as black and why. Well, part of my understanding of race is that it is more of a social construct than a biological reality. And in that sense, if you are perceived as African American, then you are African American. Now, you can-that can mean a whole lot of things. And one of the things I cured myself of fairly early on, and I think the African American community has moved away from, is this notion that there is one way to be black. And so you are right that I could have been an African American who worked for an international organization and was not engaged in the day-to-day struggles, politically or culturally, that the African American community faces. There are a lot of African Americans who may make those decisions, and they are still African American, but they are just living their lives in a different way. I think for me, first and foremost, I always felt as if being black was cool. Part of it is, I think, that my mother thought black folks were cool, and if your mother loves you and is praising you-and says you look good, are smart-as you are, then you do not kind of think in terms of How can I avoid this? You feel pretty good about it. By the time I was cognizant of race, American culture had gone through enough changes that as a child, I was not just receiving constant negative messages about being black.

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It is true that I did not have the role models that Malia and Sasha have, but I could look at a Dr. J, or a Marvin Gaye, or a Thurgood Marshall and feel as if the embrace of African American culture was not going to hold me back but rather propel me forward, that it was exciting to be part of a group that had struggles but also had a huge potential. I think it was not until I was in high school that I started seeing complications around it, and I started to think about it explicitly. I wrote about this in my first book, but even when I started perceiving discrimination, or racism, or just the disadvantages of being a minority, that felt more like a challenge than something to fear. I think probably the final element of this is, when I moved to the mainland, that was the first time where I confronted what at that time, and to some degree to this day, was the segregation of communities. And I did have to make, I think, a conscious choice to root myself physically and professionally in the African American community. I never wanted to be somebody who looked like I was avoiding who I saw in the mirror. And disconnected from race, and more connected to the nature of me growing up, I did not like the idea of being rootless. You did not like the idea of being rootless. Michelle and I always joke-but it is not really a joke, I think it is an insight-that, in some ways, we saw in each other elements that we had not had growing up. In Michelle I saw roots. I saw a nuclear family, neighborhood, community, continuity. In me she saw adventure, cosmopolitanism. And so the fact that I had not grown up with a stable family, that I had not grown up with a father in the house or a community of which I was a part on a continuing basis-I had great friends, I had loving family members, but I did not have a place-that, I think, warned me off of the kind of life you described of just floating around and enjoying life but never being fully invested in it. You can imagine me as an Irishman deciding to want to live in a neighborhood with some Irish folks and embracing that side of myself. As somebody who began to travel relatively later, I had this moment when I was at this town in Switzerland and had to switch trains to get to a larger town.

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And I had started my life and thought in that moment I could get on a train and go anywhere. Nobody would know me. In some ways I saw that in my mother, as somebody who had lived an expatriate life. She loved Indonesia-really found meaningful work there, made great friends-but at the end of the day did not have a place that was solidly hers. And I think there were elements of that I saw as a kid as being lonely or a loss. You know, certainly not the majority of the African American community, but certainly a privileged few of us are now raising children who are growing up-I am thinking of my own son-with all these different experiences- Is that need for home still there? Is that still important in the same way? It is interesting watching Malia and Sasha, who have obviously lived in as strange and unreal an environment as any kids do. They feel very strongly about their African American roots. And that, I think, is a great gift to bequeath them, where they know they have got a home, they know they have got a base, they know who they are. But they do not think that in any way constrains them. And certainly they are not burdened by the sorts of doubts that previous generations-and even our generation-might have felt in what it means to be black. It is interesting, when we went to visit the museum, Smithsonian , just watching them soak it in. And they are well-informed young people, so they knew most of the history, and I forget which one of them just said, I cannot wait to bring my friends here. And I think she was not just referring to African American friends but her white friends. She said, Because face it, our stuff's cool. We have got Michael Jordan, Beyonc?, Dr. King. What you got? So there is a confidence that they project, which does not mean they are not mindful that there're still struggles. You hear them talking about what black women have to go through with hair and they will go on a long rant-just the inconvenience and expense that they still feel is forced upon them, not just by the white community but the black community. They will still notice a certain obliviousness of even their best friends on certain issues. But they do not feel trapped by that. They do not feel as if that is determinative of their possibilities.

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And I think they would say that the upsides really outweigh the downsides. They like the community. Do you recall the first time you were aware of folks saying, ENTITY, you are not really black ? When I look back-and I kept journals during this time, I was really in my own head-but from the age of, say, 18 to 25, when I first moved from Hawaii and I am living in L.A. and New York and ultimately Chicago, what strikes me is less the lack of acceptance and more just my own self-consciousness. That one of the wonderful things, I believe, about the African American community is the degree to which we embrace whoever it is that we are with. The friends I made in my first year in college who were African American, there was never that You are not black enough. You are from Hawaii. There were times where you'd feel it in terms of friendships and groups, right? Because you went to Howard, you are in an all-black environment, that does not come up. You have got your white friends, or you have got black friends, and they do not necessarily hang together in the same ways. So you are kind of doing shuttle diplomacy sometimes. Which is why I think some of my closest friends during those early years in college were Pakistani, or French, or people who themselves did not neatly fit in categories. But by the time I get to Chicago-and I am still a young man at that point, I am 25 years old-and I am in the middle of the South Side of Chicago, there was a degree of familiarity, and love, and comfort that I guess in retrospect you might be puzzled by it. Now, there were times as an organizer, and certainly when I ran for office, where that stuff got brought in tactically or strategically by folks who I was dealing with. So you got some pastor, some alderman, who did not like what we were trying to do, who says, You know what? That guy, he is got Jewish backing, or He is working with this Catholic church, or He is from Hawaii. He is got that Harvard degree, and he is from Hyde Park. But I always experienced those as just tactics being deployed by somebody who was pushing back on something I was trying to do. Did it bother you on any level? Again, it did not . Because of the experiences I had had in the neighborhoods, and communities, and with regular folks.

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They are not sort of measuring on a day-to-day basis, Okay, is what you are doing a white thing, or is it a black thing? Folks were not doing stuff like that. And in fact, among working-class black folks, you doing things that were not typical oftentimes was a source of pride. So I remember my first job out of college was working for this business magazine-subscription magazine-and I was the only African American there who was not a delivery man or some tech-support guy. Most of the African Americans in the office were secretaries and, you know, they were proud that I was walking in there and working. So I think that gave me a base and a sense of confidence. So if somebody was playing a game later on, I know that Well, they are not speaking for, quote-unquote, 'the authentic black experiences,' because I live with folks who are at least as authentic as you . Sometimes it is like these rappers who grew up in the suburbs and suddenly they are all- It is like, Come on, man, I know you. I talked to quite a few people who knew you after that Bobby Rush race, and there were people who-Valerie told me this-did not want you to run for the Senate. How personally-maybe you were not , I do not know, maybe this does not get to you-were you personally injured after that? I was upset about losing as bad as I did in that congressional race, and there is no doubt it shook my confidence. But it was not because of race. I remember campaigning in the congressional race, and it was a shoestring operation. I'd go meet people and I'd knock on doors and stuff, and some of the grandmothers who were the folks I'd been organizing and working with doing community stuff, they were not parroting back some notion of You are too Harvard, or You are too Hyde Park, or what have you. They'd say, You are a wonderful young man, you are going to do great things. So I did not feel the loss as a rejection by black people. I felt the loss as politics anywhere is tough. Politics in Chicago is especially tough. And being able to break through in the African American community is difficult because of the enormous loyalty that people feel towards anybody who has been around a while. Look at Marion Barry in D.C.-or you can come up with all kinds of stories.

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And so I think that the loss made me question my career choice not because of racial issues, but rather because it made me question whether, in fact, there was a path for me to be able to break through and have a platform to get the kind of things done that I wanted to get done. Or was I destined to just slog away in the state legislature until I am 55, and then some congressional race comes up, and now I am a backbencher in Congress-and is that how I wanted to spend the next 20 years? So those were the kinds of questions that I was asking myself. I am an African American and my grandfather was this and my mother was this, and you'd be very clear about it. Is that a story you always told yourself? By the time I was running for office, I think, I was sort of formed. That stretch that I described-maybe you want to stretch it out from the age of 18 to 27, when I go to law school-I was wrestling with myself and trying to game this out, and to figure this out, and it was not a smooth passage. When I look back at journal entries, when I read biographies of me that talk about that stretch, I am full of confusion and turmoil and doubts. The degree to which my organizing work in Chicago, I think, solved a puzzle for me, I cannot overstate. I did not set the world on fire when I was doing that work. We had some small victories, and a whole lot of failures. The people I worked with and the communities I was serving gave so much more to me than I think I gave to them. It is hard to think how I could repay them. I still think about them in the Oval Office. It was a great gift they gave me, understanding who I was, or at least who I aspired to be. So that by the time I am off to law school, I am pretty formed at that point. What was it that it gave you? What is the relationship between that and sorting out who you were? For me, and this may be different for other people, part of becoming an adult is linking your personal ambitions and striving to something bigger. And when I started doing that work, my story merges with a larger story. That happens naturally for a John Lewis. That happens more naturally for you. It was less obvious to me.

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Kenya and Hawaii and Kansas, and white and black and Asian-how does that fit? And through action, through work, I suddenly see myself as part of the bigger process for, yes, delivering justice for the , and specifically the South Side community, and low-income people-justice on behalf of the African American community. But also thereby promoting my ideas of justice and equality and empathy that my mother taught me were universal. So I am in a position to understand those essential parts of me not as separate and apart from any particular community but connected to every community. And I can fit the African American struggle for freedom and justice in the context of the universal aspiration for freedom and justice. Which is why I have always said, and I continue to believe that, the struggle for racial equality in America has been the essential catalyst for America's growth and development. As painful as it is, as ugly as that history has often been, as hard as it is been on black folks themselves, it is the driver of the expanded moral commitment. And because of it, we better understand other struggles. It helps stretch our moral imaginations to embrace the Latino farmworker, or the LGBT kid who is feeling ostracized, or the woman who is hitting the glass ceiling. So the work helped me form an integrated vision of the world and my place in it in a way that would not have happened if I had been a professor reading about it or writing about it, but they would just be intellectual exercises. Did your mother ever get to see you working in Chicago? She never went along with me. She was doing her own thing. When we visited it was typically in Hawaii. That stretch of time when I was organizing was a particularly busy time for her. So she always expressed pride about the work, and interestingly, it was not all that different from some of the work she was doing. She was out in poor villages trying to help people leverage microloans into a better life. Probably the moment where things most intersected in a way that she sees it is at our wedding, which is why I end the book at the wedding. Because I have got some South Side folks there, I have got my boys from Hawaii there, I have got Pakistani friends there, I have got my Kenyan family there.

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And to see my mom talking to my mother-in-law, or my Kenyan sister; to have some folks from Altgeld come up to my mother and say, You should be so proud of your son ; to see my grandmother, a little old Kansas white lady, interacting with some of Michelle's older relatives, little old black ladies, and they basically had the same tastes and attitudes-it was, I think, a moment where, in a very personal way, everything I talked about was made manifest. We still have the old video from our wedding, and when I watch it, it reminds me of how lucky I have been. How difficult was it, thinking about that, when you had to sever your relationship with Reverend Wright during the campaign? strong, somebody who embraced learning, somebody who was socially conscious and taught black folks to respect themselves and the culture. And he was a friend, somebody who I was very fond of. In a way that is true, I think, for all subcultures that are not part of the majority culture. There are things that are said in the barber shop, the beauty salon, or folks are just talking stuff, and there is a certain tolerance for exaggerations, for saying things for effect, for smack talking, that are complicated. They are not always meant literally as much as they are expressing emotions or making a point. As I said in my speech in Philadelphia, the blind spots that he possessed are the blind spots that that generation of African American men at some moments all have possessed, it would be impossible not to possess. He grew up-he was 15 years older than me-if you are coming of age in the late '40s, early '50s, early '60s, or the '70s in Philadelphia, or Alabama, or Oakland, or Baltimore, it would be superhuman not to have some vestiges of anger, not to have internalized some conspiracy theorizing, to not have blind spots. I may have said this to you in the interview that we had, but I was rewatching Spike Lee's Malcolm X. Did I say that to you? It just happened to be on a few weeks ago, and I was watching it. As crazy as Elijah Muhammad's philosophies were, if you went through what Malcolm Little goes through- It all makes sense. There is a plausibility to those theories as a way of you just explaining what is happening to you.

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And so Reverend Wright is part of that transition from a black community, in which its men and its women are trapped in a vicious social construction, to an environment that you and I grew up in, in which suddenly there is openings and spaces are cleared, in part because of the work that they did, in part because of the struggles, and fights, and the sharp edges, and the elbows, and mistakes-but ultimately victories and triumphs-of our parents and our grandparents. To expect the broader American society to absorb that in the course of a political campaign was not possible. I did my best in my speech in Philadelphia. But recall that I am not severing the relationship until the Press Club interview in which Reverend Wright, I think feeling hurt, feeling misunderstood, showing his age, doubled down in ways that actually I had not seen out of him in church or in my previous interactions. From the outside, it looked like you did not want to sever the relationship. My hope was, after the Philadelphia speech, which was not clear to me was going to work and involved some risk, my hope was that that would contextualize what had happened. And look, the fact was that some of the quotes that he had that I had not heard-frankly, I was not in church every Sunday-were things I would have to reject, they were just wrong. The same way that, even after his trip to Mecca, Malcolm would still be saying some stuff that I said, Well, that is just not right. So that saddened me. And anybody who has sat in Trinity, as I wrote about-his father is the amazing pastor who actually gave me the idea for the Joshua speech that I made the first time I went to Selma-anybody who has gone to Trinity and sat there would say it is a magnificent community that Reverend Wright built, and it is doing a lot of good. It can never capture all the complexity and contradictions in life. So you end up having to try to be true in a way that can be consumed for a mass audience, but you are always missing some elements of it. You are always leaving some things out. And that is part of the reason why race is such a difficult thing to deal with in politics, because the evolution of racial identity, racial relationships, institutional racism, is never similar. But anything you say on the topic of race, there is a counterargument, there is an exception, there is a nuance.

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And that is part of the reason why, I think, it creates frustration. It is also why situations that look ambiguous can lead to people dividing into camps very quickly. We think of the two episodes of me running for ENTITY, or being ENTITY, that on their face, should not have been as charged as they were. The first is when I say at the end of a long day, towards the end of a long campaign, that part of the reason that you had a lot of working-class whites supporting a Republican agenda that on its face does not seem to be serving their interest is because they have given up hope that the system is going to look out for them. So their attitude is that, If you are not going to help me get a job, if you are not going do anything concrete for me, then at least I am going to cling onto my religion and my Second Amendment rights . And I said that not from an unsympathetic perspective. that these communities feel ignored, and so it is much easier for them to think in terms of those constants in their identity. But just by saying, They cling to their guns and Bibles made it, as David Axelrod said right after I said it, anthropological, made it sound patronizing, and to this day is the primary proof point that is used to argue that I am not sympathetic towards those communities, that I am sort of this elitist, coastal liberal, and in part responsible for the backlash to my presidency. And if I had been a white person saying the exact same thing, it would not have played the same way. If I had said it the way I meant it or felt it, it would have been absorbed differently. But because there was a racial component to it, immediately it becomes a permanent talking point. And then you have got Skip Gates being arrested, which, to me, I was saying something pretty obvious. They ended up handcuffing this middle-aged, elderly man on his own porch. No matter how much he cursed you out, you overreacted, and it probably would not have happened had there not been some assumptions about who he was based on his race. Again, immediately folks ignored the discussion.

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When we talked when you were campaigning for the presidency, I asked you which Administration's foreign policy you admired. And you said that you looked at George H.W. Bush's diplomacy, and I took that to mean the pragmatism, the sense of limits, good diplomacy, as you looked upon it favorably. It is true that I have been complimentary of George H.W. Bush's foreign policy, and I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively. Now that I have been in office for three years, I think that I am always cautious about comparing what we have done to what others have done, just because each period is unique. Each set of challenges is unique. But what I can say is that I made a commitment to change the trajectory of American foreign policy in a way that would end the war in Iraq, refocus on defeating our primary enemy, al-Qaeda, strengthen our alliances and our leadership in multilateral fora and restore American leadership in the world. And I think we have accomplished those principal goals. We still have a lot of work to do, but if you look at the pivot from where we were in 2008 to where we are today, the Iraq war is over, we refocused attention on al-Qaeda, and they are badly wounded. They are not eliminated, but the defeat not just of bin Laden, but most of the top leadership, the tightening noose around their safe havens, the incapacity for them to finance themselves, they are much less capable than they were back in 2008. Our alliances with NATO, Japan, South Korea, our close military cooperation with countries like Israel have never been stronger. Our participation in multilateral organizations has been extremely effective. In the United Nations, not only do we have a voice, but we have been able to shape an agenda. And in the fastest-growing regions of the world in emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region, just to take one prominent example, countries are once again looking to the United States for leadership. That is not the exact same moment as existed post-World War II. It is an American leadership that recognizes the rise of countries like China and India and Brazil. It is a U.S. leadership that recognizes our limits in terms of resources, capacity. And yet what I think we have been able to establish is a clear belief among other nations that the United States continues to be the one indispensable nation in tackling major international problems.

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And I think that there is a strong belief that we continue to be a superpower, unique perhaps in the annals of history, that is not only self-interested but is also thinking about how to create a set of international rules and norms that everyone can follow and that everyone can benefit from. So you combine all those changes, the United States is in a much stronger position now to assert leadership over the next century than it was only three years ago. We still have huge challenges ahead. And one thing I have learned over the last three years is that as much as you'd like to guide events, stuff happens and you have to respond. And those responses, no matter how effective your diplomacy or your foreign policy, are sometimes going to produce less-than-optimal results. I particularly like the third one. What do you say? I think Mr. Romney and the rest of the Republican field are going to be playing to their base until the primary season is over. Once it is, we will have a serious debate about foreign policy. I will feel very confident about being able to put my record before the American people and saying that America is safer, stronger and better positioned to win the future than it was when I came into office. And there are going to be some issues where people may have some legitimate differences, and there are going to be some serious debates, just because they are hard issues. But overall, I think it is going to be pretty hard to argue that we have not executed a strategy over the last three years that has put America in a stronger position than it was when I came into office. Romney says if you are re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon, and if he is elected, it will not . If you are re-elected, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon? I have made myself clear since I began running for the presidency that we will take every step available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. What I have also said is that our efforts are going to be Excuse me. When I came into office, what we had was a situation in which the world was divided, Iran was unified, it was on the move in the region. And because of effective diplomacy, unprecedented pressure with respect to sanctions, our ability to get countries like Russia and China - that had previously balked at any serious pressure on Iran - to work with us, Iran now faces a unified world community, Iran is isolated, its standing in the region is diminished. It is feeling enormous economic pressure.

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And we are in a position where, even as we apply that pressure, we are also saying to them, There is an avenue to resolve this, which is a diplomatic path where they forego nuclear weapons, abide by international rules and can have peaceful nuclear power as other countries do, subject to the restrictions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the way, the Iranians might see it as that they have made proposals - the Brazilian-Turkish proposal - and that they never go anywhere. They are not the basis of negotiations. Yes, I think if you take a look at the track record, the Iranians have simply not engaged in serious negotiations on these issues. We actually put forward a very serious proposal that would have allowed them to display good faith. They need medical isotopes; there was a way to take out some of their low-enriched uranium so that they could not - so that there was clarity that they were not stockpiling that to try to upgrade to weapons-grade uranium. In exchange, the international community would provide the medical isotopes that they needed for their research facility. And they delayed and they delayed, and they hemmed and they hawed, and then when finally the Brazilian-Indian proposal was put forward, it was at a point where they were now declaring that they were about to move forward on 20% enriched uranium, which would defeat the whole purpose of showing good faith that they were not stockpiling uranium that could be transformed into weapons-grade. So, not to get too bogged down in the details, the point is that the Iranians have a very clear path where they say, We are not going to produce weapons, we will not stockpile material that can be used for weapons. The international community then says, We will work with you to develop your peaceful nuclear energy capacity, subject to the kinds of inspections that other countries have agreed to in the past. What makes it difficult is Iran's insistence that it is not subject to the same rules that everybody else is subject to. Suppose that with all this pressure you have been able to put on Iran, and the economic pressure, suppose the consequence is that the price of oil keeps rising, but Iran does not make any significant concession. It is fair to say that this is not an easy problem, and anybody who claims otherwise does not know what they are talking about.

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