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February 09, 2001

Tape:

• Interview of President Bill Clinton, by Amy Goodman and Gonzalo Aburto November 8, 2000.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President, are you there?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am. Can you hear me?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, I can. You’re calling radio stations to tell people to get out and vote? What do you say to people that feel that the two parties are bought by federations and that they are feel that at this point feel that their vote doesn’t make a difference?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: That there’s not a shred of evidence to support that. That’s what I would say. It’s true that both parties have wealthy supporters. But let me just give you the differences. Let’s look at economic policy. First of all if you look at the last eight years, look where America was eight years ago and where it is today. We have the strongest economy in history and for the first time in thirty years, the incomes of average people and lower income working people have gone up fifteen percent after inflation. We have the lowest minority unemployment ever recorded, the highest minority home ownership, the highest minority business ownership in history. That’s our record. If you look at our proposals: what do we propose to do? We propose a tax cut that helps average people for childcare for long term care, for paying for college tuition for retirement savings. We propose to invest large amounts of money in education, health care, the environment, in our future. And we propose to keep paying down the debt because that keeps interest rates lower. What are the Republicans proposing? A tax cut that’s three times as big, most of it goes to very wealthy people. The top one percent of the people get as much money as they would spend on health care, education and the environment combined. They propose to privatize social security and if you add the two things together, we’ll be back in deficits which means the economy will go down hill and the interest rates will be higher for ordinary people.

AMY GOODMAN: President…

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Look, that’s just one example. You ask a question. Look at campaign finance reform. Democrats are for it, the Republican leadership kills it.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me just…

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Look at the environment. We’ve got the cleanest environment in history, the best environmental record in history. The Republicans want to reverse our environmental records. You can’t give one example of where both parties are dominated by large corporations and therefore there is no difference. The American people’s lives are a lot better than they were eight years ago. The truth is there is an ideological struggle between those who believe that the best way to draw the economy is to give more money to the wealthy. And the Democrats believe that the wealthy will make more money if average people do better.

AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, since it’s rare to get you on the phone, let me ask you another question. And that is, what is your position on granting Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist, executive clemency?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I don’t have a position I can announce yet. I think it…I believe there is a new application for him in there and when I have time, after the elections over, I’m going to review all of the remaining executive clemency applications and see what the merit dictates. I will try to do what I think the right thing to do is based on the evidence. I’ve never had the time actually to sit down myself and review that case. I know it’s very important to a lot of people maybe on both sides of the issue. And I think I owe it to them to give it an honest look through. Part of my responsibilities in the last ten weeks of office after the election will be to review the requests for pardons and executive clemencies and give them a fair hearing and I pledge to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: And you will give an answer in his case?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Oh yeah, I’ll decide one way or the other.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally do you support a moratorium on the death penalty given the studies that show how racist it has been?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think…in the case of…I certainly support what the Governor of Illinois did, because there was clear evidence in Illinois that a lot of mistakes had been made. In the case of the federal government, I have asked the Attorney General to conduct a comprehensive review and to report back to us on the racial disparities and on any questions of guilt on adequate assistance on all those things to determine whether there should be a moratorium and I haven’t gotten her findings yet. Now so far the only two cases which have come up have been deferred while we do this study and when that comes in, if it comes in while I’m still in office, I’ll make a judgment and if it doesn’t then I think that the next president I would hope will make a decision based on merits, based on what the evidence shows. The disturbing thing to me is that there’s not only an apparent racial disparity, on death row, but also in the federal government, but also way over half of the cases come from a relatively small number of the U.S. attorney’s offices which is disturbing. But again let me just say this; if you are concerned about that, that’s another reason to vote for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and Hillary for the Senate, for the people in New Jersey who can hear you for John Corsyn because we know that the Democrats care about these issues and we know that they’re not very important to the Republicans.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President- PRESIDENT: For example, that’s another reason you ought to vote for the Democrats.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Gore supports the death penalty and Lieberman-

PRESIDENT CLINTON: He does, but…Yes they do but there’s a difference in supporting it and carrying it out even if you thought the system was fundamentally unfair. His opponent-

AMY GOODMAN: But the study shows-–

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But the studies are not complete because the studies have to…what the Attorney General is doing is not just looking at everybody that’s been convicted, but everybody that could have been charged that wasn’t. There’s a lot more stuff that needs to be done and the main concern, the initial view of who’s on the death row. But I think you ought to look at that as compared with Texas for example, as there was evidence that a lawyers falling asleep during their trial was not enough to deter Texas from continuing to carry out the death penalty which I thought was unacceptable. And so I think that if you’re interested in somebody that has the capacity to look at the fairness in this, you only have one choice.

AMY GOODMAN: Well I guess that many people were quite disturbed that when you first ran for president, you went back in the midst of your campaign to Arkansas and presided over an execution of a mentally impaired man.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Yeah, but let me…Lets go back to the facts here. He was not mentally impaired when he committed the crime. He became mentally impaired because he was wounded after he murdered somebody. And the law says that it’s your mental state at the time you committed the crime. That’s something no one else ever… no one ever says that when they talk about it. Had he been mentally impaired when he committed the crime, I would never have carried out the death penalty because he was not in a position to know what he was doing. That is not what the facts were. Secondly, if I had not gone home, I would have been accused of putting the tough decision off on somebody else.

GONZALO ABURTO: President Clinton, my name is Gonzalo Aburto. I am a Latino living here in New York. I wanted to ask you why Latinos and Latinas here in the United States should vote for Gore and Lieberman.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The Latinos should know that the Democrats favor fairness for immigrants. Secondly, we favor affirmative action. Thirdly we favor hate crimes legislation and employment non-discrimination legislation and the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court that will protect civil rights and human rights. And fourthly let me say again that we have had an economic policy that is dramatically improved the lives of Latinos. When I became president, Latino unemployment rate was 11.8 percent. Today, it is 5 percent the lowest in the history of the country. So if you’re looking for somebody that wants to make sure that everybody is part of Americas present and future, Al Gore’s your man.

AMY GOODMAN: Yet despite massive protests in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Navy continues to bomb and use the island of Yeckas and you have authorized this.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now wait a minute, wait… wait just a minute now. The United States Navy has an agreement with the government of Puerto Rico, the representative of all the people of Puerto Rico, to turn back the western half of the Yeckas to Puerto Rico to not have any live fire bombing. There’s no live fire bombing going on there. And to terminate all the training within a couple of years during which time they have to find a new place to train. So this training that’s going on now is subsequent to an agreement. Now the Republicans in Congress broke the agreement and instead of giving the western part of the island to Puerto Rico, gave it to the interior department to manage. If I can’t find a way to give that island, that western part of the island, back to the people of Puerto Rico and to honor the agreement that the government of Puerto Rico itself made with the support of the local leaders, including the mayor of Yecas then the people of Puerto Rico, I think, have a right to say that the federal government broke its word and the training has to stop right now. But I think the training should stop because the people don’t want it there. But we need a place to train and we’re in the process of finding another place and we made an agreement and I think the agreement ought to be honored, and I was disappointed that the Congress didn’t fully honor it but I think I can find a way to keep the commitment of the Federal government anyway and that’s what I’m trying to do.

GONZALO ABURTO: Mr. President, what do you feel about the possible amnesty…..

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well I think that… that’s what I meant earlier. I’ve got a bill before Congress now that would treat legal immigrants from Honduras from Guatemala from Haiti from Salvador in the same way that Congress has already voted to treat immigrants from Cuba and Nicaragua. I think that it’s not right the way we have treated a lot of these immigrant populations differently.

AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, the UN figures show that up to 5,000 children a month die in Iraq because of the sanctions in…

PRESIDENT CLINTON: That’s not true. That’s not true. And that’s not what they show. Let me just tell you something. Before the sanctions, the year before the Gulf War…you said this, how much money did Iraq earn from oil? The answer. 16 billion dollars. How much money did Iraq earn last year from oil? How much money did they get, cash on the barrel help from Saddam Hussein? Answer. 19 billion dollars. That he can use exclusively for food for medicine to develop his country. He’s got more money now, 3 billion dollars more a year than he had nine years ago. If any child is without food or medicine or a roof over his or her head in Iraq it’s because he is claiming the sanctions are doing it and sticking it to his own children. We have worked like crazy to make sure that the embargo only implies to his ability to reconstitute his weapons system and his military state. This is a guy who butchered the children of his own country. Who were Kurds who were Shiites. He used chemical weapons on his own people. And he is now lying to the world and claiming the mean old United States is killing his people. He has more money today than he did before the embargo. And if there are hungry and they are not getting medicine, it is his own fault.

AMY GOODMAN: The past two UN heads of the program in Iraq have quit calling the US policy, the US-UN Policy genocidal. What is your response to that?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: They’re wrong. They think that we should reward…Saddam Hussein says I’m going to starve my kids unless you let me buy nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons. If you let me do everything I want to do so I can get in the position of killing and intimidating people again then I’ll stop starving my kids. And so we’re supposed to assume responsibility for his misconduct. That’s just not right. The truth is a lot of these people want to start doing business with Saddam Hussein again because they want his money. They want the money he earns from oil.

GONZALO ABURTO: Mr. President, are we going to see some sanction change in the policy through Cuba? Regarding Cuba?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me say that we are on the way to that change. Back in 1996 we had a lot of changes in my first term in our policy towards Cuba and we were working our way towards reconciliation and the Cubans were working their way toward more openness more freedom for their farmers and their people and we were really making headway and then they illegally shot down those two planes. And four people died on the planes and Congress passed in Cuba the Helsburton bill, so called and I don’t have much flexibility to do much more. What I have done with Cuba is to use the maximum extent of my legal powers to promote people to people contacts in Cuba and the Cuban people. I do believe there that the Cuban people have suffered because of the embargo and we should do more in the area of food, in the area of medicine and the area of people and the area of people to people contacts and I believe that its just a question of time before the United States and Cuba are reconciled and I think that this situation is tragic. But it wouldn’t have happened if Castro hadn’t shot those planes down out of the air in blatant violation of international law. It was just murder. There’s no way to put a fine point on it. Sometimes I think he doesn’t want the embargo listed because it’s an excuse he has for the problems of his own administration.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you justify imposing the embargo against Cuba and lifting it against China? Normalizing relations with China…

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, China hasn’t killed any of our pilots lately. They haven’t murdered any Americans. As a matter of fact, the United States accidentally and tragically killed some Chinese citizens during our military campaign in Kosovo. And we have differences with China that we think can best be resolved. China is a nuclear power, they have missile capacity, we’ve worked very hard with them to reduce the threats of sales of missiles to renegade states to make the world a safer place and they’ve worked with us peace on the Korean peninsula to help the Korean situation. And as I’ve said, I believe if Castro hadn’t shot those planes down and the Congress hadn’t passed a law which prohibits me from doing anything with the embargo, that we might have made some real progress there.

AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International has described what the Israeli forces are now doing in occupied territories-

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Listen, I can’t do a whole press conference here. It’s Election Day and I’ve got a lot of people and places to call.

AMY GOODMAN: Well I guess these are the questions that are very important to our listeners and these questions.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well I’ve answered them all.

AMY GOODMAN: Right. And we appreciate that.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I have answered them all. Now, let me just tell you on the Israeli Palestinian thing, the Secretary General of the United Nations and I were together in Egypt. We agreed on a three prong strategy to end the violence and restore the peace talks. And which in regard to the Amnesty International findings, what we agreed to do was to set up a fact finding commission to look into what happened, how the recent violence started and what could be done to avoid it recurring. And the agreement was that that would happen as soon as the violence was stopped. We’ve had some progress the last two or three days. Everybody’s working hard and I think the less I say right now, the better publicly because I don’t want to complicate things. I’m working my heart out to stop the violence, get the commission appointed and get the peace process started. In the Middle East, that’s something I know more than a little bit about. The only answer to this, over the long run, is an agreement that covers all the issues that the Palestinians feel agreed by, guarantees the Israelis security and acceptance within the region and is a just and lasting peace. I think the United Nations will support or I know I know they will, the implantation of the agreement we made with Sharmo Shank….

AMY GOODMAN: Why not support a UN force in the Middle East for the illegal occupation of the territories? And at this point, I think we are at about 150 people being killed within the occupied territories. Overwhelmingly Palestinian-

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You can support it if you want to, but the Israelis won’t support it and there was a war in which that happened. And if you want to make peace, then you have to do things that both sides can agree with. That’s what a peace agreement is. And I do not believe that just as I don’t think the Israelis can forever impose their situation in the Middle East, and they don’t either, which is why we started the article peace process 7 yrs ago. Neither do I think that everybody else saying the UN is going to impose their will on Israel on its own territory will work out either.

AMY GOODMAN: Many say that Ralph Nader is at the high percentage point he is at in the polls because you have been responsible for taking the Democratic Party to the right. What do you say to listeners who are listening around the area right now about their concerns?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I’m glad you asked that. That’s the last question I’ve got time for. I’ll be happy to answer that. What is the measure of taking the Democratic Party to the right? That we cut the welfare roll in half that poverty is at a twenty year low. That child poverty has been cut by a third in the nation. That the incomes of average Americans has gone up fifteen percent after inflation. That poverty of seniors has gone below ten percent for the first time in American history; that we have the lowest African American, the lowest Latino unemployment rate in the history of the country. That we have a 500% increase in the number of minority kids taking advance placement tests. That the schools in this country, that the test scores, since we’ve required all of the schools to have basic standards, test scores among African Americans and other Americans have gone up steadily..

AMY GOODMAN: Can I just say that…

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now wait a minute, let me just finish..

AMY GOODMAN: Let me just say-—

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now wait a minute, you started this. Every question you’ve asked has been hostile and combative, so you listen to my answer. Will you do that?

AMY GOODMAN: They’ve been credible-–

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now, you just listen to me. You asked the questions and I’m going to answer. Now you have asked questions in a hostile, combative and even disrespectful tone, but you have never been able to combat the facts I have given you. Now you listen to this. Now the other thing, Ralph Nader says is that he’s pure as Caesar’s wife on the environment. Under this Administration, 43 million more Americans are breathing cleaner air, we have safer drinking water, safer food, cleaner water, more land set aside than any Administration in history since Theodore Roosevelt. We have cleaned up three times as many toxic waste sites, as the previous administrations did in twelve years, and we passed a chemical right to know law that’s a very tough law. That’s the best environmental record in history. Al Gores opponent in one of the two of them are going to be president. Al gores opponent has promised to weaken the clean air standards and repeal a lot of the land protections. Now those are the facts. People can say whatever they want to, those are the facts.

AMY GOODMAN: What people say is that you pushed through NAFTA, that we have the highest population of prisoners in the industrialized world, over 2 million. That more people are on death row in this country than anywhere else and that people are-

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, alright.. Now ok, that’s fine. But two-thirds of the American people support that. I think there are too many people in prison too. I have called for a total evaluation for the people in the federal prison system, a review of the federal sentencing guidelines. I did my best to persuade Congress to get rid of the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine in the sentencing guidelines. I agree with that. Nobody ever said America was perfect. I disagree. I think NAFTA has been good for America. I think it’s been good, it has helped to reduce illegal immigration. It has helped to provide a decent standard of life in Mexico, I think it has been good. I think the agreement we made to open our markets to Africa and the poor countries of the Caribbean were good for America. People complain about our trade agreement. Trade is responsible for thirty percent of our economic growth. And we have the lowest unemployment rate for thirty years. How can anyone make a serious case that trades been bad for America? We have a fifteen percent increase in average income of ordinary Americans, the lowest unemployment rate in thirty years and the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded among African Americans and Hispanics. Now I don’t think that you can make a sane case that if you closed up our markets that either Africa or Latin America or America would be better off.

AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, On The Record on election day. I interviewed him with Gonzalo Aburto of WBAI. You’re listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!

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