THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary
                    (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                         April 17, 1993     

	     
                    INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
                      BY MICHAEL WHITELY OF
                    KDKA-AM RADIO, PITTSBURGH
	     
                 Pittsburgh International Airport
                     Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania    



10:40 A.M. EDT
	     
	     
	     Q	  For everyone listening on KDKA Radio, I'm Mike 
Whitely, KDKA Radio News.  We're here at the Pittsburgh 
International Airport and with me is the President of the United 
States Bill Clinton.
	     
	     And I'd like to welcome you to the area and to KDKA.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, Mike.  Glad to be here.
	     
	     Q	  There are a lot of things we'd like to talk 
about in the brief amount of time we have, but some news is just 
breaking from Los Angeles.  I guess the entire country has been 
kind of holding their breath, wondering what's going to happen in 
the trial of the four Los Angeles police officers.  We just heard 
that two of those officers, the sergeant, Sergeant Koon and 
Officer Powell have been found guilty, and two officers have been 
found not guilty.
	     
	     It's a situation that's been building for over a 
year since the first trial and now this trial and this verdict.  
And I wonder what your thoughts are this morning on how you see 
the situation in Los Angeles in connection with your 
administration and what you're trying to do.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, I think the 
American people should know that this trial, in my judgment, is a 
tribute to the work and judgment of the jury, as well as to the 
efforts of the federal government in developing the case.
	     
	     The law under which the officers were tried is a 
complex one; the standards of proof are complicated.  The jury 
decided that they would convict the sergeant who was responsible 
for supervising the officers and the officer who on the film did 
most of the beating.  The jury acquitted an officer who kicked 
Rodney King, but also plainly tried to shield him from some 
blows, and another officer who was a rookie.
	     
	     No one knows exactly why they did what they did, but 
it appears that they really tried to do justice here.  They 
acknowledged that his civil rights were violated.  And I think 
that the American people should take a lot of pride in that.  But 
I hope now we can begin to look ahead and focus on three things:  
first of all, the importance of trying to bring this country 
together and not violate the civil rights of any American; 
secondly, the importance of renewing our fight against crime.  
	     
	     I think it's important to recognize that in the 
poorest areas of Los Angeles and many other cities in this 
country, people may be worried about police abuse, but they're 
even more worried about crime.  It's time that we renewed our 
efforts to go to community policing -- put 100,000 more police 
officers on the street; pass the Brady Bill that would require a 
waiting period before people could buy a handgun, and do some 
other things to reduce the vulnerability of our people to 
violence and drugs.
	     
	     And the last point I'd like to make is it seems to 
me that we have got to rededicate ourselves to the economic 
revitalization of our cities and other economically-distressed 
areas.  If you just think about it -- if everybody in Los Angeles 
who wanted a job had one, I don't think we'd have quite as many 
problems as we do.  
	     
	     And I laid out a very ambitious program in the 
campaign to try to bring private investment and public investment 
to bear in our cities.  I have dispatched the Commerce Secretary, 
Ron Brown, to California to try to come up with some strategies 
for that state, because it's our biggest state with our highest 
unemployment rate -- which could then be applied around the 
country.  I want to talk to him and to the Attorney General, to 
the new head of the NAACP, to Reverend Jackson, and to several 
other people, and then I'll decide where to go from here with 
regard to Los Angeles and the other cities of the country.
	     
	     Q	  Let's talk about what brings you to the 
Pittsburgh area today.  There have been -- I guess there's been a 
lot of discussion on Capitol Hill about your stimulus package.  
You've been locked in a battle with the GOP.  Yesterday, as you 
said earlier in your radio address, you made some moves to break 
that gridlock.  What brings you to Pittsburgh, in particular to 
Allegheny County, in particular to Pennsylvania, with that 
battle?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, there are two reasons.  First 
of all, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and Pennsylvania supported 
me in the last election because they wanted a new direction in 
economic policy.  We have passed our overall economic plan; it 
gives the country a very different budget for the next five years 
than we've had in the previous 12.  We reduced the deficit and, 
at the same time, increased investment in jobs and education and 
health care, in the things that will make us a stronger country.
	     
	     But in addition to that, I asked the Congress in the 
short run to spend a little more money, a modest amount of money 
to create another half-million jobs in the next year and a half; 
to try to cut the unemployment rate by a half a percent; but also 
to try to spark job creation in the private sector more.  The 
plan passed the House.  It has the support of a majority of the 
Senate.  At the present time, all the Republican   senators as a 
bloc are filibustering the bill.  That is, they won't let it come 
to a vote.
	     
	     I believe that Senator Specter would like to vote 
for the bill.  And I believe that Senator Dole, the Republican 
leader, has put a lot of pressure on a lot of the Republicans to 
stay hitched.  And they're all saying that this bill increases 
the deficit.  It doesn't.  This bill is well below the spending 
targets that Congress approved, including the Republicans, for 
this year.  This bill is paid for by budget cuts in the next five 
years.  This bill is designed to give a jump-start to the 
economy.  And I must say, a lot of the Republican senators that 
are holding it up, when Mr. Bush was President, voted for 
billions of dollars of emergency spending of just this kind --
much of it was totally unrelated to creating jobs.
	     
	     So what I'm trying to do is to break this logjam.  
I've held out an olive branch, I've offered a compromise.  But I 
think that we ought to try to put some more Americans to work 
right now to show that we're changing the direction of the 
country.  And that's the purpose of the bill.
	     
	     Q	  Have you been in touch with Senator Specter or 
his office lately?
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we've been trying to talk 
regularly to -- through my White House Congressional Liaison 
operation to the senators that we think are open to this --
Senator Specter, Senator D'Amato from New York, Senator Jeffords 
from Vermont, Senator Hatfield from Oregon, and five or six 
others whom we believe know we need more jobs in this economy and 
know that we are paying for this with budget cuts over the life 
of the budget I presented.
	     
	     You know, it has a lot of appeal to say, well, we've 
got a big deficit, we shouldn't increase it more.  But the truth 
is that we are paying for this with budget cuts in the whole life 
of the budget over the next few years.  And more importantly, we 
have this program well below the spending targets that Congress 
has already approved for this year.  And they've done this for 
years, with the Republicans voting for it -- many Republicans 
voting for it -- for things that weren't nearly as important as 
putting the American people back to work.  
	     
	     So I just hope that this doesn't become a political 
issue.  It ought to just be about the people of this country and 
the need for jobs.
	     
	     Q	  I have some questions from people who supported 
you, and some people who are skeptical about your administration.  
It has to do with their hopes, and also with their fears.  A lot 
of people who supported you and voted for you in Pennsylvania --I 
think some of them are now saying, we're glad we got him in the 
White House, but now look at this incredible process he has to go 
through.  Look at these problems.  Look at this gridlock.  And 
they're beginning to wonder, is this going to work; can you pull 
it off?  And, of course, your skeptics are saying, well, I knew 
it was going to be like this.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, what I would -- I'd ask 
people, first of all, to remember that we are, frankly, moving 
very fast.  The budget resolution that the Congress passed is the 
fastest they have ever passed a budget resolution -- ever -- in 
history, setting out the next five-year budget targets.  So we 
are moving really rapidly.  And we've got them working on 
political reform, welfare reform, health care reform, a whole 
wide range of things.  
	     
	     But it's a big operation.  You can't expect to turn 
it around overnight.  It took 12 years to produce the conditions 
which led to the victory I received from the people in November, 
and we can't turn it around in 90 days.  But I think we're making 
real, real progress.  
	     
	     I would urge the people not to get discouraged.  
We're not going to win every battle, and not everything is going 
to happen overnight.  But we are definitely moving and changing 
things.
	     
	     Q	  Thank you very much.  
	     
	     The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, 
here live at Pittsburgh International Airport.  I'm Mike Whitely, 
KDKA News.