Interview With Dan Rather of CBS News - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 25, 2000

December 18, 2000

End of the President's Term

Mr. Rather. Mr. President, when I was walking over here, I mentioned to one member of your staff, "Well, it must be a bittersweet time." And he bristled a little. He was gentlemanly about it, but he bristled a little. Do you see it as a bittersweet time?

The President. Well, only a little bit, actually. I'm vary happy and very much at peace and very grateful for the chance to serve and grateful especially that the country is in such good shape as I leave office. But I think, for all of us, it may be bittersweet in the sense that people--virtually everybody that works here likes the work, and we tried never to forget that it was a job and that we were privileged to do it.

But everything comes to an end; you have to do something else. And I think we've had our time here. I'm just focused on doing everything I can in the days that remain, helping President-elect Bush have a successful transition and kind of savoring and being grateful for the good things that have happened.

2000 Presidential Election

Mr. Rather. The country is still in the midst of an almost 8-year boom. The country is at peace. You've had, by many measurements if not most--perhaps even all measurements--at least a reasonably successful Presidency. Why are we having a Republican President come in behind you?

The President. Well, I think partly because of the prosperity. I think they both debated how to use the prosperity, and the country was evenly divided. One candidate won the popular vote, and the Supreme Court decided the electoral vote. People will be analyzing that for years to come. Maybe I'll have a chance to analyze it, too, after some time. But I don't know that I have anything to add to what's been said by others.

Vice President Al Gore/2000 Presidential Election

Mr. Rather. Maybe we ought to come back to that later. Through most of the 8 years of your Presidency, you and your Vice President seemed to all the world to be joined at the hip. There were historians who were writing that Vice President Gore had been given as much or more responsibility than any Vice President in the history of the country.

The President. Oh, more. There's no question about that.

Mr. Rather. And that he did a very good job as Vice President.

The President. And he did. I think that when the period of this history is written and people who care about American Government look at how we organized and ran the administration, they will say a number of things, including the fact that we came here with a well-thought-out set of ideas and policies and we basically did what we said we'd do in '92 and then again in '96, and that we had a real team operation in the White House, and that the Vice President had more responsibility in more areas than any Vice President in history and carried them out very well. I don't think there is any question that in the job of Vice President, he's the most effective person that has held that job and had more responsibility than anyone who ever had it.

Mr. Rather. That being the case, Mr. President, when he, in effect, ran away from you during the campaign, you had to be disappointed at that.

The President. Well, I think, first of all, everybody has got to run their own race. And it's a difficult thing running as Vice President. There is no accident that only two Vice Presidents in the history of the country have ever been directly elected President.

If you get to be Vice President, you've got an excellent chance of getting to be President, because something could happen to the President, and you've got a terrific chance of being the nominee for President of your party. But to be directly elected, it's only happened twice. And once, when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson, we were still virtually a one-party country. And the only other time it happened was in 1988, when basically there was an enormously contentious and negative campaign which succeeded in painting the Democratic nominee, Governor Dukakis, as virtually un-American.

This was basically a pretty positive campaign. They had a debate about what to do. They talked about the various issues, and the people split.

Mr. Rather. But back to the question--had to feel disappointed?

The President. I really believe every person has to decide what's best for them. And I thought that it was--let me just say, I thought that it was the right thing for me not to be out there very much until the end, the last week or 10 days. I did most of what I could do early by going to scores of events for our House and Senate candidates and for the Democratic Party, which helped the Vice President, of course, directly, the Democratic Party work did.

And when a Vice President becomes a President, he tries to figure out some way to establish his own identity and to get the benefit of the good things that have happened, but still to be an independent person. And I don't think that anybody else should second-guess that. Once your party has a nominee, then the rest of us should be on the team. I think politics is a team sport. It's about addition, not subtraction. And I don't believe the rest of us should second-guess the leader of the team, including me.