June 25, 1999
Web posted at: 6:56 p.m. EDT (2256 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 25) -- In a wide-ranging news conference Friday afternoon, President Bill Clinton said that with the Kosovo crisis behind his administration, he would push a long list of domestic legislative priorities that includes health care, gun control and Social Security protections.

While praising U.S. military efforts, Clinton admitted he was surprised by the course of much of the airstrikes against Serb targets in Yugoslavia and Kosovo -- including the length of time it took Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to capitulate.

An emotional Clinton railed against the actions of Milosevic in Kosovo and said the Serbian people should choose a new leader. "They're going to have to decide whether they support his leadership or not; whether they think it's OK that all those tens of thousands of people were killed and all those hundreds of thousands of people were run out of their homes," he said.

He denied that the U.S. has targeted the Yugoslav president for assassination. "We have not put a price on Mr. Milosevic's head for someone to kill him. We have offered a reward for people who can arrest and help bring to justice war criminals ... So let's get that clear," Clinton said.

Friday's 73-minute press conference was Clinton's first in three months and another step in his campaign against the image that his presidency is all but over. "I expect to be working right up to the very end," the president said of his final year and a half in office.

Clinton sounded a similar message earlier in the day in a major policy speech at Georgetown University. There, he called on Congress to support initiatives such as allowing disabled Americans to keep Medicaid health insurance when they take a job, raising the minimum wage, campaign finance reform and the so-called patients' bill of rights. (Full story)

Clinton first outlined those priorities during his State of the Union address five months ago, but since then international issues have dominated Washington's work. Before that, the White House and Congress were both preoccupied by the year-long investigation of the Monica Lewinsky matter.

'Summer of progress'

While again touching on each of his top policy initiatives during the press conference, the president reserved his strongest remarks for the issue of gun control, slamming House Republicans for blocking new gun controls.

"We can't expect young people to stand up to violence when Congress won't stand up to the gun lobby," he said. And if Congress sends him what he termed weak gun legislation, Clinton pledged to veto it.

Clinton insisted Congress and the White House can overcome partisanship and have a "summer of progress." But efforts to reclaim the national agenda may prove difficult for the president with campaign 2000 already heating up.

And the president's priorities don't parallel those of the Republican congressional majority, which has placed a tax cut at the top of its agenda.

Clinton did not rule out the possibility of further tax relief, but he said he would not support one that dipped into education or health care funds. And he again stressed that the solvency of Social Security and Medicare must be ensured before anything else.

The president denied that an administration plan to extend Medicare benefits to include prescription drug coverage will just add expenses to the entitlement program, expected to go bankrupt by 2015.

"When I make my proposals on Tuesday, there will be more to lengthen the life further; to make sure that we get through the first quarter-century and maybe more of this, of the new century with Medicare alive and well," Clinton insisted.

Impact of personal behavior on Gore, Mrs. Clinton

Clinton denied the Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment proceedings that followed would damage the presidential hopes of Vice President Al Gore or a potential Senate race by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"All politics, all elections are about the future. And all candidates are judged on their own merits. And I believe that that is the case here," he said in response to a reporter's question of whether he would be a liability for Gore or Mrs. Clinton.

Gore is currently the Democratic front-runner for the year 2000 race to the White House and the first lady will form an exploratory committee next month for a possible bid for New York's 2000 Senate seat.

Clinton again said his wife had not made any decision in regard to a possible Senate run in New York. But he did pledge not to abandon his home state of Arkansas, saying he would divide his time between that state and New York following his presidency.

Clinton admits espionage misstatement

Solo news conferences have become a fairly rare event in the Clinton presidency since the Lewinsky scandal first broke in 1998. His last one was last March but before that almost a year had lapsed since he last faced the press -- one of the longest stretches any modern president has gone without a full-blown formal news conference.

One comment Clinton made during that March press grilling has since come back to haunt him. At the time when he was asked what he knew of alleged incidents of Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear labs, the president answered: "No one has reported to me that they suspect such a thing has occurred."

Now, Clinton acknowledged that his "choice of wording was poor."

"What I should have said was I did not know of any specific instance of espionage," Clinton said Friday, but that "we've been suspicious all along."

Friday's events mark the beginning of a whirlwind of events aimed at raising the president's profile for the rest of his term.

Clinton will appear Monday in New York and Connecticut for political fund-raisers and then travel to Chicago on Wednesday. Beginning July 5, he will begin a tour of poverty pockets across America, stopping in Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Arizona and California.

Friday, June 25, 1999

• Clinton grilled on Kosovo, domestic policy
• Transcript: Clinton meets the press
• Clinton asks Congress to put politics aside and move on domestic agenda
• Transcript: Clinton lays out domestic agenda
• Gore scores key union endorsement
• Republicans trounce Dems in annual congressional baseball game
• DNC turns down Michigan Democrats' request for Feb. 12 presidential caucus
• Governor's big brother seeks campaign cash on Florida foray
• Clinton Administration tests support for Medicare drug coverage
• Big GOP tax cut targets capital gains, marriage penalty, inheritance
• Candidates take Iowa poll seriously
• Panel would ease mining restrictions, allow congressional pay raise
• Senate remains deadlocked on HMO debate
• Gore's college thesis: Personality counts
• Fight to end workplace discrimination against gays revived
• House passes rules limiting seizures of crime-linked property

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