Interview of President Clinton and Senator Clinton on the Hurricane and Relief Efforts
Senator Clinton: Well, we’re happy to be back at the fair again,and I’m so pleased that Bill is here this year – couldn’t make it last year. We always have a wonderful time. If y’all have any questions before we head out to the fair?
Q: Were you surprised (inaudible) anarchy in New Orleans (inaudible)
President Clinton: Well, it happened over a period of a few days, and it’s tough when you lose access, power, sewer, clean water all at once, and there were still a lot of people trapped in there. So I suppose the dimensions of it surprises me, but if you think about all they lost and how many people are still there, you know, it’s tough.
Q (rough): how likely is it to come back from something like this?
Senator Clinton: Oh, it is definitely something we’re going to be committed to. Both of us have spoken to Senator Landreaux, a long time friend of ours, I’ve spoke with the other Senator, Senator Vitter, obviously both Bill and I have spoken with people in the Bush Administration. And obviously this is a long term effort, but I just imagine how we would have felt after 9/11 if people had said ‘forget it, don’t rebuild,’ ‘forget it, move away.’ We would never have accepted that, and I’m so happy no one in America said that. And we’re going to be committed to doing this.
President Clinton: It’s going to be a long hard fight, but for me it’s very important. You know, I went to New Orleans for the first time over fifty years ago – it’s the first place I ever visited outside my home – and it has a special place in the hearts of millions of people. And so we will rebuild it. And also, the whole Gulf Coast –
Senator Clinton: Right
President Clinton: you know I think it’s important – a lot of these people could feel left out. Biloxi was devastated, Gulf Port, Pascagoula
Senator Clinton: Mobile
President Clinton: Bay St. Louis, Mobile, all those little Alabama and Mississippi towns and a lot of other places in Louisiana too. So we’ve got a lot of hard work to do, but at least I have the feeling things are beginning to move now. We’ve got to get those people out of there, then we’ve got to get the pumps up and working again, pump the lake, get the water out of the city, then flush the water systems, get the sewer systems back up, then we’ll have a situation where we can at least begin to function and plan.
Q: Senator, do you think the administration has moved quick enough to deal with the problem?
Senator Clinton: Well, the President himself said it was unacceptable, and I absolutely agree with that. There will be time in the weeks ahead to take stock of what didn’t happen, what should have happened, what did – what transpired, but right now I’m focused on doing whatever I can along with Bill and, really, millions of other Americans trying to help. Now there are some steps we should take when we get back to Congress. We passed the emergency supplemental of 10.5 billion, but you know in New York we got a lot of help in making it easier to apply for Medicaid for healthcare; we had an accelerated process. We need to be looking to that. We need to make sure that foodstamps are available once there are places for people to go buy food. We need to really take a hard look at what can we do from the Congressional level to try to ease the suffering of the people along the Gulf.
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