THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                      AT PHOTO OPPORTUNITY WITH 
         TREASURER OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, KATHLEEN BROWN
             
                             Oval Office   

6:15 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Let me say first it's a pleasure for me to have Kathleen Brown here in the White House to have an opportunity to talk about the many issues and challenges facing California, what we can do to work on them together. I want to congratulate her on her win in the primary, and I look forward to working with her.

Q Are you planning to campaign for Ms. Brown?

THE PRESIDENT: If she asks me to, I will. That's up to her.

MS. BROWN: I'm asking. I'm asking. (Laughter.) Come ride our bus.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm in California a lot, you know, and I expect to be back a lot. And I'm encouraged by the signs that our economic program is beginning to take hold in California. I'm encouraged by the very rapid work that was done to get the investments in to Southern California after the quake. I'm encouraged by a lot of the work that's being done in defense conversion in California. And I'm encouraged by the increasing exports coming out of California and going into the rest of the world. But there's still an awful lot to be done, so I expect to be there quite a lot.

Q What about the World Cup?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm elated, aren't you? That's right, the United States won in California. It's great. I'm so excited about it. I went to the opening game in Chicago, you know, between Germany and Bolivia, and my daughter got me interested in soccer years ago. But I'm about to get totally hooked.

I like this American team. You know, it reminds me of my campaign -- they're kind of the underdogs and they're coming on, and it's -- I'm really very hopeful for them now.

THE PRESS: Thank you.

END6:16 P.M. EDT