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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 20, 1995

                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                       IN Q & A WITH THE PRESS

The Roosevelt Room

11:44 A.M. EST

Q Mr. President, what do you say to Congressman Leach, who suggests that the partisanship, the bickering over Speaker Gingrich's book deal is poisoning the atmosphere and not allowing this Mexican package to go through?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, of course, he has been in Washington many more years than I have, but in the two years that I have been here, I have seen an unusual amount of partisan bickering. But it didn't stop us from passing GATT; from dealing with NAFTA; from dealing with the urgent problems in Russia that we confronted when I came here early on; and from pursuing a course in the Middle East that is having a very positive result; from doing any number of other things that were critical to the national interest. And it can't stop us now.

We have to do what we always do in these cases -- we have to act, act quickly, act with dispatch and put the national interest first. That's what we all have to do. (Applause.)

END11:46 A.M. EST