THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

                           PRESS BRIEFING
                           BY MIKE MCCURRY

The Briefing Room

1:11 P.M. EST

MR. MCCURRY: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Monday to you all. It's a quiet day here at the White House. The President of the United States has the day off, but he insisted I come in the office anyhow. And he's been puttering. That's all he's doing today. He's just working a little bit on the State of the Union, that sort of thing.

Q What do you hear about Yeltsin?

MR. MCCURRY: Helen, on President Yeltsin we don't have any information that contraindicates what the Kremlin itself has said, that he's obviously recovering from his recent surgery and illness. Our work with the Russian Federation continues. We just had a series of high level and productive meetings led by Deputy Secretary Talbott and we are proceeding accordingly.

Q But you don't have any idea if there will be a summit in the United States or not?

MR. MCCURRY: We haven't heard anything. We have not set a time or place for the meeting that we expect to occur later this year between President Yeltsin and President Clinton.

Q Do you expect the meeting to be delayed?

MR. MCCURRY: We haven't set a time or a place. We will be working with the Russian Federation. I imagine that will be a subject that will be included within the basket of issues that Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Vice President Gore deal with when they meet very early next month in the Gore-Chernomyrdin sessions that will be occurring here in Washington.

Q Mike, what impact, if any, do you see on Russian economic and political reforms from his absence from the seat for so long? It's been almost a month since he's even been seen at all.

MR. MCCURRY: Well, the Russian government, like our own government, is a complicated entity and there's a number -- a lot of work that continues irrespective of President Yeltsin's health, work towards privatization, towards economic modernization, towards the creation and deepening of new political institutions.

We discussed those issues and other issues keenly with -- based on our own keen interests, with the Russian government and have contact with them at a wide variety of levels, short of the presidential level.

Q Are you concerned at all that this, though, gives an opening to opponents of reform within Russia?

MR. MCCURRY: That requires me to make an assessment of the internal political dynamic within Russia, and that's really best left to the Russian people.

Q Is it more likely that the summit will be held somewhere other than the United States?

MR. MCCURRY: As I said, again, we have not set a time or a place, so that would require speculation.

Q Mike, wasn't March the target?

MR. MCCURRY: We had talked last -- the Presidents talked in December, I believe. There was a general notional planning about March, and we'll see as we continue to work through with the Russian government time and place, whether that still suggests itself as the time and place.

Q Mike, you said there have been a variety of contacts short of the presidential level. When do you expect a presidential level call to be placed by President Clinton?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, that would be out of sequence right now. In any event, given that we're planning for next week's Gore-Chernomyrdin meetings, that will be a very high-level contact and we'll see what comes out of that session.

Q Why would it be out of sequence and not -- wouldn't it be just out character just to check on -- for the President to check on President Yeltsin's health or --

MR. MCCURRY: He has done that from time to time and we've sent get well wishes on behalf of the American people. The President may choose to do that again at his own choosing.

Q The New York Times has a story today indicating that the United States is seriously considering using commandos to capture 70 wanted war criminals from Balkan countries?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, we have been deeply concerned about war crimes in Bosnia and took the lead in helping establish the War Crimes Tribunal that is attempting to prosecute those cases.

We've said for some time we're looking at ways of making that tribunal more effective. One possible option is to set up some type of special police force; but we've indicated that should be outside of the parameters of the mission established for the stabilization force, the SFOR, currently deployed as the international community's military presence in Bosnia. And we haven't made a decision on whether that's the best way to help the tribunal, but it does suggest itself as an option as Secretary Albright indicated over the weekend.

Q Does that mean it's under active consideration right now?

MR. MCCURRY: It means it's an option that is under consideration.

Q Wouldn't that be a change in the U.S. position there in that region, Mike?

MR. MCCURRY: No, our position has always been that we ought to work to enhance the effectiveness of the tribunal, and we're specifically ruling out that mission as part of the task assigned to the SFOR. No change there.

Q But why would you only send Americans, when this is supposed to be a joint effort?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't know that we've said that we would only send Americans. We've said that perhaps some type of special police force might be empowered to help the work of the tribunal. But that's an option and not an option that would be exclusively American.

Q You're just saying that your policy up until now has been that the S -- IFOR, or whatever, should never have as its goal apprehending war criminals?

MR. MCCURRY: I'm saying that the enhanced effectiveness of the tribunal is something that we care about, and how you make that happen is a proper item for consideration by the international community and specifically by NATO. But in the mission plan for the stabilization force, that role has not been tasked to the special force or the stabilization force and I'm not aware of any suggestion by anyone that says that it should be tasked to the force.

Q Mike, the administration thinks that they can effectively separate the two?

MR. MCCURRY: Yes. Because one is, in a sense, a law enforcement action, the stabilization force is there for the purposes that have been designated by NATO military planners and by NATO civilian authorities.

Q Wasn't one of the lessons of Somalia, the U.S. experience in Somalia that fugitive pursuit was not one of the things that lent themselves well to our military forces?

MR. MCCURRY: I would imagine there are many lessons drawn from Somalia, and one of them would suggest itself in the response I've just given to you, that we've specifically excluded that type of law enforcement action from the mission designated for the stabilization force.

Q Would these necessarily be military forces, or could they be volunteer civilians?

MR. MCCURRY: It's an option so that it's not specifically one thing or the other.

Q Who will make the decision, the President or is this a NATO?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, it depends on which entity would be able to muster that type of force. It would have to be done with close cooperation with NATO and NATO military commanders in Bosnia, but it's also within the province of a number of the international organizations working in Bosnia to do more to make more effective the work of the War Crimes Tribunal.

Q But is there a difference between NATO and the SFOR?

MR. MCCURRY: No. The stabilization force is the NATO force currently in Bosnia.

Q They'd go after Mladic and --

MR. MCCURRY: Well, we didn't say that -- they're not going after anyone right now, because they don't exist.

Q But those would be the type?

MR. MCCURRY: General Mladic is on the list of those who have been indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, yes.

Q Would you have anything to say about John Harris's story in The Post this morning about the lingering influence of Dick Morris?

MR. MCCURRY: I haven't seen Dick Morris around these parts in quite a long time. I don't even know that the article says that. It says that Morris-type tactics are still employed. I guess you could call them Erskine Bowles-type tactics if you wanted to. Or you could call them Bill Clinton-type tactics. The President is the one who sets policy, decides how to execute policy and makes those decisions on the conduct of the presidency.

Q Is there still regular polling going on about lots of issues as the article suggested?

MR. MCCURRY: There's polling from time to time by this White House, as just about every White House in the modern era.

Q Not that much.

Q Speaking about Dick Morris or Erskine Bowles-type tactics, you're suggesting that it might be another education initiative or proposal or something in education released tomorrow?

MR. MCCURRY: I'm suggesting the President looks forward to having a press conference tomorrow. And as we sometimes are want to do, we look to see if we can create at least some shred of news to open the occasion prior to getting to your agenda, and I imagine we'll do so tomorrow and I wouldn't rule out the possibility it might have something to do with education, given that the President has identified education as one of his top priorities for a second term.

Q Why education, beyond the fact that it's such a priority?

MR. MCCURRY: Because education is that bedrock for the bridge that we will build to the 21st century. Look, it does, it connects so many of the things that we talk about as we think of the future for the American people, especially children. And we think about giving them more opportunities for college education, for literacy, for enhanced effectiveness in the work place. There are really direct connections between our emphasis and education and investment in education and what it can do in unlocking the potential of the American economy for the future.

So it sounds to me like a good subject to start out a press conference on.

Q Will this involve --

MR. MCCURRY: Maybe even others, too. We might even have other subjects.

Q Will this involve new money in the '98 federal --

MR. MCCURRY: Well, the President has got a budget he's going to submit soon, so maybe it'll have something to do with that.

Q It's six months today since the Olympic Park bombing and Janet Reno is not saying anything until after the investigation. What's the White House saying, especially since there's no official suspect at this time?

MR. MCCURRY: The White House is saying ask the Justice Department, because the investigation is within their province.

Q Any word on the Arafat visit?

MR. MCCURRY: No, we've indicated our general disposition seeing the Chairman, seeing the Prime Minister, seeing others from the region within the early part of 1997, but we have not set any dates. I checked a little while ago, we have not set any dates. It sounds to me like there are conversations beginning to occur about when different meetings might happen, but there's not been anything set in stone at this point.

Q Mike, a lot of people have focused on the money issues of the releases of documents on Friday. But another interesting fact, there's so much focus on the ethnic in this White House, on sort of dividing the American electorate into various kind of pieces, ethnic and religious and so forth, pieces. Could you comment on that as far as -- I mean, is this to some degree sort of playing into this vulcanization of America?

MR. MCCURRY: No, to the contrary, the President has stressed often that America's diversity is one of the sources of our strength as a nation, as we think about how we will compete in an inter-dependent world in the 21st century. And it makes good sense to him to bring Americans of different walks of life, different ethnic, racial and gender backgrounds together to form common pursuit.

And this President and his national party reached out actively to groups of ethnic Americans because we believe in inclusiveness and bringing them into the process.

Q But to follow-up on that, the way it's done though, if it's narrow casting, it's looking at various ethnic groups, whether they're European ethnic groups or whatever, or African Americans. In each case, you divide these Americans so that they become identified as a group, this does not --

MR. MCCURRY: No. To the degree I'm familiar with the documents you're talking about, they talk about how to go out and reach out to these communities and finding the right way in these communities to mobilize support by going to the sources of information in the community, by approaching leaders in the community, by really trying to incorporate them within the political life of the President's party. I don't know how else you would accomplish that task, but by going out and doing that type of outreach.

Q The President has said many times since 1992 that the Republicans -- he says this -- have tried to divide Americans and that he wants to unite them. I guess the question is, is there anything inconsistent with that message within those documents having Cabinet people and surrogate speakers go out and tell -- fill in the blank -- African Americans, Mexicans -- the Republicans are bad, the Republicans are bad for you -- you as an Hispanic, you as a Jewish American. I think that's -- is there anything inconsistent about --

MR. MCCURRY: I can't characterize those documents as having suggested that that is the sole purpose of the outreach. I think I'd prefer to say it this way: reaching out to those people and including them is the President's way of bringing people together in a common effort that was designed to support the agenda that he put forth during the campaign year. It's a whole lot more effective to reach out to these people and include them in the process than to ignore them, and that was the purpose of the strategy.

Q Mike, just one other, I guess, nuance on this line of questioning. One part of that document that jumped out at me was saying that you're going to court their support by giving them unprecedented access to the White House. Doesn't that seem rather odd to you?

MR. MCCURRY: That we would reach out to leaders of various ethnic and constituency groups and include them in the process and tell them that we wanted to brief them about the President's plans and priorities and draw them into the political process in what we hope would be an effort to support the President. That strikes me as good politics and good policy and good for the democracy that you're trying to nurture by bringing people together in common pursuit of an agenda that the President was articulating.

The alternative, of course, would be to ignore people and not listen to them carefully and respond to their concerns, and that's not a very effective way of nurturing support.

Q Looking back on that May 13th meeting involving Ludwig and Rubin and Rosen, does anybody at the White House, in retrospect, think that that probably was not wise?

MR. MCCURRY: I don't have anything to add to what Mr. Davis has already said in response to that question.

Q But Mr. Davis defended it. I'm just asking if anybody --

MR. MCCURRY: I don't have anything to add to what he said.

Q Mike, are the Republicans right to be concerned about Alexis Herman's involvement in the DNC fundraising effort and the use of her office as a political office connected to the DNC?

MR. MCCURRY: That subject was addressed on Friday and that office was not used as a political office. The circumstances under which those documents were produced have been reviewed by Mr. Davis. I think he's answered questions satisfactorily on that point.

Q So there's nothing in her involvement that should disqualify her from being at the --

MR. MCCURRY: Absolutely not. The President has strong support for the excellent nominee he's put forward for Secretary of Labor.

Q Does the President have concern that some of the people whose -- there's two whose contributions were returned, whose DNC contributions were returned, apparently made contributions to state campaigns, and is he asking that those be checked out?

MR. MCCURRY: My understanding is the DNC is conducting an audit of their contributions. I don't know with what respect that inquiry focuses on state contributions. You should really check with them on that.

Q Was there any concern about the fact that the reimbursement for use of government facilities didn't occur until a few days before the documents were released? Is anybody here sort of looking into, see why that didn't happen?

MR. MCCURRY: Ideally, the minimal amounts used to compensate for use of a computer here on the premises here should have been done earlier, but we're satisfied that the error was corrected by compensating appropriately for the use of the computer time.

Q Was there no process to sort of keep track of these things, even though the memo has clearly stated you have to be careful about these things?

MR. MCCURRY: Very extensive process and very strict admonitions given to White House staff about that. And, in fact, in many offices in the White House during the course of the last year, there were two sets of phones, two sets of faxes, two sets of computers for exactly that reason.

Q Mike, is there any kind of new fire wall, if you will, between the liaison office and the DNC under the guidelines that the President --

MR. MCCURRY: Well, the Hatch Act and existing federal law are pretty clear and the expectations, existing guidelines are very strict on what taxpayers can rightly expect from White House staff. And those strictures that are in place, that were in place, have to be carefully followed.

Q And you're satisfied that they were followed last year?

MR. MCCURRY: I have not addressed that issue, but my understanding is Mr. Davis has given that indication, yes.

Q Mike, the New Yorker this week has a story which suggests that on June 22nd people were brought in for more than coffee, but sort of a day at the White House -- the idea was to solicit them for a particular amount of money and then they would be invited here. I wonder if you could tell us what your response is to that and how you characterize it, what happened --

MR. MCCURRY: I'll look at the article and get back to you. I haven't seen it.

Q Could I put in a request at the same time, then, for you to release the details of who was at that event and give us some background on it?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, let me check and see. That may have been covered by the material that was released on Friday.

Q I don't see it.

Q More about the two phones and two sets of computers. How many offices have two phones and two sets of computers and --

MR. MCCURRY: I can't detail you the entire number, but those who are going to be involved in political work -- obviously the Office of Political Affairs was one -- had to on regular occasion have that type of structure. And of course, that would all be reflected in the expenditure reports that we file with the FEC.

Q That was to avoid the problem that you had with the other computers?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, the issue is you cannot use government resources. You're allowed perfectly within law and within White House guidelines to do political work here at the White House; you cannot use government resources for that work. And, for example, government phones, government faxes, government computers cannot be used. That's where we got into the compensation issue.

Q You could use them, but if you did you had to reimburse.

MR. MCCURRY: You had to compensate. That's right. Or you had to reimburse -- the political entity would have to reimburse the Treasury.

Q And because it was such a regular thing here at the White House, then instead of trying to figure out what you have to reimburse for every fax that came in, you just had two phones, two faxes, so it's --

MR. MCCURRY: Easier way to do it was just to establish a parallel system that was paid for out of the political funds appropriately.

Q Regarding the news report today of the $250,000 season ticket holders in the Republican Party who got access to top members of Congress. Does the White House think it would be a good idea for Senator Thompson's committee to investigate this aspect of Republican fundraising?

MR. MCCURRY: We don't have suggestions to the Chairman on how to conduct his inquiry, but it's hard to imagine that they would not pursue those questions as vigorously as they're pursuing questions that happened on the Democratic side of the ledger.

Q What kind of assurance can you offer that reimbursement would have been made had they not -- had there not been the release of that documentation on Friday?

MR. MCCURRY: The easiest way is by looking at the FEC reports that we filed so you can see the considerable expenditures that were made as that type of expenditure was accounted for by the Clinton-Gore Committee, and then also by the Democratic National Committee.

You look through all of those expenditure reports and you can see how careful the White House was to attend to the responsibilities we had under law. We're talking about two instances here discovered in the search through these documents in which there were documents that were not produced at home. Some of the individuals who wrote these plans did them on their home computer, which is perfectly fine. But there were, I think Mr. Davis probably told you, two instances, I believe, in which there was use of a government computer, and that's been -- the restitution of funds has been made for that.

Q Can I change the subject?

MR. MCCURRY: Sure. (Laughter.)

Q I'm asking my colleagues. (Laughter.)

MR. MCCURRY: Could you tell us which members of Congress watched the Super Bowl with the President last night?

Q John Hilley told me there were about eight, and I don't know that we have the whole list there. We may have put out the list yesterday; Mary Ellen can check.

Q Bipartisan?

MR. MCCURRY: Yes, bipartisan and -- I thought it was maybe male and female, but I'll double-check.

Q What was the theory behind inviting Republicans and Democrats to watch the Super Bowl with the President?

MR. MCCURRY: The President wanted to watch the Super Bowl and thought it would be fun to have a couple of members of Congress watching it with him. It was fun. Fun. Are we allowed to have fun every once in a while? I don't think they were actually connected to -- you know, they were not solely fans or partisans of one team or the other. I think they were just people the President thought it would be fun to get together with. He decided to do this rather late, so I think they called around to see who was available, and a lot of people already had plans, so we didn't include everybody.

Q Which room did they watch it in?

MR. MCCURRY: They watched it in the theater, as I was told, or that was the plan, anyhow, to watch it in the theater.

Q I sent my regrets.

Q Chairman Archer had an op-ed piece in The Post yesterday, his litmus test for the budget. I have two questions. One is, do you think the President's budget will meet his test, and second, what do you think of his approach in putting a letter like that out into the public?

MR. MCCURRY: I thought in general Chairman Archer has reached out to the President, the President has reached out to Chairman Archer, and the goal has been to try to come together to work on budget-related issues so we can reach a bipartisan balanced budget agreement early in 1997.

Chairman Archer has got a lot of good ideas, and the President listens very carefully to some of those ideas;, and I don't say that the President embraces them all, but I think Chairman Archer will have to speak for himself after the release of the President's budget, whether we met the threshold tests that he defined in his article. My guess is that he'll probably find some aspects of the budget wanting, but we hope he finds them wanting in a tone that would reflect the seriousness with which we hope the Republican leadership and the Republican chairs will engage with us on the budget.

As a general proposition -- and that article is one reflection -- we are very encouraged by the seriousness with which people are debating the President's ideas. We don't hear much talk about budgets being dead on arrival; you hear people engaged with the White House in a serious discussion about some of the underlying merits of the proposals that are likely to be reflected in the budget, and that's a very different situation to be in here in Washington.

Normally, the President sends a budget up, the Congress declares it's dead, then we go into a long, gridlock stalemate over the budget that's resolved right up at the last minute. Things seem to be working differently this time around, and that's very encouraging to the White House and we hope it continues.

Q Along that line, are you encouraged by a bipartisan group of lawmakers who on Friday introduced a hybrid capital gains proposal that fixes gains -- cuts for homeowners --

MR. MCCURRY: We suspect a lot of different member of Congress will have lots of different ideas about the budget. And we hope that they will take the President's budget, begin to work through it, send their ideas to us. We suspect -- the greatest of all worlds would be if they attempted to amend the President's budget, started dealing with that document as the document that they use to begin their budget deliberations.

And we should -- I'm confident that members of Congress will have a lot of different ideas. But that's good. That's the way we ought to go about doing the business.

Q Are there meetings here going on --

Q At the convention, the Chicago convention, the President proposed -- the same day Dick Morris was fired, actually -- the capital gains break for homeowners. Is that going to be in your budget?

MR. MCCURRY: The farthest I've gone on that, Carl, is to say that you'd see reflected in the President's budget some of the ideas he talked about in the campaign, to be sure. Tax relief would include an element related to capital gains with respect to homeownership. You can imagine, based on what the President said in the campaign, but I'm declining to say specifically that that item would be in there or to provide details on it until the President's budget is released next Thursday.

Q If it -- let's just say for a moment --

MR. MCCURRY: Just say as a hypothetical, you had something like that in there. (Laughter.)

Q Yes, okay. Are you saying in answer to Paula's question that the President is open to other addition capital gains ideas, that they're not being ruled out now?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, as a practical matter, the Congress and many leading members of Congress have already indicated that they're likely to pursue capital gains tax relief as part of what they bring to the table. The President has said that he will respect that and listen to those ideas, make his own arguments about tax relief, about why it should be targeted, why it should be tax relief that's designed to stimulate the economy and future economic growth. But that's within the realm of discussion, and the President knows that. And the President has not wanted in a preemptory way to say that no idea can be brought to the table for discussion.

Q Senator Daschle is going to suggest that the President was going to sent up a letter on the Constitutional amendment to balance the budget, spelling out his position. A, has the President done that yet? Is he planning on doing it?

MR. MCCURRY: He has not sent a letter to my knowledge. But I think the President is expected to articulate his views publicly and most likely in writing in a variety of fora as the debate on the amendment proceeds. They will all say the same thing which is, let's not talk about doing it, let's just do it; and here's my balanced budget plan. let's get to work and give the American people a balanced budget that they want.

Q Is the President going to have any more meetings in the next week with Republicans in Congress to try to get a budget up there, as you say, that maybe will be a little less DOA?

MR. MCCURRY: He's doing work on that and doing work today on his State of the Union message. I think, for practical purposes -- we can check with Hilley. I think Congress is in recess now until the State of the Union, so I don't anticipate meetings this week. But I imagine in and around the State of the Union and shortly thereafter, we'll want to work closely in cooperation with the Republican leaders and the Democrat leaders of Congress.

Q You said it's all wrapped though, didn't you?

MR. MCCURRY: The budget -- our budget proposal is done, but the balanced budget agreement that needs to happen between the President and the Executive* Branch is out there waiting.

Q What are the prospects of a balanced budget agreement with the Republicans?

MR. MCCURRY: I think they're excellent. I think there has been a lot of progress made through the long hours of conversation that we had a year ago at this time. I think there was a consensus built during the course 1996 on the need for a balanced budget and on some of the priorities that a balanced budget would address. And I think it's certainly with the realm of the possible that the Republican Congress and the Democrat President could come to agreement quickly and get the job done.

Q Mike, several Republican members of Congress were briefed by Donna Shalala on the President's Medicare proposal before he made it, but the Democrats say they were not briefed. Is there a reason Democrats were left out?

MR. MCCURRY: I'd have to check. I know that we've had a lot of discussions about Medicare and where the Medicare portion of the budget was heading, and I don't know to what degree we were able to consult with individual members. But if there were any left out that should have been consulted, that was our mistake. But we certainly would want to work closely with our Democratic friends on the Hill and the Republican leaders as we write a balanced budget plan.

Q On the question of a balanced budget amendment, if the President, as he has, said that the balanced budget is one of his top priorities, isn't an awkward argument for him to be making that he's for a balanced budget but against a balanced budget amendment? How is he going to clear up confusion among the American people for what he really stands for?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, the President will demonstrate by doing. If he sends to the Congress a balanced budget and says, we could pass this and pass it now, that's a whole lot better than talking about some mechanism that might get the job done at some future date.

Q But one doesn't preempt the other, does it?

MR. MCCURRY: It doesn't -- not in theory, but in this case the President believes that there are a lot of other reasons related to economic policy on why a constitutional amendment is a bad idea. So he will put the stress on the fact that we can get this work done and get it done now, if we just work together. And I think that that will be a resonant argument with the American people.

Q Some Democrats have opposed a balanced budget amendment unless there was a provision not to borrow and spend the Social Security surplus and then put bonds in its place in the trust fund. Is that also a consideration in the move toward a balanced budget? In other words, will you continue to borrow and spend Social Security money?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, look, we'll have a budget proposal that comes out next Thursday, and it will show you how you get to a balanced budget and how you treat the general revenues versus how the trust funds themselves are treated. And I think it will be pretty clear. As a practical matter, if you take those trust funds off the table, you've made it very, very difficult to balance the budget (* Legislative Branch)
without doing serious damage to our national defense, without eviscerating those things that the American people have already indicated they expect our federal government to do. So as a practical matter, it's not easy to see how you could even accomplish that in the first place.

Q Has a date been set for hearings, confirmation hearings for Anthony Lake? And is the President working with Senators on behalf of the nomination?

MR. MCCURRY: I think that they have gotten a date. You should check with -- is that Intelligence Committee?

MR. JOHNSON: February 11th is the latest we have.

MR. MCCURRY: February 11th, I think, has been set by the committee, but I don't want to speak for them. You should really ask the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Q Is the President talking to some Senators?

MR. MCCURRY: The President is fully prepared to engage and go to the mat for Tony Lake. He is an excellent nominee for Director of Central Intelligence. He's a man of high and unquestioned integrity, and the President believes he would be able to serve in that capacity in a way that would provide the best analysis, best information, and best intelligence to those responsible for making policy. The President will strongly support the nominee and work with any individual members of the Senate that it is necessary for him to call in support of the nomination.

Q Thank you.

MR. MCCURRY: You're very welcome.

END 1:42 P.M. EST