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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release October 9, 1998
                             PRESS BRIEFING
                             BY MR. LOCKHART

The Briefing Room

2:28 P.M. EDT

MR. LOCKHART: Good afternoon. Let me first just do a quick read out on the meeting between the President and the Chancellor-elect, Mr. Schroeder. They met for about 15 minutes in the Oval and then I think you all saw them and talked to them on the way over to the Residence.

The lunch lasted --

Q Not all of us.

MR. LOCKHART: Well, the pool did.

Q Thank you.

MR. LOCKHART: The lunch over in the Residence lasted for about an hour and a half, which is about 30 minutes beyond what it was scheduled for. They talked about five main subjects, mostly on Kosovo in the Oval. And when they went to the lunch it was primarily a discussion of international economics -- Russia, Turkey and a brief discussion on the environment.

I think as the President indicated to you and the Chancellor-elect, Mr. Schroeder, told the President that he's in favor of any early approval of the ACTORD, the NATO authority for moving forward. He believes that the ACTORD is justified under U.N. Security Resolution 1199. And he expressed particular concern with the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo now.

The President appreciated the Chancellor's position and welcomed the fact that he will be sending back a message to Chancellor Kohl that Germany is willing to move forward.

At lunch, primarily the meeting was a broad discussion of international economics. The President talked about many of the things you've heard in the Council of Foreign Relations speech, the NYU speech and the IMF speech. The President asked the Chancellor-elect about the status of his government and was briefed on the progress of putting that government together. The Chancellor-elect said he expected to take office on or around October 27th, discussed the biggest problems he faces immediately are unemployment -- especially youth unemployment and tax reform. He said he's optimistic that he can get to work on this by forging a new alliance with unions, employers and the government.

Foreign policy, he stressed continuity and cooperation with the U.S. On European enlargement he talked about taking a fresh look at Turkey on the enlargement of the EU. And finally on Russia, he stressed the importance of Germany and the role of Germany as far as helping the Russians through their economic crisis.

Q What was the role of Mr. Fischer in today's meetings -- or did he participate much?

MR. LOCKHART: He participated in the discussion, spoke up. And I think also in the session afterwards, out at the stakeout.

Q Senator Lott has cancelled his session-ending news conference. Obviously, there won't be a --

MR. LOCKHART: Did he have one scheduled for today?

Q He did, until about an hour ago. What is the President's best estimate of how this is going to play out, this final barn dance between the two sides?

MR. LOCKHART: That's an apt illusion. (Laughter.) I think we have been intensely negotiating with the Republicans over the last three days with the appropriators up on the Hill and the leadership. We've made some progress. But I think as the group that just left indicated, there are significant differences. But we do believe it warrants staying at the table and working through these differences and getting the job done. So I believe the Congress will send down a short-term, clean CR, and the President expects to sign it later tonight.

Q Can you anticipate that's until Monday midnight?

MR. LOCKHART: I don't know precisely how long it will be. It could go into the week. It really depends on how the talks go this afternoon. There's some effort to make sure that we don't reach another deadline we can't meet.

Q We heard one bottom line on education, or one that sounded like a fuzzy one. We know about the taxes, but I guess that's off the table. What else is the President saying he will not stand for or he will insist on?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think broadly speaking, there are dozens and dozens of language issues, particularly on the environment. We found that this Congress in various appropriations bills, including the interior bill, has tried to put language on that restricts our ability to do things like move forward on climate change, and we think are anti-environment. So I think that's a particular area of worry, and we're working hard to get rid of much of that language.

Q Is the census a non-negotiable item?

MR. LOCKHART: The census is certainly something that we feel strongly about, and we're going to be sticking to our position as we move over the next weekend.

Q Is it something to vet a bill about?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, we certainly have a veto threat on it.

Q Joe, Clinton's going to meet with Presidents Mahuad and Fujimori later on. Can you explain to us what this meeting is about?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, the President received a request from President Cardoso of Brazil to meet. As you know, the U.S. is one of the guarantors of the Peru-Ecuador peace process. The President appreciates the fact that the two presidents have been working and trying to make progress over the last couple of weeks. And he wanted to bring them here to see if we can't help narrow the differences in that process.

Q Why didn't he receive them in the past weekend? They were here, they had to go all the way down to Brasilia, and President Clinton had to receive a request from President Cardoso to meet them.

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think given where the talks are and where the process is, it was best for the President to bring them in and talk to them this afternoon.

Q Is there going to be an announcement today about how --

MR. LOCKHART: I can't anticipate an announcement.

Q The Republican tax cut has been now pared down to some $9 billion. Any White House view on that, whether or not that is more acceptable than the other?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, the big sticking point, as always, is how do you pay for it. The President has made very clear that he wants to save the surplus to preserve the Social Security system. We'll take a look at the tax cuts, but I believe that what they're talking about now is paid for, so we will look at them.

But that -- the sticking point before was always that they had a tax bill; and they had it, as you remember, of various sizes. This is the year we've had a trillion dollar tax cut from Republicans on the Hill, down to an $80 billion tax cut, and a lot of weigh stations in between. All of them were nonstarters because they sought to use the surplus to pay for it. The President believes that the surplus should be used for preserving Social Security.

Q -- paid for?

MR. LOCKHART: My understanding is that the latest thing they've put forward is paid for, but I'll double check on that.

Q If it is paid for, the President will sign it?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think we have to look at the provisions. I'm not familiar with all of the provisions, but I think the main difference between the two is whether they're paid for -- they're fully paid for or they're paid for out of the surplus.

Q Joe, with the emergency spending in the President's budget, such as Bosnia and the embassy security issue, isn't it disingenuous to say that the surplus is being saved for Social Security first? I mean, Social Security against that list comes in fifth or sixth or something like that.

MR. LOCKHART: No, I don't think so. I think if you look at the budget rules, that since 1990 there's been budget rules that go to one-time spending of nonrecurring events that are done outside the counting or before you count the surplus. So it's fully consistent with the budget rules for this President, for President Bush and for three or four different Congresses.

Q But fair to say there are no offsets for those spending amounts within the budget?

MR. LOCKHART: Under the budget rules, passed by a Congress in 1990 under President Bush and signed by President Bush, those are not offset because they are emergency, one-time, nonrecurring appropriations.

Q Joe, does the White House believe that it would be a violation of the separation of powers were Congress -- which the Constitution, as you know, says shall set the rules for land and sea forces -- if they were to pass a bill requiring that the Commander-in-Chief of these forces be drug-tested like all of these forces and what you revealed as required of everybody at the White House except the President?

MR. LOCKHART: That's an interesting constitutional issue, and let me consult with constitutional experts, and I'll come back to you.

Q Good. Can I follow that up with --

MR. LOCKHART: Sure.

Q Since your revelation about this --

MR. LOCKHART: What's a revelation?

Q It's in the Bible. (Laughter.)

Q What you did on the platform there. There have been two columns written -- one of them in The New York Post -- that deal with the President's firing of the White House doctor and a number of other drugs and the President questions. And my question --

MR. LOCKHART: Excuse me, what White House doctor?

Q The first one, when he came here -- I believe it's Bell or -- he was fired because he wouldn't inject something that they didn't tell him what it was. (Laughter.) Why wouldn't the President, given all of this problem, wouldn't he be willing to get this behind us by voluntarily being tested for drugs, as President Reagan did?

MR. LOCKHART: Again, let me look at the first question, and I'll come back to you.

Q When will you come back?

MR. LOCKHART: Maybe next week, maybe never. (Laughter.) Next, please. (Laughter.)

Q You wanted this job, right? (Laughter.)

Q There has been some bellicose statements coming out of Turkey and Syria, and there's rising tensions between the two countries. Can you just give us an assessment on what the U.S. is doing about that or what's going on?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, we're aware of the statements by both sides. There is a process underway by President Mubarak to try to broker a peace settlement. We encourage that process and we hope both sides, and urge both sides, to settle this dispute peacefully.

Q Did that come up in the discussions between President Clinton and Gerhard Schroeder?

MR. LOCKHART: I don't believe so, no.

Q Back to the South American leaders meeting later on. Would it be fair to characterize this as peace talks? And also, aside from the invitation or the request from President Cardoso, what exactly can the United States bring to this meeting?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, they are peace talks. This is a process. This was a process that was set up in 1994. Well, the dispute goes back to 1942, but the process -- the current process is longstanding. The U.S. is one of the four guarantors of the process. So the U.S. plays a key role in helping the parties bridge the differences that currently separate them.

Q Joe, on Kosovo, President Yeltsin has issued a fresh warning against any NATO strikes against Yugoslavia. What would you tell him?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think President Yeltsin, the Russians and the entire international community agree that its of urgent importance that President Milosevic come into compliance with U.N. Security Resolution 1199. If you -- at the Contact Group yesterday, there was unanimous belief that the Serbs are not in compliance. We believe that they need to come into compliance immediately, that it's verifiable and durable. And if they don't we reserve the right to take further action. We further reserve the right to take that action based on consultation with our NATO allies.

Q Joe, will the President have any representatives present or in the loop as the Judiciary Committee staff gets together to start going through the Ken Starr material?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, as I said this morning, our staff here was in contact with the Judiciary Committee yesterday. The Chief Investigator for the Judiciary Committee should be back in town on Tuesday. I expect them to meet fairly quickly and early in next week.

Q Will you be in the loop or present? Will someone be present there, or will they be consulted on --

MR. LOCKHART: Well, yes, we will send members of the President's counsel -- members of the Office of the White House Counsel up, and they will discuss how we move forward.

Q What would some of the issues be, Joe, in that discussion?

MR. LOCKHART: I think we're going to go up and listen. We're going to see how the Committee wants to move forward.

Q If I could follow up on that, would it be White House policy to allow members of the White House staff to testify freely before the committee, or would the White House be inclined to invoke executive privilege and attorney-client privilege as it has before?

MR. LOCKHART: The President said yesterday that he will work with the committee, that's why the White House Counsel will go up and meet with the committee early next week. But we don't know where the committee is going, we don't know what the scope of what they'll be looking at, how they'll be looking at things, so it's premature for me to answer those questions now.

Q So the level of White House cooperation at this point is uncertain?

MR. LOCKHART: The President said yesterday to you and to everyone who watched the session in the Cabinet Room that he will work with the committee. The committee has yet to sit down and meet and decide how they're going to move forward. We will go up and meet with them next week to figure out how we'll work with them and to listen to them of how they plan to move forward.

Q The other question about that is that the President seemed to indicate yesterday that it was in the hands of Congress and the hands of the public and in the hands of God. But part of it also seems to be in his hands, and that's the extent to which the White House intends to dispute every fact in the Starr referral. Do you have any sense of whether the President intends to dispute everything in the Starr referral, whether he and his lawyers are willing to stipulate to some facts in order to speed up this process?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, as I said, they will go up and sit and talk to members of the committee early next week. From that meeting, we'll get a sense of where the committee is going and it is possible that we may be able to help you with the questions like that after that session.

Q -- where you intend to go, not where they intend to go.

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think we intend to go up and get a sense of where the committee is going before we decide -- I mean, we're not going to go up and tell them how they should run their proceedings.

Q Would you say then that the President's strategy in fighting impeachment is being developed on a day to day basis?

MR. LOCKHART: I'd say that the committee received approval to move forward yesterday. They're not working this weekend. They will come back after the holiday. We will meet with them. We will see how we move forward.

Q Joe, back to Kosovo, do you have anything to say about the discussions in Belgrade today between Holbrooke and Milosevic?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, Ambassador Holbrooke met with President Milosevic again this morning. I think it was for three, three and a half hours. He again delivered the message that full compliance is the single and only way to move out of this situation with the U.N. resolution. He expects to meet with him again later today. They discussed both the need for full compliance and how that would be verified. But I think as Ambassador Holbrooke said as he came out of the first meeting, that he did not have any news to impart.

Q Joe, on the budget and the CR, how long do you expect this CR to last and if there is a government shut down, do you expect the public will blame the Democrats or the Republicans or a pox on both your houses?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I can't speak to how long the CR will last. It needs to be short. It needs to be clean, free of any extraneous issues. And I'm not going to speculate on a government shut down because there's no reason for one.

Our teams are up there working with them. It's unfortunate that we've come to this late part in the game with so much work left to do. It's unfortunate that we don't have a budget passed -- the first time in 24 years -- but we are where we are, and we're going to work through it because it's in no one's interest to shut the government down.

Q Which side is more intransigent in this? (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: Let me answer it this way, the President sent a budget to Congress in February. In that budget, it made very clear what his priorities are. This House and this Senate has not passed a budget. So to the extent that our positions are more transparent, hopefully that will help move through some of the remaining issues.

Q Joe, again going back, the President's State of the Union address laid out some pretty bold possibilities. And nine months later, much of it has come to, quite frankly, not a whole lot. Maybe you want to disagree with that. But my real question is what's happened to the President's agenda in the last nine months, and has his personal troubles had anything to do with that?

MR. LOCKHART: You're asking me -- and your question implies that you know where we're going to be by the middle of next week, and we don't know where we're going to be. And that's why they're up there -- let me finish my answer.

The President has done significant things this year. Gene talked about one of them, which is setting the fiscal agenda for this country. Back before the State of the Union, what was popular to write about in the press was the different proposals to spend the surplus. We're not really discussing that anymore.

The President has talked about investing in education. He's talked about improving education. He's talked about protecting the environment. And we're at a point now where we're making the real decisions, and we're just going to have to wait until we get the process done.

Q Well Joe, there were three signature issues: patients' bill of rights, tobacco, campaign finance reform. You're not saying that those can be resurrected by next week?

MR. LOCKHART: Well, I don't have much hope for campaign finance reform and tobacco because those have been killed. We're continuing to talk to them about patients' bill of rights. The prospects don't look good.

Q Those were the three, those were the main --

MR. LOCKHART: I think if you'll remember what was the primary focus and what that State of the Union speech was built around, it was the prospect of saving Social Security first. And we have done that, and we have beat back proposals that from the outside appeared popular. But the President has done that.

Q These next few days of negotiations is, in essence, a battle for the heart and soul of that agenda that was laid out last January?

MR. LOCKHART: I'm saying that the agenda that he laid out is being negotiated and it's being fought out. And that's what Gene and Bruce were here talking about.

Q Joe, does the White House stand behind the statements that Sid Blumenthal made after he came out of the grand jury several months ago, where he characterized his testimony? Now it appears that he was discussing things that didn't happen or didn't happen the way he wanted.

MR. LOCKHART: I'm not familiar in detail with Mr. Blumenthal's testimony. I don't know which testimony you're talking about.

Q Well, when he went to testify before the grand jury he said he'd been asked a number of questions about what reporters he'd been in touch with. It turns out, he wasn't really asked those questions. Does that trouble the White House? Do you feel he has a duty to be straightforward with --

MR. LOCKHART: Well, not having reviewed his testimony, but I don't have any reason to believe his testimony was untruthful.

Q Well, just as a matter of principle, should a White House official lie to the American public?

MR. LOCKHART: No.

Q Thank you.

Q Joe, where there be a read out after the meeting of the three presidents this afternoon?

MR. LOCKHART: Jim Dobbins, the Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs, will make himself available, either from here or informally.

Q Joe, how many congressmen and senators are coming to the meeting now with the President? Can you give us a list?

MR. LOCKHART: I have a list. I can read it to you. I'll read it quickly. The meeting will be in the Yellow Oval, and the statement afterwards will be on the South Portico. And we are expecting Senators Daschle, Ford, Breaux, Dorgan, Kerry (John), Barbara Mikulski, Bob Kerrey, Torricelli, Harkin, Kennedy; Representatives Gephardt, Bonior, Fazio, Frost, Obey, Edwards, Menendez, DeLauro, Lewis, Hoyer, Rangel and Lowey. We had probably half of dozen members who were invited but couldn't attend because of other commitments.

Q Is this a different message from the last time we saw the President with Daschle and Gephardt?

MR. LOCKHART: A different?

Q A different message? I mean, when they come out and talk.

MR. LOCKHART: Yes, I think they -- the President and the members will be particularly stressing education, as Gene and Bruce did before. They'll go through some of the issues from IMF. He'll talk about Social Security and fiscal discipline, IMF, environment, doing what we can on ag appropriations to help Americans farmers, health care, welfare to work. But I think --

Q But the same basic message is that this Congress hasn't done anything?

MR. LOCKHART: This Congress has not completed the work they needed to do, and that we are going to push hard for these agenda items that we've been talking about this year.

Q Is the President grateful to Senator Mikulski because she has been so quiet about his problems in contrast to her ear-shattering, pre-vote denunciation of Judge Clarence Thomas?

MR. LOCKHART: The President is always grateful for Senator Mikulski's service.

Q Joe, you talked earlier in the week about the White House, President Clinton making appeals to Congress, making a case to Congress so that the impeachment inquiry wouldn't go forward. Now that it is going forward, will the White House, will President Clinton continue to make your case to members of the House now that we're into the inquiry? And, furthermore, will he also continue to perhaps call members of the Senate?

MR. LOCKHART: The President will continue to talk to members of Congress. We have a lot of business we have to do. To the extent that members want to talk about this process, the President will talk to them.

Q Let me follow that up, Joe. You talked yesterday about Senator Byrd had a valid point when he talked about, you know, the White House shouldn't tamper with the jury. But you said that talking to a member of the Senate, making your case to a member of the Senate, would not constitute tampering with the jury. But you said there were some things that might constitute jury tampering. What are those things?

MR. LOCKHART: You're asking me to speculate or to make up potential acts that are inappropriate. I don't have any that I know of.

Q Then maybe you could elaborate on your point that you said he has a valid point. What did you mean by that?

MR. LOCKHART: That it would be inappropriate -- in fact, I'd draw your attention to a lot of what he said. I mean, you should go back and look at the whole speech. There was just a little bit, but I think he raised a point that we should take -- the overall point of that speech was we ought to get the politics out of this. Anyone who knows Senator Byrd understands that he has a deep and lasting commitment to the institution, and that he is troubled when a constitutional process like this gets infected with politics. And that was the theme of the speech. And what my intent yesterday in talking about it was to say that he raised valid points all the way through that speech.

Q Joe, was it appropriate -- along the same vein, is it appropriate for the President to be raising money for members of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate?

MR. LOCKHART: It is appropriate when we're four weeks before an election for the President to go out and help raise money for the Democratic Party, yes.

Q There's no conflict of interest, even though the member may be a member of the Judiciary Committee itself?

MR. LOCKHART: I don't believe so.

Q Joe, this is the honeymoon weekend for the Clintons. When was Mrs. Clinton's trip --

MR. LOCKHART: I thought this was my honeymoon week? No?

Q It was. (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: This was my honeymoon?

Q You're having it. (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: Bye. (Laughter.) I told someone -- someone asked me last week how long I thought the honeymoon would last, and I said it would end the first day somewhere between good and afternoon. (Laughter.) And I think I was right.

Sorry, April, your question.

Q Once again, it's the Clinton's honeymoon weekend. When was Mrs. Clinton's trip scheduled for overseas Sunday?

MR. LOCKHART: Oh, I think that was months ago. She's doing -- I don't know exactly when, but this is -- she's doing an official visit to Bulgaria and then a visit to the Czech Republic for a conference.

Q Before he said he misled his wife?

Q Did they talk last night?

MR. LOCKHART: Sam, I have no idea. Is that important?

Q I mean, it was a day for the President, I thought maybe he and his wife talked on the phone. That's all I was asking.

MR. LOCKHART: I don't know.

Q Joe, I want to go back at something. I think it's a fair question and maybe deserves a thoughtful answer, which perhaps we haven't received so far. (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: Do I get to decide whether it's a fair question?

Q I meant no pejorative there, Joe, in all honesty. Over the last nine months during the Starr investigation, we saw the White House go to the Supreme Court three times to prevent the testimony of staff members and that sort of thing. Is that the general tenor of what we're going to see with the Judiciary Committee? Or are we now going to see a different sort of White House with a different strategy that is much more cooperative than that?

MR. LOCKHART: Scott, as I've told you, the Committee isn't here this weekend. We're going to go up early next week because the President has expressed that he wants to cooperate with what they're doing. We are going to sit down with them. We're going to discuss -- we're going to listen to how they plan to move forward, and we're going to work with them on how we can move forward and how we can take this process and move it along.

Q So simply put, the level of cooperation from the White House depends on what the Committee wants to do?

MR. LOCKHART: We are going to work with them, as the President said. And I can't tell you now what they have. I don't know whether they want to talk to people here. I don't know where they're going. We will talk to them as reasonable people do in a reasonable process. And I'm not in a position to forecast where their talks go, just as the Committee is not in a position to forecast where they're going now.

Q But, Joe, isn't the way to move it along to cooperate fully and free up aides to testify?

MR. LOCKHART: I have done nothing here today to preclude anything. I am telling you that this is a process that begins next week. And it would be folly for me to stand here and try to predict exactly where it's going.

Q But, Joe, the President seemed to condition his cooperation, however, on whether the hearings are constitutional, timely and fair. Is that an accurate --

MR. LOCKHART: Well, we're going to go up to the Committee and talk to them next week. And hopefully, they can assure us that they will be constitutional, timely and fair.

Q It works two ways, doesn't it -- timeliness does?

Q Has it ever been established who pays the legal fees for Betty Currie, Sid Blumenthal and the others who have gone before the grand jury?

MR. LOCKHART: They pay them.

Q Even Betty Currie?

MR. LOCKHART: Even Betty.

Q Joe, some us were given guidance yesterday by you and others at the White House that the President would say in his remarks yesterday that he was going to cooperate with the investigation. He didn't say that. And I'm wondering, the word "cooperate" was not used. And I'm wondering why that was, and if we should read something into that?

MR. LOCKHART: That you get bad guidance from time to time. The President's statement, I think, was clear. We can spend all the rest of the afternoon going around on the difference between work with them or cooperate with them. The President's intentions --

Q It makes a difference around here, though.

MR. LOCKHART: The President's intentions were clear -- at least I believe they were clear.

Q And the intention is to cooperate, simply put?

MR. LOCKHART: The intention is to work with them, to cooperate. But if you're going to ask me to define that specifically before the Committee sits down to talk about what they're going to do, I can't do that for you.

Q Has the President considered asking that unusual man from New York that offered $1 million to contribute to the paying of the legal bills of all of these people that have been socked hard because they work here?

MR. LOCKHART: No.

Q Doesn't he think that would be a nice idea for this man to do? Well, you would, wouldn't you, Joe?

Q Does he know that man?

MR. LOCKHART: Would I think it's a nice idea?

Q Yes.

MR. LOCKHART: I don't know. I don't think so.

Q Have you heard the President remark about that offer?

MR. LOCKHART: No, I have not.

Q Have you parked in one of his garages? (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: Probably.

Q Thank you.

MR. LOCKHART: Thank you.

Q Do you have the week ahead?

MR. LOCKHART: Oh, I've got the week ahead, I'm sorry. My first week ahead.

Okay, April has a question. It will be the last, though.

Q No, I have a question.

MR. LOCKHART: I'll talk to you afterwards. (Laughter.)

Q Joe, speaking of money -- we were just talking about money -- what's the administration's thoughts about the media courting of Monica Lewinsky to talk about her story for millions of dollars?

MR. LOCKHART: Oh, I don't think it would be appropriate for us to have a position or to take a view on that. That is something between her and her family.

The week ahead.

Q Monday, the President takes a drug test. (Laughter.) Tuesday, Buddy takes a drug test. (Laughter.)

MR. LOCKHART: Tuesday, we tank the market to get Sam back for Monday's suggestion.

Monday, October 12th, the President will depart for New York about 9:45 a.m. He'll attend a lunch for gubernatorial candidate Peter Vallone at 1:15 p.m. That evening he will attend a DSCC/Charles Schumer reception at 6:45 p.m. He will drop by a G&P Charitable Foundation for cancer research dinner, where he will make brief remarks, and attend a DSCC/Schumer dessert reception. He will depart at 11:05 p.m. and we will overnight in Palm Beach. It says here we'll arrive at 1:50 a.m. Don't count on it.

Q And the press plane arrives?

MR. LOCKHART: Later. (Laughter.) Tuesday, October 13th, the President will attend a Unity lunch in Palm Beach. Later that afternoon he will participate in an event in Miami with seniors and families to discuss Social Security and the budget. He will attend a Unity reception that evening and a Unity dinner that evening. He will arrive back at the White House at 1:35 a.m.

Wednesday, no public schedule.

Thursday the President will open the White House Conference on School Safety, and he will participate in some way that we will detail to you probably early next week in the Middle East talks.

Q Is that on campus?

MR. LOCKHART: TBD -- technical term.

Friday, the President will travel to Chicago. He will attend a lunch for Senator Moseley-Braun. He will go to St. Louis to attend a Unity dinner. We may toss something else in there.

Saturday no public schedule -- Saturday and Sunday -- although for your planning purposes, that could change given the talks at the Wye Plantation.

Q Is Friday tentative, Joe? Is Friday tentative, given the talks?

MR. LOCKHART: Friday, no, we plan to go ahead with Friday. Obviously, all of our schedules can change as need be.

Q What do you got this weekend, Joe? Radio address?

MR. LOCKHART: This weekend we do the radio address live, subject TBD. That's it.

Q No chance he's going up to Camp David?

MR. LOCKHART: I have not heard that anywhere.

Thank you all.

END 2:59 P.M. EDT