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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 22, 1999

       EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 21, 1999 INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
                         BY THE NEW YORK TIMES
      
                           The Oval Office

Q We're about to go. Did you have a chance to watch any of Senator Bumpers's presentation today?

THE PRESIDENT: I did. It's the only thing I've watched. I watched that.

Q He said -- he criticized the House managers for lacking compassion for your family. He described your family as a family that has been "about as decimated as a family can get. The relationship between husband and wife, father and child, has been incredibly strained if not destroyed." Is that an accurate representation?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it's been -- I would say it has been a strain for my family. But we have worked very hard and I think we have come through the worst. We love each other very much, and we've worked on it very hard. But I think he was showing -- you know, he knows me and Hillary and Chelsea, and we've all been friends, as he said, for 25 years. I think he was just trying to inject a human element into what he was saying.

Q Thanks.

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