THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                         (Camp David, Maryland)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                      July 16, 2000

                 EXCERPT OF INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
              BY MICHAEL KRAMER OF THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MR. KRAMER: How's it going?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm more optimistic than I was when they got here. This is really important. We might make it. I don't know. God it's hard. It's like nothing I've ever dealt with. All the negotiations with the Irish, all the stuff I've done with the Palestinians before this and with the Israelis, the Balkans at Dayton. What's really troubling is that they know if they make a peace agreement half of their constituencies will have to be angry at them for a while. But I would be totally misleading if I said I had an inkling that a deal is at hand. That's just not true. But we're slogging.

MR. KRAMER: Will you leave for Japan on Wednesday:

THE PRESIDENT: I hope so. I'm gonna do my best to finish here. There's been some progress, but I can't say I know we'll succeed. They're trying. It's so hard. My heart goes out to them. It's really hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever seen.

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