 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you very much. I can't top that. Maybe I'll just... Well, I want to thank all of you for being here, and I want to thank you all also for volunteering to help Lou and Jack Hume and their crew. And you've already done that because I understand you got the information even ahead of the press with regard to the Grenada invasion and made use of it. Last night, I asked Jimmy Doolittle at the dinner that they give every year for him. I asked him, how did he manage to do that 30 seconds over Tokyo without taking the newsmen along? Much of an answer on that. Listen, I'm just going to take a minute here to say something about the goal and what you're organized to do, and I understand in a bipartisan way, and it should be that way. Jefferson said that if the people of this country had all the facts, knew all the facts, they would never make a mistake. Well, the great trouble today is they don't have all the facts. They have very few of them most of the time. And it's evident that through the national media they're not going to get the facts. It is less interested in that than it is in trying to find a man biting a dog in some place. One of the most frustrating things I think here is that some of the things that have been done are the deepest kept secrets in the nation's capital. We, for example, I've gotten so used to seeing that now the horrendous string of deficits that are confronting us unless something is done are my deficits. Well, the Constitution does not have a single word that says that the President of the United States can apportion or appropriate and spend money. Only the Congress can do that. And all the President can do is veto. But if the Congress sticks things into a bill that comes down to your desk about 12 hours before the government is going to stop spending money at all or go out of business, and the only recourse you have is to veto but then you stop the government, what I'm saying is I want to start a campaign at the grassroots to give the President of the United States what about 42 governors in this country have and that is line item veto to stop the law. As I've said so many times, you don't have to make them see the light here in Washington to just make them feel the heat. And this is what you can do out there at the grassroots. And you have the public going for you. The first time a poll was ever taken on the idea of a presidential line item veto was in 1945. And it was 57% to 29% in favor of giving the President that. And at the present time, 67% of the people believe in the polls indicate that they believe that the President should have this and a great many economists who've been studying our government's policies for a long time say that probably that is the greatest way that we could ever get to our dream of a balanced budget and get rid of these deficits. Now, some of the other things that are deep dark secrets is that number one, we have actually, if you counted in constant 1983 dollars, we have reduced the non-defense spending by the federal government, excluding Social Security in real dollars by 10% in the four years that we've been here. You don't hear about that, but you also don't hear that with all their concern now, their newfound concern after 50 years of economic policy in which deficit spending was supposed to be proper in that it would give us prosperity and it didn't really mean anything the national debt according to them because we owed it to ourselves. Now they suddenly have discovered that if they can pass the deficits off to someone else, that it's a very real problem. So the Congress goes on with their spending ways and we're trying to reduce the deficit if we had been given all the cuts that we asked for. The present deficit would be 40 billion dollars less than it is. So I'm going to stop with that because you must have some questions. I know that there have been times out there where you've said, boy, if I had a chance, would I have? Hey, hi, how are you? I was just wondering how much of a priority in the next year or in the beginning of the second administration, a space-based strategic defense system will be for the administration in the next year or so or the next several years, a space-based strategic defense system will be for the administration? Well, whether it's space-based or not, we're going forward with the thing that I asked for in the State of the Union address and I know it was March I asked for it and that is for us to develop as quickly as we can to find if there is a defensive weapon against a nuclear strike. If we could ever find that, then I think that would be the dream come true and then we could go to the Soviet bloc and say, all right, now that we can defend against them, we've got no intention of using these weapons against you, let's sit down at a table and get rid of all of them and put the world back to its place. That research is going forward. Mr. President, in that line, we had a superb speech yesterday from Gene Kirkpatrick on disarmament, but there's still a feeling out in the country that the administration isn't doing all it can do to seek disarmament and seek a safer world. How can we help you sell that message? Well, here again, that's one of those best-kept secrets. I don't know where somebody starts saying some columnist or other and then it becomes standard that, well, we're really playing a game or something. We're not serious about this. Well, we are deadly serious. I talked all through the campaign of 1980 that I would sit at a table as long as they'd stay there on the other side in order to try and reduce. See, most of the efforts like SALT 1 and SALT 2 were arms limitation agreements they were seeking, which was setting a ceiling on how many more each side could build. If we had ratified SALT 2 by the time I came here under the SALT 2 Treaty, the Soviet could have added legally to their nuclear missiles the power that we dropped on Hiroshima every 11 minutes from the time of ratification until I got here. Well, I campaigned on, let's sit down at a table and see if we can't reduce them. And once we start down that road, then I say, get to that place where we can say, aren't we all better off without them. We announced on the intermediate-range missiles the Soviet Union has more than a thousand SS-20 warheads aimed at every target in Europe. We have none, countering them. And NATO, a couple of years back, asked the United States to help provide a deterrent. That's the only thing we have now. It's not a defensive weapon, a deterrent, that says to them, look what will happen to you if you try to do it to us. Well, our Pershing twos and cruise missiles, we agreed and the several NATO nations are going to take those and we've started deployment. The Soviet Union, as you know, started a whole worldwide propaganda campaign that we were at fault for deploying. And I remember the late Mr. Brezhnev said that they had finally they had reached equality, equality, meaning that they had them and we didn't. And then I had asked then, at that time, I asked, all right, zero, zero. We won't deploy if they'll do away with theirs and let's free at least that area of Europe of that threat because these weapons will get to their targets in five to seven minutes. You don't even have a half an hour to say goodbye. And they wouldn't listen to that. They wouldn't hear of it at all. So we said, all right. Then we'll sit down with you and we'll talk about whatever figure we can agree upon that is less than what we presently have. But we made it plain that we were going to deploy and have a deterrent and that we were going to insist on verification. And they kept right on with their propaganda that we are the ones that don't really want an agreement. I must say they bought half our proposition, zero for us and not for them. Mr. President, in the 1980 election you firmly supported the Taiwan Relations Act. In view of your forthcoming trip to the PRC, are you continuing firm support for Taiwan? Yes, there has been no change in our position whatsoever. This incidentally isn't a deep hell secret. This is just an outright distortion that we see all the time about our position. And this has caused some friction with the People's Republic about it. But we've said over and over again to them that we should think that they would be reassured that we won't throw aside one friend in order to make another. Mr. President, in light of the latest agreement with Israel, what has been the reaction from some of the moderate Arab governments and what will be your response to them? Well, my response to them will be very simple. I think some of what their more public response has been more for domestic consumption on their part. I think that many of them do understand. Our agreement with Israel is really more of a restatement of what we have always believed. But what we have said to them and what we will say to the Arab nations is that in an effort to bring these Arab nations who for all these years have refused to acknowledge the existence of Israel. Remember, this is the issue and it's caused all the wars that Arab states have said Israel does not have a right to be a nation. They want it destroyed. Well, we've brought them a long way and in order to bring them a long way we have to prove to them that we're as interested in their security there in the Middle East as we are in Israel's or anyone else's. And therefore AWACS to Saudi Arabia at their request we're talking something that we think Jordan needs. Our goal and aim and why peace in the Middle East is so important and that all of them should do what one country, Egypt did under Sadat. What we're trying for is more Egypt's. The goal is that if the Middle East becomes a target of Russian aggression, Soviet aggression, this could be the most harmful thing to our national security or to our allies or to Japan who are virtually totally dependent on those areas for their energy. So what we have said to Israel and what we are now telling the Arab states we can't, we are willing to have this kind of cooperation with you too. One of our agreements with Israel is to have some joint maneuvers, military maneuvers. Well, we've been having joint maneuvers with Egypt for a long time. And so we just want them all to recognize that we do intend to be neutral in an effort to bring them together for peaceful negotiations and to do it, of course, we've got to end what's going on in Lebanon. President, I think we're all glad to see the increased security at the White House. It's very necessary in these terrorist times. But I think some of us are very concerned about all the leaders of our government assembling for the State of the Union address in one House chamber. Supreme Court, the Congress and the executive, all the leaders right there, what happens if a terrorist strikes there. I think, I hope your security people are concerned about that. Let me tell you, yes, and I share your desire. But I tried it the other way, once outside the Hilton Hotel. I didn't like it. I must say this about security in our government. And I'll knock on wood. They are very conscious and very ultra-conservative in this. And I'm even trying to get over grumbling and snarling and saying unprintable words when they approach me with the iron vest and tell me I have to wear it for some particular occasion. Yes, yes. This is the great tactic of the terrorist in which it is a suicide mission. We have information, for example, in Lebanon right now that they have marshaled a force, particularly of Iranians in Lebanon, that numbers up to a thousand who are all willing to sacrifice their lives in a kamikaze attack. Mr. President, your fiscal policies have brought about the healthiest economic year in perhaps the last 30 years. What about a possibility of the gold standard as advocated in the 1980 Republican platform and a permanent heir of economic prosperity? I tell you, we haven't been able to get people on either side believing in that at this moment. I have to, you know, I'm not expert enough on that subject except that I do know this about history. No nation has ever survived fiat money over a long period of time. We have suggested and proposed and have been turned down in the Congress the minting of a gold coin. And this, I think, could be a logical step for us to have our own Krugerrand. Yes. Mr. President, what do you consider the most important criminal justice priority of your administration? Why do you speak up even with my button? I can't hear you. What do you consider the most important priority of your administration? The most important criminal justice priority. I don't know that I could single out a single one. We have turned our Justice Department loose on an anti-crime program. We have the anti-crime legislation before the Congress. They have been reluctant to act on it. But it is going to do a great many things that in the courtroom today are impeding justice. The exclusionary rule. I can identify that very simply and quickly. One of our Secret Service agents was formerly a narcotics agent in San Bernardino, California. And he left that business and joined the Secret Service when he was one of two narcotics agents that with a warrant staged a raid on a house where they believed they were peddling heroin. And in the search of the house they couldn't find the heroin. And on the way out, on a hunch, he turned back to the crib where the baby was and took the baby's diapers off and there was the heroin. And the evidence was thrown out of court because the baby had not given its permission to be searched. We're going to take some pictures. Yeah, I know. We're going to go to that door there and take some pictures. But let me just finish on this one. There are things of that kind. Also the drug thing. We now have 12 of the task forces nationwide similar to the one that stopped them down in South Florida where the influx was coming of drugs. These 12 are doing it. Last year we intercepted about two and a half million pounds of drugs. And we've got a fleet of yachts and cruisers and airplanes and helicopters that you wouldn't believe that we confiscated that was bringing them in and has been bringing them in. We're making great gains there. We have made great gains also in our indictments for fraud against the government. And we are also dedicated to a fight against organized crime. Some have said, oh, you know, it's been going on a long time. Well, you bet it has. It's been going on too long and we're out to get them and put them where they belong behind bars. All right. This has to be the last one. Mr. President, how do you feel about the movement to create a constitutional convention for the purpose of amending our Constitution in regard to limiting our budgets and our national deficit? I want a constitutional amendment unbalancing the budget very desperately. Whether a convention, you know, once the convention is started, then you can't stop the introduction of any and every kind of amendment that might be proposed. The best way is the one that, while that is provided for in dire case, the best one is if we can get the Congress and we're going to keep trying to get the Congress to adopt such an amendment. We're also going to get the Congress to try and put God back in the school classrooms also. But now, they tell me I can't take anymore because I'm going over there and I'm going to get to meet each one of you individually and we'll have our pictures taken. What? All right. Just a comment, Mr. President. Next in the election, next November, we want you to be there. You will forgive me if I don't answer that yet. But I have said the people tell you whether you should do that or not and I will remember what you have all said regarding that decision. Now, just one last thing and then I'll go over here and I realize that I said bipartisan but since we've indicated some feeling about an election, you'll remember that in 1976, our opponents created what they called the Misri Index and they used it in the campaign against Jerry Ford and that was that you add the percentage of unemployment and the percentage of inflation and the combined total is what is the Misri Index and then they said that since under Jerry Ford it was 12.5 percent, that total. No one had a right to run for president with that size Misri Index. Well, Jerry lost, they won and the very next year it was over 13 percent and by 1980 it was 19.5 percent. It is now down to around 11 percent. Row by row.