前总统克林顿及参议员希拉里·克林顿接受采访谈美国飓风援助行动
Interview of President Clinton and Senator Clinton on the Hurricane and Relief Efforts
Senator Clinton: Well, we’re happy to be back at the fair again,and I’m so pleased that Bill is here this year – couldn’t make it last year. We always have a wonderful time. If y’all have any questions before we head out to the fair?
Q: Were you surprised (inaudible) anarchy in New Orleans (inaudible)
President Clinton: Well, it happened over a period of a few days, and it’s tough when you lose access, power, sewer, clean water all at once, and there were still a lot of people trapped in there. So I suppose the dimensions of it surprises me, but if you think about all they lost and how many people are still there, you know, it’s tough.
Q (rough): how likely is it to come back from something like this?
Senator Clinton: Oh, it is definitely something we’re going to be committed to. Both of us have spoken to Senator Landreaux, a long time friend of ours, I’ve spoke with the other Senator, Senator Vitter, obviously both Bill and I have spoken with people in the Bush Administration. And obviously this is a long term effort, but I just imagine how we would have felt after 9/11 if people had said ‘forget it, don’t rebuild,’ ‘forget it, move away.’ We would never have accepted that, and I’m so happy no one in America said that. And we’re going to be committed to doing this.
President Clinton: It’s going to be a long hard fight, but for me it’s very important. You know, I went to New Orleans for the first time over fifty years ago – it’s the first place I ever visited outside my home – and it has a special place in the hearts of millions of people. And so we will rebuild it. And also, the whole Gulf Coast –
Senator Clinton: Right
President Clinton: you know I think it’s important – a lot of these people could feel left out. Biloxi was devastated, Gulf Port, Pascagoula
Senator Clinton: Mobile
President Clinton: Bay St. Louis, Mobile, all those little Alabama and Mississippi towns and a lot of other places in Louisiana too. So we’ve got a lot of hard work to do, but at least I have the feeling things are beginning to move now. We’ve got to get those people out of there, then we’ve got to get the pumps up and working again, pump the lake, get the water out of the city, then flush the water systems, get the sewer systems back up, then we’ll have a situation where we can at least begin to function and plan.
Q: Senator, do you think the administration has moved quick enough to deal with the problem?
Senator Clinton: Well, the President himself said it was unacceptable, and I absolutely agree with that. There will be time in the weeks ahead to take stock of what didn’t happen, what should have happened, what did – what transpired, but right now I’m focused on doing whatever I can along with Bill and, really, millions of other Americans trying to help. Now there are some steps we should take when we get back to Congress. We passed the emergency supplemental of 10.5 billion, but you know in New York we got a lot of help in making it easier to apply for Medicaid for healthcare; we had an accelerated process. We need to be looking to that. We need to make sure that foodstamps are available once there are places for people to go buy food. We need to really take a hard look at what can we do from the Congressional level to try to ease the suffering of the people along the Gulf.
Q: Mr. President, what’s your role going to be in this? I know President Bush appointed you and his father (inaudible)
President Clinton: Well, the first thing we’re trying to do is to raise money, and to raise money not only for the immediate emergency, but to create a fund that President Bush and I will set up to support the three state funds that the Governors are establishing. That is, we know right now what needs to be done, but you can’t imagine the kinds of things—no matter how much money the Federal Government provides, or what they do. Keep in mind that in New Orleans alone, 30% of the people live below the poverty level. You can’t foresee all of the things that are going to come up. So each of these governors established a fund to basically fill in the blanks, so we’re going to try to help to fund that. That’s my first job. And then, you know, because I’ve been dealing with these things for more than 20 years now—these kinds of disasters—and we did a lot of work on it when I was president, I’m doing what I can to talk to the officials down there and the friends of mine to see what we can do just to make everything better. I had a good talk with the governor yesterday, and we did talk to Senator Landreaux, whose father was mayor of New Orleans and whose family has been devastated by this. So we’re doing what we can.
Q: [shouts]
Senator Clinton: wait, wait, wait—no, wait a minute. This is…
Q: Mr. President, I’m interested in what you told us in there…the woman who handed you that wad of cash when you were on the midway…that had to have touched you deeply, having just been—
President Clinton: oh my gosh! The lady was working on the midway! At one of the concessions! And she comes up to me in small bills and gives me 50 bucks in small bills and says “I don’t know who to mail this to, and I’ve got to work—I can’t go get on the internet, so take this.” It was very moving. And that’s, that’s America at its best. And that’s what we’re going to have to do. We may, you know, those people, those 75,000 people who are in the stadiums in Dallas and San Antonio and Houston, they can’t stay there forever. We may, all of us may be housing these folks for a long time. The New York universities, the fact that they’re willing to take students whose schools have been shut down, like Tulane, and let them go to school here tuition free. It’s an amazing thing, but those are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to do, and I expect, in addition to the money, we’ll be working on some of those things as well.
Q: Mr. President, given what happened to you 1 year ago, how does it feel to be back here at the State Fair?
President Clinton: Oh, great. I was—a year ago today I thought I was gonna be up here, doing what we’re doing today, and instead I was on my way to heart surgery. I feel fortunate to have survived, fortunate to have recovered, and fortunate to be back here. You know, I love it here. As I said in there, this is about the only place where I think I can do Hillary any good, just because I’m sort of her token redneck and I know a little about agriculture, so I’m a—and I love it here. I really do.
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