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Read a press report on Clinton's speech, the text of his prepared statement on tobacco, and excerpts from the Questions and Answers which followed.

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Excerpts from CLINTON, DEMOCRATS PRESS CONGRESS

A.P., [4/21/98]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and top Democrats lobbed a joint offensive strike on congressional Republicans today, pressing them to pass education and tobacco bills -- and kill off Joe Camel ``once and for all.''

``Now some in Congress say that teen smoking has nothing to do with Joe Camel,'' Clinton said, referring to the cartoon ad character used to market Camel cigarettes.

``Medical science and common sense makes it plain; teen smoking has everything to do with Joe Camel, with unscrupulous marketing campaigns that prey on the insecurities and dreams of our children.''

Over staunch opposition by the tobacco industry, the president wants Congress to block cigarette companies from targeting their ad campaigns to youth smokers and penalize the industry for hooking kids on cigarettes. ``It is time to end this (Joe Camel) story once and for all,'' he said.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., recently suggested that tobacco legislation meeting every Clinton demand was unlikely to pass Congress.

Gore, speaking after Clinton, accused Gingrich today of singing the tobacco industry's tune.

``Is it a coincidence that immediately after the tobacco industry executives switched signals, called a new play, and publicly announced their opposition to legislation, that right away the Republican leadership switched their signals, adopted the new play, and announced their opposition to legislation? I don't think it's a coincidence,'' Gore said.

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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON THE 1998 LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

The Rose Garden, 12:23 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. In the coming weeks, Congress will be making an awful lot of important decisions about how to best prepare our children and our nation for the 21st century. First, we have an historic opportunity to pass bipartisan legislation to protect our children from the dangers of tobacco. The legislation would put an end to the tobacco industry's calculated, multimillion-dollar media campaign to hook our children early to the deadly habit of smoking.

For years the cartoon character, Joe Camel, was the star of their efforts to create a new generation of customers for cigarettes -- what the tobacco industry euphemistically called "replacement smokers;" what most of us call our children. Even as the executives denied they were targeting children, Joe Camel became as recognizable to them as Mickey Mouse.

Now, some in Congress say that teen smoking has nothing to do with Joe Camel. Medical science and common sense makes it plain: teen smoking has everything to do with Joe Camel -- with unscrupulous marketing campaigns that prey on the insecurities and dreams of our children.

Indeed, a recent study by the American Medical Association found that over a third of our young people who try cigarettes do so because of advertising and promotion, and that Joe Camel was the overwhelming favorite among 12- to 15-year-olds.

The industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such marketing campaigns -- plainly not designed to appeal to adults. It is time to end this story once and for all. So again I say to Congress, now is the time to pass strong bipartisan tobacco legislation. And again I say, I hope that both parties will work together for the benefit of our children.

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Q Mr. President, do you think that other cartoon characters used to market other products that potentially are dangerous to children, like beer, should be outlawed as well -- the frogs in the Budweiser commercial, for example?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that, by an order of magnitude, what we saw with the tobacco marketing is far greater in its impact on children and in its destructive capacity. And so I don't want to be deterred by focusing on other things when the business at hand is to pass this tobacco legislation. I don't think there's any -- no other thing I could think of compares with what has been done there in terms of the destructive impact on our children and their health.

And also, I would say, based on all these documents which are coming out now and all these lawsuits, the latest one in Minnesota, it appears unambiguous that they were designed to do just what they did, which is to appeal to children.

Q Mr. President, the tobacco companies --

Q Mr. President, how do you expect to get bipartisanship when you bash the Republicans and they bash you with the kind of rhetoric that we've heard here today?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I haven't bashed all the Republicans. Senator McCain -- I bragged on the bill that came out of his committee 19-1. I talked -- I called Senator Lott a few days ago and said that I very much wanted to get this bill passed.

What has caused our concern here is this apparent dramatic change in the statements made by Republicans about this. I mean, it wasn't so very long ago when the Speaker said that there's no way in the world that I could ever be for a more progressive tax bill -- tobacco bill than he would be for. And I, frankly, loved hearing that. I don't mind sharing the credit for this. I don't want this to be a partisan thing, I want this to be an American thing.

Let's look what had happened here. All of us have been talking about trying to get bipartisan agreement on this; the tobacco industry says they don't like the McCain bill and they refuse to negotiate any further and they're fighting for their life and this is war. And all of a sudden we get different public statements coming out of people in important positions in the Republican Party.

I still believe and hope that there will be enough Republicans to make a genuinely bipartisan effort to pass sensible, sound, strong legislation. And that is my commitment. That is all of our commitments. We are responding to events as they have unfolded.

But I would remind you that what sparked all this was the bipartisan action of the Senate committee. That is what I have lauded and that is what I want.

Q Mr. President, Speaker Gingrich yesterday said you sent the wrong signal to children by smoking a cigar when you're celebrating. How would you respond?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I think the only time I've done that since I was President was when we got that young man out of Bosnia. And I think he's probably right about that. I think he's probably right about that. But let me say, I do not -- I think to contend that that isolated event has a bigger impact on children than these millions of dollars of deliberately calculated ads -- billions -- is just a way of avoiding taking responsibility for doing the right thing. Now, secondly -- you know, he made another point with which I agree, which is that there is too much -- there are too many young actors and actresses in alluring movies in Hollywood making smoking look alluring again. But we've been talking about that for two or three years. The Vice President I think has already had two meetings with people in Hollywood; I have voiced the concern publicly and privately. I agree with that.

But these things get said in the context in which he said it, it was like to let them off the hook for taking responsibility for passing tobacco legislation and making cigarettes both more expensive for kids to buy and then using the money to deal with the health care consequences and to fund an anti-smoking advertising campaign that they know would be effective.

And I'll tell you one -- I'll bet you anything that in addition to their previously effective advertising campaigns, we'll be treated to another big ad campaign from the tobacco industries surrounding this before you know it. So you can say all these things, but none of us should ever be guilty of that. We can point the finger at others, but no amount of finger-pointing at others, by the President or anyone else, will ever absolve us of our own responsibility to push the public interest. And that's what I'm trying to do.

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