Bill Clinton: “Well, but I think--I must not have spoken all that clearly on that. What I meant about welfare is this: The welfare…”

“Well, but I think--I must not have spoken all that clearly on that. What I meant about welfare is this: The welfare reform legislation is law now. Let me just talk about that just a minute, and then I'll come back to your other question. What the welfare reform bill says is this: It says, from now on, the United States Government will guarantee to poor families medical care and nutrition and, if a person moves from welfare to work, then more for child care than ever before. But that portion of the Federal money that used to go with State money into a monthly welfare check will now go to the States, and they have 2 years to figure out how to turn the welfare check into a paycheck. Now, I think what is important is to recognize that that's all the bill does. Then all the States and all of the communities of this country have to figure out how to do that. And what I think is important is that we all be aggressive in figuring out how to do that in ways that work for the children, not that there should be a role for the First Lady or anybody else, but children's advocates in particular want to make sure that this is a pro-family transition. That's all I meant. And I believe it will be. I feel good about it. In terms of anything for Senator Dole to do, I think, to be fair to him, even though I am standing up here on both feet giving this press conference today, after a campaign like this, you need time to decompress, whether you win or whether you lose. And I've been on both sides of this in my life. And he said something I really appreciated when we had our personal conversation on election evening. He said, ``You know, after awhile, after I get rested up and you do and we get--we'll come by--I'll come by, and we'll have a cup of coffee, and we'll talk about--just have a visit.'' And I said I'd really like that. And I think that I would just urge all of you to give him and Mrs. Dole a little space here and let them get rested up and think about their lives and what they want to do. And there will be time for that. You know, Thanksgiving's coming up; Christmas is coming up. But I can attest to the fact that based on the vigorous campaign he ran, not just in the last 96 hours but throughout, that if he so chooses, he's got a lot left to give his country. But I think that should be his decision. We should let a little time go by. Peter. Investigations”