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American Morning

Bush in Texas, West Coast, Washington For Rest of Week

Aired January 02, 2002 - 09:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get an update on President Bush, as we said, who is in the final days of his New Year's break. He's at his Texas ranch. But he is still taking part in these regular national security briefings on Afghanistan.

And our Senior White House Correspondent, John King is all set to update us on that. He is at the White House today. Happy New Year to you, John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Happy New Year to you Leon, Happy New Year to you, Marty, as well.

The president not here at the White House. As you mentioned, he'll be in Crawford, Texas for the rest of this week -- most of the week, anyway. The president will get out and travel a little bit. On the one hand, he is keeping track of the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. As you noted, every morning the president still receives his national security briefing. That done with high technology. He does that through a secure video conference link with the National Security team, much of it gathered here at the White House, some at the Pentagon and elsewhere.

But the president also increasingly focusing on his domestic agenda. When he returns to Washington, he has to prepare for his first official State of the Union Address to the Congress and the American people. The continuing major source of the debate, the state of the U.S. economy. And we are told, before the president comes back to Washington at the end of this week, he will travel a bit. Heading out to the west coast to reignite his debate with Congressional Democrats over what Washington should do to try to give the struggling U.S. economy a bit of a boost.

The president frustrated that he was unable to reach an agreement with the Congress on a so-called "economic stimulus" package in the final days of last year. He will try to reignite that debate in the early days of the new year. Traveling a bit out to the west coast to focus on his ideas. To try to help the jobless in this country, to help businesses with some tax breaks to give the economy a boost. And then again, when he gets back to Washington, obviously, he'll be waiting for the Congress to return for the new session and putting the finishing touches on his first State of the Union Address. Leon.

HARRIS: All right, thank you. John King at White House, thank you very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com