Andrew Donohue Star Tribune Saturday, October 7, 2000
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gov. Jesse Ventura said Friday that he spent the night at the White House, drinking beers and smoking cigars with President Clinton until the early morning hours.
"I slept in the White House last night -- the Lincoln Bedroom -- and it didn't cost me a dime," he said, a reference to allegations that the Clintons exchange overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom for campaign donations. "I didn't contribute anything, just had great conversation with the president until 4 in the morning."
White House spokesman Jason Schector confirmed that Ventura was a guest but declined to provide any details, calling it "private time."
Ventura made his remarks during a special Washington broadcast of his weekly radio show, "Lunch with the Governor." He broadcast the show from a restaurant near the campus of Georgetown University, where he had delivered a speech to students a night earlier.
The governor said he was planning a quiet evening at his hotel Thursday night when he got a call from a White House aide inviting him to spend the night at the presidential residence.
Ventura described the beauty of the White House, then added: "You know, I could live there, I really could. I could hang out there for a year or two or three or four."
He said he and the president talked until the early morning hours about the third-party movement and other issues, trading cigars and putting back four or five beers. But he said conversation didn't really pick up until about "the second shot of Bombay Sapphire."
Ventura called the president a night owl and a real "go-getter," but said if he were to move into the home on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., " I would cut back on hours a little."
Ventura said that Clinton told him that he still wants to remain involved in world and national affairs as former President Jimmy Carter has done.
Ventura said Clinton also told him he would not criticize the next president, whoever he is. Ventura noted that the same rule used to apply to governors in Minnesota, but added: "Apparently that doesn't apply anymore; that's been tossed aside" -- a veiled jab at former Gov. Arne Carlson. Carlson has been an outspoken critic of some of Ventura's behavior.
Asked what he thought about while staying in the Lincoln Bedroom, Ventura replied that he thought mostly about how he and Lincoln were the same height: 6 feet, 4 inches. "It's a long bed," he said.
Clinton had challenged Ventura to a golf game during the governor's trip to Washington, but Ventura said he declined because his schedule was packed and he wanted to be back in Minnesota to coach the Champlin High School football team on Friday night.
The governor's two-day trip to Washington included testifying before a Senate subcommittee on international trade and meeting with a U.S. trade representative.
Before his radio show, Ventura met with U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. In August, Satcher asked Ventura to represent the nation's governors on a committee examining racial and ethnic disparities in health care. The committee signed a pledge Friday to eliminate the disparities in the United States.
Ventura noted that while Minnesota ranks among the healthiest state in the nation, pregnancy rates among blacks and diabetes cases among American Indians are extremely high when compared with the rest of the state's population.
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/ dave /