White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt Hold White House News Briefing

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White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt Hold White House News Briefing

WHITE HOUSE NEWS BRIEFING WITH PRESS SECRETARY PERINO AND HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY LEAVITT

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

SPEAKERS: WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY DANA PERINO

SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MICHAEL O. LEAVITT

[*] PERINO: Good afternoon. I have one statement and then I'll introduce our guest briefer.

The president appreciates the votes of senators on the Judiciary Committee to forward the nomination of Michael Mukasey to the full Senate. Judge Mukasey has clearly demonstrated that he will be an exceptional attorney general at this critical time.

The Justice Department is crucial to both our law enforcement and national security missions. He would be a critical member of the national security team that the president oversees. And we look forward to his vote in the full Senate.

He should be confirmed promptly, and then we can move on to filling the additional openings that we have in the Senate, positions that are pending in front of the Congress.

Today I have a special guest, a guest briefer, secretary of health and human services Michael Leavitt.

As you just saw, the president and Secretary Leavitt made comments, just a moment ago, on the Import Safety Working Group. And he'll be here to take some of your questions. And then I'll come back up and finish it off.

Mr. Secretary?

LEAVITT: Thank you, Dana. I would like to just talk some about the nature of this issue and how we have arrived at this juncture and where we go from here.

First, it is the nature of issues like import safety to ripen and mature over time. There's a symbolic flash point and then there's a policy response that's required.

This is not unique to the United States. Last week I met with the ministers of health from seven -- G-7 plus the European Union and Mexico. This was the health ministers.

Every one of these countries is dealing with precisely this issue. This is not unique to the United States. What I think one draws from that is that what we're seeing is an issue resulting from a fundamental change that's happened in the world over a period of some years.

It was Tom Friedman who wrote the book "The World is Flat." W...

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