Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson, co-host of CBS this morning.

In the east room of the White House, the beleaguered and battered president was trying to take back his presidency through the force of argument.

I have some common goals with the new Republican majority in the Congress.

Bill Clinton had fought back from a political hole before on the campaign trail. In 1992,

he'd survived a brutal primary in New Hampshire and come in second as the comeback kid. Then in

1992, he defeated an incumbent president. But in April of 1995, Bill Clinton was a deflated man.

Republicans had won both houses of Congress in direct action against his presidency in the 1994 elections.

They were a revolt against his health care initiative and the big government liberal democratic plans. It was a revolution in government

with the Republican Party and conservatives in the ascendancy. At this press conference in April of

1995, only one national network had chosen to cover the president of the United States, a rarity.

When the president speaks, all the networks tune in.

But this press conference came while Newt Gingrich and the new Congress were passing a

whirlwind collection of bills.

They were where the action was at.

The action was not at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

This caused the president during his press conference to assert that he was still

a relevant actor in the American system. The Constitution gives me relevance. The power of our

ideas gives me relevance. The record we have built up over the last two years and the things we're

trying to do to implement it give it relevance. The president is relevant here.

It was 22 years after Arthur Schlesinger wrote the Imperial Presidency,

which argued that the executive branch had grown too powerful.

Now a president was making the case for his relevance.

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