Text of President George W. Bush&#8217;s final news conference of his presidency on Monday, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.</p><p><strong> BUSH: </strong>Thank you.</p><p>Tapper?</p><p>We have been through a lot together. As I look to the room, I see Jake, Mike, Herman, Ann Compton. Just seemed like yesterday that &#8212; that I was on the campaign trail and you were analyzing my speeches and my policies.</p><p>And I see a lot of faces that travel with me around the world and &#8212; to places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa. I see some new faces, which goes to show there&#8217;s some turnover in this business.</p><p>Through it all, it&#8217;s been &#8212; I have respected you. Sometimes I didn&#8217;t like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me.</p><p>But always the relationship, I have felt, has been professional, and I appreciate it.</p><p>I appreciate &#8212; I do appreciate working with you.</p><p>My friends say, &#8220;What is it like to deal with the press corps?&#8221; I say, &#8220;These are just people that are trying to do the best they possibly can.&#8221;</p><p>And &#8212; and so, here at the last press conference, I&#8217;m &#8212; I&#8217;m interested in answering some of your questions, but mostly I&#8217;m interested in saying thank you for the job.</p><p><strong> QUESTION: </strong><strong>Thank you for those comments, Mr. President.</strong></p><p>Here&#8217;s a question: I&#8217;m wondering if you plan to ask Congress for the remaining $350 billion in bailout money? And, in terms of the timing, if you do that before you leave office, sir, are you motivated in part to make &#8212; make life a little bit easier for President-elect (Barack) Obama?</p><p>BUSH: I have talked to the president-elect about this subject. And I told him that if he felt that he needed the $350 billion, I would be willing to ask for it.</p><p>In other words, if he felt like it needed to happen on my watch.</p><p>The best course of action, of course, is to convince enough members of the Senate to vote positively for the &#8212; for the request. And &#8212; and, you know, that&#8217;s all I can share with you, because that&#8217;s all I know.</p><p><strong>QUESTION:</strong> So you haven&#8217;t made a request yet?</p><p><strong>BUSH: </strong>Well, he hasn&#8217;t asked me to make a request yet. And I don&#8217;t intend to make a request unless he specifically asks me to make it.</p><p>He is &#8212; you know, I&#8217;ve had &#8212; my third conversation with him, and I &#8212; I generally mean what I say. I wish him all the very best. I&#8217;ve found him to be very smart and engaging person.</p><p>And that lunch the other day was interesting: to have two guys who are nearly 85, two 62-year-olders and a 47-year-old. It&#8217;s a kind of &#8212; the classic generational statement.</p><p>And one common area that at least the four of us &#8212; we all had different circumstances and experiences, but one thing is we&#8217;ve all experienced what it means to withstand the responsibility of the presidency. And President-elect Obama is fixing to do that.</p><p>And he&#8217;ll get sworn in and he&#8217;ll have the lunch and all the &#8212; you know, all the deal up there on Capitol Hill, and then he&#8217;ll come back and go through the inauguration. And then he&#8217;ll walk in the Oval Office and there&#8217;ll be a moment when the responsibilities of the president land squarely on his shoulders.</p><p><strong> QUESTION: </strong>Thank you, Mr. President.</p><p>Do you believe that the Gaza conflict will have ended by the time you leave office?</p><p>Do you approve of the way that Israel has conducted it?</p><p>And why were you unable to achieve the peace deal that you had sought?