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Obama to Outline Plan in Prime Time

Aired September 08, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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


JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Again, the president is -- I think the president -- again, in the interview that we're all citing -- described it as a profound mistake to commit American combat boots to being on the ground in Syria. This is not a fight that the United States can take on for them. The United States is willing to be supportive of these -- of the Syrian opposition as they try to put in place a government that reflects the will of the Syrian people, and we're gonna continue to support them.

QUESTION: But their (ph) country, three years ago -- three years later, 162,000 people are dead. There are millions of refugees all over the -- all over the region.

Again, why not then? Why didn't -- why -- why didn't this plan -- why wasn't it effectuated back then?

EARNEST: Well, I would say, again, a couple things about that. The first is the United States has been engaged in an effort to support them and we have been for some time, for more than a year, at least.

Separately, the concern that was expressed by the administration at the time and has been -- it's something that's been oft repeated -- is a concern that we didn't want to provide assistance to every individual who said that they were fighting Bashar al Assad.

Had we done that without thoroughly vetting them and building the kind of relationship that's necessary to understand who we're providing weapons to, we would have inadvertently provided weapons to the very people we're now fighting in Iraq.

So there was a question of who exactly was included in the Syrian opposition and which of those elements were interested in putting in place a government that actually reflected the will and diversity of the Syrian people and which of those were members of the opposition who were actually extremists who were hoping to use the power vacuum that's been created by this civil war in Syria to try to carry out their own vision of an Islamic caliphate in this region.

So, the reason that the administration was interested in carefully vetting the individuals who were part of the Syrian opposition is because we wanted to make sure that our assistance was landing in the hands of the people who were trying to create a government that reflected the will of the Syrian people and not to create an Islamic caliphate that was carrying out acts of violence throughout the region. So this -- this challenge of vetting the opposition certainly contributed to the -- to the policy of this administration to ramp up our assistance to that opposition over time after we had established some relationships and had the opportunity to vet these individuals and get a better sense about what their intentions actually were.

OK? John.

QUESTION: Josh, Jeff asked you a series of very direct questions, and I didn't hear a direct answer. So can you...

EARNEST: I'll try again.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: ... please help me with -- with -- with a yes or a no.

EARNEST: I'll try.

QUESTION: Does the president intend to ask Congress for authorization to expand its campaign against ISIL?

EARNEST: Well, I think...

QUESTION: Just a yes or a no.

EARNEST: The president was asked this direct question, and he...

QUESTION: Didn't give a direct answer either. So I...

(LAUGHTER)

EARNEST: Well...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Yes or no. So I don't know what buy-in (ph). I covered Congress for years, and I don't know what you mean by you saying you want a congressional buy-in (ph). Buy-in (ph), it seems to me, would imply a vote of some kind, either a vote on appropriations or a vote on an authorization or a sense of the Congress resolution, but some kind of a vote.

EARNEST: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Is that what you want from Congress, a vote on this? Yes or no.

EARNEST: Well, again, if you want to get some insight into the president's current thinking about this, then I would refer you to the answer that he gave to Chuck in the interview 48 hours ago.

But the other thing that I would point out that's also part of your question is if the president decides to expand the operation. And these are the kinds of questions that are best answered after the president's made some fundamental decisions about -- about what he wants to do there, that, you know -- that if there is an expansion in the operation that takes place what consequences are there for a whole range of things -- for our diplomatic relationships; what kind of assistance are we going to seek from our partners; what kind of assistance would we seek from regional governments in terms of the roles that they could play here; and what role does Congress have.

So it's hard to -- unless we're talking about a very specific order from the president, it's hard to talk in very specific terms about what we want Congress to do. But as a general matter, what I can say is that the president is interested in their buy-in; is interested in a congressional debate; and is interested in consulting closely with the leaders in Congress so that they feel bought-into this process and they feel like the partners that they actually are as the elected representatives of the American people.

QUESTION: As we remember, the president did make a decision on airstrikes on Syria under very different circumstances, but previously. And his decision at that point was that he needed congressional authorization or that he wanted congressional authorization. If he were to go in that direction again and decide that some kind of an extended air campaign against ISIL targets in Syria were necessary, is it safe to assume he would have the same view that he would need, want congressional authorization?

EARNEST: Well, the situation from last year is a little bit different than the situation this year. The situation from last year was related specifically to this issue of chemical weapons being used by the Assad regime against the Syrian people. The situation right now is -- is related directly to the protection of American citizens in the region.

The president does believe that he has all of the authority necessary as the commander in chief of the United States to order the kind of military action that's necessary to protect American citizens.

QUESTION: Including strikes in Syria? EARNEST: But again, if there is an expansion -- if there is an expansion of the president's military orders or if there is an expansion of the scope of operations that the president's willing to consider, at the point the president's made that decision, we can start making decisions about what sort of congressional role or authorization is required, if any.

QUESTION: Can you give me a sense on the timeline for a decision on this? Is it something the president's considering right now? Is this something we can expect in the next day or two? Or is this something over (inaudible) weeks?

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: When you say "this"...

QUESTION: A decision on whether or not to expand military operations that you just referred to.

EARNEST: Well, the president has been regularly consulting with his national security team for weeks now. And when they are having these meetings, they're talking about our broader strategy for confronting the threat that's posed by ISIL. And there are a range of elements that we've discussed quite a few times here in terms of, you know, our diplomacy with the Iraqis trying to form a central government. They've made tremendous progress on that over the last couple of weeks and we're hoping that this week they'll make some additional important progress in forming a cabinet.

There are -- there's important work that's being done by the secretary of state. He's traveling to the region this week, where he's going to be consulting with regional governments. I think the president was pretty powerful in explaining the role that these governments in the region have and the stake that they have in resolving this conflict. The president highlighted that so often these Sunni-dominated governments perceive Shia-led governments as the principal threat to their ability to lead their country and to remain in power.

It's the president's view, and I think that there's some justification for this based on the facts that we see on the ground there, that they actually face a greater threat from more extremist Sunni elements that have demonstrated significant capacity to wreak havoc in their region.

EARNEST: You know, there's -- there's also the diplomatic effort to engage the international community here. There is -- there are a number of intelligence efforts that the president has already ordered. We've talked quite a bit about how the president at the beginning of this situation ordered an increase in intelligence assets to get a better sense of what sort of -- to get a better sense of what actually was happening on the ground and to better assess the capability of both ISIL but also the Iraqi security forces. So -- but also, as you point out, there's -- the other element of this strategy is the use of military force. That is part of the strategy.

But the reason I'm running through this long list here is to illustrate to you that there are -- that this broad strategy that the president has put in place to deal with this is something that is regularly discussed among his team, and there are -- they're discussing every element to this strategy at each of these meetings.

QUESTION: But in his speech on Wednesday -- and first of all, is this a prime time address or a day time speech?

EARNEST: We're still working through the logistics of this -- of this speech the president wants to give, and so when we have some more details than that, we'll let you know.

QUESTION: But is it the purpose of the speech to announce a new phase in this military operation, or to outline what he has already outlined in different venues: the interview over the weekend, the press conferences on his last trip, what his strategy is vis-a-vis ISIL.

EARNEST: Well, the speech isn't written yet. So, I don't want to get ahead of describing a speech that hasn't been written yet. But generally...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) go forward -- our purpose to explain what he's already doing or announce something new? EARNEST: Well, I wouldn't rule out that there might be something new in the speech, but I'd -- the principal goal here is to make sure that people understand what the clear stake is for the American people in our nation in this ongoing violence that we're seeing in Iraq and Syria. He also wants to describe what sort of tools are at the disposal of the American government as they try to protect our interests and our people in the region.

And the president wants to have -- you know, wants to try to lay that out pretty clearly. Does that mean the president may have something new to say in the speech? He might, but I'll wait until the speech is written before I start guessing about where he's going to end up.

OK. All right? Major.

QUESTION: Josh, can you address a moment ago, as the president decided to expand the air war into Syria, you said the president said he will go wherever is necessary.

EARNEST: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: That sounded like a very near confirmation that he has decided that. Should that be interpreted that way?

EARNEST: No, because the president has made a specific decision like this to expand our military operations then. You can expect that the president himself would announce a decision like that, not just...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... your answer that he will go wherever is necessary?

EARNEST: That is a statement of the president's view in terms of what sort of authority he has as the commander in chief to confront these challenges.

And the president is determined to act where necessary to protect American citizens, both in the region, but here in the homeland. And the president has demonstrated a willingness to do that on a number of occasions already. And that principle, that principle continues to apply in this situation as well.

QUESTION: It's not a matter of whether, it's just a matter of time.

EARNEST: Well, again, if and when the president has made a decision along these lines, it will be something that the president will announce.

QUESTION: In Wednesday's speech?

EARNEST: No, the purpose of the president's speech on Wednesday is broader than that. Again, military action is one element of our strategy. And the president does have this integrated strategy that relies very heavily on America's forceful, diplomatic might and a range of other assets that we have at our disposal. And the president's going to use all of them to deal with this specific challenge.

QUESTION: So, let's just say for the sake of argument I was an American who watched the president's press conference at the end of the NATO summit and watched the interview yesterday. After seeing Wednesday's speech, will I say to myself, "wow, this is like 70 percent brand new," or is it going to be like...

(LAUGHTER)

EARNEST: That is a particularly creative way to ask that question. I think what I would say -- I would encourage that American citizen that you're describing to tune into the speech and evaluate for themselves just how surprised they are by the president's...

QUESTION: Come on. You can give us something better.

EARNEST: At this point I can. It's a little early for that.

QUESTION: You more or less said to Jonathan, it's mostly going to be what we've heard before. There might be something new. Is it to try to gather the American people's attention and say, "in case you haven't heard..."

(LAUGHTER)

"... here's what I'm thinking about, here's the context, but this isn't the declarative speech on how I'm going to ratchet up this conflict to a higher military level and I need Congress to approve it and here's how much it's going to cost and here's the timeline I've sort of put together to envision achieving goals X, Y and Z."

EARNEST: We're still a couple days away from -- from the speech and so I'm not in a position to provide additional guidance to you right now what the president may or may not say.

So we can -- we'll have the opportunity to try this again tomorrow and maybe I'll be prepared with a little bit more to say about this.

Look, you know, the president and his team are working on the speech as we speak. So as we get some more details locked down, I will try -- I'm probably overcommitting myself now but I will try to provide at least a little -- a little bit greater insight for you and your viewers about what the president intends to -- to talk about on Wednesday.

QUESTION: I want to follow up on immigration for a second because I just want to be clear.

What the president decided Saturday was that he wouldn't take any executive action until after the November election, right?

EARNEST: The president's decided to...

QUESTION: He decided to revisit the entire question of taking the executive action until after the election because to my mind and many advocates who have been pushing for this, they're -- they're very different things.

EARNEST: Good. I -- I appreciate you're giving me the opportunity to clarify this to the extent that there is any ambiguity here.

The president has decided that he will take executive within the confines of the law to fix those aspects of the broken immigration system that he's able to fix before the end of the year. And that is a decision that he has made and that is something that will occur.

Now some of the static, that you might say, in the media over the weekend was related to the president's earlier commitment to acting before the end of the summer.

What the president will -- has decided is that he will act now before the end of the year. The president has not in any way altered his commitment or interest in taking executive action, again, within the confines of the law, to solve -- to act where Congress hasn't and more specifically, to act where Congress -- congressional Republicans have blocked congressional action.

And the president's commitment to acting on this before the end of the year has not changed.

QUESTION: He said yesterday that the reason for that is he needs to explain to the American people. Why does he need until the end of the year to explain something? Isn't it true that the dominant factor, if you want to call it static, was static from Senate Democrats, saying this is a -- it may be a good idea that you -- maybe you think it's a good idea, but it's terrible politics for us and we want you to wait until after the election?

The president clearly doesn't need nine weeks to explain this to the American people. If he wanted to explain it, he could explain it, just like he's gonna try to explain the strategy on Wednesday. It seems to me the only rational explanation for this is an intervening mid-term election and fears from Senate Democrats that they did not want to take this issue on in a (inaudible) minority tough political environment.

EARNEST: Major, the reasons the president has made the decision to -- to delay his announcement about executive actions that he's gonna take is specifically because he is concerned, mostly, about ensuring the solution that he offers is both sustainable and enduring.

QUESTION: But if it's an executive action, it is sustainable, by definition, until the end of his presidency. He doesn't have to worry about Congress. That's the whole point.

EARNEST: What the president wants to do is he wants to ensure that all of the work that has been done over the last several years to build this powerful, bipartisan coalition in support of immigration reform is sustained. And by injecting an executive action in the midst of this hyperpartisan, hyperpolitical environment, shortly before the midterms, that will have a negative impact on the broader public support and on the sustainability of immigration reform. So, the president's -- I guess the short answer to your question is, the president's willing to take a little political heat from the pundits, from some of the advocates in the Hispanic community, in particular, in order to ensure that the policy that he puts forward is one that can be sustained. And the fact is, we haven't seen a similar willing -- willingness from congressional Republicans to take a little heat to do what's in the best interest of the country. In fact, we've seen congressional Republicans do exactly the opposite. They've been in a situation where they don't want to take any political heat even though they know that acting on bipartisan immigration reform would create jobs. It would expand economic growth. It would reduce the deficit. It -- that's why it's strongly supported by the faith community, by the law enforcement community, by the business community, by the labor community.

These are all reasons why comprehensive immigration reform should move forward. That's why it passed with bipartisan support from in the Senate. But there is a small but vocal group among congressional Republicans in the House of Representatives who are blocking this kind of reform. And that's the only reason we're having this -- this question right now.

QUESTION: Not do do (ph) what he said he was going to do on the time line. He said he was going to do it as an act of courage.

EARNEST: Well, what the president has done -- I mean, look, Major, it's not -- it's not a surprise to anybody at the White House, or it certainly isn't a surprise to me. I won't speak for my colleagues. It's not a surprise to me that there were some people in the newspaper over the weekend who are critical of the president's decision to -- to -- to announce these executive actions before the end of the year as opposed to the end of the summer. That criticism is not surprised -- it wasn't -- that criticism was anticipated.

But the president is willing to take on that criticism, so that we can ensure that the executive action that the president takes is sustained, that it's enduring, and that we continue to have public support for it.

EARNEST: Look, for all the disagreement that there may be around this one issue, there should be no disputing the fact that injecting this issue into the current political environment would be really bad for the issue. There's some disagreement about whether or not, well, maybe it would help some Democrats. Maybe it would hurt some others. Maybe it would galvanize base Democratic voters. Maybe it would energize Latino supporters. Maybe it would provoke Republican candidates into doing outrageous things like shutting down the government in a way that would benefit Democrats.

There are a lot of people with a lot of different views about what possible impact this could have on individual races. But there's no arguing about the fact that injecting this issue into this sharply political, polarized environment would be bad for the issue. And the president believes ultimately that that's the most important thing; that making progress on this issue is the most important thing. No one in Washington, D.C. has invested more in trying to get this done than President Barack Obama. And if that means the president has to take on a little bit more heat here for a few weeks until we announce our decision, in order to make it more likely that these solutions will be enduring and sustained and successful, the president's happy to take on that heat in order to get that done.

Let's move around a little bit.

Justin?

QUESTION: I guess I wanted to just follow Matt and maybe argue with the idea that...

EARNEST: That's why we're here.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: ... that injecting that into the current political climate is bad for the issue. I mean, we just went through a year of you guys saying time and again that House Republicans haven't moved on the issue. It seems legislatively dead in every possible way.

And so the only X factor out here seems to be control of the Senate. And so I'm wondering if you can maybe explain explicitly why an executive action would make, if it were to come this week, would be less enduring that one that happens five weeks from now? If it's not, what I think what we're all dancing around, which is that it helps Senate Democrats to retain control of the chamber? EARNEST: The reason that immigration reform over the last five years has made so much progress...

QUESTION: Has it made progress?

EARNEST: Well, it passed the Senate with bipartisan support. We had 14 Republicans vote for it, and every single Democrat in the Senate voted for it. We also know, but we haven't tested the proposition, but I think everybody in here -- let me know if you disagree -- but I think everybody is willing to stipulate that if this legislation that passed through the Senate in bipartisan fashion were put on the floor of the House of Representatives, it would also pass in bipartisan -- with bipartisan support, with a bipartisan majority, the president would certainly sign it.

That is -- that's evidence of significant progress. I mean, it's not ancient history to cite the experience of 2006 where you had Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the issue reluctant to engage in a debate about it, let alone reluctant to vote for it.

So -- so, we have made a lot of progress over the last five years. The reason for that I think is two-fold. The first is it's become clear what the facts are. The facts are that it would be good for job creation. It would be good for economic growth. It would reduce the deficit. So, the facts are clear about why Congress should take action on this. The second thing is a lot of very difficult work was done between

Democrats and Republicans to try to find some common ground. That is harder than it's ever been in this town. But thanks to the dutiful efforts of members of this administration, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, they brokered some common sense common ground and coupled together a legislative proposal that would do a lot of good for the country. It meant that neither side got every single thing that they wanted, but they were able to arrive at a piece of legislation that everybody acknowledges would be really good for the country.

So there is painstaking work that was put into striking that compromise.

Now, what we have also seen in the context of these mid-term elections is a pretty gross distortion about the facts of our -- of our immigration system.

QUESTION: (inaudible) the mid-term election?

EARNEST: Well, what will change is that we'll be past it. I don't think any of the Republican candidates -- well, think about it, Justin. I don't think any of the Republican candidates right now are contemplating a -- a six-figure ad buy the third week in November. Are they? If they are, I hope they'll spend their money that way, but they're not going to.

So the -- the -- the -- the tone and heightened -- heightened nature of the debate will just be different.

Will there still be Republicans who are against common-sense immigration reform? Yes. I readily concede that that's the case.

But will they be in less of a position to distort the facts about what that position actually is? Yeah. I think they will.

QUESTION: Well, why does that affect the sustainability of the president's (inaudible)?

EARNEST: Because what -- the reason that the president feels confident about -- well, let me take that in two ways.

The first is we want to preserve the strong public support --

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so you've been listening to Josh Earnest there at the White House briefing most recently there on immigration. We know the president will be delaying taking executive action on immigration until after the midterms. He's caught a lot of heat for that and we'll talk about immigration here momentarily.

Good to be with, by the way. Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin on this Monday afternoon.

We've got a lot to talk about, including really the bulk of that back and forth with the White House press corps and Josh Earnest specifically talking about ISIS, you know, looking ahead to the president laying out strategy ahead and fighting ISIS, taking the fight to ISIS in Iraq and potentially Syria as well.

The one nugget that seemed at least new to me, and Jim Sciutto, we'll come to him in just a minute, Josh Earnest said, if, this is if, if they expand the scope of operations into Syria, when and if the president decides we can determine what role Congress should play. So that goes to the issue of authorization from Congress. But keep in mind, two weeks ago, President Obama, he raised questions about his resolve when he told the world that he did not have a strategy when it came to, you know, wiping out this growing terror organization, not just inside Syria but in Iraq.

So now we know that the president of the United States is about to reveal his overall plan. We still don't know what time of day on Wednesday. We do know Josh Earnest said he is sitting down with his speech writers as we speak, crafting this speech to the nation and really to the world. He will be laying out his game plan to leaders of Congress tomorrow and then the rest of us, as I mentioned, on Wednesday.

But this much we know, the plan involves three stages. First, the air strike campaign that is already underway, then a ground offensive focusing on training and arming Iraqi and Kurdish forces and perhaps Sunni militias, and the third phase, this is the tricky one, going after the ISIS network inside of Syria.

We just heard from the White House, and I just want to play you this sound, this is from the president on "Meet the Press" this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I want people to understand though is, is that over the course of months we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL, we are going to systematically degrade their capabilities, we're going to shrink the territory that they control and ultimately we're going to defeat them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jim Sciutto, you have been listening to that White House briefing, our chief national security correspondent. Just listening to the whole thing, and, you know, earnest was pushed as far as whether or not the nation will hear anything new from the president as regard to this battle against ISIS. And he sort of - he said, maybe there's something new. He didn't want to get ahead of the president. What did you hear?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I heard exactly that. He didn't want to get ahead of the president and maybe lowering expectations on whether the president's going to give any more detail than you just laid out there. What we understand the president's long-term strategy to be, the air strikes, the training and equipping of Iraqi and Kurdish forces and somehow going after its safe haven inside Syria.

But I think what you'll see on Wednesday, this is really - you know, the president going to the American public with this plan to make the case to them, perhaps connect - perhaps connect some of the dots more but to make the case to them, one, why he's doing it, but also just the simple fact that he is doing it, because this has been this message like the strategy has been very much a work in progress. It was just last week, a few days ago in fact, when there was a question about whether the goal was to destroy ISIS or make it a more manageable problem. The president saying both those things in one press conference. The White House has settled on, and the president made clear in his interview yesterday, we're going to destroy it. This is the goal. It's not about making it more manageable. And now they're filling in the spaces so we know how the president intends to do that in general terms.

But there is still a lot of questions answered. And one of them, you know, you get out there, the third step is going after ISIS inside Syria. What does that mean? Has the president decided on air strikes yet? His press secretary just said no. And if he does take that step, has he decided that he needs congressional authorization, further congressional authorization, to do it? That seems to still be an open question.

BALDWIN: We keep hearing, and Josh Earnest was pressed what this congressional buy-in means.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BALDWIN: I don't know if it's dodgy or intentionally nebulous because they don't know or they're not saying. But how - how is - you know, the American -- how are the American people supposed to interpret that?

SCIUTTO: Well, let's call it undefined, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK.

SCIUTTO: It's undefined at this point. You know, I -- when I was speaking to Defense Secretary Hagel last week, I asked him the same thing. He said a buy-in the defense there used the term consult. The president wants to consult with Congress. So what does that mean? Clearly the administration either hasn't made a decision or it hasn't announced a decision yet on whether buy-in, consulting involves going for a vote in Congress. Josh Earnest saying that, well, he'll make that decision when he decides what he's going to do inside Syria or elsewhere.

But it's a very fair question. We know that the campaign in effect starts tomorrow when the president sits down with congressional leaders on The Hill, more outreach there, but outreach does not equal a vote. So there are a lot of steps, you know, a lot of gradations (ph) in between to define what that buy-in is and how severe - how strong that buy-in is.

BALDWIN: Mr. Sciutto, thank you, sir. Great interview last week, by the way, with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. We really appreciate that on this show.

SCIUTTO: Thank you. BALDWIN: Thank you.

Have some breaking news that I want to share with you here just coming into us at CNN. The Baltimore Ravens have terminated the contract of their star running back Ray Rice. Terminated. Out. This comes just hours after the elevator surveillance video has surfaced for all the public to see now that shows Rice punching his then fiance, knocking her unconscious, dragging her out of the elevator. We are following the developments very closely. I see Rachel Nichols waiting in the wings for me. She's going to help us break the news. Much more on this after the other side of the break.

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