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Obama Speaks on Gun Laws

Aired December 19, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Ashleigh.

Of course, it is really the horrific killing of those first graders that put guns back on the national agenda. And today, as you see at the podium there, we're getting a two-minute warning. That means the president will be arriving very shortly in the press briefing room to explain, to talk about his role, to talk about the government's role. He was very moved by what he saw in Connecticut, and he says that he wanted to make this a priority in his administration. So we are awaiting those remarks.

Want to bring in our Wolf Blitzer to talk a little bit about this.

And, Wolf, we know there are some things the president can do, there are other things that he cannot do. He clearly has to work with Congress if he's going to move forward on gun legislation, but he can also carry out executive orders and short-term measures that he can take. What do we expect in terms of the strength, the robust nature of these remarks that something really will be done and he's got the political will behind it?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE SITUATION ROOM": I think we'll hear some strong words from the president right now and he's express his outrage over what happened in Newtown, Connecticut, and earlier in the country. We heard some of those strong words at the memorial service Sunday night in Newtown. And then he'll announce that Joe Biden is going to lead this committee, this commission, whatever you want to call it, to come up with some specific ideas, some specific legislation that he can push forward.

MALVEAUX: Let's listen in. He's -- the president's at the podium.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good morning, everybody.

It's now been five days since the heart-breaking tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Three days since we gathered as a nation to pray for the victims. And, today, a few more of the 20 small children and six educators who were taken from us will be laid to rest.

We may never know all the reasons why this tragedy happened. We do know that every day since more Americans have died of gun violence. We know such violence has terrible consequences for our society. And if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.

Over these past five days, a discussion has re-emerged as to what we might do not only to deter mass shootings in the future, but to reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every single day. And it's encouraging that people of all different backgrounds and beliefs and political persuasions have been willing to challenge some old assumptions and change long-standing positions.

That conversation has to continue, but this time the words need to lead to action. We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides. And as I said on Sunday night, there's no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts.

But the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence and prevent the very worst violence. That's why I've asked the Vice President to lead an effort that includes members of my cabinet and outside organizations to come up with a set of concrete proposals no later than January. Proposals that I then intend to push without delay.

This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issues for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task, to pull together real reforms right now.

I asked Joe to lead this effort in part because he wrote the 1994 crime bill that helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in this country. That plan -- that bill also included the assault weapons ban that was publicly supported at the time by former presidents including Ronald Reagan.

The good news is, there's already a growing consensus for us to build upon. A majority of Americans support banning the sale of military- style assault weapons. A majority of Americans support banning the sale of high capacity ammunition clips. A majority of Americans support laws requiring background checks before all gun purchases so that criminals can't take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won't take the responsibility of doing a background check at all.

I urge the new Congress to hold votes on these measures next year in a timely manner. In considering Congress hasn't confirmed a direct of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in six years, the agency that works most closely with state and local law enforcement to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminal, I'd suggest that they make this a priority early in the year.

Look, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual a right to bear arms. This country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that's been handed down from generation to generation. Obviously, across the country, there are regional differences. There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas.

And the fact is, the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible. They buy their guns legally, and they use them safely. Whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.

But you know what? I am also betting that the majority, the vast majority of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible law breaking few from buying a weapon of war. I'm willing to bet that they don't think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas. That an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to get his hands on a military style assault rifle so easily. That in this age of technology, we should be able to check someone's criminal records before he or she can check out at a gun show. That if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the ones in Newtown or any of the lesser known tragedies that visit small towns and big cities all across America every day.

Since Friday morning, a police officer was gunned down in Memphis leaving four children without their mother. Two officers were killed outside a grocery store in Topeka. A woman was shot and killed inside a Las Vegas casino. Three people were shot inside an Alabama hospital. A four-year-old was caught in a drive-by in Missouri and taken off life support just yesterday.

Each one of these Americans was a victim of the everyday gun violence that takes the lives of more than 10,000 Americans every year. Violence that we cannot accept as routine. So I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.

We won't prevent them all, but that can't be an excuse not to try. It won't be easy, but that can't be an excuse not to try. And I'm not going to be able to do it by myself. Ultimately, if this effort is to succeed, it's going to require the help of the American people. It's going to require all of you. If we're going to change things, it's going to take a wave of Americans, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors, law enforcement, mental health professionals, and, yes, gun owners standing up and saying, enough on behalf of our kids.

It will take commitment and compromise and most of all it will take courage. But if those of us who were sent here to serve the public trust can summon even one tiny iota of the courage those teachers, that principal in Newtown summoned on Friday, if cooperation and common sense prevail, then I'm convinced we can make a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place for our children to learn and to grow.

Thank you. And now I'm going to let the Vice President go and I'm going to take a few questions. And I will start with Ben Feller (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President.

I'd like to ask you about the other serious issue consuming this town right now, (INAUDIBLE). Haven't you betrayed some of the voters who supported you in the election by changing your positions on who should get a tax increase and by including Social Security benefits now into this mix? And, more broadly, there seems to be a deepening sense that negotiations aren't going very well right now. Can you give us a candid update? Are we likely to go over the cliff?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, there's no reason why we should. Remember what I said during the campaign. I thought that it was important for us to reduce our deficit in a balanced and responsible way. I said it was important for us to make sure that millionaires and billionaires paid their fair share. I said that we were going to have to make some tough cuts, some tough decisions on the spending side, but what I wouldn't do was hurt vulnerable families only to pay for a tax cut for somebody like me. And what I said was that the ultimate package would involve a balance of spending cuts and tax increases.

That's exactly what I've put forward. What I've said is, is that in order to arrive at a compromise, I am prepared to do some very tough things. Some things that some Democrats don't want to see and probably there are a few Republicans who don't want to see either. But the only way that we're going to be able to stabilize the economy, make sure we've got a platform for long-term economic growth, that we get our deficits under control, and we make sure that middle class families are protected is if we come up with something that members of both parties in Congress can support.

And that's the plan that I've put forward. I have gone at least halfway in meeting some of the Republicans' concerns, recognizing that even though we campaigned on these issues, even though the majority of Americans agree with me, that we should be raising taxes on the wealthiest few as a means of reducing the deficit. I have also said that I'm willing to identify some spending cuts that make sense. And, you know, frankly, up until about a couple of days ago, if you looked at it, the Republicans in the House and Speaker Boehner, I think, were in a position to say, we've gotten a fair deal. The fact that they haven't taken it yet is puzzling, and I think, you know, a question that you're going to have to address to them.

I remain optimistic, though, because if you look at what the Speaker has proposed, he's conceded that income tax rates should go up, except right now he only wants to have them go up for millionaires. If you're making $900,000, somehow he thinks that you can't afford to pay a little more in taxes. But the principal that rates are going to need to go up, he's conceded.

I've said I'm willing to make some cuts. What separates us is probably a few hundred billion dollars. The idea that we would put our economy at risk, because you can't bridge that gap, doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'm going to continue to talk to the Speaker and the other leaders up in Congress. But, ultimately, they've got to do their job.

Right now their job is to make sure the middle class taxes do not go up and that we have a balanced, responsible package of deficit reduction. It is there for all to see. It is a deal that can get done. But it is not going to be -- it cannot be done if every side wants 100 percent. And part of what voters were looking for is some compromise up here. That's what folks want. They understand that they're not going to get 100 percent of what they want. And for some reason, that message has not yet taken up on Capitol Hill.

And when you think about what we've gone through over the last couple of months, a devastating hurricane, and now one of the worst tragedies in our memory, the country deserves folks to be willing to compromise on behalf of the greater good and not tangle themselves up in a whole bunch of ideological positions that don't make much sense. So I remain not only open to conversations, but I remain eager to get something done.

I'd like to get it done before Christmas. There's been a lot of posturing up on Capitol Hill instead of just going ahead and getting stuff done. And we've been wasting a lot of time. It is the right thing to do. I'm prepared to get it done. But, you know, they're going to have to go ahead and make some adjustments.

And I'll just give you one other example. You know, the Speaker now is proposing what he calls plan b. So he says, well, this would raise taxes only on folks making a million dollars or more. What that means is an average of a $50,000 tax break for every millionaire out there. At the same time, we're not providing unemployment insurance for 2 million people who are still out there looking for work. It actually means a tax increase for millions of working families across the country at the same time as folks like me would be getting a tax break. That violates the core principles that were debated during the course of this election and that the American people determined was the wrong way to go.

And so my hope is, is that the Speaker and his caucus, in conjunction with the other legislative leaders out there, can find a way to make sure that middle class families don't see their taxes go up on January 1st, that we make sure that those things that middle class families count on, like tax credits for college, or making sure that they're getting some help when it comes to raising their kids through things like the child tax credit, that that gets done, and that we have a balanced package for deficit reduction, which is exactly what I've put forward.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you give more ground if you need to or are you done?

OBAMA: You know, if you look at the package that I put forward, it is a balanced package by any definition. And we have put forward real cuts in spending that are hard to do in every category.

And, by any measure, by any traditional calculation, by the measures that Republicans themselves have used in the past, this would be a -- as large a piece of deficit reduction as we've seen in the last 20 years.

And, if you combine that with the increased revenue from the wealthy paying a little bit more, then you actually have something that would stabilize our deficit and debt for a decade, for 10 years.

Now, the notion that we would not do that, but instead, the Speaker would run a play that cuts -- keeps tax cuts for folks making $500,000 or $700,000 or $800,000 or $900,000 a year and gives more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and raises taxes on middle-class families and then has no cuts in it, which is what he says he wants, doesn't make much sense.

I mean, let's just think about the logic for a second. They're thinking about voting for raising taxes, at least on folks over a million, which they say they don't want to do, but they're going to reject spending cuts that they say they do want to do. That defies logic. There's no explanation for that.

I think that any objective person out there looking would say that, you know, we put forward a very balanced plan, and it's time for us to go ahead and get it done. That's what the country needs right now because I think folks have been through some wrenching times.

We're still recovering from a very tough recession and what they're hoping for is a sense of stability, focus, compromise, common sense over the next couple of years and I think that we can provide, but this is a good test for it. OK?

Carol Lee?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Just a follow-up. What is your next move? Are we in a position now where you're just waiting for the Speaker to make a move?

OBAMA: I'm going to reach out to all the leaders involved over the next couple of days and find out what is it that's holding this thing up? What is holding it up?

If the argument from Republicans is we haven't done enough spending cuts, that argument is not going to fly because we've got close to a trillion dollars of spending cuts. When you add interest, it's more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts.

If the argument is that they can't do -- they can't increase tax rates on folks making $700,000 or $800,000 a year, that's not a persuasive argument to me and it's certainly not a persuasive argument to the American people.

It may be that members of their caucus haven't looked at exactly what we've proposed. It may be that, if we provide more information or there's greater specificity or we worked through concerns, we can get some movement there.

What would violate my commitment to voters is if I ended up agreeing to a plan that put more burden on the middle-class families and less of a burden on the wealthy in an effort to reduce our deficit. That's not something I'm going to do.

What would violate my commitment to voters would be to put forward a plan that makes it harder for young people to go to college. That makes it harder for a family with a disabled kid to care for that kid.

There's a threshold that you reach where the balance tips even in making compromises that are required to get something done in this town where you are hurting people in order to give another advantage to folks who don't need help.

We had an extensive debate about this for a year. Not only does the majority of the American people agree with me, about half of Republican voters agree with me on it this.

So, you know, at some point, there's got to be, I think, a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that, you know, take the deal. You know, they will be able to claim that they have worked with me over the last two years to reduce the deficit more than any other deficit reduction package.

We will have stabilized it for ten years. That is a significant achievement for them. They should be proud of it. They keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes.

I don't know how much of that just has to do with, you know -- it is very hard for them to say yes to me, but, you know, at some point they've got to take me out of it and think about their voters.

They can think about what's best for the country and, if they do that, if they're not worried about who's winning and who's losing, did they score a point on the president, they extract that little concession, did they -- you know, force him to do something he really doesn't want to do just for the heck of it and they focus on what's actually good for the country, I think we can get this done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You mentioned the $700,000, $800,000, are you willing to move on income level and are there specific things that you would ...

OBAMA: I'm not getting into specific negotiations here. My point is simply, Carol, that if you look at Speaker Boehner's proposal and my proposal, they're pretty close.

They keep on saying that somehow we haven't put forward real spending cuts. Actually, you know, there was a graph in "The New York Times" today that showed it. They're the same the categories, right? There's a little bit of tweaks here and there. There are a few differences, but, you know, we're right there.

And, on the revenue side, there's a difference in terms of them wanting to preserve tax breaks for folks between $250,000 and a million that we just can't afford. I mean, keep in mind, I'm in that income category. I'd love to, you know, not pay as much in taxes.

But I also think it's the right thing to do for us to make sure that people who have less, people who are working and striving, people who, you know, are hoping for their kids that they have opportunity. That's what we campaigned about. That's what we talked about.

And this is not a situation where I'm, you know, unwilling to compromise. This is not a situation where I'm trying to, you know, rub their face in anything. And I think anybody who looks at this objectively would say that coming off my election I have met them at least halfway in order to get something done for the country.

And, so, I notice that there were a couple of headlines out there saying, you know, oh, we're now in the land of political posturing. And, you know, it's the usual "he-said-he-said" atmosphere.

But look at the facts. Look at where we started. Look at where they started. My proposal is right there in the middle. We should be able to get this done. Let's get it done. We don't have a lot of time.

Carrie (ph)? Where's -- there you are.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. What is your level of confidence that if you are able to reach a comprehensive deal with the Speaker that he will be able bring his members on board to get it passed? Essentially, do you still trust Speaker Boehner in this process?

OBAMA: There is no doubt that the Speaker has challenges in his caucus and I recognize that. I'm often reminded when I speak to the Republican leadership that the majority of their caucus's membership come from districts that I lost, all right?

And so, sometimes, they may not see an incentive in cooperating with me in part because they're more concerned about challenges from a tea party candidate or challenges from the right and, you know, cooperating with me may make them vulnerable. You know, I recognize that.

But, goodness, if this past week has done anything, it should just give us some perspective. If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important.

And, you know, I would like to think that members of that caucus would say to themselves, you know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things. We wish the other guy had won. We're going to fight him on a whole range of issues over the next four years.

We think his philosophy is all screwed up, but right now what the country needs is for us to compromise, get a deficit reduction deal in place, make sure middle-class taxes don't go up, make sure that we're laying the foundations for growth, give certainty to businesses large and small, not put ourselves through some sort of self-inflicted crisis every six months, allow ourselves time to focus on things like preventing the tragedy in Newtown from happening again, focus on issues like energy and immigration reform and, you know, all the things that will really make a determination as to whether our country grows over the next four years, 10 years, 40 years.

And, if you just pull back from the immediate, you know, political battles, if you kind of peel off the partisan war paint, then we should be able to get something done.

And, you know, I think the Speaker would like to get that done. I think an environment needs to be created within not just the House Republican caucus, but also among Senate Republicans that say the campaign's over and let's see if we can do what's right for the country at least for the next month.

And then, you know, we can reengage in all the other battles that they'll want to fight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't get it done, Republicans have said they'll try to use the debt limit as the next pressure point. Will you negotiate with them in that context?

OBAMA: No. And I've been very clear about this. This is the United States of America, the greatest country on earth, the world's economic superpower, and the idea that we lurch from crisis to crisis and every six months or every nine months that we threaten not to pay our bills on stuff we've already bought and default and ruin the full faith and credit of the United States of America, that's not how you run a great country.

So, I've put forward a very clear principle. I will not negotiate around the debt ceiling. You know, we're not going to play the same game that we saw happen in 2011, which was hugely destructive, hurt our economy, provided more uncertainty to the business community than anything else that happened.

(END LIVE FEED)