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Obama News Conference; Casey Anthony's Dad Gets Emotional

Aired June 29, 2011 - 12:46   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You've been watching President Obama. A news conference in the East Room. It lasted about 70 minutes or so. It covered a number of issues. The debt limit. He just talked about that. The economy creating jobs. The U.S. troops in Afghanistan, as well as the mission in Libya.

I want to bring in our team of correspondents and analysts to talk a little bit about this. Our own Jessica Yellin, chief White House correspondent, from the East Room. Gloria Borger, our chief political analysts out of Washington. Christine Romans, host of "Your Bottom Line." And Fran Townsend, our CNN national security contributor. She's back with us from New York. She's a member of the CIA and Homeland security Department Advisory Committee.

I want to go ahead and bring in everybody here. I want to start off with you, Jessica.

Are you in place, because I know you're in the East Room and you're probably getting all set and ready. Oh, can you hear me?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sorry. Hi, I hear you, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: OK.

YELLIN: Sorry, will you repeat the question.

MALVEAUX: Oh, no, no, no worries. First of all, Jessica, congratulations on your new position, I understand, and we heard that the president gave you a little shout-out there in the beginning. That was a moment. That was a really nice moment. But you asked a very important question and one that really got the president fired up over this -- the debt limit -- the debt ceiling, whether or not this would actually be raised and the deadline here. You pressed him on this, whether or not August 2nd was a yellow light, as the president was indicating before, or a red light in terms of whether or not the United States is going to be able to pay its bills. What did you make of how the president responded to your question?

YELLIN: He sounded quite frustrated. And he took a pretty clear jab at Congress for suggesting that it was anything but a very clear deadline. You know, Secretary Geithner, the Treasury secretary, had suggested earlier in the year that the debt ceiling would be reached at the end of March and that this deal had to be cut by then and then has subsequently moved that date because he has the power to -- they call it, there are tools in his toolbox to sort of move things around, move money around, if you will.

And the argument that they make, I mean you hear it from economists, is that at some point you can't do that anymore. I mean we know it with our own budget, you can fuss (ph) around only for so long. And their argument is that they finally have to cut a deal by August 2nd. And the president seems quite frustrated with Congress for suggesting that they -- that there is any more leeway past that date. And his argument at the end was, Congress shouldn't even be taking any vacations. If they won't cut a deal, they should be staying here until that is done. And you heard him say, I'm here working on Afghanistan, I'm here working on the problems in Greece. They can stick around and work on this.

MALVEAUX: And he sounded a bit frustrated and he sounded like he was imploring Congress to come back.

I want to bring in Christine Romans here for a quick question on this, because the president said -- and he took on his Republican critics saying, look, you know, it's not just about paying the interest rate here. You can't pay the Chinese and say I'm not paying Social Security payments. Was he right in that, that there are actually going to have to be areas where the government will not pay people or will not be able to pay people when August -- we hit that August 2nd deadline?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, HOST, "YOUR BOTTOM LINE": Yes, absolutely. I mean the Treasury secretary has already been delaying some payments, putting IOUs in some federal retirees payment accounts so that they could have money aside because we did reach the debt ceiling. We already have reached it. So the Treasury secretary, she's absolutely right, Jessica's right, has been moving things around.

The question here is, every dollar America spends, you guys, every dollar it spends, we borrow 38 cents of that. So if we can't borrow any more money, where are you going to come up with that 38 cents? You're not going to be able to pay it out. And so what are you going to pay. And the president said this. What bills are we not going to pay? Are we going to pay for troops in the field but we're not going to pay for Social Security for seniors? Are we going to pay for, you know, highway infrastructure but we're not going to pay for the interest on our debt?

Now, many are saying, we'll just pay the interest on our debt. And Republicans -- some Republicans are saying this. Just pay the interest on our debt then we won't technically default. But our global investors, the global capital markets will see that America is triaging its bills, and that is a serious problem.

The other thing I want to just point out quickly, you guys, is that the president has to walk this careful line. The reason why he's not telling you pointblank what he thinks will happen if we default or if we hit that deadline and we don't fix it, is because he also doesn't want to spook the global markets. So he's got to prod Congress to fix it or else, but he doesn't want to layout out the dooms day scenario because then you're spooking the market. So he's walking a very, very fine line here. MALVEAUX: And I want to bring in Gloria Borger. Turn the corner, if we can, and talk about gay rights. This was very interesting I found what the president said here because, on the one hand he was talking about that his administration has done more for gay rights in the last two and a half years, he said, then some 40 plus years over the last administration. Then he went on to say that he thought what took place in New York, the same-sex marriage legislation that went through, the debate that happened, was a good thing. And it sounded like what he was saying is that he thought the debate within the states was a good idea.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

MALVEAUX: But then he was asked again about whether or not personally he believed that same-sex marriage was the right thing, and he said, I'm not going to make news on that today.

BORGER: Right.

MALVEAUX: Now, making news on something kind of implies that you're going to change your position somehow, go further. He did not go further.

BORGER: No, he didn't.

MALVEAUX: But it certainly seemed as if he was hinting at that something could come next. What did you make of the nuance of his language regarding this?

BORGER: Well, look, it's very nuance because he understands what's going on in these states. He also understands that public opinion has changed on this issue. And he also understands the danger for him of saying, look, this is an issue that should be left to the states, which, by the way, is the position that former Vice President Dick Cheney takes.

What we see going on in this country is that only a limited number of states have approved gay marriage. This is an issue that could be headed for the Supreme Court. There's a case right now in California, a very celebrated case there. And so this is a president whose kind of hanging back right now politically and saying, look, this is the state's issue, this is an issue that's going to work its way through the courts. So at this point, I'm not going to say anything except to say that our administration has done more than any other administration in terms of promoting the rights of gay couples, et cetera.

So, you know, he didn't -- I really didn't hear any kind of a shift from him. I think he is, as he would say, still evolving on this. And I think there's -- everyone knows there's one more -- one more step. But I don't think we heard it today.

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Fran -- I want to bring in Fran Townsend real quickly here. There were a couple of things that came up on Libya. He was at -- I'm sorry, not Libya. On Afghanistan. He was asked to define victory in the war in Afghanistan. He would not say the word victory. What he said was, he believes we succeed on two points. One that al Qaeda -- to make sure that al Qaeda could not attack the United States. And, two, to make sure that the Afghan people could protect themselves. That in that way we could be successful in our mission. Were you satisfied with that explanation, seeing, you know, on the heels of this attack that we just saw in Kabul?

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: No. And, in fact, you know, it was pretty interesting. When he was asked about Afghanistan and the drawdown, the president pivoted to talking about al Qaeda. And he has -- and that's because, of course, he's seeing some successes there, most especially the killing of bin Laden.

But the recent attacks have been conducted by the Taliban. And not once did he mention the word Taliban, discuss -- I mean, I -- what you were waiting to hear was, you would have suspected with the two recent suicide attacks, the most recent yesterday at the Intercontinental, he would have been very clear that we're not going to negotiate with them while they're blowing up hotels and civilians. Not a word. He wasn't pressed on it, but he certainly didn't voluntarily address the whole issue about the Taliban, which right now is certainly the greatest threat to Afghan civilians.

MALVEAUX: All right, we're going to bring our panel back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: It's been an emotional day for George Anthony testifying in the murder trial of his daughter Casey. He broke down and sobbed on the stand during a defense grilling. He was being asked about his suicide attempt in 2009 after his granddaughter Caylee went missing. Earlier he got angry when the defense asked him about how he recognized the smell of human decomposition in the trunk of his daughter's car. He was asked by the prosecutor about buying a gun after Caylee's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ASHTON, PROSECUTOR: Mr. Anthony, in August of 2008, you went and obtained a firearm, did you not?

GEORGE ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY'S FATHER: Yes, sir.

ASHTON: Why did you obtain the firearm?

ANTHONY: Two reasons. Number one, I wanted to go get answers that I believe I could get from individuals that I felt in my mind, at the time, was responsible for Caylee.

ASHTON: You were going to force them at gun point to tell you information that you thought they had about what happened to Caylee, based on what your daughter had told you?

ANTHONY: Yes, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Joining me now is criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Holly Hughes.

Holly, essentially what happened? What were the important highlights of George Anthony on the stand today?

HOLLY HUGHES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Two big things. He got to vehemently and very credibly deny that sexual abuse ever happened. And because Jose Baez, defense attorney, kept pushing him, you thought your daughter was innocent, he's now pushing him to, I did back then. And without saying it out loud, George is basically letting that jury know, I have changed my mind. I don't think she's still innocent anymore.

MALVEAUX: What was the significance of this whole buying a gun?

HUGHES: Well, what he wanted to prove was, you know, George does nefarious, underhanded things. But it backfired, Suzanne, because the reason that George couldn't have a gun in the house is because Casey was on bond and that's the reason George couldn't have a gun because Casey was in the house. So it backfired on the defense.

Once again, it's not George who's looking bad, it's not George that can't have a begun, and it goes to show you that George still thought that baby was alive back then. If he had been part of her drowning in the swimming pool, he would not be getting a gun and going to force people to give up information. That's just craziness at this point.

MALVEAUX: And do we expect Casey to take the stand, or no?

HUGHES: Oh, Suzanne, that's the $64,000 question. I don't think they can. I think that's why they questioned her competency over the weekend.

MALVEAUX: All right. We'll be keeping a close eye. Thank you very much, Holly Hughes. We really appreciate it.

CNN NEWSROOM with Randi Kaye starts right now.

Hey, Randi.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Suzanne. Thank you very much.