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President Obama Hold Press Conference - Part Two

Aired August 09, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But the other mandate is full employment. And right now, you know, if you look at the biggest challenges we have, the challenge is not inflation. The challenge is we've still got too many people out of work, too many long-term unemployed, too much slack in -- in the economy, and we're not growing as fast as we should.

And so I want a Fed chairman who's able to look at those issues and have a perspective that keeps an eye on inflation, makes sure that we're not seeing artificial bubbles in place, but also recognizes, you know what, a big part of my job right now is to make sure the economy's growing quickly and robustly and is sustained and durable so that people who work hard in this country are able to find a job.

And, frankly, I think both Larry Summers and Janet Yellen are highly qualified candidates. There are a couple of other candidates who are highly qualified, as well. I'll make the decision in -- in the fall.

QUESTION: Can you see how the perception of you defending Larry Summers as vigorously as you just did (OFF-MIKE) lead some to believe you've already made up your mind?

OBAMA: Well, I -- you know, except I just told you I haven't. So -- you know, Major, I'd defend you if somebody was saying something that wasn't true about you.

(LAUGHTER)

I really would. In fact, I've done that in the White House sometimes.

(LAUGHTER)

Carol Lee. And, Carol, congratulations on Hudson.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

OBAMA: Do you have pictures?

QUESTION: I do. I'll have to show you.

OBAMA: OK, I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to see them.

QUESTION: I appreciate you making it a slow news week.

(LAUGHTER) I wanted to ask you about your evolution on the surveillance issues. I mean, part of what you're talking about today is restoring the public trust. And the public has seen you evolve from when you were in the U.S. Senate to now. And -- and even as recently as June, you said that these -- the process was such that people should be comfortable with it. And now you're saying -- you're making these reforms and people should be comfortable with those. So why should the public trust you on this issue? And why did you change your position multiple times?

OBAMA: Well, I think it's important to say, Carol, first of all, I haven't evolved in my assessment of the actual programs. I consistently have said that, when I came into office, I evaluated them. Some of these programs I had been critical of when I was in the Senate. When I looked through specifically what was being done, my determination was that the two programs in particular that had been at issue -- 215 and 702 -- offered valuable intelligence that helps us protect the American people, and they're worth preserving.

What we also saw was that some bolts needed to be tightened up on some of the programs, so we initiated some additional oversight, reforms, compliance officers, audits, and so forth. And if you look at the reports -- even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden's put forward, all the stories that have been written, what you're not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and, you know, listening in on people's phone calls or inappropriately reading people's e-mails.

What you're hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now, part of the reason they're not abused is because these checks are in place. And those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC.

Having said that, though, if you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying, "U.S., Big Brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, et cetera," well, understandably people would be concerned. I would be, too, if I wasn't inside the government.

And so in light of the changed environment where a whole set of questions have been raised, some in the most sensationalized manner possible, where these leaks are released drip by drip, you know, one a week to kind of maximize attention and see if, you know, they can catch us at some imprecision on something, in light of that, it makes sense for us to go ahead, lay out what exactly we're doing, have a discussion with Congress, have a discussion with industry -- which is also impacted by this -- have discussion with the civil libertarians and see, can we do this better?

I think the main thing I want to emphasize is, I don't have an interest and the people at the NSA don't have an interest in doing anything other than making sure that where we can prevent a terrorist attack, where we can get information ahead of time, that we're able to carry out that critical task. We do not have an interest in doing anything other than that. And we've tried to set up a system that is as fail safe as so far, at least, we've been able to think of, to make sure that these programs are not abused. But people may have better ideas. And people may want to jigger slightly sort of the balance between the information that we can get versus the incremental encroachments on privacy that if haven't already taken place, might take place in a future administration. Or as technologies develop further. And the other thing that's happening, is that as technology develops further, technology itself may provide us some additional safeguards.

So, for example, if people don't have confidence that the law -- the checks and balances of the court and Congress are sufficient to give us confidence that government's not snooping, well, maybe we can embed technologies in there that prevent the snooping regardless of what the government wants to do. I mean, there may be some technological fixes that provide another layer of assurance. And so those are the kinds of things that I'm looking forward to having a conversation about.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)?

OBAMA: No. I can't.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)?

OBAMA: Well, the fact that I said that the programs are operating in a way that prevents abuse, that continues to be true. Without the reforms.

The question is, how do we make the American people more comfortable?

All right?

If I tell Michelle that I did the dishes -- now, granted, in the White House I don't do the dishes that much.

(LAUGHTER)

But back in the day -- and she's a little skeptical. Well, I'd like her to trust me, but maybe I need to bring her back and show her the dishes. And not just have her take my word for it.

And so, you know, the program is -- I am comfortable that the program currently is not being abused.

I am comfortable that if the American people examined exactly what was taking place, how it was being used, what the safeguards were, that they would say, you know what, these folks are following the law and doing what they say they're doing.

But it is absolutely true that with the expansion of technology, this is an area that's moving very quickly, with the revelations that have depleted public trust, that if there's some additional things that we can do to build that trust back up, then we should do them.

Jonathan Carl?

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

You have said that core Al Qaida has been decimated. That its leaders are on the run. Now that we've seen this terror threat that has resulted in embassies closed throughout the Arab world, much of Africa, do you still believe that Al Qaida has been decimated?

And if I can ask in the interest of transparency, can you tell us about these drone strikes we've seen over the last couple of weeks in Yemen?

OBAMA: What I said in this same National Defense University speech back in May -- that I referred to earlier -- is that core Al Qaida is on its heels, has been decimated. But what I also said was that Al Qaida and other extremists have metastasized into regional groups that can pose significant dangers. And I'd refer you back to that speech, just back in May. where I said specifically that although they are less likely to be able to carry out spectacular homeland attacks like 9/11, they have the capacity to go after our embassies. They have the capacity potentially to go after our businesses. They have the capacity to be destabilizing and disruptive in countries where the security apparatus is weak.

And that's exactly what we are seeing right now. So it's entirely consistent to say that this tightly organized and relatively centralized Al Qaida that attacked us on 9/11 has been broken apart and is very weak and does not have a lot of operational capacity, and to say we still have these regional organizations like AQAP that can pose a threat. That can drive potentially a truck bomb into an embassy wall and can kill some people.

And so, that requires us, then, to make sure that we have a strategy that is strengthening those partners so that they've got their own capacity to deal with what are potentially manageable regional threats if these countries are a little bit stronger and have more effective C.T. and so forth.

It means that we've got to continue to be vigilant and go after known terrorists who are potentially carrying out plots or are going to strengthen their capacity over time. Because they're always testing the boundaries of, well, maybe we can try this. Maybe we can do that.

But this is -- this is a ongoing process. We are not going to completely eliminate terrorism. What we can do is to weaken it and to strengthen our partnerships in such a way that it does not pose the kind of horrible threat that we saw on 9/11.

And, you know, I'm not going to discuss specific operations that have taken place.

Again, in my speech in May, I was very specific about how we make these determinations about potential lethal strikes. And so, I would refer you to that speech.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

OBAMA: I will not have a discussion about operational issues. Ed Henry?

QUESTION: I hope you would defend me as well.

OBAMA: I would.

QUESTION: OK. Thank you.

I want to ask you about two important dates that are coming up. October 1st you've gotta implement your signature health care law. You recently decided on your own to delay a key part of that. And I wonder, if you pick and choose what parts of the law to implement, couldn't your successor down the road pick and choose whether they'll implement your law and keep it in place?

And on September 11th, we'll are the first anniversary of Benghazi. And you said on September 12th, "Make no mistake, we'll bring to justice the killers who attacked our people." Eleven months later, where are they, sir?

OBAMA: Well, the -- I also said that we'd get bin Laden. And I didn't get him in 11 months. So we have informed, I think, the public that there's a sealed indictment. It's sealed for a reason. But we are intent on capturing those who carried out this attack. And we're going to stay on it until we get them.

QUESTION: And you're close to having a suspect in custody?

OBAMA: I will leave it at that.

But this remains a top priority for us. Anybody who attacks Americans, anybody who kills tragically four Americans who were serving us in a very dangerous place, we're going to do everything we can to get those who carried out those attacks.

With respect to health care, I didn't simply choose to delay this on my own. This was in consultation with businesses all across the country. Many of whom are supportive of the Affordable Care Act, but -- and who -- many of whom, by the way, are already providing health insurance to their employees but were concerned about the operational details of changing their H.R. operations if they've got a lot of employees, which could be costly for them, and them suggesting that there may be easier ways to do this.

Now, what's true, Ed, is that in a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the speaker and say, "You know what? This is a tweak that doesn't go to the essence of the law. It has to do with, for example, are we able to simplify the attestation of employers as to whether they're already providing health insurance or not. It looks like there may be some better ways to do this. Let's make a technical change to the law."

That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do. But, we're not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to, quote/unquote, "Obamacare." We did have the executive authority to do so and we did so. But this doesn't go to the core of implementation. Let me tell you what is the core of implementation. It's already taken place. As we speak right now, for the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, they are benefiting from being able to keep their kid on their -- on their plan if their kid is 26 or younger. That's benefiting millions of young people around the country, which is why lack of insurance among young people has actually gone down. That's in large part attributable to the steps that we've taken.

You've got millions of people who've received rebates because part of the Affordable Care Act was to say that if an insurance company isn't spending 80 percent of your premium on your health care, you get some money back. And lo and behold, people have been getting their money back.

It means that folks who've been bumping up -- up with lifetime limits on their insurance that leaves them vulnerable, that doesn't exist. Seniors have been getting discounts on their prescription drugs. That's happening right now. Free preventive care, mammograms, contraception, that's happening right now.

I met a young man today on a bill-signing I was doing with the student loan bill who came up to me and said, "thank you." He couldn't have been more than 25, 26 years old -- "Thank you. I have cancer. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, working with the California program, I was able to get health care and I'm now in remission." And so, right now, people are already benefiting.

Now, what happens on October 1st, in 53 days, is for the remaining 15 percent of the population that doesn't have health insurance, they're going to be able to go on a website or call up a call center and sign up for affordable quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market. And if even with lower premiums they still can't afford it, we're going to be able to provide them with a tax credit to help them buy it.

And between October 1st into March, there will be an open enrollment period in which millions of Americans for the first time are going to be able to get affordable health care.

Now, I think the really interesting question is why it is that my friends in the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail, their number one priority. The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care. And presumably, repealing all those benefits I just mentioned -- kids staying on their parents' plan; seniors getting discounts on their prescription drugs, I guess a return to lifetime limits on insurance; people with preexisting conditions continuing to be blocked from being able to get health insurance.

That's hard to understand as an agenda that is going to strengthen our middle class. At least they used to say, "Well, we're going to replace it with something better." There's not even a pretense now that they're going to replace it with something better. The -- the notion is simply that those 30 million people, or the 150 million who are benefiting from the other aspects of affordable care, will be better off without it. That's their assertion, not backed by fact, not backed by any evidence. It's just become an ideological fixation.

Well, I tell you what, they're wrong about that. There is no doubt that in implementing the Affordable Care Act, a program with this significance, there are going to be some glitches. No doubt about it. There are going to be things where we say, "You know what? We should have thought of that earlier"; or "this would work a little bit better"; or "this needs an adjustment."

That was true of Social Security. That was true of Medicare. That was true of the children's health insurance program, that was true on prescription drug program Part D that was rolled out by a Republican president and supported by Republicans who are still in the House of Representatives. That's true, by the way, of a car company rolling out a new car. It's true of Apple rolling out the new iPad.

So, you know, you will be able to whenever you want during the course of the next six months and probably the next year find occasions where you say, ah-ha, you know what, that could have been done a little better or that thing -- they're kind of making an administrative change. That's not how it was originally thought this thing was going to work.

Yes. Exactly. Because our goal is to actually deliver high quality healthcare for people and to reform the system so costs start going down and people start getting a better bang for the buck. I make no apologies for that.

And let me just make one last point about this.

The idea that you would shut down the government unless you prevent 30 million people from getting healthcare is a bad idea. What you should be thinking about is how can we advance and improve ways for middle class families to have some security so that if they work hard, they can get ahead and their kids can get ahead.

Jessica Yellin.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

And following on what you just said, Republicans in the House might give that you choice soon to either allow the government to shut down or see Obamacare defunded. Would you choose to let the government shut down to ensure that Obamacare remains funded?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals.

I can tell you that the American people would have difficulty standing why we would weaken our economy, shut down our government, shut down vital services, have people who are not getting paid, who then can't go to restaurants or shop for clothes or all the other things that we're doing here, because Republicans have determined that they don't want to see these folks get healthcare.

Again, they used to say they had a replacement. That never actually arrived, right?

I've been hearing about this whole replace thing for two years. Now I just doesn't hear about it, because basically they don't have an agenda to provide health insurance to people at affordable rates.

And the idea that you would shut down the government at a time when the recovery is getting some traction, where we're growing, although not as fast as we need to, where the housing market is recovering, although not as fast as we would like, that we would precipitate another crisis here in Washington that no economist thinks is a good idea.

I'm assuming that they will not take that path.

I have confidence that common sense in the end will prevail.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)?

OBAMA: We'll see what happens. We got a couple months.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) When is the last time you spoke to Speaker Boehner (inaudible)?

OBAMA: Fairly recently. Probably right before they left.

OK. Scott (inaudible).

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Part of the political logic behind immigration reform of the strong showing by Latino voters last November. That doesn't seem to resonate with a lot of House Republicans who represent overwhelmingly white districts.

What other political leverage can you bring to bear to help bring a bill to the House?

OBAMA: Well, we've got an economic report that shows that our economy would be $1 trillion stronger if we get immigration reform done.

We've got evidence that our housing market would be stronger if immigrants are in a situation in which having paid a fine, having paid back taxes, that they now have the ability to actually enter into the housing market.

We've got strong evidence that our technological and research edge would be better if we get immigration reform done.

We know that the Senate bill strengthens border security, puts unprecedented resources on top of the unprecedented resources I've already put into border security. So if your main priority is border security, I'd think you'd want to vote for this bill. We know that the Senate bill creates a system in which employers are held accountable for when they hire undocumented workers is something that people say is a bad thing. I agree. Let's make sure that that system for holding employer accountable is in place. So when I hear the opposition to immigration reform, I just run through the list of things they're concerned about. I look at what the Senate bill does, and I say to myself, you know, what the Senate bill actually improves the situation on every issue that they say they're concerned about. Now, what they may argue is this doesn't solve the problem 100 percent. I don't know a law that solves a problem a hundred percent.

Social Security lifted millions of seniors out of poverty but there are still some poor seniors. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act drastically reduced discrimination in America, but there's still discrimination. It doesn't make them bad laws; it just means that there are very few human problems that are a hundred percent solvable.

So what I see right now is a strong bipartisan vote coming out of the Senate. I think that the speaker and others said, they need to do something, and I'd urge, when they get back to do something -- put forward a bill that has an opportunity to actually pass. It may not be precisely what's in the Senate bill. My preference would be for them to go ahead and call the Senate bill, but if they've got some additional ideas, I think the Senate's happy to consider them. And get that bill on the floor. Put it up for a vote.

I am absolutely certain that the votes for the Senate bill -- which strengthens border security, demands responsibility from undocumented workers to pay a fine, pay a penalty, get to the back of the line, reforms our legal immigration system, holds employers accountable -- I am absolutely confident if that bill was on the floor of the House, it would pass.

So the challenge right now is not that there aren't a majority of House members, just like a majority of Senate members who aren't prepared to support this bill. The problem is internal Republican caucus politics. And that's what the American people don't want us to be worrying about. Don't worry about your Washington politics -- solve problems. And this is one where you've actually got some pretty broad consensus. I don't know of an issue where you have labor, the Chamber of Commerce, evangelicals, student groups, you name it, supportive of a bill. Let's get it done.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody.

WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR, "THE SITUATION ROOM": There he is, the president of the United States, nearly an hour, answering questions from eight reporters during the course of that nearly one-hour news conference, the president going through a wide range of issues, probably most importantly, making the case for greater transparency, outlining a series of proposals to go forward and to explain the NSA surveillance program in a better way.

The president made it clear he does not think that Edward Snowden is a whistleblower. He said he is not a patriot, in his words, but he did inspire, he did trigger this debate which the president clearly believes was positive, and he outlined four specific steps that he's about to make. He was also very passionate in defending ObamaCare, going after the Republicans, making it clear that, if the Republicans had their way, he says, 30 million Americans would not be eligible for affordable health care, and he's clearly indicated he's willing to make a major fight on all of these issues.

We're going to have extensive coverage coming up on "The Lead."

Later, I'll be back, 5:00 p.m. Eastern, in "The Situation Room." We have all of our reporters, all of our analysts standing by, lots to dissect.

Let's turn it over right now to John Berman. He's picking up our coverage in "THE LEAD."