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Biden & Macron Hold News Conference at White House Aired 1:30- 2p ET

Aired December 01, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translation): And now, so would like to take this opportunity to commend the efforts of President Zelenskyy to try and find a way, a path to peace while leading the heroic resistance they've been organizing.

We always agreed, help Ukraine resist. Never give up on anything in the U.N. charter. Prevent any risk of escalation of this conflict. And make sure that when the time comes, on the basis of conditions to be set by Ukrainians themselves, help build peace.

And I believe your positions being so clear, it is something important to us because we both are working for a sustainable peace.

We also talked about the direct and indirect consequences of the war, including on food security and energy security for the entire planet, and our join initiatives within the G-20, G-7 very much go in that direction.

And we also recalled this morning all of that -- all we're doing to try and help all countries to weather the consequences of the conflict on their economies.

This morning, we also had a discussion on the IRA and the recent pieces of legislation adopted by the American administration.

And like President Biden just said, we agreed to resynchronize our approaches in order to invest in critical emerging industries, semiconductors, batteries, hydrogen, everything that is absolutely decisive.

Because, as a matter of fact, we share the same vision and the same willingness.

President Biden wishes to create more industrial jobs in the long run for his country and to build a strong industry and secure your supplies. And this is very much our approach as well.

And this is the reason we tasked our teams to continue this work in close cooperation, coordination to find solutions on the topics we are identifying.

And of course, we will coordinate with all of the Europeans and with you to have an agenda that will not only bring more jobs, industry jobs in the United States, as well as in Europe, and guarantee the strength and the resilience of our supply chains. And to do that with a strong integration.

This European work is also the one we want to deliver on all of the issues on our agenda. And the president just said it, what we would like to do as well is work on a number of topics of the future.

And yesterday, we had some sessions, working sessions, and our ministers and teams have been working as well so that we could approve an agenda of hope and for the future.

Like I said this morning, in the space industry, we search exploration but as well the industry of the future, civil nuclear industry with some common research projects, in particular, on the most-advanced technique.

Because I believe I can say on behalf of both of us that this industry is very much part of the energy mix in which we believe in that we will not only bring jobs but enable us as well to have a secure supply and to meet the climate objectives.

We also talked about the quantum series with a number of stakeholders, innovation. And here's where our delegations are here to illustrate the work that is taking place so we can deliver on that common agenda.

Lastly, we also have a commitment on the major international challenges, which are very much, I would say, feeding our relationship as well.

And I can tell you, once again, how pleased we were with your choices that very much match your history and your campaign commitments.

Had your back on major international challenges such as health and climate. It is really a New Deal.

And we've been resisting for a number of years and now we're being able to re-engage with you.

And on this day of World AIDS Day as well, we are very much continuing to work to deliver by 2030.

And I would like to say how much has been achieved by both our countries, which are major contributors to the Global Fund to deal with, of course, eradicate AIDS, but also a number of other diseases for the benefit of the most fragile populations.

And the same goes in our relationship when we're doing everything we can to deal with climate change. Of course, we want more innovation. We want to promote solutions on climate change.

[13:35:07]

But we also very concretely acknowledge a number of initiatives in this respect on the occasion of the state visit. It is about fighting a new financing means for the most fragile countries, emerging countries to support them on both development and climate change.

And you will be playing a key role in the intent to organize next summer to build new partnership with the north and south.

And this is very much along the lines of providing more resources to the southern countries and as well performing our main international financial institutions with the reform of the World Bank and a number of international existing tools.

And regarding the biodiversity that we have at this lunch yesterday with the relevant countries. And here again, our willingness is to have an agenda, which is extremely ambition.

In particular we will be working together to prepare for the summit in Africa at the end of the next semester.

And this topic, of course, is very much at the heart of the ones you will be covering with the African countries coming to Washington in a few days. So here again is (INAUDIBLE).

And lastly, we will continue to work together to fight terrorism and to act for peace.

And of course, my thoughts go to all soldiers who fell in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, in Africa over the past few years to fight for the security of these regions of the world and of all countries.

And here again, please allow me to say once again that we're committed within our international coalition in the Middle East through our military action. And we will continue to do so because this fight is not over yet.

And it is important to remind all of our allies and partners that we need to continue to work to fight terrorism in the Middle East and the Near East.

And I would like to thank you for all your very valuable support over the past few years for the fight against terror, including in Africa. And that enabled us to have concrete resources, including over the past few weeks. And we will continue to work together.

I could carry on during the entire afternoon. We could talk about the inter-Pacific, the way, in particular, we're reorganizing our presence in the Indian Ocean.

To put things right, Dear Joe, you elegantly thanked France for the role we played in the historical agreement between Israel and Lebanon, to finalize the accord.

But let me be honest, I think most the work was yours. So I think it was the work of the utmost importance.

And Lebanon is so dear to us. And they needed these accords in the context of everything that is still on the agenda for Lebanon in the coming weeks and months. Ladies and gentlemen, I very much meant to thank President Biden because what he said, I can say it as well, you're not just a leader with whom we share many values, many battles. You're someone with whom we are having some very frank and respectful discussions on any topic.

And you also became friends. And so thank you ever so much for this warm welcome and for the importance of being able to spend some time together now, so important for our joint future.

Thank you.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, thank you, Emmanuel.

I began to refer to him privately as my closer. That deal with Lebanon and Israel, we did negotiate, but we needed a closer to get the job done.

And you did it. And thank you very much.

All right, we'll take -- we'll each call on two people, a total of two people, a total of four, all told.

And the first questioner is going to be from AFP, Ms. Ennd (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President.

That question is for you. Saying to coordinate especially your economic policy. Actually super aggressive. Are you ready to grant example of it to Europe and -- (INAUDIBLE)

[13:40:26]

Mr. President, will you leave Washington with the assurance that you will be able to deal with these massive things? The journalist doesn't have a microphone. Do you think there's a risk of generating divisions?

BIDEN: I will answer the last question since I didn't hear any of it. I didn't understand a word of it. So I'll answer it.

(LAUGHTER)

MACRO: Let me take care of it.

BIDEN: No. Look, the United States makes no apology, and I make no apology since I wrote it for the legislation you're talking about.

But there are occasions when you write a massive piece of legislation, and that has almost $368 billion for the largest investment of climate change on all -- of all of history.

And so there's obviously going to be glitches in it and need to reconcile changes in it.

For example, there's a provision in it that says that there's an exception for anyone that has a free trade agreement with us. Well, that was added by a member of the United States Congress who acknowledges that he just meant allies. He didn't mean literally free trade agreement.

So there's a lot we can work out. But the essence of it is we're going to make sure that the United States continues, and just as I hope Europe will be able to continue, not to have to rely on anybody else's supply chain.

We are our own supply chain. And we share that with Europe and all of our allies. And they will, in fact, have the opportunity to do the same thing.

So there's tweaks that we can make that can fundamentally make it easier for European countries to participate and/or be on their own. But that is something that is a matter to be worked out.

There's no fundamental -- it was never intended when I wrote the legislation, I never intended to exclude folks who were cooperating with us. That was not the intention.

The intention was to make sure we no longer are in a position when there was a pandemic in Asia, and China decided they're going to no longer sell us computer chips. We invented the damn things, you know.

So anyway, but my point is we're back in business. Europe is back in business. And we're going to continue to create manufacturing jobs in America but not at the expense of Europe.

MACRON (through translation): What we've been discussing with President Biden and what was just said and that's what I talked about. That simple.

The United States of America offered a piece of legislation for their country for their industry, which, with a common objective goal that we share, creating jobs, creating opportunities for the middle class and succeeding in implementing the energy transition.

The reality is that the consequences, as we've seen in our discussions, it is not the intention of the United States but growing, being developed in Europe is such a difference in subsidies that these projects might come to an end.

And number of Senators yesterday said it was suddenly not their intention. So France simply did not come to ask for an exemption for our economy but simply to discuss the consequences of this legislation.

And the news, the circumstances mean that we have no alternative but to work together. So, therefore, I believe we need to resynchronize as I say, find a new policy to clarify our goals and continue together.

And the discussion we had this morning was extremely clear. And I could feel the very same intent on behalf of the members of the Congress yesterday.

And the wish of President Biden is to be building a strong industry here and to have -- to secure some technology solutions for the future. France wishes exactly the same thing for itself.

[13:45:04]

And we've been fighting day in, day out, to do the very same thing in our country. And this enables us to put an end to some 15 years of industry loss in our country and to have new manufacturing jobs.

And so we will be working on that. And we decided to do that together with the other members of the European Union and European Commission. So we will work on the technical elements to make sure that there's no domino effect ongoing projects in Europe.

We want to succeed together, not one against the other. It's been clear this is the outcome of our discussions this morning. And this is exactly the philosophy I share and it is the one that we need.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (through translation): President, William Galbron (ph) on behalf of RTO Radio, in France.

President Biden would say there's no love there on the proof of love. Do you feel that your French friend will go home very much reassured? Do you feel you were able to reassure your European friends.

And to be more precise, President Macron, do you have some specific debt lines or specific industries in relation to which you're hoping to have some adaptation of the economic policies of the United States?

MACRON (through translation): Well, first of all, to be very clear we have some work to do with the Europeans on semiconductors, hydrogen batteries, our industry. We will continue to move forward as Europeans.

And we're not here simply really to ask for proof of love. We were here -- we came to clarify what was necessary to clarify and we did.

Now we are conducting our own work. And we can't ask the United States of America to adopt one of the rules necessary to deal with Europe. But we need to have the same ambition and very much synchronize.

And in addition, we clarified things today on a number of discussions' frameworks. And during the coming weeks and months, we will deal with that. And fairly quickly, because these projects are ongoing.

So for me, there's some very clear strategy. We've had some very frank discussions.

And I believe, accordingly, in the coming days, the discussions we will be having with the European Commission, the close, the discussions will have in close cooperation with our German partners and others, will enable us to very much clarify this without any difficulty.

So I'm going home confident, but as well listing what remains to be done on the European side, which is a good thing.

BIDEN: I'm confident. (LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: It's my answer.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: OK. Who is the next question?

Got my list here. My turn to call on someone? Right, OK.

How about NPR?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President.

I have a domestic question for you.

And, Mr. Macron, I have a question for you about Ukraine.

But first, President Biden, do you freight rail workers deserve more than one day of paid sick leave like millions of Americans have? And if so, why didn't you negotiate for that when you were helping to negotiate that contract that you now want Congress to impose?

BIDEN: I love you guys. I negotiated a contract no one else could negotiate. The only thing that was left out was whether or not there was paid leave.

You know I've been trying to get paid leave not just for rail workers for but everybody but that other team, called the Republicans, voted against it and said we couldn't do it.

We're one of the few nations in the world that don't have paid leave for our workers.

So what we're doing is we can't afford to have -- by the way, in the meantime, they got a 43 percent, 45 percent increase in salary, et cetera. A lot of good things happened in that.

And in fact, it shuts down the question of one to five paid or 709 or whatever the number is as being negotiated of paid leave days. It's going to immediately cost 750,000 jobs and cause a recession.

And so what I made very clear is that what was negotiated was so much better than anything they ever had, that it's worth, and they all signed on to it, by the way.

There are only four unions out of the 13 or 14 that didn't agree. So the majority at the time that I presented it asked me to do it. I presented it. They all signed on.

[13:49:58]

But here's the story. It doesn't mean, because we are going to pass this, god willing, by Friday, by the time -- by the weekend, that we're -- I'm going to back off paid leave.

I made it really clear I'm going to continue to fight for paid leave for not only rail workers but for all American workers.

I imagine it may surprise some of our European friends that there's no paid leave in the United States of America. We're one of the few major countries in the world that don't have it. And it's about time.

That's the context in which this all took place. And -- and labor signed on to it as well, as you'll recall, initially. There were four unions out of the, I think, 13 or 14 that didn't like it.

But I think we're going to get it done. But not within this agreement. Not within this agreement. We're going to avoid the rail strike, keep the rails running, keep things moving.

And I'm going to go back and we're going to get paid leave. Not just for rail workers but for all workers.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President Macron, here in the U.S., President Biden is asking Congress for $38 billion of additional funding for support for Ukraine. There's been some pushback from Republicans in Congress saying that they cannot continue to write a blank check.

So do you have confidence that the United States will be able to continue supporting Ukraine's defense in the way it has over the past year in the months going forward?

And did you talk to President Biden about trying to urge Ukraine to negotiate to end this war? Especially with winter bearing down and the effects on energy prices.

MARCON (through translation) Look, I do thank President Biden and his administration for the great commitment they have to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

And let me just say that our two nations are made of values and history.

And what is at stake in Ukraine is not just very far from here in a small country somewhere in Europe but it's about our values and it's about our principles.

And it's about what we agreed together in the U.N. Charter. Protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity. And this is why I do believe that having the U.S. strongly supporting the Ukrainians since that time is very important not just for the Ukrainians, for the Europeans we are.

This is why we thank you for the solidarity.

But for the stability of our world today. Because if we consider that we can abandon the country and abandon the full respect of these principles, it means that there's no possible stability in this world.

So I think it's extremely important to have you so much committed. So I'm confident, because I think your people and your representatives do endorse and understand these objectives. We'll follow up our own support. We increased our military support. We

increased our economic support. We are increasing our humanitarian support.

And for the second question you raise, let me tell you that we will never urge the Ukrainians to make a compromise which will not be acceptable for them. Because they are so brave and they defend precisely their lives, their nation, and our principles.

And because it will never build a sustainable peace. If we want a sustainable peace, we have to respect the Ukrainians to decide the moment and the conditions in which they will negotiate about their territory and their future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This will be the last question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (through translation): We hear that you will not be talking to President Putin anytime soon. What is your approach?

And as the Ukrainian war seems to be at a turning point, do you feel realistic that President Zelenskyy putting a condition to negotiations and that is the return of Crimea to Ukraine?

BIDEN: Look, there's one way for this war to end. The rational way. Putin to pull out of Ukraine, number one. But it appears he's not going to do that.

He's paying a very heavy price for failing to do it. But he's inflicting incredible, incredible carnage on the civilian population of Ukraine. Bombing nurseries, hospitals, children's homes. It's sick what he's doing.

[13:55:09]

But the fact of the matter is I have no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin is -- I'm going to choose my words very carefully.

I'm prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if, in fact, there's an interest in him deciding he's looking for a way to end the war. He hasn't done that yet.

If that's the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I'll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants, has in mind. He hasn't done that yet.

In the meantime, I think it's absolutely critical what Emmanuel said. We must support the Ukrainian people.

The idea that Putin is ever going to defeat Ukraine is beyond comprehension. Imagine him trying to occupy that country for the next two, five, 10, 20 years, if they could. If they could.

He's miscalculated every single thing he initially calculated. He thought he'd be greeted with open arms by the Russian-speaking portions of the Ukrainian population. Go back and read his speech when he invaded, when I said they were

going to invade, and they did when we said they were. Go back and read the speech he made.

He talked about him needing to be another Peter the Great. He talked about the need for the people to have Kyiv as the mother lode of Russian identity in the beginning, et cetera, et cetera. He just miscalculated across the board.

So the question is, what is his -- how does he get himself out of the circumstance he's in? I'm prepared, if he's willing to talk, to find out what he's willing to do. But I'll only do it in consultation with my NATO allies. I'm not going to do it on my own.

Thank you.

MARCON (through translation): Regarding your question and the preconditions or the conditions set by the Ukrainian president, I believe that while it's important for all of us to look at is that, as Ukraine is resisting, suffering from war crimes, attacks on their civilian infrastructure, leading counteroffensive, President Zelenskyy presented a 10-point peace plan.

So we, I believe, need to continue to engage with him. Because there's a genuine willingness on behalf of Ukraine to discusses these matters. And we acknowledge it and we commend it.

And for a number of years, I was monitoring the implementation of the Minsk Agreement. And in the last meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, the only one, December 2019, I was at the time with Chancellor Merke.

And I can tell you that I saw a president who was sincere in his willingness to talk and to negotiate. And since he was elected until May, President Zelenskyy was very much willing to talk to negotiate.

The one who wanted to go to war, to wage war, was President Putin. And I could see it by myself, including when I visited Russia and Ukraine at the beginning of February.

So it's only legitimate that President Zelenskyy sets some conditions to talk. We need to work on what could lead to a peace agreement. But it's for him to tell us when the time comes and what the choices of the Ukrainians are.

So once this has been set, indeed, I will continue to talk to President Putin. And as a matter of fact, we talked about it this morning with President Biden because we constantly, as well, try to prevent escalation and to get some very concrete results.

So I will talk to him about security and safety of nuclear plants in the areas that are being claimed, including Zaporizhzhia, in particular. And over the past few months, we did some work on the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.

And there's some outstanding work ongoing, which is very important by Mr. Grossi and his agency, the IAEA. So we will continue.

Thank you so much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, please remain in your seats until the official delegations have departed.

BIDEN: Thank you, folks. All right.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So do you have a message to the protesters in China?

[13:59:58]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, everyone. Thanks for joining us.

We've been watching President Biden's first state visit and a joint press conference there with the leader of America's oldest ally, France.