Let me begin by saying it is a great pleasure to welcome President Park and our friends from the Republic of Korea. Madam President, we are greatly honored that you have chosen the United States as your first foreign visit. This, of course, reflects the deep friendship between our peoples and the great alliance between our nations, which is marking another milestone. I am told that in Korea, a 60th birthday is a special celebration of life and longevity, a hwangab. Well, this year, we are marking the 60th anniversary of the defense treaty between our nations. Yesterday President Park visited Arlington National Cemetery and our memorial to our Korean war veterans. Tonight she is hosting a dinner to pay tribute to the generation of American veterans who have served in the defense of South Korea. And tomorrow she will address a joint session of Congress, an honor that is reserved for our closest of friends. from the ashes of war to one of the world's largest economies, from a recipient of foreign aid to a donor that now helps other nations develop. And of course, around the world, people are being swept up by Korean culture, the Korean Wave. And as I mentioned to President Park, my daughters have taught me a pretty good Gangnam style. President Park, in your first months in office, South Korea has faced threats and provocations that would test any nation. Yet you have displayed calm and steady resolve that has defined your life. Like people around the world, those of us in the United States have also been inspired by your example as the first female President of South Korea. your focus and discipline and straightforwardness. And I very much thank you for the progress that we have already made together. Today we agreed to continue the implementation of our historic trade agreement, which is already yielding benefits for both our countries. more manufactured goods, more services, more agricultural products. Even as we have a long way to go, our automobile exports are up nearly 50 percent, and our Big Three Ford, Chrysler, and GM are selling more cars in Korea. And as President Park and I agreed to make sure that we continue to fully implement this agreement, we believe that it is going to make both of our economies more competitive. It will boost U.S. exports by some $10 billion in support of tens of thousands of American jobs. And obviously, it will be creating jobs in Korea as they are able to continue to do extraordinary work in expanding their economy and moving it further and further up the value chain.

The President's News Conference With President Park Geun-hye of South Korea


We agreed to continue the clean energy partnerships that help us to enhance our energy security and address climate change. Given the importance of a peaceful nuclear energy industry to South Korea, we recently agreed to extend the existing civilian nuclear agreement between our two countries, but we also emphasized in our discussions the need to continue to work diligently towards a new agreement. As I told the President, I believe that we can find a way to support South Korea's energy and commercial needs even as we uphold our mutual commitments to prevent nuclear proliferation. We agreed to continuing modernizing our security alliance. Guided by our joint vision, we are investing in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together. We are on track for South Korea to assume operational control for the alliance in 2015. And we are determined to be fully prepared for any challenge or threat to our security. And obviously, that includes the threat from North Korea. If Pyongyang thought its recent threats would drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States or somehow garner the North international respect, today is further evidence that North Korea has failed again. President Park and South Koreans have stood firm, with confidence and resolve. The United States and the Republic of Korea are as united as ever. And faced with new international sanctions, North Korea is more isolated than ever. In short, the days when North Korea could create a crisis and elicit concessions, those days are over. Our two nations are prepared to engage with North Korea diplomatically and, over time, build trust. But as always and as President Park has made clear the burden is on Pyongyang to take meaningful steps to abide by its commitments and obligations, particularly the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And we discussed that Pyongyang should take notice of events in countries like Burma, which, as it reforms, is seeing more trade and investment and diplomatic ties with the world, including the United States and South Korea. For our part, we will continue to coordinate closely with South Korea and with Japan. The United States is fully prepared and capable of defending ourselves and our allies with the full range of capabilities available, including the deterrence provided by our conventional and nuclear forces. As I said in Seoul last year, the commitment of the United States to the security of the Republic of Korea will never waver. More broadly, we agreed to continue expanding our cooperation globally.


In Afghanistan where our troops serve together and where South Korea is a major donor of development assistance we are on track to complete the transition to Afghan-led operations by the end of next year. We discussed Syria, where both our nations are working to strengthen the opposition and plan for a Syria without Bashar Asad. And I am pleased that our two nations and our Peace Corps have agreed to expand our efforts to promote development around the world. Finally, we are expanding the already strong ties between our young people. As an engineer by training, President Park knows the importance of education. Madam President, you have said and I am quoting you We live in an age where a single individual can raise the value of an entire nation. So I am pleased that we are renewing exchange programs that bring our students together. And as we pursue commonsense immigration reform here in the United States, we want to make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs and foreign graduate students from countries like Korea to stay and contribute to our country, just as so many Korean Americans already do. So again, thank you, President Park, for making the United States your first foreign trip. In your Inaugural Address, you celebrated the can-do spirit of the Korean people. That is a spirit that we share. And after our meeting today, I am confident that if our two nations continue to stand together, there is nothing we cannot do together. Let me start by thanking ENTITY for his invitation and his gracious hospitality. During my meeting with the President today, I was able to have a heart-to-heart talk with him on a wide range of common interests. I found that the two us of have a broad common view about the vision and roles that should guide the Korea-U.S. alliance as it moves forward, and I was delighted to see this. First of all, the President and I shared the view that the Korea-U.S. alliance has been faithfully carrying out its role as a bulwark of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia and that the alliance should continue to serve as a linchpin for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Asia. In this regard, I believe it is significant that the joint declaration on the 60th anniversary of our alliance we adopted spells out the direction that our comprehensive strategic alliance should take.


Next, the President and I reaffirmed that we will by no means tolerate North Korea's threats and provocations, which have recently been escalating further, and that such actions would only deepen North Korea's isolation. The President and I noted that it is important that we continue to strengthen our deterrence against North Korea's nuclear and conventional weapons threat and shared the view that in this respect, the transition of wartime operational control should also proceed in a way that strengthens our combined defense capabilities and preparations being made toward that way as well. We also shared the view that realizing ENTITY's vision of a world without nuclear weapons should start on the Korean Peninsula, and we stated that we would continue to strongly urge North Korea in close concert with the other members of the six-party talks and the international community to faithfully abide by its international obligations under the September 19 joint statements and the relevant Security Council resolutions. Korea and the U.S. will work jointly to induce North Korea to make the right choice through multifaceted efforts, including the implementation of the Korean Peninsula trust-building process that I had spelled out. North Korea will not be able to survive if it only clings to developing its nuclear weapons at the expense of its people's happiness. This is the shared view of the other members of the six-party talks and the international community. However, should North Korea choose the path to becoming a responsible member of the community of nations, we are willing to provide assistance, together with the international community. We also had meaningful discussions on the economy and ways to engage in substantive cooperation. The President and I welcome the fact that the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect 1 year ago, is contributing to our shared prosperity. We also said we will make efforts to enable our people to better feel the benefits of our free trade agreement for them. I highlighted the importance of securing high-skilled U.S. work visas for Korean citizens and asked for executive branch support, to the extent possible, to see to it that the relevant legislation is passed in the U.S. Congress. Moreover, we arrived at the view that the Korea-U.S. civil nuclear energy cooperation agreement should be revised into an advanced and mutually beneficial successor agreement. We said we would do our best to conclude our negotiations as soon as possible. The President and I also had in-depth discussions on ways to enhance our global partnership.


First, we noted together that Northeast Asia needs to move beyond conflict and divisions and open a new era of peace and cooperation and that there would be synergy between President's Obama's policy of rebalancing to Asia and my initiative for peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia as we pursue peace and development in the region. We shared the view about playing the role of coarchitects to flesh out this vision. Furthermore, we decided that the Korea-U.S. alliance should deal not just with challenges relating to the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, but confronting the broader international community. I am very delighted that I was able to build personal trust with ENTITY through our summit meeting today and to have laid a framework for cooperation. All right, we have got a couple of questions from each side, so we will start with Stephen Collinson of AFP. Does the United States have a core national security interest in stopping the slaughter in Syria or merely a strong moral desire to see the violence end? And at what point does the cost of not intervening in a more direct way than you have done so far outweigh the cost of doing so? And if I may ask, President Park, ENTITY's critics have warned that failing to act on perceived violations of U.S. red lines in Syria could embolden U.S. enemies elsewhere, including in North Korea. Are you convinced that Kim Jong Un has taken the U.S. and South Korean warnings seriously, and do you see the withdrawal of two missiles from a test site as a sign that he is willing to deescalate the situation? Well, Stephen, I think that we have both a moral obligation and a national security interest in, A, ending the slaughter in Syria, but, B, also ensuring that we have got a stable Syria that is representative of all the Syrian people and is not creating chaos for its neighbors. And that is why for the last 2 years, we have been active in trying to ensure that Bashar Asad exits the stage and that we can begin a political transition process. That is the reason why we have invested so much in humanitarian aid. That is the reason why we are so invested in helping the opposition and why we have mobilized the international community to isolate Syria. That is why we are now providing nonlethal assistance to the opposition, and that is why we are going to continue to do the work that we need to do.


And in terms of the costs and the benefits, I think there'd be severe costs in doing nothing. That is why we are not doing nothing. That is why we are actively invested in the process. If what you are asking is, are there continuing reevaluations about what we do, what actions we take in conjunction with other international partners to optimize the day when or to hasten the day when we can see a better situation in Syria, we have been doing that all along and we will continue to do that. I think that, understandably, there is a desire for easy answers. And my job is to constantly measure our very real and legitimate humanitarian and national security interests in Syria, but measuring those against my bottom line, which is what is in the best interest of America's security and making sure that I am making decisions not based on a hope and a prayer, but on hard-headed analysis in terms of what will actually make us safer and stabilize the region. I would note not to answer the question that you lobbed over to President Park that you suggested even in your question a perceived crossing of a red line. And what I have said is that we have evidence that there has been the use of chemical weapons inside of Syria, but I do not make decisions based on perceived. And I cannot organize international coalitions around perceived. We have tried that in the past, by the way, and it did not work out well. So we want to make sure that we have the best analysis possible. But I would just point out that there have been several instances during the course of my Presidency where I said I was going to do something, and it ended up getting done. And there were times when there were folks on the sidelines wondering why has not it happened yet and what is going on and why did not it go on tomorrow? But in the end, whether it is bin Laden or Qaddafi, if we say we are taking a position, I would think at this point the international community has a pretty good sense that we typically follow through on our commitments. With regard to actions towards Syria, what kind of message would that communicate to North Korea? And recently, North Korea seems to be deescalating its threats and provocations. What seems to be behind that? You asked these two questions. In fact, North Korea is isolated at the moment, so it is hard to find anyone that could really accurately fathom the situation in North Korea.


Hence, whether the Syrian situation would have an impact is hard to say for sure. Why is North Korea appearing to deescalate its threats and provocations? But what is clear and what I believe for sure is that the international community with regard to North Korea's bad behavior, its provocations, must speak with one voice, a firm message, and consistently send a firm message that they will not stand and that North Korea's actions in breach of international norms will be met with so-and-so sanctions and measures by the international community. At the same time, if it goes along the right way, there will be so-and-so reward. So if we consistently send that message to North Korea, I feel that North Korea will be left with no choice but to change. And instead of just hoping to see North Korea change, the international community must also consistently send that message with one voice to tell them and communicate to them that they have no choice but to change and to shape an environment where they are left with no choice but to make the strategic decision to change. My question goes to ENTITY. You just mentioned that North Korea in order to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, what is most important is the concerted actions of the international community. With regard to this, during your meeting with ENTITY today, I would like to ask what was said and the views that you shared. And with regard to this, what Russia and China the role that they are playing in terms of inducing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, how do you feel about that? My next question is to ENTITY Regarding the young leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, I would appreciate your views about the leader of North Korea. And if you were to send a message to him today, what kind of message would you send to him? With regard to the North Korea issue, Korea and the United States, as well as the international community, the ultimate objective that all of us should be adopting is for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and to induce it to become a responsible member of the international community. This serves the interest of peace on the Korean Peninsula and the world, and it also serves the interest of North Korea's own development as well. And so in order to encourage North Korea to walk that path and change its perceptions, we have to work in concert.


And in this regard, China's role, China's influence can be extensive, so if so China taking part in these endeavors is important. And we shared views on that. With regard to China and Russia's stance, I believe that China and Russia not to mention the international community, of course share the need for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and are cooperating closely to induce North Korea to take the right path. In the case of China, with regard to North Korea's missile fire and nuclear testing, China has taken an active part in adopting U.N. Security Council resolutions and is faithfully implementing those resolutions. And with regard to Russia, Russia is also firmly committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And with regard to the adoption of U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, it has been very active in supporting them. And they have also sent a very and they have also worked very hard to include a stern message to North Korea in the joint statement of the G-8 Foreign Ministers meeting. Such constructive efforts on the part of China and Russia are vital to sending a unified message to North Korea that their nuclear weapons will not stand, and encouraging and urging North Korea to make the right decision. Obviously, I do not know Kim Jong Un personally. I have not had a conversation with him, cannot really give you an opinion about his personal characteristics. What we do know is the actions that he is taken that have been provocative and seem to pursue a dead end. And I want to emphasize, President Park and myself very much share the view that we are going to maintain a strong deterrent capability, that we are not going to reward provocative behavior. But we remain open to the prospect of North Korea taking a peaceful path of denuclearization, abiding by international commitments, rejoining the international community, and seeing a gradual progression in which both security and prosperity for the people of North Korea can be achieved. If what North Korea has been doing has not resulted in a strong, prosperous nation, then now is a good time for Kim Jong Un to evaluate that history and take a different path. And I think that, should he choose to take a different path, not only President Park and myself would welcome it, but the international community as a whole would welcome it. And I think that China and Russia and Japan and other key players that have been participants in six-party talks have made that clear.


Do not worry about what I say; watch what I do. And we are so far at least, we have not seen actions on the part of the North Koreans that would indicate they are prepared to move in a different direction. The Pentagon said today that there may be as many as 70 sexual assaults a day in the military up by 35 percent during your term in office and also that many sexual assaults may not be reported, in fact. Given what we know about an Air Force officer in charge of preventing sexual assault recently being charged with sexual assault and also the recent cases of a couple of Air Force generals who've set aside convictions of instances of sexual assault, can you speak to the culture in the U.S. military that may be at play here and talk about your response to that and what you can do going forward to improve things? And if I may, President Park, I would ask you, yesterday you said that if North Korea does not change its behavior, we will make them pay. I wondered if you could elaborate on that comment a little bit. Well, let us start with the principle that sexual assault is an outrage; it is a crime. That is true for society at large. And if it is happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they are wearing. And they may consider themselves patriots, but when you engage in this kind of behavior, that is not patriotic, it is a crime. And we have to do everything we can to root this out. One of the things that we have been trying to do is create a structure in which we are starting to get accurate reporting. And up and down the chain, we are seeing a process, a system of accountability and transparency so that we can root this out completely. And this is a discussion that I had with Secretary Panetta. He had begun the process of moving this forward. But I have directly spoken to Secretary Hagel already today and indicating to him that we are going to have to not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game, to go at this thing hard. And for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their Commander in Chief that I have got their backs. I will support them. And we are not going to tolerate this stuff, and there will be accountability. If people have engaged in this behavior, they should be prosecuted.


And anybody in the military who has knowledge of this stuff should understand this is not who we are. This is not what the U.S. military is about. And it dishonors the vast majority of men and women in uniform who carry out their responsibilities and obligations with honor and dignity and incredible courage every single day. So bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this. I have communicated this to the Secretary of Defense. We are going to communicate this again to folks up and down the chain in areas of authority, and I expect consequences. So I do not want just more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately, folks look the other way. prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Regarding North Korea's provocations and bad behavior, we will make them pay. With regard to that, for instance, what I meant was that if they engage in military provocations and harm the lives of our people and the safety of our people, then naturally, as a President who gives the top priority to ensuring the safety of our people, it is something that we cannot just pass over. So if North Korea engages in provocations, I will fully trust the judgment of our military. So if our military makes a judgment which they feel is the right thing, then they should act accordingly. And this is the instruction that I had made. And North Korea has to pay a price when it comes not only with regard to provocations, but also with regard to the recent Kaesong industrial complex issue, where, based on agreements between the two sides, companies had believed in the agreement that was made and actually went to invest in the Kaesong industrial complex, but they suddenly completely dismiss and disregard this agreement overnight and deny various medical supplies and food supplies to Korean citizens left in that industrial complex, refusing to accept our request to allow in those supplies, which is what prompted us to withdraw all of our citizens from that park. This situation unfolded in the full view of the international community. So who would invest, not to mention Korean companies, but also companies of other countries, who would invest in North Korea in a place that shows such flagrant disregard for agreements, and how could they, under those circumstances, actually pull off economic achievement? So I think, in this regard, they are actually paying the price for their own misdeeds. I am from Seoul newspaper. My question goes to ENTITY.


President Park has been talking about the Korean Peninsula trust-building process as a way to promote peace on Korean Peninsula. I wonder what you feel about this trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula? Well, as I indicated before, President Park's approach is very compatible with my approach and the approach that we have been taking together for several years now. And as I understand it, the key is that we will be prepared for a deterrence that we will respond to aggression, that we will not reward provocative actions, but that we will maintain an openness to an engagement process when we see North Korea taking steps that would indicate that it is following a different path. All of us would benefit from a North Korea that transformed itself. Certainly, the people of North Korea would benefit. South Korea would be even stronger in a less tense environment on the Peninsula. All the surrounding neighbors would welcome such a transition, such a transformation. But I do not think either President Park or I are naive about the difficulties of that taking place. And we have got to see action before we can have confidence that that, in fact, is the path that North Korea intends to take. But the one thing I want to emphasize just based on the excellent meetings and consultation that we had today, as well as watching President Park over the last several months dealing with the provocative escalations that have been taking place in North Korea, what I am very confident about is, President Park is tough. I think she has a very clear, realistic view of the situation, but she also has the wisdom to believe that conflict is not inevitable and is not preferable. And that is true on the Korean Peninsula. That is true around the world. And we very much appreciate her visit and look forward to excellent cooperation not only on this issue, but on the more positive issues of economic and commercial ties between our two countries, educational exchanges, work on energy, climate change, helping other countries develop. I have had a wonderful time every time I have visited the Republic of Korea. And what is clear is that the Republic of Korea is one of the great success stories of our lifetime. And the Republic of Korea's leadership around the globe will be increasingly important. And what underpins that in part has been the extraordinary history of the alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea. And we want to make sure that that remains a strong foundation for progress in the future.


You have been told, I think, that we are doing a documentary. We went across a good part of the country to places where you have given speeches over the years to just talk with people about how their lives have changed. I am going to listen to this one. I appreciate that. And that is the beginning of our discussion here, although we will range a little bit farther. This caused me to go back and look at some of your speeches. And there was one in St. Charles, Mo., in 2010, in which you said, Let us face it, people have lost faith in government, that it started before you were ENTITY and it is getting worse. Do the events of this year suggest that it is getting even worse? I think that there has been a steady growth in people's cynicism about institutions generally, and government in particular. And some of it is justified because we have got a Congress that is been dysfunctional now for quite some time and cannot seem to organize itself to solve problems. You now have a Republican Congress, they control both chambers and they cannot even pass their own agenda, much less pass something that has bipartisan support. And at a time when there are a lot of big issues out there, people feel as if things are not working the way they should. Having said that, not all the cynicism is justified. Even without Congress cooperating, we have been able to make progress on a whole range of issues. And I think people are seeing that when government makes smart decisions, it actually has a significant impact. And part of my hope during the course of this election is that it is clarifying that people say, all right, here is what each party stands for, here is what each presidential candidate and various congressional candidates stand for. If we are going to move forward in a democracy then the ultimate arbiter of making things work is the voter, and putting people in charge who are serious about America's business as opposed to just playing to various narrow constituency groups. If some of the cynicism is not justified, are you concerned that voters this year will go too far in overturning things? You know, ultimately I have confidence in our voters.

Interview with Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio


If you look at American history, there have been times where we have taken some tough turns, primarily fed by fear and disruptions and dislocations, but with a very substantial exception of the Civil War, generally speaking, the democratic process muddled through and we emerged better and stronger than we were before. And I have no doubt that the same thing will happen this time. But I do think that part of what has changed - during the course of my presidency, I have seen it - is the splintering of media. The power of social media and the Internet has turbocharged what previously might have been marginal views or marginal groups, has made it harder to generate consensus because people are not looking at the same set of facts. I have said this before. If you are watching Fox News, you have a different set of facts than if you are reading the New York Times editorial page. And that, I think, has led - or increased the polarization, and that makes it harder for people to sort through who is telling the truth and how we actually get stuff done. Let me ask though, ENTITY, you have still got the biggest megaphone. People can even see you on Fox News. If you have been ENTITY for almost 7 1/2 years and people have still no faith in government, are you accountable for that? Well, look, as a general proposition, I do not spend a lot of time looking at polls. Well, right now I think the majority of the American people think that I am doing a good job. That does not necessarily give me a lot of comfort if I cannot move this Congress forward. And the question then becomes - and I have heard some people in the Republican Party suggest that in some fashion I am responsible for what is happened to them, and the rise of Trump and the dysfunction that you see in their party generally. What I would say is that I came into office wanting to work on a bipartisan basis, and if you have looked at my old speeches you would see that. made a determination that it was good politics to oppose everything that I did. The problem was that by opposing everything I did, even things that previously they had been for, it pushed their party further and further to the right. When we talk about dysfunction in government, it is not as if both parties are equally dysfunctional. The Democrats have a pretty well thought through agenda. When we were governing in the first two years of my administration, we got a lot done.


We were probably as productive as any Congress in 20, 30, 40 years. You have a particular problem in the Republican Party right now that needs to get sorted through. Now, that is not unique in the annals of American history. There have been times when the Democrats were wrapped around the axle, and extreme wings were setting the agenda. And I think the Republicans will get out of this. But right now, at least, partly in reaction to my presidency and the political decisions that they made, they find themselves having created an atmosphere in which even somebody like Paul Ryan is viewed as not sufficiently conservative, or if he does just some of the basic work of governance that somehow he has betrayed the base and is decried as a Republican in name only. And when you have that kind of environment, it is very hard to get the kind of cooperation that is necessary for us to solve problems that people are concerned about and that I am assuming that during the course of your conversations they have raised repeatedly. Let me ask one of those concerns. In Kansas, we spoke with a woman named Heather Gray, who said, 16 years ago I was making $10 an hour. Today, she said, I make $10 an hour. The problem of stagnant wages, of course, did not start with your presidency, but it has not improved much. Well, we have got some long-term trends that we have to battle, and when I came into office we were in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We have successfully dug ourselves out of that hole. The country has, but wages have not improved for average people ... I am going to answer your question. So we had unemployment at 10 percent. It is now below 5. We had a housing market that had completely collapsed. We had a situation in which people had lost trillions of dollars in wealth in their 401's and they have recovered it. In fact, Americans have gotten back about $30 trillion of wealth since I came into office. So by every measure, the economy has improved. But the long-term trends that had occurred before I took office and have continued is a combination of globalization and automation, leading to more downward pressure on wages because you need fewer workers to make a certain amount of stuff; and entire job sectors being shrunk or eliminated; more and more people going into the service sector, and in the service sector, historically wages have been lower.


And that is all been compounded by some very specific policies both at the federal and the state level that is made it harder for workers to organize and get more leverage to get higher wages. This is why we fought for higher minimum wages. This is why, I think, it is so important that as we move forward, if we are going to benefit from all the huge productivity increases and efficiencies that arise out of the global supply chain and automated everything, then we are going to have to redesign that social compact to make sure that everybody is getting a decent wage. It is not as if we need a radical restructuring of the economy. If we had a minimum wage that required everybody to get - be above poverty if they are working full time, that would go a long way towards alleviating some of the trends that we talked about. And in fact, we have seen wage growth now begin to occur over the last couple of years, but it is not happening as fast as it should. There is a writer for the Financial Times, Philip Stephens, who wrote something interesting after Britain voted to leave the European Union last week. He wrote in a column, globalization is not working, that it may make countries richer, but the majority of people are not benefiting. He was writing about Britain, but you mentioned globalization in the context of the United States. I think he is right that what you are seeing across the advanced economies is that when you have globalization and suddenly there is competition from everywhere, that empowers people who have a lot of skills, can use the Internet. Suddenly they have access to all the markets. And what that means is, if you are very good at something, if you are LeBron James or you are Seinfeld or you are ENTITY Jobs, then suddenly you can leverage your skills in ways that you could never do before. If you are a manual worker, and are doing work that can be replaced not just by a lower-wage worker somewhere else but more frequently by a machine, then you are in a tougher spot because you now are competing against the entire world instead of just the people who live around you. And that is why it is so important for us to think about how do we make sure that everybody is participating in that global economy.


If you continue on the current trends, then what you are going to see is a continuing increase in inequality, and that is not going to be economically sustainable because it turns out that the economy works best when everybody has a stake in it and workers have money in their pockets and are spending it, and that is good for business. And I think you see that somewhat in the Brexit vote. You see some of it in both the Sanders campaign and the Trump campaign, people feeling as if we are potentially being left behind. Or what is the cure to this whole thing? And the notion is that, from my perspective, we are not going to suddenly eliminate the global supply chain. We are not going to disentangle the world economy. It is just too integrated now by virtue of technology and the Internet. And so what we have to do is to make sure that wages around the world are beginning to rise, that environmental standards around the world are beginning to rise, that within our own countries we are providing the education that people need to compete in this global economy, with new skills for the new industries that are out there, that we invest more in things like infrastructure that make us competitive, and also, by the way, cannot be shipped away. I actually think that, over time, it can raise everybody's living standards and create a more peaceful world. But if you do it in a way where the benefits of globalization are only for the elites who are flying around from capital to capital and looking at their investment portfolios on a laptop or a computer screen, and they are not worrying, they feel disengaged from their national economies and their national workers and their national communities, then you are going to see a reaction to it. Donald Trump talked about global elites after the vote in Britain. Is Trump right that there are big parallels between what motivated the British vote and what people are feeling and thinking about in the election this year in the United States? Well, first of all, I think it is important to remember that Mr. Trump embodies global elites and has taken full advantage of it his entire life. So he is hardly a spokesperson for - a legitimate spokesperson for a populist surge from working-class people, on either side of the Atlantic. I think that some of the concerns around immigration, some of the concerns around a loss of control or a loss of national identity, those are similar.


I think there is a xenophobia, an anti-immigrant sentiment that is flashing up not just in Great Britain but throughout Europe, that has some parallels with what Mr. Trump has been trying to stir up here. Having said all that, the U.S. economy has not only recovered but we are about 10 percent larger than we were pre-crisis, when I came into office. You have had a decade of stagnation there, partly because of austerity measures that we did not duplicate. The Republicans attempted to impose those kinds of strategies here and I resisted them, and I would argue that that is part of the reason why we did a lot better. We reformed our banking system a lot faster. And so overall, I think that the differences are greater than the similarities. But what is absolutely true is that the ability to tap into a fear that people may have about losing control, and to offer some sort of vague, nostalgic feelings about how, you know, we will make Britain great again or we will make America great again. And the subtext for that is somehow that a bunch of foreigners and funny-looking people are coming in here and changing the basic character of the nation. I think that some of that is out there, both in Europe and the United States. And again, that is not unique to England. You have seen it in the Le Pen Party in France. You see it in some of the far-right parties in other parts of Europe as well. You mentioned people fearful of change. The way that voters express that when we talk with them is that they are concerned about changing the traditions, values or institutions of this country that have made the country great over time. Immigrants do bring new ideas, new cultures, different religions, other things. Does it matter particularly if they do change the country? Well, I think that there are some bedrock values that should not change, and in fact, have not changed. The values of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the values of free speech, the values of religious tolerance, the values of pluralism, the values of us being a nation of immigrants that can absorb people from every corner of the world and yet at the end of the day, because we all pledge allegiance to a flag and a creed, we become one.


I think, ironically, that if you look at the values that immigrants bring when they come here - whether they are coming from Poland, or Italy, or now Vietnam, or South Korea or India - the values they bring are quintessentially American values. They are striver's values; they are the values that say we are going to make something of ourselves, regardless of the station in which we were born. When you look at second-generation immigrants, or third-generation immigrants, they are as American as any kid here. That is part of what separates us from the United Kingdom or Europe, is we have had that tradition of being a nation of immigrants. And so, you know, when people are concerned about some of the changes that immigrants may bring, you know, they need to go back and read what people were saying about their grandparents or great-grandparents when they came. You read about the description of Irish who arrived, and the language that is being used is identical to the language that Mr. Trump uses about Mexicans. You know, when Southern Europeans were coming instead of Northern Europeans, there was absolute certainty that America was going down the tubes because these swarthy, you know, folks were coming here and they had different attitudes. And Catholics were coming, which meant that the pope was going to control us. And - this kind of xenophobia is part of the American tradition, and the good news is that, you know, after these spasms of it, it typically fades away, because the immigrants who come here, in fact, are coming here precisely to embrace the opportunities of being American. Is there a danger that Europe, after this Brexit vote, will turn inward, focus increasingly on its own problems and its own turmoil, and be less active in the world? Well, I think that the best way to think about this is a pause button has been pressed on the project of full European integration. I would not overstate it. There has been a little bit of hysteria post-Brexit vote, as if, somehow, NATO's gone and the trans-Atlantic alliance is dissolving and every country is rushing off to its own corner. What is happening is that you had a European project that was probably moving faster and without as much consensus as it should have.


You have a monetary union - although England was not a part of that - that was always going to be difficult to manage, because the economy in Germany is very different than the economy in Italy or Greece. And you have a European Union government in Brussels that, because it needs consensus from, you know, more than a - more than a couple of dozen countries, oftentimes seems overly bureaucratic and deadlocked. And I think this will be a moment in which all of Europe says, all right, let us take a breath, and let us figure out how do we maintain some of our national identities, how do we preserve the benefits of integration and how do we deal with some of the frustrations that our own voters are feeling. But the basic core values of Europe, the tenets of liberal, market-based democracies, those are not changing. The interests that we have in common with Europe remain the same. They are going to have to worry about working with us on the Middle East; they are going to have to worry about us working together to deal with an aggressive Russia. They are going to have to deal with us, with respect to how do we continue to uphold international rules and norms around the world that have served both the U.S. and Europe very well. And so, I do not anticipate that there is going to be major cataclysmic changes as a consequence of this. Keep in mind that Norway is not a member of the European Union, but Norway is one of our closest allies. They align themselves on almost every issue with Europe and us. They are a place that is continually supporting the kinds of initiatives internationally that we support. And if over the course of what is going to be at least a two-year negotiation between England and Europe, Great Britain ends up being affiliated to Europe like Norway is, the average person is not to notice a big change. I think that is entirely up to them. On this side of the Atlantic, we heard from a number of people about immigration when we traveled across the country. One of them was a man named Jose Luis Valdez. He is a business owner, a restaurant owner in Kansas City, Kan. So, he is getting ready to vote for the first time, but he has followed politics for a long time. He knows that you won the Latino vote very heavily in both your elections. And speaking about the failure to pass immigration reform, he said of you, he used us. He used our votes.


Felt you should have done it when you had a chance when you had a Democratic Congress, you should have done more. What would you say to him? Well, what I would say to him is his restaurant might not be doing so well if I had not focused my first two years on saving the economy. So, it is not as if I did not have anything else to do. And I think it would be pretty hard to argue that I have not put everything I have had into getting this done. But, you know, one of the things that I have learned in this presidency is that until you get something done, people are going to be frustrated. You think of the incredible progress we have made during the course of my presidency with respect to LGBT rights - the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender - the historic speed with which we consolidated equal treatment for that population And you know, these days, if I go before an LGBT crowd, you know, people are cheering and saying I have been one of their greatest champions. But it was only about three or four years ago when, you know, I would get heckled in some LGBT events because, you know, marriage equality had not gotten done yet. And it did not matter how many times I told them, look, you know, it is - it is going to get done. It is just - it turns out that the wheels in democracy do not always move as quickly as you'd hope. And I cannot just do these things with a stroke of the pen. You know, that is - that is sort of the nature of all social change here. And so, if you - if you were interviewing one of the DREAM Act kids, who over the last several years have been able to get a driver's license, a permit to work or to school, have joined our military, they - they would not say that they have been used. They would say, thank you. And I think that is the reason the vast majority of Latino voters continue to support me, because they see the effort that has been put in. Now, one last point I will make, because I - right after this most recent Supreme ruling, or lack of ruling came down ... I said to them, look, everything is teed up.


And instead of despairing, you just need to understand we have got four months, five months, and you have got a very clear choice between two candidates - one of whom not only supports all the initiatives that I have put forward, but is going to be in a position if I do not get a ninth Supreme Court justice to break that tie. And to - one way or another, by next year, we are going to have either my administrative solution to immigration reform done, it will be in train, because it will have been decided on and - and will no longer be blocked. Or, alternatively, you know, Mr. Trump will win, in which case, you know, we will have a whole bunch of other problems on our hands with respect to immigration. So, in some ways, this is how the democratic process works. And I am constantly reminding young people, who are full of passion, that I want them to keep their passion, but they have got to gird for the fact that it takes a long time to get stuff done in this democracy. It is not as convenient as, you know, people would always like, but this is a big country with a lot of diverse views. Let me ask about a passionate young person that we met along the way. He is an activist now in Baltimore. He was active in the protests after the death of Freddie Gray ... who was in a police van, and died later, as you know. And he was unhappy with a statement that you made at the time, when you were supportive of peaceful protests but also criticized what you called criminals and thugs who had looted stores. He felt that you were being too harsh and went on to say in our interview that you were speaking from a position of privilege, his suggestion being that maybe you did not quite get what was going on in the streets. What would you say to him? Well, obviously, I do not know him personally, so we would have to have a longer conversation. What I would say is that the Black Lives Matter movement has been hugely important in getting all of America to - to see the challenges in the criminal justice system differently. And I could not be prouder of the activism that has been involved. And it is making a difference. You are seeing it at state and local levels, and the task force that we pulled together in the wake of Ferguson has put forward recommendations that were shaped both by the people who organized the Ferguson protests as well as police officers.


And it turns out that there is common ground there, in terms of how we can be smart about crime, smart about policing, respectful to all communities and try to wring some of the racial bias that exists in the criminal justice system out of it. What I would also say, though, is that if somebody is looting, they are looting. And the notion that they are making a political statement is not always the case because these are businesses oftentimes owned by African-Americans. You have situations in which suddenly - friends of mine in Baltimore, their mothers who are elderly have to now travel across town to get their medicines because the local drugstore got torn up. And making excuses for them I think is a mistake. There are ways of bringing about social change that are powerful and that have the ability to pull the country together and maintain the moral high ground and there are approaches where I may understand the frustrations, but they are counterproductive. If I were to summarize what else this young man said, I might say that he feels that he is trying to overturn what he sees is a racist or corrupt system and that you have become part of it. Yeah, look, ENTITY, I think that you can always find folks who are going to feel as if change has not happened fast enough. That is the nature of these issues and by virtue of being ENTITY of the United States, if there is a problem out there then I am the ultimate public official that people know. And if it has not gotten fixed in a couple of weeks, people are going to say, why did not you fix it? I think it'd be - I think people would be pretty hard-pressed to not see the efforts that we put in around criminal justice reform where we are supporting it fully. The initiatives that we have made with local mayors and state officials around the country to reform the criminal justice system, the fact that as ENTITY, I have been the first ever to even visit a federal prison, that the positions I have taken on criminal justice issues are unprecedented by any president. The work we are doing with commutations is unprecedented and I have now commuted more sentences for nonviolent drug offenses than the last seven or eight presidents combined. 22 in this case. 22-year-old kid on the streets of Baltimore who is still feeling frustrated, then I am not going to be surprised if that frustration's expressed.


As part of this project, we also had a look at your 2008 campaign speech in Philadelphia about race in which you talked in one passage about anger in the black community, which you said is sometimes counterproductive but it is real and there are reasons it. There is another passage which I had not even noticed before, in which you say there is a similar anger among some in the white community who do not feel particularly privileged by their race and do feel frustrated that they are losing jobs, losing pensions, feel like they are losing ground. Looking back, were you describing there the same force that is driving much of our election discussion here in 2016? Well, not only the election and discussion driving 2016; this has been an ongoing theme in American history. You can go back and during Jim Crow and segregation and you have got black sharecroppers who have nothing and alongside them, poor white farmers who do not have that much more except for the fact that they are white. And the degree to which a lot of politics in the South were specifically designed to make sure that that sharecropper and that white farmer did not get together to question how the economy was structured and how they both could benefit, that is - that is one of the oldest stories in American politics. So - so it is not surprising that what I said in 2008 still holds true today. It was true for a long time. The nature of racial bias in this country is unique and the challenges that African-Americans have faced are incomparable. Native Americans in this country, you know, were burdened by extraordinary bias and cruelty, as well. And it is probably not useful to sort of catalog every possible group's grievances. What is true, though, is that as I travel around the country, what a black, working-class person has in common with a white, working-class person is significant. And what prevents them from voting along the same lines or working together on the same projects to do with a whole range of cultural and identity issues which, you know, they obviously feel are important and valid. But what I have tried to do throughout my presidency is get - try to get people to recognize themselves in each other, and that is probably partly related to my own upbringing.


I was raised by a white mom and white grandparents who, you know, never suffered the kinds of discrimination that their black cohorts might have experienced but who had their own struggles, who went through a Great Depression, who - a grandmother who had to work her way up without ever a college education, starting in the steno pool or as a secretary to be - and experienced her own discrimination because of being a woman. And so I have seen the degree to which their struggles are not that different from Michelle's parents' struggles, at least in terms of how they think about it, and the similar values of hoping that their kids are going to do better and that education is the key. And that, you know, everybody's got to work hard and take responsibility but that they'd like a government that was more responsive to clear out some of the barriers for their advancement. And I believe that our politics - when our politics are at our best - is not based on identity politics, but it is based on a sense that everybody should have a fair shot and everybody should get a fair shake. Everybody should be responsible for doing their fair share, and you know, that theme you will see in every speech that I have given since I was running for the state Senate, and it has not changed much now that I am nearing the end of my political career. Somebody following this year's election might say, well, that debate's worse, it is gotten worse. Do you see any sign that that debate is any better, that it is moved in some direction? You see it in the younger generation. If you look at the 18-to-30 cohort, or the 18-to-40 cohort, they have a very different set of attitudes about all these issues. It is true, by the way, around the world. we were talking about Brexit, you know. The younger voter was not fearful of global interdependence. They embrace it. They see themselves as being able to navigate through all these different worlds. You see it when I visit Vietnam, or countries in Africa or Latin America at - the new generation is much more comfortable with diversity, with connectivity, with the fact that change is constant, that they are not going to be working at one job for 30 years. And you know, they want to make sure that they can get the skills, they can get the access. But they see a bright future for themselves.


Here in the United States, you talk to young people, it does not matter where, it does not matter whether they are black, white, Latino. They are not afraid of the future. And so when you look at the - the frustrations and the fear that a Trump tapping into, you know, that is an earlier generation that feels unsettled. And I think we can be sympathetic and understanding of the fact that they feel unsettled, but - but also recognize that, you know, if we get the decisions that need to be made right, then 10 years from now, 20 years from now, we may look back at something like the Trump campaign as the last vestige of - a kind of politics of us versus them that really does not apply to - to today. And one last thing I'd say about this, because you will - you will hear sometimes people suggest that, well, if Democrats and Republicans had been paying attention to white, working-class voters, then something like Trump would not have happened. Well, the fact is, is that my administration, for example, when we promote a higher minimum wage or stronger union laws or health care, for that matter, that is helping that cohort. That is designed to make sure that they get a better deal in this economy. And, you know, one of the things that you have seen during the course of my presidency is the ability, the power of a certain slice of the media to emphasize to white, working-class voters somehow that these things are not good for you, that this is ENTITY and his socialist friends who are trying to take money from you to give to an undeserving, you know, Mexican immigrant or black welfare mom and - and tapping into - sort of an identity politics that, you know, is powerful and oftentimes can work, but it is actually counterproductive, and it certainly does not reflect what we have been trying to do. What is true and what is - what is been interesting to see during this election cycle is that the Republican Party that has opposed minimum wages or union laws or what have you, they have a populist insurgency on their hands. And Mr. Trump, I think, has, at times, exploited this - this gap between what, you know, the Republican business community has promoted and - and what their constituencies are actually looking for. We ran across a statement of yours from 2008 about changing the trajectory of the country.


You said that Ronald Reagan had changed the trajectory of the country, partly because the country was ready for it. That John F. Kennedy had done the same thing, because it was the right moment. The country was going in a certain direction. You wanted to see such a moment. You believed there was such a moment for you in 2008. Is there a risk that Donald Trump could say the same thing in 2016, that he could be the man to change the trajectory of the country now? Well, if he won, he could say that. I mean to say, you think the country might be ready for that? And I think that will be tested over the next four months. But I think it is pretty hard to argue that somebody who almost three-quarters of the country think is unqualified to be ENTITY and has a negative opinion about it is tapping into the zeitgeist of the country, or is speaking for a broad base of the country. Look, that is what elections are for, and that - I think it is important for Democrats, progressives, moderates, people who care about our traditions, who care about pluralism, who care about tolerance, who care about facts, who think climate change is real, who think that we have to reform our immigration system in an intelligent way, who believe ... in women's equality and equality for the LGBT community. I think it is important for those of us not to be complacent, not to be smug. And you know, the one thing I have tried to do during the course of my presidency is to take seriously the objections and the criticisms and the concerns of people who did not vote for me. I said on election night back in Grant Park, I am ENTITY of everybody. I have got a particular point of view. I have - I do not make any apologies for it. I believe that, if you go back and read my speeches dating back to 2004, where I first came to national prominence, that there has been a consistency there, that I have done or tried to do exactly what I said. And the core of that message is e pluribus unum, out of many, one, that - that we are better when we are together, that I do not believe in tribalism. I do not believe in stoking divisions and scapegoating. I think that people have common hopes and common dreams. And I think that America is at its best when we are unified and working together.


And during the course of my presidency, you have seen polarization and division and all kinds of consternation and frustration. But what you have also seen quietly is a country that yanked itself out of a Great Recession and recovered as well as any country ever has from such a massive financial breakdown. You have seen 20 million people have health insurance that did not have it before and health care inflation actually going down so that, you know, we have saved trillions of dollars in cost relative to what we are expected to be paying over the course of programs like Medicare and Medicaid. What we have seen is a financial system that is a lot sounder. We see an LGBT community that is - is recognized as equal in ways that they were not before. You have seen an entire generation grow up, I think, feeling as if the old divisions do not make sense. And you know, I feel pretty confident that as long as we do the work over the next several months and then continue that work over the next several years, that we will have emerged from this era stronger, more prosperous, more secure and adhering more closely to the values and ideals that make America exceptional. We have gone across the country, we have gone across the country asking people how their lives have changed in the last eight years. How has your life changed in the last eight years? Well, everybody's teased me about how gray I am and that is OK. That picture of you and Derek Jeter, that was something. My - my daughters have grown up and I think for any father out there, seeing your kids come into office - when I came in office, they were so much younger than I realized at the time, I think. And for them to be these amazing young women now, that changes your life more than just about anything. It is interesting, though, that my fundamental belief in public service, my fundamental belief in the capacity of politics to - to solve problems, my belief in this country is stronger, not weaker. I have been frustrated by some things that I did not complete, that I could not wrap and mail and ship before I got out of here. Getting infrastructure done, you know, we got $2 trillion worth of infrastructure. If we got working on that now, we'd be growing a lot faster, the unemployment rate would be even lower, wages would be higher. You look at Syria being the most prominent example, where you have got a heartbreaking situation and not a lot of good choices.


Having said all that, if you had told me at the beginning of my presidency that we could begin the process of making sure everybody has health insurance in this country; that we could recover fully from a terrible economic crisis; that, you know, we could make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon without having to launch a war; that we could restore diplomatic relations with Cuba in a way that did not just transform our relationship with Cuba, but has put our relationship with all of Latin America on its strongest footing, maybe in history. If you told me that we could, you know, extend democracy to a place like Burma, one of the worst, you know, military dictatorships in the world and that I could visit there and you'd see millions of people lining the streets. If you told me that - that you could have gay and lesbian men and women proudly serving in our military without having to hide who they were, or that you could have a bipartisan effort to actually reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenses have a credible chance of getting through Congress. You'd tally it up, it is not bad for 7 1/2 years' worth of work. Climate change, with the Paris Agreement, 200 countries signed on - is a classic example of how I think about my work, but also the possibilities of government and politics. We have not solved climate change because of that agreement, but we have now built an architecture that allows us, gives us a change to, over time collectively, in an unprecedented way, curb the pollution that contributes to climate change. But have we now given the next president, the next Congress, the next generation a chance to solve it? I think of myself as a relay runner. I take the baton. Sometimes, you take the baton and you are behind in the race, and you have got to run a little bit harder to catch up. Hopefully, by the time you pass on the baton, you are a little bit better positioned in the race. And I think there is a humility that comes out of this office, because you feel that no matter how much you have done, there is more work to do. But I think that there is a confidence that well-meaning people working together can - can change the country for the better.


I am excited, I am honored to introduce my first guest, the 44th President of the United States, please welcome ENTITY. It is good to see you and . Let me just say, I think Kevin looks good in a suit. He looks a little like Secret Service. And you are the only guy who can get him to wear it. Now, you know, it is funny, because the last time you were here, you walked in, you had your jacket on your finger, and you had the two guys with you You know, the I was mentioning earlier, we landed yesterday, and then this is an example of life in the bubble we landed at the fairground down in Costa Mesa, and I see the fairground where I think we are having this town hall, and I said, Well, why do not we walk over there? Now, they let me walk on the way back, but, you know, the doctor is behind me with the defibrillator. Michelle jokes about how our motorcade you know, we have got the ambulance and then the caboose and then the dog sledthere's the submarine. Well, look, we are going through a difficult time. I welcome the challenge. You know, I ran for President because I thought we needed big changes. And I do think in Washington it is a little bit like American Idol, except everybody is Simon Cowell. Everybody's got an opinion. But that is part of what makes for our democracy. And I do think, though, that the American people are all in a place where they understand it took us a while to get into this mess, it is going to take a while for us to get out of it. And if they have confidence that I am making steps to deal with issues like health care and energy and education, that matter deeply to their daily lives, then I think they are going to give us some time. Let me ask you about this. I know you are angry, because, you know, doing what I do, you kind of study body language a little bit. And you looked very angry about these bonuses; actually, stunned. Tell people what happened.  You have got a company, AIG, which used to be just a regular old insurance company; then they insured a whole bunch of stuff, and they were very profitable, and it was a good, solid company.

Interview With Jay Leno of The Tonight Show in Burbank, California


Then they decided some smart person decided, let us put a hedge fund on top of the insurance company and let us sell these derivative products to banks all around the world, which are basically guarantees or insurance policies on all these subprime mortgages. And this smart person said, you know, none of these things are going to go bust; this subprime thing, it is a great deal; you can make a lot of profit. So they sold a whole bunch of them billions and billions of dollars. And what happened is, is that when people started going bust on subprime mortgages, you had $30 worth of debt on every dollar worth of mortgage, and the whole house of cards just started falling down. So the problem with AIG was that it owed so much and was tangled up with so many banks and institutions that if you had allowed it to just liquidate, to go into bankruptcy, it could have brought the whole financial system down. So it was the right thing to do to intervene in AIG. Now, the question is, who in their right mind, when your company is going bust, decides we are going to be paying a whole bunch of bonuses to people? And that, I think, speaks to a broader culture that existed on Wall Street, where I think people just had this general attitude of entitlement, where, we must be the best and the brightest; we deserve $10 million or $50 million or $100 million dollar payouts. And, you know, the immediate bonuses that went to AIG are a problem. But the larger problem is we have got to get back to an attitude where people know enough is enough, and people have a sense of responsibility, and they understand that their actions are going to have an impact on everybody. And if we can get back to those values that built America, then I think we are going to be okay. Well, you know, it is interesting, when you said it is like, I had to laugh the other day when the CEO of AIG said, okay, I have asked them to give half the bonuses back. Now, if you rob a bank and you go into court and you go, Your Honor, I am going to give you half the money back. And they seem stunned that we are not jumping at this wonderful offer. Well, you know, the only place I think that might work is in Hollywood. Let me ask you this.


Now, they I heard them say, well, one of the problems is it is contractual, and if we do not pay these bonuses, well, they can sue us. All the time people say, so sue me. I mean, the Federal Government is in debt a trillion dollars. We are broke sue us. In fairness, I think that part of the calculation they were making was the way the contracts were written said, if you do not pay us immediately, then we can claim three times as much as we were owed under the bonuses. And so they were making a legal calculation, and their legal judgment was not necessarily wrong. The main thing we are going to do everything we can to see if we can get these bonuses back. But I think the most important thing that we can do is make sure that we put in a bunch of financial regulatory mechanisms to prevent companies like an AIG holding the rest of us hostage. The problem is not just what is happened over the last 6 months. The problem is what was happening for years, where people were able to take huge, excessive risks with other people's money, putting the entire financial system at risk, and there were no checks, there were no balances, there was nobody overseeing the process. And so what we are going to be moving very aggressively on, even as we try to fix the current mess, is make sure that before somebody makes a bad bet you say, hold on, you cannot do that. Well, here is something that kind of scared me. Today they passed this thing that says we are going to tax 90 percent of these bonuses. And the part that scares me is, I mean, you are a good guy if the government decides they do not like a guy, all of a sudden, hey, we are going to tax you and then, boom, and it passes. I mean, that seems a little scary as a taxpayer, they can just decide you want to take a break and answer that when we come back? I have got a good answer too. We are talking with ENTITY. Before the break, I mentioned that they had just passed this new bill which will tax them 90 percent, and I said it was frightening to me as an American that Congress, whoever, could decide, I do not like that group, let us pass a law and tax them at 90 percent. Well, look, I understand Congress's frustrations, and they are responding to, I think, everybody's anger.


But I think that the best way to handle this is to make sure that you have closed the door before the horse gets out of the barn. And what happened here was the money has already gone out and people are scrambling to try to find ways to get back at them. The change I'd like to see in terms of tax policy is that we have a system, going back to where we were back in the 1990s, where you and I who are doing pretty well pay a little bit more to pay for health care, to pay for energy, to make sure that kids can go to college who are not as fortunate as our as my kids might be. Those are the kinds of measured steps that we can take. But the important thing over the next several months is making sure that we do not lurch from thing to thing, but we try to make steady progress, build a foundation for long-term economic growth. I just read today about Merrill Lynch. They handed out 3.6 billion. It is not even million anymore, it is billions in bonuses. I know it would make me feel good should not somebody go to jail? I say that because I watch those people in New York, even people who had lost everything when Bernard Madoff went to jail, at least they felt they got something. They got some satisfaction. Most of the stuff that got us into trouble was perfectly legal. And that is a sign of how much we have got to change our laws, right? We were talking earlier about credit cards, and it is legal to charge somebody 30 percent on their credit card and charge fees and so forth that people do not always know what they are getting into. So the answer is to deal with those laws in a way that gives the average consumer a break. When you buy a toaster, if it explodes in your face there is a law that says your toasters need to be safe. But when you get a credit card, or you get a mortgage, there is no law on the books that says if that explodes in your face financially, somehow you are going to be protected. So this is the need for getting back to some commonsense regulations there is nothing wrong with innovation in the financial markets. We want people to be successful; we want people to be able to make a profit. Banks are critical to our economy.


And we want credit to flow again, but we just want to make sure that there is enough regulatory common sense in place that ordinary Americans are not taken advantage of, and taxpayers, after the fact, are not taken advantage of. Yes because when I was a kid, we would banks or credit cards would lend you money so you would pay it back. Now they lend you money so you cannot pay it back. It is like we were talking before, I mentioned we all saw A Wonderful Life Mr. Potter, the meanest man, remember he owned the whole town? You know what he charged on a mortgage? He is like Mother Teresa now. Well, and part of what happened over the last 15, 20 years is that so much money was made in finance that about 40 percent, I think, of our overall growth, our overall economic growth, was in the financial sector. Well, now what we are finding out is a lot of that growth was not real. It was paper money, paper profits on the books, but it could be easily wiped out. And what we need is steady growth; we need young people, instead of a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they want to be an engineer, they want to be a scientist, they want to be a doctor or a teacher. And if we are rewarding those kinds of things that actually contribute to making things and making people's lives better, that is going to put our economy on solid footing. We will not have this kind of bubble-and-bust economy that we have gotten so caught up in for the last several years. Now, Treasury Secretary Geithner, he seems to be taking a little bit of heat here. How is he holding up with this? He seems like a smart guy. I do not think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him. This guy has not just a banking crisis, he is got the worst recession since the Great Depression, he is got an auto industry on that has been on the verge of collapse. We have got to figure out how to coordinate with other countries internationally. He is got to deal with me; he is got to deal with Congress. And he is doing it with grace and good humor. And he understands that he is on the hot seat, but I actually think that he is taking the right steps, and we are going to have our economy back on the move.


Now, it is , Hey, you got this, you got that; hey, good luck. No, no, but this is the point that I made, I think, 2 days ago, when somebody asked, Well, do you have confidence in Tim Geithner? If I am not giving him the tools that he needs to make sure that we are moving things forward, then people need to look at me. On the AIG thing, all these contracts were written well before I took office, but ultimately I am now the guy who is responsible to fix it. And one of the things that I am trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame. And I think Geithner is doing an outstanding job. I think that we have a big mess on our hands. And the key thing is for everybody just to stay focused on doing the job instead of trying to figure out who you can pass blame on to. Well, when will the money this money was given out to the banks, I would have thought by this time it would have sort of trickled down to Main Street, to people wanting to get loans. Well, what is happening is a lot of these banks are keeping it in the bank because their balance sheets had gotten so bad that they decided, you know what, for us to stay solvent we need to maintain certain capital ratios; we have got to have a certain amount of capital in the bank. And they have not started lending it yet. And that is why what we have got to do right now what we are doing is essentially doing a diagnostic test trying to use some auto language here so you . We are doing a diagnostic on each of the banks, figuring out what are their capital levels, can they sustain lending. And then I think we are going to separate out those banks that are in good shape, we are going to say to them, all right, you are on your own; go start lending again. Those banks that still have problems, we will do a little more intervention to try to clean some of those toxic assets off their books. But I actually have confidence that we will get that done. In the meantime, we are taking a lot of steps to, for example, opening up open up separate credit lines outside of banks for small businesses so that they can get credit, because there are a lot of small businesses out here who are just barely hanging on.


We are trying to set up a securitized market for student loans and auto loans outside of the banking system. But that is why we have got to solve the banking problem, and we have got to solve issues like health care, energy, and education that will put us on a pathway for long-term economic growth. We are going to take a break. When we come back I want to ask you what we can do all right, we will take a break. More with the President, we will be right back. So I was going to ask you before we went to the break so you have obviously, we have a lot of people with a few dollars couple of hundred, couple of thousand but there is millions of them. What should they do? Should they be spending money? Should they hide it under their mattress? Look, first of all, everybody should have complete confidence in the banks. They should not be putting it in their mattresses. I will leave it up to others to provide individual, personal financial advice. But I will say this, that if you are working right now, obviously, you have got to be prudent and you have got to recognize that the economy has been in a tough way. But, you know, we have still got kids who are going to need a coat for winter or a computer for school. You know, that young family is still going to at some point need to buy a house. And right now cars, for example, we know that typically you need about 14 million cars for this population, and right now only 9 million are being sold every year. So at some point those inventories are going to run down and people are going to start buying cars again. So you know, what people should not do is forget that what has built America has always been a faith and a confidence in the future. And our future is bright if we take some smart steps right now. And that is what we are working on in Washington. And I think, if everybody stays focused on getting through these tough times, the future is going to be very bright for all of us. Now, you mentioned cars a minute ago. You went to the electric car you went to look at some batteries today. It is spectacular what is being down now with plug-in hybrids, where not only are you getting the hybrid technology, but now you can plug it in at home in your garage. And potentially, we could see cars getting 150 miles to a gallon of gas.


And when you get home you could potentially sell the energy in your car back into the grid, back to your utility, and get money. So we are going to be investing billions of dollars in research and development around these technologies. I have got the GM hydrogen car. That is a whole new level of technology. That is what is going to create the auto industry of the future. That is where we are going to win back manufacturing. These batteries are being made in Japan, just like wind power is being made in Europe. We need to bring that here, and that is part of what my budget and part of what our Recovery Act is all about. Let me ask you some personal things. Now, how cool is it to fly in Air Force One? Now, let me tell you, I personally think it is pretty cool. Especially because they give you, you know, the jacket with the seal on it. See, I still get the little wings when I fly. So you have the jacket. I will tell you, though, Malia and Sasha, my daughters, they are just not as impressed. The first time we went on Marine One right, you have got the marines in front and they are saluting you, and we go up, and we are passing the Washington Monument, circling around on the way to Camp David, and Sasha looks over and she says, Are those Starbursts? That is Can we have some? So they are splitting up the Starbursts, and we are flying over the Lincoln Memorial. And that so they got a whole 'nother level of cool. Now, are they going to put a basketball I imagine the bowling alley has been just burned and closed down. I have been practicing bowling. I bowled a 129. No, listen, I am making progress on the bowling, yes. And how about, are you going to put in a basketball court? Well, we have a basketball court already at Camp David. We just had a little rim that was inadequate at the White House now. But there are tennis courts, so we are going to just get those you know, those rims that you can roll in and out. And then we will just put them on either end. Let me ask you, when people ENTITY, would you like to play? Do they throw the game? I do not see why they would throw the game, except for all those Secret Service guys with guns around.


It is nice to see you all. You just got the readout of the President's meeting with the Amir of Qatar. They had an opportunity to speak for themselves to readout that meeting. Other than noting that, I do not have anything at the top here so we can go straight to questions. First of all, the Keystone bill is arriving at the White House today, or already has. That is what I hear. Can you tell us when the President intends to veto it, as he promised? Well, as I mentioned yesterday, the President does intend to veto this piece of legislation and we intend to do it without any drama or fanfare or delay. So I would anticipate that we will have an update on this later on today. So you expect it today? We can expect it today? Yes, you can count on that today. We will have a statement through the usual channels. It is in the pipeline. You physically have the bill now? It is my understanding that Congress did send the text of the bill to the White House this morning. On DHS funding, as you know, the Senate Majority Leader has offered to split the bill so that there is a separate vote on the immigration policies of the President and another one on the funding itself. Senator Reid has objected to the sequencing of that. He wants to vote on the clean funding bill first before you go on to immigration. Does the President have a preference on that? Does the President want to at least just get this issue off the table and it does not matter on sequencing? The official White House position is that the President served in the United States Senate for a period between 2004 and 2008, in which he readily weighed in on legislative maneuvers and strategies related to the complicated procedures that essentially guide the legislative process. At this point, it is the responsibility of Congress to figure out how to perform among their most basic functions, which is to ensure that the budget for the Department of Homeland Security gets passed in a timely fashion. But, ENTITY, this is his party and it could essentially end up closing one of his executive agencies. The President has -- well, Republicans spent a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort going around the country about making the case why they should be put in charge of the United States Congress. They succeeded in that effort, and they persuaded the American people to hand them the responsibility of the majority of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Barack Obama Press Briefing by Press Secretary Josh Earnest


And the question now facing Republicans is how they are going to use that authority and whether or not they are going to do it responsibly, in a way that is in the best interest of the country and whether or not it is in the best interest of our national security. And the fact of the matter is I cannot find anybody who thinks it is a good idea to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, which means that congressional Republicans should simply do their job. And they should pass legislation that would fully fund the Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of this year. And Senator McConnell is offering a clean bill like you demanded, so why not get behind this bill? Well, I have not seen the particulars in terms of exactly what he is put forward, but ultimately it will be up to the individual members of Congress to make their own decision. But, again, congressional Republicans are in charge. They are in the majority. And this is something that they sought, and these are exactly the kinds of problems that they hoped to have the opportunity to solve, and we look forward to them doing it. The contours of the deal that are being discussed would allow Iran to potentially consider moving toward a nuclear device after 10 years. And I am wondering if that is a period of time -- I know that parts of the discussion have been about a 20-year period before -- that seems to be the compromise number. Is that a number that we can trust the Iranians to stick by and not to begin producing a nuclear device after that? Well, Jim, I am loathe to get into the negotiating details of the position that is adopted by the United States and our international partners when they are sitting across the table from the Iranians. However, I will say that there was a report today indicating that we were negotiating for essentially a 10-year deal. That does not reflect the accurate negotiating position of the United States and our international partners. But the second part of your question is important as well. It goes to whether or not the United States and the international community is prepared to start trusting the Iranians. I think the point, Jim, of these negotiations is to not just reach an agreement with the Iranians, but reach an agreement with the Iranians that we can verify on a continuing, ongoing basis; that there is ample reason for the international community to not put a lot of faith in the claims of the Iranians when it comes to their nuclear program.


It was just a few years ago that there was this covert nuclear facility in Iran that had previously been undeclared that did yield some evidence indicating that Iran was trying to secretly develop a nuclear weapon. So what we need is a clear agreement from the international community and the Iranians and an agreement that is verifiable. And any part of an agreement will include ready access by the international community to ensure that Iran is living up to their end of the bargain. But you are saying that reports that the deal would clamp down on Tehran's nuclear activities for at least 10 years and then slowly ease those restrictions, that is not correct? Well, again, I am not willing to get into the specific details of our negotiating position. But there are some who are making the case publicly that we are in favor of a deal that would just be 10 years in duration, and that is not accurate. On Keystone, the veto is one thing, but I am wondering, how long is it going to take the administration to finish its review of whether the project is in the national interest? This is a review that is being conducted by the State Department, and so you can contact the State Department for an update on the timing of that review. The President is not going to announce something on that as well today? Again, the review is being conducted by the State Department, so you can get an update from them about their timing. Secondly, there are reports that the DOJ is not going to press charges against George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Can you confirm that? I cannot confirm that. So you should check with the Department of Justice about any announcement they may or may not be planning to make at this point. Lastly, on Ukraine, Prime Minister David Cameron said he would deploy military personnel in the next month to Ukraine to help with training, and I am wondering if that is something that the U.S. is considering -- any measures to help Ukraine with military training? Well, let me say a couple things about this. The first is that the United States continues to be concerned by ongoing violations of the Minsk Implementation Plan by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. We have seen repeatedly that these Russian-backed separatists have continued to violate the terms of the agreement despite the fact that they made firm commitments in the context of an immediate and comprehensive cease-fire.


In addition to that, we have seen Russian military vehicles -- I am sorry -- we have seen Russian military personnel have participated in the recent attacks on Vuhlehirsk and Debaltseve. And the Russian military has put in place a robust command structure in eastern Ukraine. We know this because separatist fighters have also previously acknowledged that they are operating under instructions from Moscow. Russia and the separatists it backs have acted in direct contravention of the Minsk Implementation Plan that they agreed to. And we continue to call on all signatories to carry out the commitments undertaken in the plan in the September Minsk Agreements fully and without delay. The other thing that we are concerned about is that there are reports that Russian-backed separatists have prevented members of the OSCE special monitoring mission from getting full access to the conflict areas. There are even some reports that indicate that those separatists have made grave threats against members of the OSCE monitoring team. So we have seen continued behavior that is in direct violation of the agreement that Russia and the other parties signed just a couple of weeks ago. So we continue to be concerned about the situation in Ukraine. I do not have any updates in terms of assistance that we will provide to the Ukrainians at this point other than to remind you that we have already provided substantial assistance to the Ukrainian military and we have already provided substantial economic assistance to the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people. And there was additional assistance the administration believes we should provide and that is why we have called on the United States Congress to pass legislation that would offer additional loan guarantees to the Ukrainians to strengthen their economy while they try to deal with this continuing instability in the eastern part of the nation. Back on DHS, if I may. Senator McConnell is apparently shopping a compromise on the Hill right now to try to move forward on that. Is the White House looking to find a compromise, or are you still certain you have got to have a clean bill? Well, ENTITY, the administration has been clear that we stand ready to compromise with members of Congress, including Republicans, when it comes to trying to address the many problems caused by our broken immigration system. In fact, we spent a lot of time over the last couple of years trying to reach that compromise, and in the United States Senate, we succeeded in doing so, that we got more than a dozen Republican senators to sign on to a compromise bipartisan immigration reform proposal.


That was a proposal that was blocked by House Republicans, even though we knew that had the House Republican leadership allowed it to come to the floor, it would have passed with bipartisan support. So we do stand ready to have those kinds of conversations with members of Congress. But we should not compromise our homeland security just because Republicans want to pick a political fight. It is not consistent with the Senate Majority Leader's aspirations to send a signal to the American people that Republican leadership should not be scary -- that is his word, not mine. So we are hopeful that Republicans will do the responsible thing, that they will join with Democrats to support a full-year extension of funding for the Department of Homeland Security prior to the deadline. And then if there are Republicans that want to have a legitimate conversation with the administration about how to solve the problems that are created by our broken immigration system, then we stand ready to do that. We'd even host those meetings right here at the White House if they would like. As far as the meeting today with the leader of Qatar, there are reports that Qatar has lent support to Hamas in the past. Do you think there is an issue with the President meeting with the leader of Qatar while not meeting with the leader of Israel? Well, ENTITY, I can tell you that -- let me say a couple things about that. As it relates to Prime Minister Netanyahu, as we have said this many times, there is no foreign leader with whom the President has spent more time than Prime Minister Netanyahu. And that is a testament to the deep and ongoing security relationship that exists between the United States and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has said that the level of security coordination between the United States and Israel under the leadership of President Obama is unprecedented, and we certainly would share that assessment. As it relates to the leader of Qatar, I can tell you that there are a number of important interests that we share with Qatar. Like all partnerships, especially in this region of the world, the United States does not necessarily agree with the Qatari government on every issue, but we have the kind of relationship that allows us to be frank and open about where we disagree and why. But the bottom line is that our interests with Qatar converge somewhat more often than they actually diverge; that Qatar has been a significant help on a range of regional issues, including Afghanistan, Iran. As you know, the Qataris have even agreed to host a regional training site for the moderate Syrian opposition.


So we certainly welcome the efforts of the Qataris to participate in this broad international coalition to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. We also know that the Qataris have indicated a willingness to work closely with us in other aspects of our strategy against ISIL, too, particularly as it relates to terror financing. And this is a focal point of the administration's efforts to shut down terrorism across the globe, but it certainly is an important part of our strategy for degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL -- that if we can shut off the financing of their operations, we are going to add even further strain to their ability to carry out the terrible things that we have seen them do. So we are working closely with the Qataris on that aspect of our strategy, too. And I think that is precisely why the President convened the meeting with him in the Oval Office today. On the same subject, do you acknowledge that Qatar has been a significant source of especially private donations to ISIS and other terrorist groups? Well, ENTITY, what we acknowledge is that there are areas where we disagree with the Qataris, but more often we find that our interests overlap, that our interests with the Qataris are consistent. And whether it is our work with the international community to try to ease the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear program, to dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, or even the ongoing campaign against ISIL, that there are a variety of ways in which the United States has been able to work effectively with the Qataris to protect and advance our national security interests in the region and around the globe. And for a long time, the Qataris have been accused of trying to play it both ways -- of welcoming hate preachers, as we might call them, to their biggest mosque, of continuing the financing, and only really trying to stop it when pressure is put on. So can you say whether pressure is on them now to stop that financing and whether there has been any progress either in that area or with supporting these people that come in and preach against Jews and other faiths? Well, ENTITY, I can tell you that the administration does continue to work closely with the Qataris to try to improve our efforts to shut down the financing for terror operations. And the Qataris have been an effective partner in that endeavor so far, but we do believe that there is more that they can do and more that we can do together to shut down the financing of terror operations around the globe.