Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160804

Completelyent is inaccurate or ridiculous, it pantsands on fire on fire. Host how do you make sure you are giving campaigns and candidates the right ratings . Guest this is the second this is the Third Campaign we have been Fact Checking. And likeurnalists most, we are listening to the news and seeing what the candidates say. We are listening for things that would make the average person say i wonder if that is true. That is how we pick the facts to check. We dont balance the ratings in any way, because we think the facts need to speak with themselves. The ratings are whatever they are. Do that whenyou the truth is not always clear . Guest we have a method for Fact Checking . Every fact check is little diversity there is a of political discussion we have in the u. S. , the we emphasize a few principles. We emphasize original sources, primary documents, primary evidence, our reports are written in a way that the entire story is, this is what we said, we wanted to know if it was accurate, so we reported and researched and here is all the evidence we found and of the end of the story, we assign a rating because we are online first, we publish all of our sources online. There is a source list with every story. We find people are skeptical and they want to verify our work and see for themselves. Our reports run in newspapers across the country that have our articles, but online, people can see the sources and investigate for themselves and they seem to like that. Host i want to show our viewers Hillary Clinton on fox news, talking about the claim by fbi comey and whether or not she gave honest testimony before congress. After a long investigation, fbi director james comey said in of those things that you told the American Public for true. That is not what i heard irector comey say, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify. He said my answers were truthful and what i said was consistent with what i told the American People, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain emails. I was communicating with over 300 people in my emailing. They certainly did not believe and had no reason to believe that what they were sending was classified. In retrospect, different agencies come in and say it should have been, but that is not what was happening in real time. And a congressional hearing on july 7, director james comey directly contradicted what you had told the public. Secretary clinton said there was nothing more classified on her emails sent or received, was that true . That is not true. Secretary clinton said i do not email any classified material, was that true . There was classified material emailed. He directly contradicted you. Not only directly contradicted, he also said that you were extremely careless and negligent. Looked at the whole transcript of everything that was said, and what i believe is that i made a mistake, not using two different email addresses. I have said that, and i repeat it again, today. It is not anything that i ever would do again. We looked at this exchange very carefully. This is the kind of thing that catches our attention. We found that clinton was wrong. We looked specifically at her statement that said everything she said was true all. We rated that pants on fire. As Chris Wallace said, there was some classified information and in her email. She repeatedly said there was nothing marked classified when she sent or received it. , to get the full context forit was a very small f messages. The classification marks were not in the headers. We really get into the details of this stuff. You can see how she thought she was right. Their fulli did investigation, they did find classified information. Her publicot endorse remarks as being truthful. He did not say she lied either. He said, basically, that is not what the fbi found in their investigation. Host lets get to calls. Florida, independent color. We will talk a little bit more about statements may by both candidates. Caller we need to take a view and hindsight is 2020, looking back in time, comparing things now over the many years gives you the best balanced perspective. Only 10 of the richest americans now have the same good lifestyle that the average american hat in 1965. In 1965, the rich were paying any tax rate of 90 . 1972ad from 1948 to increases in worker productivity directly matching increases in worker ranges. Deficit is trillion because the rich have not paid their fair share of taxes over the last several decades. The low wages for u. S. Citizens now is due to the massive integration immigration that has taken place over several decades. The more people in the country, the lower the wages. It is that simple. We do not create 2 million new good paying jobs every year. We allowed 1. 5 million legal and illegal foreign nationals in the country every year. Since obama has taken office, more of the new jobs have gone to foreign nationals then u. S. Citizens. All this should be very objective and taken into account. Fact check that all quickly . Guest i can put a couple of reporters on that statement for a few days. The wealthy used to pay 90 tax rate. That is true. When we look at historical tax rates many time during the eisenhower years, and the highest tax rate was 90 , 70 . During the reagan years, those tax rates started to come down. They are now much lower. We fact check claims about inequality as well many times. You cane many ways expect that. Sometimes people talk about wealth that usually means homeownership. Sometimes they talk about income. It is all a little bit different. One thing we have noticed is that inequality, he said, was worse when the recession was the worst. That is because so many people lost their home values or lost their jobs. Now the recession seems to be in the rearview mirror, the inequality statistics, there is still a lot of inequality, but it is not as dramatic as it used to be. The last thing i will mention on immigration, he talks about immigration lowering wages. This is one of the hardest things for us to fact check because in the broader economy summary things can affect wages. Is immigration one of those things that affects wages . It is certain one, but it may be outweighed by other trends. Many say immigration is an overall improvement to the economy because more people are being productive. There is also some evidence that they do lower wages for people who are in lowwage jobs. Mixed evidence there on immigration. Lancaster, ohio, republican. Caller i do not like Hillary Clinton. She lies. Nothing is going to happen. She is going to be just as bad as obama if she is elected. I love donald trump. Of things that people wish they could say. Guest host lets take a point about Hillary Clinton lying many times. Do you tally statements of each campaign . Guest we do. We look at tally of every candidate with a scorecard on political act. People can look at Hillary Clinton clinton or donald trump and see how the statement we have selected rate. Number one, we picked statements for their news value. Were not taking a random sample. If someone makes a statement that is likely true that is every day, it will not make it to our site. We like to correct misinformation. We fact check a lot of statements that sound wrong. About Hillary Clintons record, she is we have been Fact Checking her since we started in 2007, and overall the impressions i have of her is she is very careful, she studies Public Policy a great deal. We do not often capture in a misstatement cash her in a misstatement of policy matters. She is pretty accurate. We have found misstatements more in interviews which he is under pressure. In addition to that statement we talked about a few minutes ago, she also spoke in 2008, she tried to defend herself as first lady and her International Relations by saying she landed in bosnia under sniper fire. Ofrequire,ideo children greeting her at the airport. That is the kind of statement we see from Hillary Clinton. Donald trump is a first time ended it. He does not seem to study policy very much. He makes many errors of fact. His record with us is quite poor, about three quarters of his statements have been rated mostly false, false, or caps on fire. For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in america. We rated it pants on fire. Well that makes no sense because we spend much less than 100 billion on refugees. And a city like new york that needs a lot of Infrastructure Improvements exceeds that. Thats just one city. So thats an example of where the numbers are completely off. We dont spend that much money on refugees and americas cities have a lot of infrastructure problems that cost a lot more money than that. That seems to be pretty effective and thats an out and out lie. Ok . And theyve been using it and getting away with it for years. Let me digress here. About donald trump and all the democrats want to get in. Only republicans were allowed in. Now we come up with this segment is hillary and her email thing and you let the republicans get in and pound hillary and we couldnt go in and go after trump. I dont think thats fair. All right. Weve been Fact Checking Hillary Clinton on the Second Amendment and it is a republican talk uing point. They have regularly said donald trump and others she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. Clinton has said nothing of the sort. I believe during her Convention Speech she even responded to that. Sometimes we come in, sometimes the candidates themselves speak to it. She said that people do have a right to bear arms but like many rights the government has the responsibility to put reasonable regulations on. Just like you cant shout fire in a crowded theater. So we have fact checked whether she wants to abolish the Second Amendment and we rated that false. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. First of all, its pretty clear that mr. Obama and the democratics want to change the demographics of the country. My question is that did you ever have a chance to fact check what mrs. Clinton said to the lady at the airport . I do believe her name was pat the one who lost her son. Have you had a chance to do that . Ive got another question to ask. Go ahead. Yes. We have looked very deeply at this question. This is about the benghazi terrorism attacks that happened in 2012. The mother of one of the people who died there gave speech at the Republican Convention where she said she blames Hillary Clinton personally and Hillary Linton lied to her and the accusation of lying stems around what did Hillary Clinton say to the victims families . There was a ceremony when the bodies were returned to the United States and Hillary Clinton was there, president obama was there. Hillary clinton spoke with the victims families, all of the families. Now, we dont know what was said. These conversations were not recorded. The mother says that Hillary Clinton blamed a video. And for people who remember this incident there was a video that was offensive to the religion of islam, in the middle east there was some riots around u. S. Embassies in Different Countries about the video. And at the time there was thinking in the government this was related to the attack in benghazi. Later it was shown it was more coordinated it wasnt spontaneous and it wasnt a terrorist act. So the question goes to what did hillary tell the families. Again, we dont have recordings we dont have independent evidence about it. We have spoken to as many members of the families as we could locate and who were willing to talk to us. And some of them said that she didnt mention the video. Very specifically they said she gave us condolences, said this was a terrible act. She didnt blame a video. Patricia at least smits and another Family Member said yes she did mention a video. So we havent given this fact check a rating because it does seem like a kind of a he said she said situation. We cant verify what happened in this conversation. One other thing i would sad is she did say it was a video. Some of the initial intelligence around the incident pointed to the video. People may remember that susan rice went on the talk shows and talked about the video, a big controversy. Theres no evidence that this, the video was like sort of a manufactured excuse. It seems to be what one of the leads that they were genuinely pursuing at the time. So that is a complicated situation. Its a sad situation. And thats what our reporting has found. Next to done don. Good morning. I kind of question some of the objectivity of your guests language here. Because youve already admitted yourself that you go for the more spectacular ratings. To me, you said that hillary speaks in lawyer talk and donald trump just wings it. I mean, i see it as trump getting an f and maybe hillary a bplus. But that wasnt how you started off your program. You came in with the controversy about whats been going on in the newspapers here recently and did you take into account that the f. B. I. Directer had resinneded some of his testimony immediately the day after he gave it in regards to whether hillary lied or not . It seems to me that theres quite a few factors that you guys pick and choose what how you want to present it. Well get a response. Go ahead. I dont recall the f. B. I. Directer rescinding any of his testimony. He might have made additional dements but im not aware of that. I would say we get a lot of reader feedback of people who have strong opinions on politics and tell us they dont like our reports because were biased or they dont like our findings. And what i say to them is that were trying to give you credible accurate information. We give all of our sources, we lay out all of our findings. If we got something wrong, were human beings, we do make mistakes, we try to correct it promptly. But after that, i would say, i would ask people who dont like the findings or think were biased, what is wrong in the report . Because of the sourcing we feel like people can look for themselves and gauge the accuracy well or not. Now, i get it, a lot of readers will disagree with the ratings. They will say all your facts in your story are fine, i just dont like that you rated it mostly false instead of true. I think thats the nature of politics. Especially right before the president ial elections feelings run very high on both sides but we feel our method is a sound method. Independent. Listen, ive got a comment and then i have a question. Umber one, this is my comment. I voted for barack obama twice. I wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton but she got beat. D then everything happened with benghazi and now all these email things going on. t i feel that i just don trust her. But i also feel that if donald trump doesnt get his way and someone says something bad about it him, he will push the button. And i kind of that kind of scares me. So this may be the first time that i may not vote. And thats kind of sad. But now heres my question. Between the two candidates, im on Social Security disability. Im just wondering who is going to keep Social Security isability in place and who wants to get rid of it. And then on top of that, Social Security for like say my parents or my son. Ok. Big question. I cant speak specifically to Social Security disability because we havent studied that. But i can talk about Social Security generally. And in this election both donald trump and Hillary Clinton are very supportive of Social Security. The democrats traditionally have supported the program. Theres been some talk of theres been a lot of different talk within the Democratic Party on Social Security. Some people say they need to reduce the rate of increase that this gets really wonky as a way to reinin government spending. Bernie sanders was opposed to that. Others talk about raising Social Security for the poorest seniors because it is a relatively modest amount if thats someones sole retirement income. Thats the democrat side. Donald trump has been interesting because the republicans talked about privatizing elements of Social Security as a means to save money. And donald trump has said no were not going to do this. This is one of the most popular programs in government. We should not its politically a bad idea for us to touch Social Security. So thats trumps position. Now, his running mate mike pence has favored some of these privatization plans but trump is the candidate. We recently fact checked harry reid when he said donald trump and mike pence want to privatize Social Security and we rated that mostly false because thats not trumps position. Pulling all that up for our viewers, they can see it right there. Robert, in mississippi, republican. Im getting the feeling that most of your callers dont have a clue about whats going on. Clinton has been in the political arena 25 or 30 years, rump has been a businessman. What he did in his business has nothing to do with this election because he was a businessman. Clinton, you have to hold her responsible a little bit a lot, really. Trump right now he is testing for the g. O. P. And the voters. Well leaf it there. Moving on to allen, arizona, republican. Hi. Thanks for cspan. Angie, i just want to say, i want to compliment you and on the fact that you can actually throw all this propaganda at us and think were going to believe it. Greta, im ashamed of you for the first segment. You were so biased in your reporting and how you brought things through. But heres what i want to say. Chris walls sunday program was very interesting. He only had one really a great question that he asked regarding benghazi. But heres my question. And im disappointed with chris walls. The thing is no reporter asked her and he had the opportunity to do it, and that s when you were in the situation room for the four hours that you were in there, where was obama and were you watching live video of the attack with the drone . Nobody has asked her that question. Let me turn to angie. That comes up a lot. Where was president obama. We looked at this before. They were not watching live video of the benghazi attacks unfolding. Thats something thats been repeated. Theres no information to support that. We havent been able to find any information to support that. We have done some fact checks where we look at where was clinton. The attacks happened in libya at night but that was in the middle of the afternoon in washington. So nobody was asleep in their bed. And the interestingly, im not the caller was saying were biased. Which way are we biased now . Because we do get it from both sides. But thats what i can say about benghazi. Jack, new jersey. Democrat. Good morning. Im going im confused. When you spoke of that Chris Wallace interview and she got and hillary got a pants on fire for all of those phone calls or emails that were supposed to have been sent, thousands of emails that were supposed to have been sent over her computer. How in the world can hillary say that her sit at her computer and send thousands of emails and be the one thats sending them . It just doesnt make sense to me that she could be the one that sent those emails and has been accused of being the one that sent them when she and theres no way that i can conceive that she sent thousands of emails because she if she did that she wouldnt have anything else to do. She wouldnt have time to do anything else. These are all the emails and just let me back up a little bit. The heart of the controversy here that when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state she didnt want to use a government server. She wanted to put all her emails on a private server that was in her house. Now, some of the messages she sent at the time she was concerned about her personal email becoming public. Thats what she said back then. Later during the campaign she said i didnt want to use two devices the idea being she would have a state department device and her own personal email device. So she used the one system for all her work and personal emails. And the thousands of emails are the emails she sent and the emails she got back from her staff. A lot of these have since been made public. What happened was her attorneys went through her emails and deleted everything that host lets talk about the Democratic National convention, the Republican National convention. We will start with Hillary Clinton at the dnc. She is talking about the Obama Administration and the economy. Take a look. Ms. Clinton i do not think president obama and Vice President biden get the credit they deserve for saving us from the worst economic crisis of our lifetime. [applause] our economy is so much stronger than when they took office, nearly 15 million private sector jobs. 20 million more americans with health insurance. An Auto Industry that just had its best year ever. Host angie dobnic holan. Guest we will give her credit for the 20 Million People with insurance and the Auto Industry having its best year ever. She said there were 15 million private sector jobs, the actual number is not 15 million, it is 10 million. We rated her half true on that. She got to the 15 million number by counting from the very lowest point of the presidency. If you count from the day they took office, they were still losing jobs when they took office. It went down and then back up. The net gain was 10 million. Host lets look at donald trump at the rnc in cleveland. Mr. Trump these are the facts. Decades of progress in bringing down crime rates are now being reversed by this Administration Role back of criminal enforcement. Homicides increased by 17 in americas 50 largest cities. That is the largest increase in 25 years. [booing] in our nations capitals, killings have risen by 50 . [booing] they are up nearly 60 in baltimore. In the president s hometown of chicago, more than 2000 people have been the victim of shootings this year alone. Almost 4000 have been killed in the chicago area since he took office. Guest we rated his statement half true. He is correct in his numbers about the homicide rates going up in the largest cities in a single year. The problem is that it looks like it is just that particular year. The longterm trend is going down. The murder rate has slowed significantly since the 1990s. When we talk with criminologists we asked how significant this , oneyear increases. They said we cannot even tell yet because the Crime Statistics fluctuate your year. You need to look at longterm trends. The other thing is that murder rates are being it driven by four particular cities that have problems, houston, washington, baltimore, and chicago. In most cities we see these longterm trends going down. Trying to paint this picture that crime is on the rise, but the statistics overall, looking at the longterm, they showed declines across the country. Host lets hear from maria, independent. Caller good morning. I wanted to bring up stories that have not been sufficiently explored. The first one is the fact of that breitbart brought out that khan is retired from a firm that represented the clinton foundation. He is from a Group Actively recruiting muslims to buy their way into the United States as citizens. The second thing is Hillary Clinton claims to love children and women, and yet her husband has gone 22 times to a place gy island with a convicted pedophile. Host where did you get that information . Caller breitbart. The third thing i wanted to bring up is the fact that when he was at oxford, bill clinton took a trip to the soviet union. Nobody wants to explore that. The last thing is that is, i am sorry host we will respond to what you have put on the table so far. Guest im not sure i have a response to what she said about mr. Khan. Breitbart is a conservative website. We have fact checked a lot of claims of what people see on breitbart. These claims need to be examined carefully. It is an extremely conservative site. It is promoting a point of view. As far as bill clinton visiting the soviet union. That has been back sometime. I think that has been investigated several times. I would have to look at the research on that. The clinton biography, bill clinton and Hillary Clinton, there is a lot of Research Done on it. There have been books written about both of them. Whenever we have fact checked about either of them, we have decades of reporting to look at. Host you can look on their website at bill clintons file where they have his scorecard over the years. Caller good morning. I think you and your producers do a fantastic job fielding the goals from john q public. We are a difficult lot to put up with. You are fair in having all democrats sometimes, all republicans sometimes. Hillary clinton lied eight times sunday with Chris Wallace. She lied eight times in the last year. Also, i remember hearing her in say she would consider doing like australia and taking guns away from american citizens. Thank you. Anst the austria example is interesting one. We have looked at it a couple of times. Australias reaction to Mass Shootings was to put in more gun control and gun buyback. Clinton has mentioned that. She has not put that forward as a proposal. I believe her Public Comments have been that is one way other countries have handled it. That is not something she is putting forward here. She has emphasized background checks and making that system stricter. There are states where private are nots where you not are in a gun shop, you are not publicly advertising gun sales in an ongoing basis, those private sales are not background checks. With the lot of the Mass Shootings we have researched they are often people buying , guns legally. Sometimes it is hard to see how tightening background checks would have prevented that. If they do not have a criminal record, if they do not have a record with the Mental Health system, they can buy guns legally. Sometimes the Mass Shootings are committed that way. Host flagstaff, arizona, democrat. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Pretty much what is on my mind right now is, as i say the way , things happened going for donald trump, the things he has been saying, doing, what not. I dont think thats something the republicans believe in. Not like that. I dont blame them for backing away and saying nothing at times or they dont approve of what he is saying and doing. I dont know exactly. Is that conservativism . Is that the party in general . I just think right now that donald trump is, how do you put this, i think he might be bipolar. I do not mean that as a joke. I have studied psychology. He is showing a lot of those symptoms. Host i dont want to go too far down that road. That is your opinion. I want to end with this by politifact. 500 promises, 500 promises from obama that he made on the campaign trail. Follow the facts and track the truth, these promises he have been putting out eight years. Guest we have been tracking these promises. We have a section called the obamameter. We are planning more coverage for later this year. We will see what he has been unable to fulfill. It is a very interesting project that is tracking an entire presidency. We are also getting ready for the next version. We have been collecting Campaign Promises from donald trump and Hillary Clinton. We will be tracking their Campaign Promises, seeing if they are able to achieve their agenda. Host another box just like this, 500 cards, you can stay current with all the promises they have made on the campaign trail. You can go to the website, politifacts. Com. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciated. We are live at the pentagon waiting for president obama to hold a News Conference on the global strategy for fighting isis. The president summoned top military and National Security officials to the pentagon on thursday to rss what is working and what is not in the fight against the Islamic State group. High on the agenda, the nascent u. S. Air campaign against is targets in libya. President ting for the to hold a News Conference that was to begin 25 minutes ago. We will have it live for you when it gets underway here on cspan. We are live at the pentagon, awaiting president obama for a News Conference on combating isis. Newsu missed the conference, never fear. We will show it again tonight on cspan at 8 00 p. M. Eastern time. Obama and Vice President biden made the short trip across the Potomac River to cabinet with the secretaries to assess what is working and what is not in the fight against isis. His News Conference should be getting underway here shortly live on cspan. As the newss soon conference gets underway, we will have it live on cspan. In the meantime, more from todays washington journal. One discussion on how military and Veterans Issues are playing out in this years campaign. The military is at the center of politics for all the wrong reasons. We have had the purple heart controversy, a lot of issues around the military, but not really military issues. Veterans like us to talk about the a reform, National Security strategies, some ways to benefit survivors of the folks who die in iraq and afghanistan, that is not where we are. What does it mean we talk about the rules of engagement or National Security strategy . They are worried. They are hoping they can redirect this conversation, turned it into a positive. Host we will try to tackle some of those. What are gold star families . Guest these are people who have lost someone in iraq or afghanistan or any of the wars over american history. We are talking about spouses, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. This is a group that the military really worries about. They had paid the ultimate sacrifice. They have lost someone who was defending the country, who is providing the freedom we all get. They want to make sure that they are treated right when it comes to benefits, survivor benefits, education benefits. That has become an issue with the Democratic Convention and highlighting Hillary Clintons work. What we have heard recently, and the concern with donald trump, they want to make sure that those families are treated with respect. They are allowed to speak, they are allowed to present not just their frustration and sadness, but some of their views regardless of where you come down, lets not do personal attacks. These are people who have suffered for the country. Lets not turn them into political footballs. If you disagree, you can step away from that. They have earned the right to say that. Host the story you have today is that donald trump met goldstar families. Guest he met with a group of 10 families. It was led by a mother of a navy who was killed a few years ago. She said she wanted to organize this in wake of some of the controversy that said donald trump was being insensitive. She said she walked away being confident that he understands the gravity of these issues, understand the sacrifice of these families. She urged him to try to move on. She has been an advocate for changing the rules of engagement, making it easy for troops are employed to iraq and afghanistan to defend themselves. She has complained that the Obama Administration has put too many restrictions on when they can fire back. That is an issue she says she wants to focus on. Instead what we are focused on a more of the issue, is this sensitive comment, how was he responding . Host what are candidates saying about what they would do to address problems . Guest both of the candidate spoke at the veterans of foreign war conference last week. We have a pretty clear split in terms of where the two candidates are going. Mr. Trump ones to focus on providing more choice providing health care to veterans. He sees the Veterans Administration as a broken mess right now. Afternoona good everybody. I just met with my National Security council on the campaign against isil. Want to thank them for hosting us and their continued leadership of our men and women in uniform. I last updated the American People in june, shortly after the horrifying attack in orlando. We have continued to be relentless in our fight against isil. On the ground in syria and iraq, isil continues to lose advertorial. We have seen that isil still has the ability to attack and inspire iraqs. We have seen terrible bombings in iraq, jordan, lebanon, saudi arabia, yemen, afghanistan, istanbul airport, a restaurant in bangladesh. Celebrations in a church in festivalnd the musical in germany. Losses in iraq is causing it to shift to tactics we have seen before in encouraging highprofile terrorist attacks. As always, our military, intelligence, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement professionals are working around the clock. They are working with communities here at home to share information and prevent attacks. They have prevented many, but it is still very difficult to detect and prevent loan actors or small cells who are determined to kill the innocent and willing to die. That is why we will keep going after isil aggressively over every front of this campaign. Our air Campaign Continues to hammer isil targets, 14,000 strike so far, 100,000 sorties, ing isil those hitting core. Americas armed forces would do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. With our extraordinary technology, we are conducting the most per air campaign in history. After all it is the innocent civilians of iraq and syria suffering the most. Terror, we from isil work to find the facts, be transparent, and hold ourselves accountable to doing better in the future. We continue to take out senior isil leaders and commanders, including the deputy minister of commander in thede sul, and its minister of war. Isil leaders are not safe and we keep going after them. Iragi forces with Coalition Support liberated falluja. Areas neare clearing the euphrates valley and a Strategic Air base 40 miles from mosul, the last major stronghold for isil in iraq. The additional personnel i ordered to iraq last month will help turn this base into a logistical hub and launchpad for iragi forces. Forcesa, a coalition of backed by special Operations Forces and airstrikes continues to take the fight to isil as well. It is fighting its way into a town that is a gateway for terrorists coming in and heading out to go to europe. Back,l is beaten intelligence, documents, thumb drives, digital files, which we will use to continue to destroy networks and stop foreign fighters. We continue to intensify efforts against al qaeda in syria. It cannot be allowed to maintain a safe haven to train and plot attacks. I do want to note the broader progress that has been made in this campaign so far. Was racinggo, isil across iraq to baghdad itself, and to many, looked invincible. And nowit st falluja. Insyria, they have lost numerous locations, losing territory across fast stretches andhe border with turkey major transit routes. Isil has not been able to reclaim any significant territory they have lost. I want to repeat, isil has not had a major successful offensive operation in syria or iraq in a year. Leaders know they will be losing. They are increasingly acknowledging they may lose key cities. We will keep hitting them, pushing them back, and driving them out until they do. Isil turns out not to be invincible. They will inevitably be defeated. We do recognize that the same time that the situation is complex and this cannot be solved by military force alone. That is why the United States and countries around the world pledged more than 2 billion in new funds to help iraq stabilize and rebuild communities. It is why we are working with iraq so that the military campaign is matched with political and humanitarian cannot return by exporting divisions or grievances. And ala, defeating isil qaeda requires an end to the againstr and brutality the people, pushing them to extremes. Continuee and allies to violate the cessation of hostilities. Including medieval sieges against cities, blocking them from food, family starving. It is deplorable. The Syrian Regime has rightly earn the condemnation of the world. Russias direct involvement raises questions about their commitment to pulling the situation back from the brink. Is. Is prepared to work with them prepared to work with russia. It is time for them to show they are serious about pursuing these objectives. We will continue working with allies and partners to go after isil. Libyase request of government, we are conducting strikes and support, and we will continue to support the governments efforts to secure their country. In afghanistan, one of the reasons i decided to largely maintain our current force posture was to keep eliminating sils presence there. Finally, it should be clear by now, and no windows is better than our military leaders that even as we need to crush isil on the battlefield, the military defeat will not be enough. So long as their twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence, groups like isil will keep emerging and the International Community will continue to be at risk where we are always reacting to the latest threat or lone actor. That is why we are working to counter violent extremism more broadly, including social, economic, and political factors that helps to fuel groups like isil in the first place. Nothing would do more to discredit isil than when it. Oses its base we will work with partners, including muslim communities, especially online, to expose isil for what they are, murders who kill innocent people, who mosques. Ombs near refused to let terrorists undermine the unity, values, university, and pluralism that keeps our nation strong. One of the reasons why i Americas Armed forces are the best in the world is that we draw on skills and talents from all backgrounds and faiths. I think the entire world was inspired this past sunday when muslims across france joined our catholic neighbors at mass in a moving display of solidarity, praying together. It has to be the message we echo in all countries and communities. These be with you, and also with you. Before i take questions, i want to say a few words on another topic. Our Public Health experts have been warning for some time, we are now seeing the first globally transmitted cases of the zika virus by mosquitoes in the continental United States. This was predicted and predictable. So far, 15 cases in the miami area. We are taking this extremely seriously. Our cdc experts are working shoulder to shoulder with Florida Health authorities. There is an aggressive effort under way there, and pregnant women have been urged to stay away from a particular neighborhood we are focused on. As all continue to work team to limit and slow the spread of the virus. I want to be very clear, our Public Health experts do not expect a widespread outbreak of is he gay here that we have seen in brazil or puerto rico. The kind of mosquitoes are limited to certain regions of our country, but we cannot become places, because we do expect to see more zika cases. Even though symptoms are mild for most people, many not knowing they have it, we have seen the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe, so i again want to encourage every american to go to cdc. Gov. In addition, Congress Needs to do its job. Fighting zika cost money. Helping puerto rico deal with the crisis cost money. Research into new vaccines, nih Just Announced the first Clinical Trials in humans. That costs money. Thats why my administration propose more funding back in february. Not only did the Republicanled Congress not pass our request, they worked to cut it, then they for summer recess. S meanwhile, the folks on the front lines have been doing their best by moving funding from other areas, but now the money we need to fight zika is running out. The situation is getting critical. Without sufficient funding, in nih Clinical Trials could be delayed. States, we know of more than 1800 cases of zika connected to travel to affected areas, including 500 pregnant women. Zika is now present in a most every part of puerto rico, and now we have the first local transmission in florida, and there will certainly be more. Meanwhile, congress is on a summer recess. A lot of folks talk about protecting americans from threats, well, zika is a threat to americans, especially babies, right now. Once again i urge the American People to Call Congress and tell them to do their job, deal with this threat, protect the American People from zika. With that, i will take some questions. With someone who just assumed the the second most powerful office in the land. Reporter happy birthday. As Islamic State loses territory, you and other officials have said it is becoming a more traditional terrorist group. Are you satisfied strategy has addresssufficiently to a drea s that change. . Donald concerned that trump will be receiving sensitive National Security briefings . I am never satisfied with our response. , that meansatisfied problem is solved, and it is not. Hourst spent a couple of to look at what more can be done. It is absolutely necessary for us to defeat isil in iraq and syria. Not sufficient, but it is necessary, because so long as they can those races, use their propaganda to suggest that somehow there is still some caliphate being born, and that can insinuate itself in the minds of folks who may be willing to travel there or carry out terrorist attacks. It is also destabilizing for countries in the region at a time when the region is already unstable. The progresswith we have made on the ground in iraq and syria. Freeing mosulm acca. Occ on the ground as long as they have support from Coalition Forces which we have been providing. In the meantime, you are seeing isil carry out external terrorist acts. They have learned something. They have adapted from al qaeda, which at a more centralized operation and trying to plan elaborate attacks. Out isil has figured that if they can convince a handful of people or even one person to carry out an attack on or some or in a parade and killlic venue scores of people as opposed to thousands of people, it still creates the kinds of fear and concern that elevates their profile. In some ways, rooting out these networks for smaller, less complicated attacks is tougher because it does not require as many resources on their part or preparation, but it does mean that we have to do even more to generate the intelligence and to work with our partners in order to degrade those networks. The fact is that those networks will probably sustain themselves defeated. They are from our efforts is that wel qaeda adapt as well. Eventually, we will dismantle these networks also. Part of the reason why it is so important to keep our eye on the ball and not panic, not succumb to fear, because isil cant defeat the United States of america or our nato partners. We can defeat ourselves though if we make bad decisions. We have to understand that as painful and as tragic as these that we are going to keep on grinding away, preventing them wherever we can, using a hole government effort to not down their propaganda, to , take theeir networks key operatives off the battlefield, and that eventually we will win. If we start making bad decisions , indiscriminately killing civilians for example in some of these areas, instituting offensive religious tests on who can enter the country those kinds of strategies and up order for, because in us to ultimately win this fight, we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations to between the west and islam. That plays exactly into the and the perverse interpretations of islam there putting forward. Go by mr. Trump, we will that if which is somebody is the nominee for president , they need to get security briefings so that if they were to win, they are not starting from scratch in terms of being prepared for this office. Details oning into the nature of the security briefings that both candidates receive. What i will say is that they have been told that these are classified briefings. If they want to be president , they have to start acting like president. Receivens being able to these briefings and not spread them around. I think i have said enough on it. Reporter mary bruce. What is your response that the 400 million sent to iran was a ransom payment. A payment that was held up for almost four decades was sent at the same time that americans were released. Can you assure the American People that none of that money went to support terrorism . Pres. Obama some of you may recall that we announced these payments in january. There was not a secret. We announced of them to all of you. Josh did a briefing on them. Deal. Asnt some nefarious thate time we explained iran had pressed a claim before an International Tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that as ad frozen consequence of working its way through the International Tribunal, it was the sentiment of our lowers that there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars. It was their advice and suggestions that we settle. That is what these payments represent. It was not a secret. We were completely opened with everybody about it. It is interesting how suddenly this became a story again. Points number two, we do not pay ransom for hostages did have americans being held all over the world. I meet with their families, and it is heartbreaking. Have stood up an entire section of interagency exports who devote all of their time to working with these families to get these americans out, but those families know that we have a policy that we dont pay ransom. The notion that we would somehow start now in this high profile way and i announced it to the world even as we are looking into the faces of other families whose loved ones are being held hostage and say to them that we dont pay ransom defies logic. Number two, wet do not pay ransom. We did not hear and will not in the future, precisely because if we did we would start in courage and americans to be targeted much in the way that some countries that do pay ransom in that having a lot more of their citizens taken by various groups. Three, the timing dictated byin fact the fact as a consequence of us negotiating around the nuclear deal, we actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with iran for the first time in several decades, so the issue is not so much that it was a coincidence than it was we were able to have a direct discussion. John k was able to meet with the foreign minister, which meant that our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time converged. It was important for us to take advantage of that opportunity both with the litigation risks and to make sure that we finish the iran nuclear deal, and since we were in a conversation with them, it was important for us to push them hard in getting these americans out. Let me make a final point on this. It has now been well over a year toce the agreement with iran stop its Nuclear Program was signed. Accounts it has worked exactly the way we said it was going to work. You will recall that there were howthese are stories about iran was going to cheat and this was not going to work and iran was going to get 150 billion dollars to finance terrorism and all these kinds of scenarios, and none of them have come to pass. It is not just the assessment of our intelligence community. It is the assessment of the Israeli Intelligence and military, the country that was most opposed to the deal that technology is this has been a game changer and that iran has abided by the deal and they no longer have the shortterm breakout capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. So what i am interested in is that if there is some news to be made, one not have some of these folks who were predicting disaster say, you know what, this thing actually worked. That would be a shock. That would be impressive. If some of these folks who had said the sky is falling said, you know what, we were wrong and we are glad that iran no longer to break out in shortterm and develop a nuclear weapon. Of course that was not going to happen. Instead, what we have is the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in january, and the only bit of news that is relevant on this is the fact that we pay cash, which brings me to my last point. The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with iran that we could not send them a check. We could not wire the money. And, it is not at all clear to me why it is that cash as opposed to a check or a Wire Transfer has made this into a new story. Maybe because it kind of feels like some kind of spy novel or crime novel because cash was. Xchanged the reason cash was exchanged is because we dont have a banking relationship with iran, with which is precisely part of the pressure that we were able to apply to them so that they would ship a whole bunch of Nuclear Material out and close down a bunch of facilities that, as i ago, threewo years years ago, four years ago, was peoples top priority, to make sure that iran does not have breakout nuclear capacity. They dont. This worked. Josh letterman. Donald trump has said this election will be rigged against him, challenging the Core Foundation of our democratic system. Can you promise the American People that this election will be conducted in a fair way . Are you worried that comments like his can erode the American Publics faith in the outcome of the elections . Himn the you have declared unfit, what would you say to the American People . Pres. Obama at the end of the day, it is the American Peoples decision. I have one vote. I have the same boat you do. I have the same vote that all of the voters who are eligible across the country. Ultimately it is the American Peoples decision to make collectively. Wins thee election and they are president , my responsibility is to peacefully transfer power to that individual and do everything i can to help them succeed. Really know where to start on answering this question. Of course the elections will not be rigged. What does that mean . The federal government doesnt run the election process. Cities, and, communities all across the country. They are the ones who set up the voting systems and voting booths. If mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a Conspiracy Theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places where typically it is not democrats who are in charge of voting booths. That is ridiculous. That does not make any sense. I dont think anybody would take that seriously. As wee do take seriously, always do, ill responsibility to monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process. A voting signs that machine or system is more weorable to hacking, then and form those local authorities who are running the elections that they need to be careful. If we see jurisdictions that are violating federal laws in terms of equal access and arent ramps for disabled voters or are discriminating in some fashion or otherwise violating civil rights laws, then the Justice Department will come in and take care of that. This will be an election like every other election. Am, i think all of us at some point in our lives have played sports or just played in a school yard or sandbox. Sometimes if folks lose, they , but in they got cheated have never heard of somebody complaining about being cheated before the game was over or before the score is even tallied, so my suggestion would be, you know, go out there and try to win the election. Pointstrump is up 1015 on election day and inns up up losing, then maybe he can raise some questions per that does not seem to be the case at the moment. Barbara starr. On the question of isis expansion you have been you seeabout, because them expanding around the world, because you see them trying to inspire attacks, what is your current level of concern about the homeland . You talk about protection measures, but what is your assessment about the possibility, your own intelligence survivor suggesting is possible, about the direct isis threat to americans . Theif i may follow up along same lines, what is your assessment today as you stand here about whether donald trump can be trusted with Americas Nuclear weapons . On your second question, and i will sort of address this to any additional , i wouldump questions ask all of you to just make your own judgment. I have made this point already multiple times. Just listen to what mr. Trump has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad. Reporter there are suggestions that you are not confident. A recall, i as answer this question a couple of days ago and i think i made myself clear. I do not want to keep repeating or a variation on it. I obviously have a very strong opinion about the two candidates who are running here. One is very positive, and one is not so much. Anyink you will just here further questions that are directed to the subject, i think youll hear pretty much variations on the same thing. Is that this is serious business. The person who is in the oval office and who our secretary of defense and our joint chiefs of staff and our outstanding men ,nd women in uniform report to they are counting on somebody who has good temperament and good judgment to be able to make decisions to keep america safe, and that should be very much on the minds of voters when they go into the voting booth in november. In terms of the threat that isil poses to the homeland, i think it is serious. We take it seriously. Earlier, said precisely because they are less big, spectacular 911style attacks, because they have seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller scale attacks using small arms or a salt rifles or in the case of nice, france, a truck. Of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real. Why our intelligence and Law Enforcement and military officials are working around the clock to try to anticipate potential attacks, to obtain the beeads of people who might vulnerable to brainwashing by isil. We are constrained here in the United States to carry out this work in a way that is consistent with our laws, presumptions of , the fact that we prevent a lot of these attacks as effectively as we do without a lot of fanfare and abiding by our laws is a testament to the incredible work that these folks are doing. They work really hard at it, but it is always a risk. The of you may have read article in the New York Times today, i guess it came out last night online, about this individual in germany who confessed and had given himself up and explain his knowledge of networks work. There was a paragraph in there that some may have caught, which we dont know for a fact that this is true, but according to this reporting, the individual indicated that isil has recognized that it is harder to get its operatives into the thatd states, but the fact we have what he referred to as laws, meaning anybody that did not have a criminal record that could bar them from purchase could go in and buy weapons. That made their homegrown extremists g moore attracted to them. Those are the hardest stop. By definition if somebody does not have a record and it does not triggering something, it means that anticipating their actions becomes that much more difficult. Thats why the strategy we have in syria and iraq is necessary, but not sufficient. We have to a better job of disrupting networks, and those networks are more active in europe than they are here we dont know what we. We dont know what we dont know. We also have to get to the messaging that could reach a troubled individual over the internet and do a better job of disrupting that. Told my team is that although we have been working on this now for fiveseven years, we have to put more resources into it. This cant be an afterthought. It is something that we have to focus on. This is also how we work with the muslimamerican community, the values we affirm about their patriotism and their sacrifice, and our fellow feeling with them is so important. One of the reasons that we dont sells that arend as active here as they are in certain parts of europe is because the muslimamerican community in this country is extraordinarily patriotic. And largely successful, fights and our military, serves as our doctors and nurses. There are communities in which they are raising their kids with a love of country and a rejection of violence. If we screw that up, then we are going to have bigger problems. Usa today. Reporter yesterday, you commuted the sentences of 214 inmates, the largest day in the history of the american presidency. I want to ask a couple of questions about your clemency. You have talked about this low level drug offenders who got mandatory sentences, but a quarter of the sentences were for firearms. Ofen your overall philosophy firearms, can you reconcile that for us . Also, the other side of the ledger is pardons. You have granted fewer pardons than any twoterm president since john adams. Why is that . You talked about Second Chances. A full pardon would give people a better chance. Finally, many of your predecessors in the final days of your presidency they reserve that for them are politically sensitive partners. Obama i appreciate the question. View, shared by alike,ts and republicans in many quarters that as successful as we have been in reducing crime in this country, the extraordinary rate of incarceration, of nonviolent ownnders, has created its set of problems that are devastating. Entire communities have been men but where largely some women are taken out of those communities. Kids are not growing up with parents. It perpetuates a cycle of poverty and disorder in their lives. It is disproportionately young men of color that are being arrested at higher rates, charged and convicted at higher rates, and imprisoned for longer sentences. So ultimately, the fix on this is criminal Justice Reform, and i still hold out hope that the bipartisan effort in congress and we can the job have a criminal justice system, at least at the federal level, that is both smart on crime, effective on crime, but recognizes the need for proportionality in sentencing and the need to rehabilitate those who commit crimes. Slow process of criminal Justice Reform goes forward, what i want to see is if we can reinvigorate the pardon process and commutation process that has become stalled over the course of several years. Partly because it is politically risky. You commute somebody, they commit a crime, and the politics of it are tough. Everybody remembers billy horton. Andbias of my predecessors, as a number of my advisors early in my presidency has said, be careful. But i thought it was very important for us to send a clear we believe in the principles behind criminal Justice Reform, even if ultimately we need legislation. We have focused more on commutations than we have before. By the time i leave office, the number of pardons we grant will be roughly in line with what other president s have done, but standing up this commutations process has required a lot of effort and energy, and it is not like we have a new slug of money to do it. Limited resources, the primary job of the Justice Department to prevent crime, and to convict those who have committed crimes to keep the American People safe, and that means you have had extraordinary, herculean effort by a lot of people inside the Justice Department to go above and beyond what they are doing and review these petitions that have been taking place. We have been able to get organizations around the country to participate, to screen and help people apply. The main criteria that i try to set is, if under todays laws, because there have been changes in how we charge nonviolent drug offenders, if under todays charges, their sentences would be substantially lower than the charges that they received, if by thet a life sentence, u. S. Attorney or Justice Department indicates that today it would be likely to get 20 years with a hearty served 25, what we tried to do is scream through and find those have paid their debt to society, that have behaved themselves and tried to reform themselves while incarcerated, and who we think have a good chance of being able to use that Second Chance well. On the firearms issue, what i have done is to try to screen out folks who seem to have a propensity for violence. And these are just hypotheticals. But there may be a situation was aa kid, cap 18, member of a gang, had a firearm, did not use it in the offense he was charged in, theres no evidence that he used it in any violent offense, it is still a firearms charge but he didnt use it, he is now 48 or 38, and has an unblemished prison record. Has gone back to school, gotten his ged, gone through drug treatment, has the support of the original judge that presided, the support of the u. S. Attorney that charged him, has a family that loves him. The fact thation, he had 20 years earlier an enhancement because he had a firearm is different than a situation where somebodys engaged in Armed Robbery and shafts somebody. In those cases, that is still im concerned about. Our focus has been on people who andhink were overcharged, people who we do not believe have a propensity toward violence. And in terms of your last question about lastminute pardons that are granted, the process that i have put in place dependingng to vary on how close they get to the election. It is going to be reviewed by the pardon attorney. It will be reviewed by my white house counsel. Can,oing to, as best i make these decisions based on the merits of political considerations. Malashevski ism retiring at nbc. He has done an outstanding job t for covering for the department of defense. This may be my last press conference here, so i want to thank him for the extraordinary career he has had. He gets the last question. Thank you very much, mr. President. And iraq and isis syria. Your very own National Counterterrorism operation has found that despite the decisive defeats we have dealt isis on the battlefield, that they have expanded their threat worldwide to include as many as 18 operational bases. In the six years he has been dealing, do you feel any personal disappointment, that there hasnt been more progress . And in any discussions youve had with the u. S. Military and intelligence agencies, have you come up with any new ideas on how to deal or deceit isis . Defeat isis . Obama every time there is a terrorist attack i feel disappointment, because i would like to defeat all of them. Not just when the attacks are in europe or in the United States. When you read stories about attacks in lebanon or iraq or or distant parts of the world that dont get as much attention, they get my attention. That is somebodys kid, somebodys mom, somebody who is just going about his business. Mindlessly, senselessly, this person was murdered. I havent gotten numb to it. It bugs me whenever it happens, and wherever it happens. And we are constantly pushing ourselves to see, are there additional ideas that we can deploy to defeat this threat . Now, it is important that we tacticze, terrorism as a has been around for a long time. If you look at the 70s or 80s or the 90s, there was some terrorist activity somewhere in the world that was brutal. As much as i would like to say that during my eightyear presidency we could have eliminated terrorism completely, it is not surprising that it hasnt happened, and i dont expect that will happen under the watch of my successor. That because of our extraordinary efforts, a homeland is significantly safer than it otherwise would be. In some ways, this is arguing the counterfactuals, that the attacks we prevent i take great satisfaction in, and i am grateful for the extraordinary work that our teams do. I dont think theres any doubt that had we not destroyed al atah, that morel americans would have been killed, and we might have seen more attacks like we saw on 9 11. And we have maintained vigilance, recognizing that those threats still remain; those aspirations still remain. But it is much harder for them to carry out largescale attacks like they used to. Is that theseeen lowerlevel attacks carried out by fewer operatives for an individual with less sophisticated and less expensive weapons can do real damage. Think, points to the need for us to not just have a military strategy, not just have a traditional counterterrorism strategy thats designed to bust up networks and catch folks before they carry out their attacks, although those still are necessary and we have to be more and more sophisticated about how we carry those out. It still requires us to have much greater cooperation with our partners around the world. But it points to the fact that we are going to have to do a draining the training ideology that is behind these effects, that right now is emanating largely out of the a very smalland fraction of the muslim world. A perversion of islam that has taken root and turbocharged over the internet. That is appealing to even folks who dont necessarily know anything about islam and id even practicing islam in any serious way. But they have all kinds of psychosis and latch onto this as some way of being important, magnifying themselves. And that is tougher. Because that involves both changes in geopolitics in places like syria, it requires cultural changes in regions like the middle east and north africa that are going through generational changes and shifts as the old order collapses. It requires psychology and thinking about how do these messages of hate reach individuals, and are there ways in which we can intervene ahead of time . Is being done. Weve got the very best people there making a difference in saving lives, not just here, but around the world. A challenge precisely because, if you are successful 99 of the time, that 1 can still mean heartbreak for families. Its difficult, because in a country of 300 Million People here in the United States, if 99. 9 of people are immune from 10s hateful ideology, but 1 of 1 are susceptible to it, that is a lot of dangers people running around, and we cant becausenticipate it, they may not have criminal records. This is going to be a challenge. I just want to and on the point i made earlier. How we react to this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy isil, prevent these networks from penetrating. You cant separate those two things. The reason it is called terrorism, as opposed to just war, is that these are weak enemies that cant match us in conventional power. But what they can do is make a scared. Make us scared. And when societies get scared, they can react in ways that undermine the fabric of our society. It makes us weaker, makes us more vulnerable, creates politics that divide us in ways that hurt us over the longterm. We remain steady and alsofast and vigilant, but take the long view and maintain perspective and remind ourselves of who we are and what we care about most deeply, what we cherish and what is good about this country, what is good about International Order and civilization that was built in part because of the sacrifices after aen and women 20th century full of world war, if we remember that, then we are going to be ok. But we are still going to see, episodically, these kinds of tragedies, and we are going to have to keep working on it until we make things better. Thank you, mr. President. Obama only because you are retiring. I hope its not too long; im going to be like for my birthday dinner. Late to my birthday dinner. You alluded earlier to russia, over military cooperation in syria against some of the militant forces, presumably in exchange for whatever russian influence could be imposed on the assad regime, for a variety of reasons. Im sure you are not surprised at some of the military are not supportive of that deal. Some european allies think it would be a deal with the devil. What makes you so confident that you can trust the russians and Vladimir Putin . Confident, im not which is why we have to test whether we can get an actual cessation of hostilities. That includes an attitude to area bombings and civilian death and destruction taht we have seen carried out by the assad regime. Russia may not be able to get out of there because they dont want to, or dont have sufficient influence over assad. That is all youre going to test. We go into this without any blinders on. We are very clear that russia has been willing to support a murderous regime and an individual who has destroyed his country just to cling to power. What started with peaceful protests has led to a shattering of an entire, advanced society. Trying toou are broker any kind of deal with individuals like that or a country like that, you have got to go in there with some skepticism. On the other hand, if we are able to get a genuine cessation of hostilities that prevents indiscriminate bombing, that protect civilians, that allows humanitarian access, and creates some sort of pathway to begin the hard work of political thentiations inside syria, we have to try, because the alternative is a perpetuation of civil war. Ive been wrestling with this thing now for a lot of years. I am pretty confident that a big chunk of my gray hair comes out of my syrian meetings. There is not a meeting that i dont end by saying, is there Something Else we could be doing that we havent done . G, h, that wean f, think would lead to a resolution of this issue, so that the Syrian People can put their lives back together and we can bring peace and leave the refugee crisis that has taken place . Limited whenns are you have a civil war like this, when you have a ruler who doesnt care about its people, terroristave ,rganizations that are brutal who impose their own kind of and yourship on people, have a moderate opposition of ordinary civilians who are often outgunned and outmanned. Difficultery situation to deal with. But we have got to give it a chance. There are going to be some bottom lines that we expect for us to cooperate with russia beyond what we are currently doing, and that means restraint on the part of the regime that so far has not been forthcoming. Early on in this version of this essay should of hostilities the cessation of hostilities, we probably saw the growth to the point where it barely exists, particularly up in the northwestern part of the country. Test and see if we can get something that sticks. Russia willthen have shown itself very clearly to be an irresponsible actor on the world stage, because it is supporting a murderous regime, thatill have to answer to on the international stage. All right . Thank you very much, everybody. A so president obama ending bit over an hour at the pentagon, talking to reporters today after spending much of today, his 55th birthday, at the pentagon meeting with the defense secretary, cia director, and other members of his military and National Security team, talking about the fight against isis. As you may imagine, a lot of response on social media, including from media covering the News Conference today. This tweet from wcbd, quoting the president from early on in his News Conference, saying that none of isils leaders are safe, and we are going to keep going after them. Meanwhile, this from the House Foreign Affairs committee, chaired by ed royce, saying that the Obama Administrations 400 million payment to iran sets a terrible precedent. The president responding to several questions about that 400 billion payment today, as he fielded questions about isis, the iranians and other National Security issues. If you missed any of todays press briefing at the pentagon with the president on combating isis, you can watch it again tonight in prime time at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, here on cspan. The president also was asked several questions about the campaign, can the president ial candidates and the president ial race he was asked about donald trump receiving security briefings, talking about both candidates and their right to receive security briefings leading up to the election. A couple of stories here, vox reporting that the race may have reached a turning point as a new group of polls shows Hillary Clinton leading donald trump nationally and in swing states. A National Fox News poll shows mrs. Clinton beating mr. Trump by 10 . In pennsylvania, considered key for donald trump to clinch the nomination, a poll shows him trailing Hillary Clinton by 11 points. Pollw hampshire, wburs has the democratic candidate up 10 points. In michigan, the republican nominee has 32 of the projected vote compared to Hillary Clintons 41 . Several republican members of congress, a handful at this point, has come out against the republican nominee for president , donald trump. One in particular has taken to the airwaves, republican congressman mike coffman of colorado, the first House Republican to use explicitly antitrump messaging and paid advertising, distancing himself not only from donald trump, but also from the democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Lets take a look at it. People ask me, what do you think about trump . Honestly, i dont care for him much, and i certainly dont trust hillary. Im a marine. For me, country comes first. My duty is always do you. So if donald trump as president , i will stand up to him, plain and simple. And if hillary wins, i will hold her accountable every step of the way. Im mike coffman, and i approve this message. My job is clear, work hard and serve you. Ost with the conventions behind us, we are continuing with the road to the white house. A couple Campaign Events coming up for you tomorrow at noon the easter eastern time. Hillary addresses the National Association of black journalists and hispanic journalists, a combined meeting, at noon on cspan and cspan radio. And coverage continues friday evening in green bay, wisconsin for Donald Trumps rally, live at 8 00 east coast time. The congressional summer break continues. Many members in their district and in their state are attending town Hall Meetings and visiting with businesses and constituents. And today is start update across america. A number of members of the house and senate are taking tho social media to promote emerging companies. Heres what one member is doing. Hardy learned about how energy inc. Converts waste to renewable energy. This one from niki tsongas, innovation is encouraged, cultivated every day here in massachusetts is third district, and places like the umass lowell ihub, startupday. A number of members of congress tweeting about it across america. Forget to join us tomorrow for cspans washington journal. Our daily call in show, 7 00 a. M. Eastern time. One of our guests tomorrow is jonathan raucham. You will talk about his cover howry in the atlantic, american politics went insane. Thats tomorrow morning. It gets underway 7 00 a. M. Eastern time live, here on cspan. Now, to Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson from yesterday. He says the National Election system may be considered as critical infrastructure, such as the Financial Sector or power grid, which could lead to federal assistance for election precincts around the country in november. This event is just over an hour. A hush has fallen over the room. Im going to get us started. There is a lot of interest in the secretary and i want to get him out on time. My apologies to the camera people for starting early. Im from the christian times monitor. Thank you for coming. Our guest is Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson. We were honored to host his predecessors. Our guest is a graduate of my house in columbia law school. He began his legal career at paul weiss where he became a partner. After five years he left to serve as United States attorney in the Southern District of new york. His subsequent career has alternated between Corporate Law and government service. President clinton appointed him to serve the general counsel of the air force of newly elected president obama may not get to be department of defense general counsel where his boss, robert gates called in the finest lawyer he has ever worked with. On october 2013, is an obama nominated him to be the fourth secretary of Homeland Security