Transcripts For CSPAN Newsmakers 20161120

Could not be more proud of the progress weve made together. The work is never done, and given the prosperity and not onlywe seek for the United States but our allies and partners, i continue to believe that america will have a creatinge to play in and sustaining a strong, enduring leadership role in the asiapacific. With that, let me take some questions. I will start with darlene of ap. Thank you, mr. President. You have been telling World Leaders this week that president elect trump is unlikely to govern any divisive way he campaigned. But im wondering how can you be so certain of that given the first group of people he has chosen for Top National Security and Law Enforcement positions hold the same views that he espoused as a candidate. On your meeting earlier today with president putin, did you discuss with him russias alleged meddling in the u. S. Elections . Are you concerned that the involvement we saw in this Years Campaign will be the new normal Going Forward in future u. S. Elections . Have obama well, what i said to World Leaders is the same thing ive said a number of press conferences, which is, the president elect now has to put together a team and put forward specifics about how he intends to govern. He hasnt had a full opportunity to do that yet, and so people should take a waitandsee n how much his policy proposals once in the white house, once he is sworn in, match up with some of the rhetoric of his campaign. My simple point is that you cant assume that the language of campaigning matches up with the specifics of governing legislation, regulations, and foreign policy. I cant be sure of anything. I think like everyone else, we will have to wait and see. Before, onceaid you are in the oval office, once you begin interacting with world theers, once you see complexities of the issues, that has a way of shaping your thinking and in some cases becauseg your thinking you recognize this solemn responsibility not only to the American People, but the solemn responsibility that america has, the largest, most powerful country in the world. Thei cant guarantee that president elect wont pursue some of the positions he has taken. What i can guarantee is that reality will force him to adjust how he approaches many of these issues. Thats just the way this office works. And i said before, if these issues were easy, if ensuring prosperity, jobs, security, good Foreign Relations with other countries, if all that was simple, then it would have been done by every previous president. Im a pretty good president ial historian. Ive looked at my 43 predecessors. It seems that for all of them, even the best ones, that you end up confronting realities you did not anticipate. I think the same will happen here, and thats a good thing. That is an important thing. With respect to president putin, i didnt have a meeting. We talked reflect briefly while we were in between sessions. The conversation i had with him was consistent with the conversations ive had with him over the last previous months, indicating we are still deeply concerned about the bloodshed and chaos that is being sown by preston bombing attacks by assad and the Russian Military against populations in aleppo, and the need for us to arrive first at some sort of humanitarian ceasefire and begin moving towards a political transition of some sort. I talked to him about ukraine. To instruct his negotiators to work with ourselves, with france, with germany, with ukraine to see if we could get that done before my term is up. Usual, it was a candid and courteous meeting, but very clear about the strong governance as we have differences we have on policy. The issues in the election did not, because thats behind us, and i was focused in this brief discussion on moving forward. I already made clear to him our concerns around Cyber Attacks specific, as well as concerns we had surrounding the dnc hack. Thent think this will be norm, but as ive said before, the concern i have has less to do with any particular misinformation or propaganda that is being put out by any particular party, and a greater generalabout the misinformation from all kinds of sources, both domestic, foreign, that make itia, very difficult for voters to fi gure out whats true and whats not. And let me put it this way, i strong, ac have a press, and responsible and we have a strong, civic culture and an engaged then various attempts to meddle in our elections wont mean much. It generally weve got elections and are focused on issues are full of fake news and false information and distractions, issue is not going to be whats happening from the will be, whatssue are we doing to ourselves from the inside. The good news is, that is something we have control over. Garner harris . Mr. President , thank you for holding this press conference. Willif you had hotels, real es, and other businesses around the world prior to becoming president , would you have thought it appropriate to sell them off and put the cash proceeds in a blind trust or is it ok for the president of the United States to be personally vulnerable to the policy decisions of the foreign leaders he meets and in the foreignpolicy decisions he makes as president . And also, just briefly, what is your complaint about how the nsa and Cyber Command have done their job, and are you considering firing Admiral Mike Rogers . Pres. Obama that was a rhetorical question, that first one. [laughter] rather than comment on hypotheticals let me say specifically what i did. Wereusly, my assets significantly smaller than some other president s, or president elects, but we made a decision to liquidate assets aboutight raise questions how it would influence policy. Basically had our accountant put all of our money in treasury bills. The yields have not been massive over the course of the last 8 years. Just because it simplified my life. I did not have to worry about the complexities of whether a decision i made might even inadvertently benefit me. That is consistent with the broader approach we have taken throughout my administration, to not just meet the letter of the law, but to go well beyond the letter to the. Pirit of the law not just for me, but for the people in the white house and in positions, we have established a whole set of rules, norms, playbooks that just keep us far away from the line. Early on in the administration there would be questions about person go to this conference, or what should they do about this gift that was provided . Was maybe our first general counsel who is responsible for setting up our guidelines and rules inside the white house that said, if it sounds like it would be fun, then you cant do it. Thats a general test. If it sounds like something you would enjoy or appreciate, no go. And the consequence i will knock on some wood here because we have two months left im proud of the fact that over 8 years, we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations. When i met with the president elect, i suggested to him that having a strong white House Counsel that could provide wouldguideposts and rules benefit him and benefit his team because it would eliminate a lot of ambiguity. I think it would be up to him to make determinations about how he wants to approach it. I know what works for us, and it served the American People well. Because i had made a promise to the American People that i would not fall into some of the familiar habits of washington, that i wanted a new kind of politics, this was one indicator, and at the end of 8 years i can say the American People, i delivered on that commitment. With respect to cyber, the nsa, admiral rodgers is a terrific patriot and has served this country well in a number of positions. I generally dont comment on personal matters here. I can say generally that we have spent a lot of time over the last several years looking at organize our Cyber Efforts to keep pace with how rapidly the environment is changing. Criticalgly, our infrastructure, government data, Financial Systems are vulnerable tack, and both state and nonstate actors are Getting Better and better at it and it is becoming more and more rampant, and it is inevitable that we will have to modernize and update not just the tools we andto defend those assets the American People, but also how we organize them. It is true that we are exploring a range of options in terms of how we organize the mission the currently exists. That currently exists. Good evening. Thank you, mr. President. Earlier this year former president george w. Bush reportedly said he warned he would be the last republican president. Now republicans have won back the white house, controlled house and senate, 2 3 of state legislatures, 34 governorships, and there are charges of a shallow democratic and behind you. Are you worried that you could be the last democratic president for a while . Speaking of your predecessor, he made sure to offer essentially no public racism of you during your time in office. Criticism of you during your time in office. Criticism ofhold donald trump, even if he attempts to dismantle much of what your cop lashed . Accomplished . Pres. Obama criticism of donald im not worried about being the last them a credit president , not even for a while. I say that not being cute. The democratic nominee won the popular vote, and this is an extremely competitive race and i would expect the future races will be competitive as well. I certainly think its true that politics of america right now thea little up for grabs, sum of the old alignments within both parties, democrat and republican, are being reshaped. Although the results of this election involves some of the andifics of the candidates arent going to be duplicated in every subsequent election, democrats do have to do some thinking about how did we make sure that the message we have is andived effectively, results in winning elections . This is something i have been wrestling with throughout my presidency. When you look at the proposals i put forward, they garner majority support. The majority believes in raising the minimum wage. The majority believes in common sense gun safety rules. The majority believes in investing to rebuild our infrastructure and create jobs. He majority believes in making sure that people arent going bankrupt when they get sick. The majority agrees with all the individual components of obamacare. I think there was a gallup poll this week, subsequent to the election, that show that the general public has a more favorable view of democrats and republicans. Andand as i noted, my Approval Ratings are quite high. And yet, what has been true during the course of my 8 years is that that does not always translate. Too often, it hasnt translated into working majorities, either at the state level or the federal level. Now, some of that is just the nature of our system. And, geography. Long as wyoming gets the same number of senators as california, theres going to be some tilt towards republicans when it comes to congressional races. The fact that a lot of democratic voters are bunched up in big cities, and a lot of Republican Voters are spread out , gives him anhy advantage when it comes to congressional races. Some of it is just political bad ask, for example, i came in an economy in free fall and the we took the right steps to save the economyin my Midterm Election 2010 people could not yet see the recovery, and the president s party got punished. Of not control of a lot just congressional seats, but gubernatorial seats and state legislative seats. That happened to be the year that the census was done and you start doing redistricting and those republicans took advantage of political gerrymandering to lock in the majorities, even though in numerous subsequent ofelections democrats have actually cast more votes, or more votes have been cast for Democratic Congressional candidates than republicans. Yet you and a having large republican majorities. There are structural problems have to deal with. You cant make excuses about the rules. Thats the deal, and weve got to do better. Doing better involves us working at the grassroots, not ceding territory, going out into areas where right now we may not stand a chance of actually winning, but we are building up a cadre of young talent, making ar guments, persuading. Talking about the things that matter to ordinary people date today and trying to avoid some of the constant distractions that fill up andles twitter accounts, if we do that, in confident we will be back on track. I dont think there has to be a complete overhaul. I think there does have to be smarterrganization, a message, and one message i do ave for democrats is that strategy that is microtargeting articular discrete groups in Democratic Coalition sometimes will win the elections but its not going to win you the broad mandate you need. The more we can talk about what we have in common as a nation, se tot ofto a broad values, a vision that speaks to everybody and not just one group at a time, the better off we are going to be. Best part of the reason why i was able to get thats part of the reason i was able to get elected twice, i try to make sure that not only in proposals, but also in message, i was speaking to everybody. You had a second part to your question . [inaudible] look, i said before, president bush could not have been more gracious to me when i came inlot. The nextion is to for two months just finished my job, to take after that, michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, writing, do some thinking. So, i want to be respectful of the office and give the president elect an opportunity platform andd his without somebody topping off in every instance. As an american citizen who cares ifply about our country, there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle, but go to core questions about and if is and ideals, think its necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then i will examine it when it comes. But, what i do know is that i have to take michelle on vacation. [laughter] juliet alpern . Given what you just said about the strong differences that you and president pugin have on the future of syria and the conflict there, can you talk about how you see that unfolding, both at the end of your tenure and at the beginning of donald trumps, and if your concerns that even if we eliminate the Islamic State and Eastern Syria and westernthe cok about how you see that iraq, we may be allowing a permanent al qaeda safe haven around aleppo . You can you say to what extent the United States has fulfilled its responsibility to protect in that instance . In terms of finishing your job, last week you have exercised your executive authority on multiple fronts, finalizing oil and gas leasing rules on public lands as well as banninga fiveyear plan chilling in the arctic and atlantic great many republicans say you should hold off finalizing anymore rules as you are headed out the door because they oppose many of them and will seek to overturn them when they control both executive and legislative branches next year. What do you say to that suggestion . Pres. Obama on the second these are the same republicans who suggested that they didnt need to confirm a Supreme Court justice when i was nine months out, until the next election. I think the general approach probably twohat days after merrill my reelection, i should stop until the next election. I dont think thats what the constitution calls for. The regulations that we have issued our ones we have been working on for a very long time. They have been subject to exte nsive Public Notice and comment and everybody has known they have been out there. These are things we have been surprising people with. Arent things we have been surprising people with. Theyre part of my task of finishing my work. I recognize that when the new administration comes in, and a new Congress Comes in, that they will have the option of trying to undo some of those rules and regulations we are put in place. Thats their prerogative, thats part of how democracy works. I feel very strongly that these are the right things to do and im going to make sure i do them. Thinkespect to syria, i even on this trip in a previous , i am noterence optimistic about the shortterm prospects in syria. Iran made aand acision to back assad in andal air campaign, essentially a pacification of aleppo regardless of the potential for civilian casualties, children being killed or wounded, schools or hospitals being destroyed, then it was very hard to see a way in which even a ttrained and committed moderate opposition his ground for long periods of time. And, the issue that obviously ive wrestled with for the last five years, how involved should whethered states be, our legal constraints in such involvement, what are our Strategic Interests . Those havent changed. I continue to believe that we basis forve a legal military intervention there, that it would have been a strategic mistake given the work we still had to do in iraq, counterisil campaign, ongoing thattions in afghanistan, we have worked tirelessly to arrive at political transition of some sort, and they could alleviate the suffering and provide humanitarian access. And, we will continue to do that until the lasty day that man john kerry and others have the authority to speak for the United States government. It takes two or in this case, four or six or eight to tango. We are just not getting help or interest from those parties supporting assad, and assad as a consequence has been emboldened. But this is a man who has destroying his country, turning it to rubble, populationits scattered or killed was worth it for him to cling to power. Power, when he had the option to peacefully engage in a transition i couldve kept the country intact. That couldve kept the country intact. Thats his mentality. Its not a mentality we support. Thats a mentality that the russians and iranians have been willing to support. At this stage, we are going to a change in how all parties think about this in order for us to end the situation there. Our ability to go after isil can be sustained. There is doubt there will continue to be extremist forces in and around syria because it still will be in chaos for quite some time. There will be elements in iraq, just as there have been elements in afghanistan even after the taliban was swept out, even after we killed bin laden. I think we can effectively reduce the risk, and take their