Going to cdc. Gov. Meantime, Congress Needs to do its job. Fighting zika costs money. Research into new vaccines and by the way nih Just Announced the first Clinical Trials in humans. That costs money, and thats why my Administration Proposed an urgent request for more funding back in february. Not only did the Republicanled Congress not pass our request, they worked to cut it, and then they left for summer recess without passing any new funds for the fight against zika. Meanwhile, our experts at the nih and cdc, the folks on the front lines, have been doing their best in making due by moving funds from other areas, but now the money that we need to fight zika is rapidly running out. The situation is getting critical. For instance, without sufficient funding nih critical trials Clinical Trials and the possibilities of a vaccine which is well within reach could be delayed, so this is not the time for politics. More than 40 u. S. Service members have now contracted zika overseas and in 50 u. S. States we know of more than 1,800 cases of zika connected to tramp to infected areas, and that includes nearly 500 pregnant women. Zika is now present in almost every part of puerto rico and now we have the first local transmission in florida, and there will certainly be more. And meanwhile congress is on a summer recess. A lot of folks talk about protecting americans from threats. Well, zika is a serious threat to americans, especially babies. Right now. So once again i want to urge the American People to call their members of congress and tell them to do their job. Deal with this threat, help protect the American People from zika. With that im going to take some questions. Im going to start with someone who just assumed the second most powerful office in the land, jeff mason, the new Correspondents Association president , also from reuters. Hardly powerful and happy birthday. Thank you. As the Islamic State loses territory you and other officials have said its becoming a more traditional terrorist group. Are you satisfied that the United States and its allies have shifted strategies sufficiently to address that change . And secondly, given your comments this week about Donald Trumps volatility and lack of fitness to be president , are you concerned that he will be receiving security briefings about isis and the other Sensitive NationalSecurity Issues . Im never satisfied with our response because if youre satisfied that means the problem is solved and its not, so we just spent a couple of hours meeting with my top National Security folks to look at what more can be done. It is absolutely necessary for us to defeat isil in iraq and syria. It is not sufficient, but it is necessary because so long as they have those bases, they can use their propaganda to suggest that somehow theres still some calaphate being born, and that can insinuate itself then in the minds of folks who may be willing to travel there or carry out terrorist attacks. Its also destabilizing for countries in the region at a time when the region is already unstable, so, you know, i am pleased with the progress that weve made on the ground in iraq and syria. Were far from freeing mosul and raqqah, and what weve hone is when it comes to conventional fights, isil can be beaten with partners on the ground, so long as they have got the support from Coalition Forces that weve been providing. In the meantime though, youre seeing isil carry out external terrorist acts, and they have learned something, they have adopted from al qaeda, which at a much more centralized operation and tried to plan very elaborate attacks, and what isil has figured out is that if they can convince a handful of people or even one person to carry out an attack on a subway or at a parade or, you know, some other public venue and kill scores of people, as opposed to thousds of people, it still creates the kinds of fear and concern that elevates their profile. So in some ways rooting out these networks for smaller, less complicated attacks is tougher because it doesnt require as many resources on their part or preparation but it does mean that weve got to do even more to generate the intelligence and to work with our partners in order to degrade those networks, and the fact is that those networks will probably sustain themselves even after isil is defeated in raqqah and mosul, but what weve learned from our efforts to defeat al qaeda is that if we stay on it, our intelligence gets better, and we adapt as well, and eventually we will dismantle these networks also. This is part of the reason why, however, it is so important for us 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, and we have to understand that as painful and as tragic as these attacks are, that we are going to keep on grinding away, preventing them wherever we can using a whole government effort to knock down their propaganda, to disrupt their networks, to take their key operatives off the battlefield and that eventually we will we will win, but if we 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, you know, those kinds of strategies can end up backfiring because in order for us to ultimately win this fight we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations between the west and islam. That plays exactly into the hands of isil and the perversions the perverse interpretations of islam that they are putting forward. As far as mr. Trump, we are going to go by the law which is that both tradition and the law that if somebody is the nominee, the republican 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, and im not going to go into details of the nature of the security briefings that both candidates receive. What i will say is that they have been told these are classified briefings, and if they want to be president they have got to start acting like president and that means being able to receive these briefings and not not spread them around. Are you worried about that . Well, i think ive said enough on that. Mary bruce. Thank you, mr. President. What is your response to critics who say the 400 million in cash that you sent to iran was a ransom payment . Was it really simply a pure coincidence that a sum of a payment that was held up for almost four decades was suddenly sent at the exact same time that the american prisoners were released, and can you assure the American People that none of that money went to support terrorism . Okay. Its been interesting to watch this story surface. Some of you may recall we announced these payments in january. Many months ago. There wasnt a secret. We announced them, to all of you. Josh did a briefing on them. This wasnt some nefarious deal, and at the time we explained that iran had pressed a claim before an International Tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had frozen that as a consequence of it working through the International Tribunal it was the assessment of our lawyers that we were now at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars. It was their advice and suggestion that we settle, and thats what these payments represent. And it wasnt a secret. We were completely open with everybody about it, and its interesting to me how suddenly this became a story again. Thats point number one. Point number two. We do not pay ransom for hostages. Weve got a number of americans being held all around the world, and i meet with their families, and it is heartbreaking, and and we have stood up an entire section of interagency experts who devote all 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, and the notion that we would somehow start now in thist to the world, even as were looking into the faces of other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage and say to them that we dont pay ransom defies logic. So thats point number two. We do not pay ransom. We didnt here and we dont and we wont in the future, precisely because if we did, then we would start encouraging americans to be targeted, much in the same way that countries who do pay ransom end up having a lot more of their citizens being taken by various groups. Point number three is that the timing of this was in fact dictated by the fact that 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 that it was so much a coincidence but we were able to have a discussion. John kerry would meet with their foreign minister meaning that our ability to clear accounts on a number of issues at the same time converged, and it was important for us to take advantage of that opportunity, both to deal with this litigation risk that had been raised. It was important for us to make sure that we finished the job on the Iran Nuclear Deal and since we were in a conversation with them it was important for us to be able to push them hard and getting these americans out. And let me make a final point on this. Its now been well over a year since the agreement with iran to stop its Nuclear Program was signed. And by all accounts it has worked exactly the way we said it was going to work. You will recall that there were all these Horror Stories about how iran was going to cheat and this wasnt going to work and iran was going to get 150 billion to finance terrorism and all these kinds of scenarios and none of them have come to pass. And its not just the assessment of our intelligence community. Its the assessment of the Israeli Military and intelligence community, the country that was most opposed to this deal that acknowledges this has been a gamechanger and that iran has abided by the deal and that they no longer have the sort of shortterm breakout capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. So what im interested in, if theres some news to be made, why not have some of these folks who were predicting disaster say, you know what, this thing actually worked. Now, that would be a shock. That would be impressive. If some of these folks who had said the sky is falling, suddenly said, you know what, we were wrong and we are glad that iran no longer has the capacity to break out in short term and develop a nuclear weapon. But, of course, that wasnt going to happen. Instead, what we have is the manufacturing of outrage on a story that we disclosed in january, and the only bit of news that is relevant on this is the fact that we paid 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 couldnt send them a check and 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 feels like a spy novel or, you know, some crime novel because cash was exchanged. The reason cash was exchanged is because we dont have a banking relationship with iran which is precisely part. 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 remember two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, was peoples top fear and priority, that we make sure that iran doesnt have breakout nuclear capacity, they dont. This worked. Josh, josh letterman. Thank you, mr. President. Repeatedly now donald trump has said that this election will be rigged against him, challenging really that the Core Foundation of our democratic system. Can you promise the American People that this election will be conducted in a fair way, and are you worried that comments like his could erode the publics faith in the outcome of the election, and if he does win, given that youve just declared him unfit what, will you say to the American People . Well, at the end of the day its the American Peoples decision. I have one vote. I have the same vote you do. I have the same vote that all the voters who are eligible all across the country have. Ive offered my opinion, but ultimately its the American Peoples decision to make collectively, and and if somebody wins the election and they are president , then my constitutional responsibility is to peacefully transfer power to that individual and do everything i can to help them succeed. It is i dont even 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. States and cities and communities all across the country, they are the ones who set up the voting systems and the voting booths, and if mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a Conspiracy Theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places like texas where typically its not democrats who are in charge of voting booths, thats ridiculous. That doesnt make any sense, and i dont think anybody would take that seriously. We do take seriously, as we always do, our responsibilities to monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process if we see signs that a voting ma shown or system is vulnerable to hacking, then we inform 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 providing 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, but this will be an election like every other election and, you know, im i think all of us at some points in our lives have played sports or maybe just played in a schoolyard or a sandbox and sometimes folks when they lose somehow complain they got cheated but ive never heard someone being cheated before the game was over or before the score is even at allied so my suggestion would be go out there and try to win the election. If mr. Trump is up 10 or 15 points on election day and ends up lose, then, you know, maybe he can raise some questions. That doesnt seem to be the case at the moment. Barbara starr. Thank you, mr. President. On the question of isis expansion that youve been talking about, because you see them expanding around the world, because you see them trying to inspire attacks, what is your current level of concern about the homeland . You talked about the protection measures, but what is your assessment about the possibility, your own intelligence advisers, suggest its possible, about the direct isis threat to americans, and if i may follow up somewhat along the same lines, what is your assessment today as you stand here about whether donald trump can be trusted with Americas Nuclear weapons . You know, on your second question, and ill sort of address this to any additional trump questions, i would ask all of you to just make your own judgment. Ive 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. It suggests, sir, that youre not confident. As i recall i just answered a question about this a couple of days ago and i thought i made myself pretty clear and i dont want to keep repeating it 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 and i think you will just hear any further questions that are directed to this subject i think youll hear pretty much variations on the same theme. What i can say this is serious business, and the person who is in the oval office and who our secretary of defense and our joint chiefs of staff and our outstanding men and women in uniform report to, they are counting on somebody who has the 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 into november. In terms of the threat that isil poses to the homeland, i think it is serious. We take it seriously. And as i said earlier precisely because they are less concerned about big spectacular 9 11style attacks, because they have seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles or in the case of nice, france, a truck, the possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real, and thats why our intelligence and law enforcement. And military officials are working around the clock to try to anticipate potential attacks, to obtain the threads of people who might be vulnerable to brainwashing by isil. We are constrained here in the United States to carry out this work in a way thats consistent with our laws and presumptions of innocence, and the fact that we prevent a lot of these attacks as effectively as we do without a lot of fanfare and abiding by our law is a testament to the incredible work that these folks are doing. They work really hard at it, but it is always a risk, and i some of you may have read the article in the New York Times today, i guess it came out last night online, about this individual in germany who had confessed and given himself up and then explained his his knowl