Relative to where weve been in the past. With respect to finally the issue of police shootings, theres no doubt that the visual records that were seeing, have elevated peoples consciousness about this. But as ive said before, for africanamericans or latinos in the presmartphone age, i dont think that people were not aware of the fact that there is evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system. Its been welldocumented. And its been experienced. And even before i got to the u. S. Senate, when i was in the state senate in illinois, i passed legislation to try to reduce the incidents of racial profiling by collecting data. That was prompted by evidence that it was taking place in certain parts of the state. And the fact that were aware of it may increase anxiety right now. And hurt and anger, but its been said sunshines the best disinfectant. By seeing it, by people feeling a sense of urgency about it, by the larger American Community realizing that gosh, maybe this is a problem, and weve seen even some very conservative commentators begin to acknowledge this is something maybe we need to work on. That promises the possibility of actually getting it done. So it hurts. But if we dont diagnose this we cant fix it. Reuters. Thank you, mr. President. As you come to the end of your term, theres a lot of talk about your legacy. I know you may like to leave that to the historians. I do. But when you look back on your presidency and consider race relations, what do you hope your legacy will be . How do you think the shootings in dallas and the high profile shootings by police and other events will shape the way your president a presidency is remembered . I do want to leave legacy questions to the history books. What i can do, maybe this is a fair response to your question, is to say how ive tried to lead the country on this issue. More than anything, what i hope is that my voice has tried to get all of us as americans to understand the difficult legacy of race. To encourage people to listen to each other. To recognize that you know, the legacy of slavery and jim crow and discrimination didnt suddenly vanish with the passage of the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights act or the election of barack obama, that things have gotten better. Substantially better. But that weve still got a lot more work to do. And that as was the case with the Police Task Force that we set up that ive tried to encourage people to come up with practical concrete solutions that can reduce, if not eliminate, the problems of racial bias. And if my voice has been true and positive, then my hope would be that it may not fix everything right away. But it surfaces problems, it frames them, allows us to wrestle with these issues. And try to come up with Practical Solutions and that that perspective may lead to continued improvement so that not just malia and sasha, but their children can experience a country that is more just. And more united and more equal. And thats not going to happen right away. And thats okay. You know, we plant seeds. And somebody else maybe sits under the shade of the tree that we planted. And id like to think that as best as i could, i have been true in speaking about these issues. Justin singh. Throughout the summit e. U. Leaders have echoed your confidence about brexit happening in an orderly way. They expressed the uk has to have access to an open market must continue to respect the freedom of migration for workers. Someone who has advocated for globalization and extolled immigration, what specific assurances did you get during the summit from other leaders that make you confident that currency markets are wrong and the political turmoil in britain and subsequent effort to leave the e. U. Will go smoothly. Both you and secretary kerry have used if to describe brexit. Im wondering if you see any way for the british people to put the tooth paste back in the tube on this issue. I think we have to assume that a referendum having been passed with a lot of attention, a Lengthy Campaign and relatively high participation rates is going to stick. And that the incoming government, a conservative government, is going to invoke article 50. And begin the process of negotiations. How that process unfolds, how the negotiations work, i think is going to be up to the parties involved. The main message ive had here is we are close friends, allies, commercial partners with the uk and the e. U. We will remain close friends, allies, partners continue to have strong relationships on both sides of the channel. Our primary interest is to make sure that the negotiations and this process are as orderly and as sensible as possible. Recognizing that it is in the interests of both sides to get it right. They are Major Trading partners. Thats where goods get sent. Back and forth. And its important that neither side harden positions in ways that ultimately do damage to their respective economies and ultimately to the World Economy at the time when, you know, our World Economy is still pretty wobbly in places. I want to make a further point im not sure its accurate to say i am a huge booster of globalization. What is accurate to say is that i believe the process of globalization is here to stay. As a consequence of technology and cargo containerships and Global Supply chains. And conceivably we could run back the tape to 50 years ago and see whether we could rearrange some of that process, but its happening. Its here. And we see it every day in our lives. Everybody who has a smartphone in their pocket is seeing it. Hi my argument has been there are bfr benefits to be gained so long as we recognize thath integration there is the danger of increased inequality. Of workers having less leverage and capital having more leverage. That it threatens to leave people behind. And if we dont take steps to make sure everybody can participate in that global integration, making sure that wages are high enough, making sure that we rebuild the social compact so that pensions and healthcare are taken care of. Making sure that communities are not completely abandoned when a factory leaves. And theres an economic plan for transition. If we do not do that effectively, then theres going to be a backlash. With respect to immigration, it is americas experience that immigration has been by far a net plus for our economic growth. Our culture. Our way of life. Now, in america, thats by necessity. Because unless youre a native american everybody came from someplace else. Europe may not have as many of those traditions. One of the huge macroeconomic advantages that america has is were still a relatively young country, our birth rate is not dropping off like europe or russia or chinas or japans. Thats as a consequence of immigration, its economics 101. If youve got a younger population your growth rate is going to be higher. Immigrants are strivers and they work hard. And theyre looking to build a better life, otherwise they wouldnt move from where they were. Thats been part of our culture and tradition and society. Huge influxes of the sort weve seen in europe thats always going to be a shock to the system. And i think it is entirely appropriate for europe, even as generous as it has been, and i think that chancellor merkel deserves enormous credit and other european lead rers who ha taken in, you know, these migrant populations deserve enormous credit. Thats hard. Its a strain on the budget. Its a strain on politics, a strain on culture. Its legitimate for them to say, look, weve got to slow this thing down. Weve got to manage it properly. Thats why were setting up a un conference of refugees on the marke margins of the United Nations general assembly. A few countries shouldnt be shouldering the burden for 60 million refugees. Weve got to come up with strategies to allow people in countries that are very poor or are in the middle of a war zone enjoy some peace and prosperity. Otherwise the world has shrank and theyre going to want to move. Thats not going away anytime soon. Its one more reason why given the fact of global integration, we have to think globally. More broadly. Because our security interests,ing our economies, are all going to depend on the institutional arrangements that we have across boundaries. And nato is an example of really enduring Multilateral Institution that helped us get through some very difficult times. Even the best of institutions have to be adopted adapted to new circumstances. Thats true for organizations like nato, its true for organizes like the un, its true for organizations like the e. U. Its true for all the architecture that has helped the world and our countries improve their standard of living and reduce overall violence between states substantially over the last several decades. Mark lander. Thank you, very much, mr. President. Youve been scrupulous about saying you would not comment on the Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clintons email. That investigation is now closed and i hope that i could ask you about some of the comments that fbi director comey made a few days ago. As you know you may mark, but i want you to make sure youre not wasting your question. Im going to continue to be scrupulous about not commenting on it. Because i think director comey could not have been more exhaustive. My understanding is not only did he make a full presentation, while we were over here or at least flying, he was presenting to congress for hours on end but i just want to give you a chance just in case you didnt want to burn your question. I actually have a backup. There you go. Maybe i could cut to the chase and ask you about a broader question. Lets leave aside mrs. Clinton at the moment. He did talk about how he feared there was a broader cultural issue in the state department toward the handling of classified information that troubled him. I wonder whether you, since you rely on the state department to conduct your foreign policy, whether that concerns you as well . If i may could i ask the other question . Because i think it might get an interesting response. You last may passed a milestone in that you were president longer when the country was at war than your predecessor george w. Bush. If you complete your presidency as you will, with troops in afghanistan, syria and iraq you will be the only two term president in American History to have served with a country at war. I wonder, given the way that you ran for office and the aspirations you brought into office how you feel about that reality. And then a second follow up on that, should the American People simply resign themselves to living in a state of perpetual war, even if that war is not the allout war we think of in the 20th century. That was an interesting question. First of all, with respect to the state department, i am concerned. And the challenge that weve got is primarily driven by the changing nature of how information flows. The advent of email and texts and smartphones is just generating enormous amount of sda data. It is hugely convenient. In realtime im getting information that some of my predecessors might not have gotten for weeks. What it also is doing is creating this massive influx of information on a daily basis, putting enormous pressure on the department to sort through it, classify it properly, figure out what are the various points of entry because of the cyber attack risks that these systems have. Knowing that our adversaries are constantly trying to hack into these various systems. If you overclassify, then all the advantages of this new information suddenly go away because its taking too long to process. Weve been trying to think about this in a smart way. And i think secretary kerrys got a range of initiatives to try to get our arms around this. It reflects a larger problem in government. We recently, for example i just recently signed a bill about foia requests, freedom of information act requests that build on a number of reforms that weve put in place. Were processing more freedom of information act requests and doing so faster than ever before. The volume of requests has sky rocketed. The amount of information that answers the request has multiplied exponentially. Across government youre seeing this problem. And its a problem in terms of domestic affairs. It becomes an even bigger problem when youre talking about National Security issues. Its something were going to have to take care of. With respect to reflections on war. When i came into office we had 180,000 troops in iraq and afghanistan. Today, we have a fraction of that. They are not involved in active combat situations, but are involved in train advise and assist situations. Other than the direct attacks that we launch against isil in conjunction with iraq government and syrian government. In some ways i think youd recognize in some way our operations today in iraq and afghanistan are ftdsly different than the wars we were engaged in when i came into office. I think youre making an important point which is when were dealing with nonstate actors, and those nonstate actors are located in countries with limited capacity, our ultimate goal is to partner with those countries so they can secure their borders and themselves eliminate these terrorist threats. But as weve seen in afghanistan, for example, that takes some time. The afghans are fighting. Ment they are much more capable now than they were when i came into office. But they still need support. Its tough territory and a really poor country. With really low literacy rates. And not much experience in things that we take for granted like logistics. We have an option of going in, taking out al qaeda, pulling out potentially then seeing a country crumble under the strains of continued terrorist activity or insurgency and going back in. Or we can try to maintain a limited partnership that allows them to continue to build their capacity over time. And selectively take our own actions against those organizations that we know are trying to attack us or our allies. Because theyre nonstate actors, its very hard for us ever to get the satisfaction of mcarthur and the emperor meeting and a war officially being over. Aqi was defeated in the sense we were able to execute a transition to a democratically elected Iraqi Government. But for all of our efforts and incredible courage and bravery and sacrifice of our troops, the political structure there was still uneven. You had continued sunni resentiments. Continued debathification and as a consequence those vestiges of aqi were able to reconstitute themselves move into syria as syria began to engage in civil war. Rebuild and then come back in. Some have argued that this is why we should have never pulled out of iraq, or at least left some larger presence there. Of course, the problem was that we didnt have an Iraqi Government that wanted them, unlike afghanistan where weve been invited. Its difficult for me as commander in chief to put our troops in a precarious situation where theyre not protected. I think what weve been trying to do, what ive been trying to do is to create an architecture, a structure its not there yet that emphasizes partnerships with countries. Emphasizes building up fragile states, resolving internal conflicts wherever we can. Trying to do as much as we can through our local partners, preserving the possibility, the necessity to take strikes ourselves against organizations or individuals that we know are trying to kill americans or belgians or french or germans. Combine that with much more effective intelligence gathering. It becomes more of a hybrid approach to National Security. That i do think is probably going to be something that we have to continue to grapple with for years to come. The good news is that there are fewer wars between states than ever before. And almost no wars between great powers. And thats a great legacy of leaders in the United States, in europe and asia after the cold war after the end of world war ii that built this international architecture. Thats worked and we should be proud of that and preserve it. But this different kind of low grade threat, one thats not an existential threat, but can do real damage and real harm to our society and creates the kind of fear that can cause division and, you know, political reactions. You know, we have to do that better. We have to continually refine it. For example, the reason i put out our announcement about the civilian casualties resulting from drone attacks. Understanding there are nose who dispute the numbers. What im trying to do is to institutionalize a system where we begin to hold ourselves accountable for this different kind of National Security threat and these different kinds of operations its imperfect still. But i think we can get there and what i can say honestly is whether were talking about how the nsa operates or drone strikes operate or how were partnering with other countries or my efforts to close guantanamo, by the end of my presidency, or banning torture, by the end of my presidency i feel confident that these efforts will be on a firmer legal footing, more consistent with International Law and norms. More reflective of our values and our ethics. Were going to have more work to do. Its not perfect. We have to wrestle with these issues all the time. As commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world, you know, i spend a lot of time brooding over these issues. And im not satisfied that weve got it perfect yet. I can say honestly its better than it was when i came into office. Thank you very much, everybody, thank you, poland. [ applause ] inpresident of the United States rapping up a one hour News Conference in warsaw. Much of it focusing in on whats going on here in the United States, especially the aftermath of that massacre of Police Officers in dallas, texas. The president made a specific point of suggesting america is not as divided racially today as some have suggested and he went in depth on that specific issue. I want to bring in our White House CorrespondentMichelle Kosinski who is traveling with the president in warsaw right now. Michelle, the president went through a whole lot of issues, but the focus clearly cutting short his decisi