And my advice, as i said, to the president elect when we had our discussions was that campaigning is different from governing. I think he recognizes that. I think hes sincere in wanting to be a successful president and moving this country forward, and i dont think any president ever comes in saying to himself, i want to figure out how to me people angry or alienate half the country. I think hes going to try as best he can to make sure that he delivers, not only for the people who voted for him, but for the people at large. And the good thing is there are going to be elections coming up, so there is a builtin incentive to try and do that. But its only been six days. And i think it will be important for him to have the room, to staff up, to figure out what his priorities are, to be able to distinguish between what he was campaigning on and what is practical, what he can actually achieve. There are certain things that make for good sound bites but dont always translate into good policy. And thats something that he and his team, i think, will wrestle with in the same way that every president wrestles with. I did say to him, as ive said publicly, that because of the nature of the campaigns and the bitterness and ferocity of the campaigns that its really important to try to send some signals of unity. And to reach out to minority groups or women or others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign. And i think thats something that he will want to do, but this is all happening real fast. Hes got commitments to supporters who helped get him here, and hes going to have to balance those. Over the next coming months and years, my hope is that those impulses ultimately went out. But its a little too early to start making judgments on that. Have your obligations changed after meeting with him . I think that he successfully mobilized a big chunk of the country to vote for him, and hes going to win. He has won. Hes going to be the next president. And regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office, this office has a way of waking you up. And those aspects of his positions or predispositions that dont match up with reality, he will. Reality has a way of asserting itself. And some of his gifts that obviously allowed him to execute one of the biggest political upsets in history, those are ones that hopefully he will put to good use on behalf of all the American People. Scott horsley. Thank you, mr. President. Youre off to europe. When you spoke at the u. N. , you talked about the immigration and building walls. What choice do you think the American People made last week, and is there still a chance for what you call the coarse direction some pole ma people made. I think the American People recognize that the world has shru shrunk, that its interconnected, that youre not going to put that genie back in the bottle. The American People recognize that their careers or their kids careers are going to have to be more dynamic. This they might not be working in the single place for is on 0 years why. They might have to retool or retrain. They want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is physical you look at surveys americans attitudes on trade, the majority of the american remember, Americans Still enjoy trade. But theyre concerned before wlr fair. Weve got the same access as what they might have relating to us. I made an argument, thus far unsuccessful unsuccessfully, that the trae ga gark. We have compiled what we think would be good for american businesses and american practices. But thaet a big. Part of what i think this election reflected is peopling sfp people stopping circles of immigration, not creating new trade deals that may be unfair. I think those were themes that played a prominent role in the campaign. As we now shift to government, my argument is that we do need to make sure we have an orderly, lawful immigration process, but that if it is orderly and lawful, immigration is good for our economy. It keeps this country young, it keeps it dynamic. We have entrepreneurs and thats part of the reason why america historically has been successful. Its part of the reason why our economy is stronger and better positioned than most of our other competitors is because we have a younger population thats more dynamic when it comes to trade. I think when youre governing, it will become increasingly apparent that if you were to just eliminate trade deals with mexico, for example, well, youve got a Global Supply chain. The parts that are allowing auto plants that were about to shut down to now employ double shifts is because theyre bringing in some of those parts to assemble out of mexico. And so its not as simple as it might have seemed. The key for us when i say us, i mean americans, but typically progressives is to say your concerns are real, your anxieties are real, heres how we fix them. Higher minimum wage. Stronger Worker Protection so workers have more leverage to get a bigger piece of the pie. Stronger financial regulations, not weaker ones. Yes to trade but trade that ensures that these other countries that trade with us arent engaging in child labor, for example. Being attentive to inequality and not tone deaf to it, but offering prescriptions that are actually going to help folks in communities thavt have been forgotten. Thats going to be our most important strategy, and i think we can successfully do that. People will still be looking to the United States. Our example will still carry great weight. And it continues to be my strong belief that the way were going to make people feel a part of this Strong Economy is not by shutting ourselves off to each other, even if we could, but rather by working together more effectively than we have in the past. What are some of the harsh words you had about mr. Trump calling him temperamentally unfit. Did anything surprise you when you met with president elect trump in your office . And does anything concern you about a Trump Presidency . Well, we had a very cordial conversation. That didnt surprise me to some degree, because i think he is obviously a gregarious person. Hes somebody who, i think, likes to mix it up and to have a big risk debate. Whats clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties, but also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive. And i said so to him, because i think that to the extent that there were a lot of folks who missed the trump phenomenona, that connection that he was able to make with his supporters, that was impervious to what might have sunk another candidate. I also hope he is coming to this office with fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions than other president s might be running with. I dont think he is idealogical. I think ultimately he is pragmatic in that way. And that can serve him well as long as hes got good people around him and he has a clear sense of direction. Do i have concerns . Absolutely. Of course, i have concerns. He and i differ on a whole bunch of issues. But the federal government and our democracy is not a speedboat, its an ocean liner. As i discovered when i came into office. It took a lot of really hard work for us to make significant policy changes, even in our first two years when we had larger majorities than mr. Trump will enjoy when he comes into office. And one of the things i advised him to do was to make sure that before he commits to certain courses of action, hes really dug in and thought through how various issues play themselves out. Ill use an obvious example where we have a difference, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming year. And thats the Affordable Care act. Obviously this has been the holy grail for republicans over the last six or seven years, was we have to kill obamacare. Now, that has been taken as an article of fate. But this is terrible, it doesnt work, and we have to undo it. But now that republicans are in charge, they have to take a look and say, lets see. We have 20 Million People who have Health Insurance that didnt have it before. Health care costs generally have gone up at a significantly slower rate since obamacare was passed than they did before, which has saved the federal treasury hundreds of billions of dollars. People who have Health Insurance are benefiting in all sorts of ways they may not be aware of, everything from no longer having lifetime limits on the claims that they can make to seniors getting Prescription Drug discounts under medicare, to free mammograms. Now, its one thing to characterize this thing as not working when its an abstraction. Suddenly youre going to repeal it. What happens to those 20 million who have Health Insurance . Are you going to kick them off and suddenly they dont have Health Insurance . In what ways are their lives better because of that . Are you going to repeal the provision that ensures that if you do have Health Insurance on your job and you lose your job or you change jobs or you start a Small Business that youre not discriminated against because of a predisposition . How are you going to replace it . Are you going to change policy that kids can stay on their parents Health Insurance plan until theyre 26 . How are you going to approach all these issues . Now, my view is that if they can come up with Something Better that actually works, and a year or two after theyve replaced the Affordable Care act with their own plan that 25 Million People have Health Insurance, and its cheaper and better and running smoothly, ill be the first one to say, thats great. Congratulations. If, on the other hand, whatever the proposing results in millions of people losing coverage and results in people who already have Health Insurance losing protections that were contained i the legislation, then were going to have a problem. I dont think thats unique to me, i think the American People will respond that way. So i think on a lot of issues, what youre going to see is now comes the hard part. Now is governance. We are going to be able to present to the Incoming Administration a country that is stronger, a federal government that is working better and more efficiently, a National Security apparatus that is both more effective and truer to our values. Energy policies that are resulting in not just less pollution but also more jobs. And i think the president elect is rightly expected to be judged on improving on that baseline or things get worse. If things get worse, then the American People will figure that out pretty quick. And if things get better, then more power to him. And ill be the first to congratulate him. Mr. President , you had talked specifically about his temperament. Do you still have any concerns about his temper . As i said, because athena asked the question, whatever you bring to this office, this office has a habit of magnifying and pointing out, and hopefully then you correct for it. This may seem like a silly example, but i know myself well enough to know i cant keep track of paper. I am not well organized in that way. So pretty quickly. After im getting stacks of briefing books coming in every night, i say to myself, ive got to sneak out a pro. And ive got to find some people who can help le keep track. I think what will. That will not serve with him well, i think, unless he roadways them and krekts them. When youre a canned and you Say Something that is inaccurate or controversial, it has less impact than it does when youre president of the United States. Everyone around the world has more attention. National Security Issues require a level of precision in order to. I think he recognizes that this is different. Sole did the American People. President elect trump went to many levels. What would you expect frm you will tractortrailer. You won against the killing of civilians. Came from. Are you willing to let it for four under your lunch. How. There wont be a physical confrontation. There was a really robust debate about the merits of the iran deal before it was completed. I actually was pretty proud of how our democracy processed that. It was a serious debate. I think people of goodwill were on boets. Ultimately we were able to support menz of congress, at least the public. At the time they would not abide by the deal. They would cheat. Over the years, they have abided by the agreement. Thats the opinion of israeli, military and attend fapd. We had people fmd. When anie electric trat. To unravel a deal thats working and pre suharboring a Nuclear Weapon would be hard to explain, particularly if we are to have them freed of any obligations and go ahead and pursue a weapon. Keep in mind, this is not just an International Agreement between us and the iranians, this is between the p5 plus one, other countries. Some are closest allies. And for us to pull out would then require us to start sanctioning those other countries in europe, china or russia that were still abiding by the deal, because from their perspecti perspective, iran had done what it was supposed to do. It becomes more difficult, i think, to undo something thats working than undo. When youre not responsible for it, i think call it a terrible deal, and you are then responsible for the deal and preventing iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon, you are more likely to look at the facts. That is going to be true in other circumstances. For example, the Paris Agreement. Theres been a lot of talk about possibly trying to undo this agreement. Now, youve got 230 countries who signed up for this thing. The good news is that what weve been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that its possible to grow the sme and really keep it that day. Youve got utilities that are put in solar panels and creating more jobs. You have the record sales and are overachieving on the fuel efficiency standards that we set. Turns out that people many. Youve got straits like Lindsay Lohan tlal. A clean nrs agenda, separate and apart from any federal regulations thavt have been put forward. In fact, 40 of the country already lives in states that are actively pursuing whats embodied in the Paris Agreement and the clean power plant rule. And even states like texas. Youve seen huge increases if. Youve got some of the biggest companies. But what we were able to do is em bed a lot of theeds practices into how the economics. Smo in india and other countries that are currently polluting work. Come aboard so you guys can do the same thing. And the biggest threat when it comes from Climate Change and pollution isnt going to come from us because we only have 300 Million People. It will have china that are over a billion people, in than we did before we became more aware of the s. Do i think this new administration will make some across administration. It turns out theyre doing good for us and binding other countries in the behavior that will help us. Last question. Im sorry, you are right about that. With respect to syria, in benghazi, we had a u. S. Coalition. We were able to carry out a Super Mission achieved the role fairly quickly. Its no secret. You know this region well. So i wish that i could bring this to a halt immediately. We have made every effort to a politic political. Appear fint the fumt. Golf states and other parts to try to end the trnl. Do we have the capacity to carry out the same tins of military action like we did in libya. The solution is not that pimpl. We dont have as best we can a political solution, and in the interim, put as much distance between humanitarian sas. And it is something srlt i continue to think about every day, and we continue to find some formula that would allow under the circumstances. Its not surprising to you, because you study this deep many you have a siecivil group that trained to kill and its supported by russia that now has substantial military assets on the ground and are actively supporting that regime and iran actively supporting that regime, and we are supporting what has to be our number one National Security priority ps r, in iran and mult reply in rocco. Obviously r. As i indicate before, in the aftermath of that campaign. Mou as a situation that we have to get back into a better place. Ive given you okay. Last question. Mr. President , i wanted to ask about two things that might be on your desk the next couple months as you prepare for a Trump Administration. One was on at least threequarters of a Million Immigrants in this country, i wonder if there is anything you can do to reassure them or shield that information from the Incoming Trump administration, considering his stance on immigration. And the second is, do you weigh those restraints on you for getting an unconstitutional frenchman, just commander in chief, concerning the gradual transfers. Im like the time to put certain tested out there. Those are both excellent questions. On the Deferred Action Program that we have known as daco for dreamers dedicated to these provisions, i will urge the president elect in the Incoming Administration to think long and hard before they are endangering the status of what for all practical purposes are american kids. These are kids who are brought he