Please dont refer me to the state department on this. I am asking something about the whitehouse. It is a very basic one before you ask, i will do my best and not refer to the state department but i want you to remember it is the responsible of the state department and that agency to maintain their email system and ensure their compliance with the record act. Does the whitehouse think Hilary Clinton broke the law . I am going to do my best to answer. Secretary clintons team said at the request of the state department, they have reviewed her records i know what the team has said. But does the whitehouse believe Hilary Clinton broke the law our complied with the law . Does the president believe his former secretary of state broke the law or complied with the law. You will have to go verify this but if in fact what secretary clintons team said they were going to do and that can be verified by the state department that would be consistent with what the federal act requires. I was not in a position to review secretary clintons personal email. That was the responsibility of secretary clinton and her team. And they said they turned over thousands of pages and emails, including many on the state Department System and that is entirely consistent with the requirement of the federal records act. Let me ask you about something said in june of 2011. Jay carney your predecessor, said all of our work is conducted on work email accounts. We are instructed we need to conduct all of our work on government accounts he was asked about whitehouse staffers. We said u. S. Government policy, certainly administration policy, is affect here that we do all of the work on work email accounts. So was the whitehouse unaware house unaware of this . There was guidance given to white house staffers consistent with guidance given to employees and that is official work should be conducts on official systems. When there are situations when personal email is used to conduct use business those emails are official government records and turned over to the state department which is what i understand secretary clintons team did. Now we know all of her email, personal and official, all of it was done on a nongovernmental email account accounts. The state department is responsible for maintaining the records. We were told government work is done on government emails. That is not correct. I am saying that is the guidance we give to employees. Again, it is safe to accept that federal employees in this Administration Work hard and the last thing we do is ask them to take an additional step you didnt take the step up till two years after she left. Hilary clinton benefits from something most federal employees dont have which is a team around them who can review the emails and make sure the emails relating to her government work is sent to the state department to be maintained and preserved were senior officials intimate white talk about the president , but were senior officials in the white house aware that Hilary Clinton was squirting this requirement and using her own personal email skirting i dont think it is pair to word it that way. They were told they had to use work email for work business. There are situations and when there are this was want a minor exception. This was all of her work. But the point is making sure the records are properly maintained and preserve and secretary clintons team has taken the right steps according to them that is what they did. She was out of office for 22 months before this was disovered. But the spect secretary clinton and previous secretary of states have is to make sure they have looked at their personal mail amount collected all of emails that relate to official government business because those are then by definition official government records, and those records need to be sent to the state department so they can be preserved and maintained in coordination with the archives and record administration. And i understand the state department has in response to a legit request turned over some of the records to congress. That is the proper handling of those specific government records. They are maintained at the state department and when necessary are used to respond to a legit request. Is any other cabinet member using personal email solely for business or is Hilary Clinton the only one . You would need to check with each cabinet agencies. You cannot tell me for other cabinet secretary that are using personal emails . The agencies themselves are responsible for maintaining the record at their agency and the email system. Have you heard of senior officials at the white house who use personal email . I have not encountered that. I think most of us do work on official email and from the rare time we would get it prom a personal email we would respond but make sure it is forwarded to to the official white house government email address so it can be preserved did you find it odd to find the secretary of state wasnt doing that . You are diligent. Does it surprise you the secretary of state doesnt do it . I am not surprised by too manythi too many things in this job anymore. [laughter] can you tell us what the Prime Ministers speech does on the ability to tell this deal on capital hill . Permanent sanctions will need something from congress. The Republican House is showing support for what the Prime Minister said today. Will that kill the deal if he cannot sell it to congress . Well no. Let me take it in a few parts. The president made it clear when talking about it in the oval office. He is not focused on the politics or the theater. He is focused on resolving the threat of Irans Nuclear problem. He is not going to be distracted from focusing on that threat and he is hoping others will not either. There was a lot of talk from the Prime Minister criticizing and in some cases ration, condemning a deal that has not been struck. There is ample time between the iranians and the International Community. The odds of that happening are at best 50 50. If we are able to reach this path and reach an agreement that extends irans breakout period and puts in place tough verification measures and then we can have a discussion and maybe a debate about whether or not the president is making the right judgment when he says that this is the best possible way for us to resolve the International Communitys concern with irans nukeclear program. We are confidant if this agreement is reached that is the conclusion fair minded people will reach. Fair minded people and politics dont mix. The transcript will reflect you said that not me you are going to be asking republicans to trust president obamas judgment over the Prime Ministers judgment. Can you say you think that is a likely scenario . I will say a couple things about this. The president is responsible for looking out for American National security. The Prime Minister admitted he was primarily focused on israels national security. The good news is those interest almost always align but it does mean the Prime Minister is taking a different perspective. That is the first thing. The second thing is members of congress will have an opportunity to take a look at the agreement that has been reached between the iranians and the International Community. And the other thing i think is relevant here is we saw a fair amount of uncertainty about the interim agreement put in place between iran and the United States. Socalled japedoint action. And this has been in place while the negotiations are taking place. What the joint plan of action did was ensure daily access to irans facilities and it essentially blocked the continued efforts to construct a heavy water pump that would provide a path to plutonem. And it eliminated irans stock pile of highly enriched uranium and capped the stockpile of low enriched uranium. We have not installed any additional centrifuges and we are verifying they lived up to the agreement. The Prime Minister was calling this a historic mistake a year ago but today he suggested it should remain in place. The point is the Prime Minister and other critics in our way of resolving Irans Nuclear program have criticized agreements before they have been struck but once they are in place they tout their benefits. There will be an opportunity for people to evaluate the wisdom the approach the administration is taking on this. And our track record on this truth is is quite strong. If the president or secretary kerry went back to the table and said look we have to make this deal stronger than i already did . The fact is the president is already driving a hard bargain to table. Making sure we are shutting down the four paths to Nuclear Weapon they have available, making sure we have inspection regimes in place to verify they are living up to the agreement. We are doing this in concert with International Parties and the International Unity around this is starkly different than what was in place when the president took office. An approach that relied on sanctions with no hope of negotiation negotiations fracttured the International Community and allowed the Iranian Regime to unify that opinion. We have reversed that scenario where the International Community is united and we see cracks in the iranian government about the wisdom to develop the Nuclear Weapons program. George . Can i ask you to elaborate on something the president said. He said Foreign Policy runs through the executive branch; the president. Does he view the speech today to use constitutional prerogatives . I think it is clear congress in planning this speech tried to go around the executives. This is why the representatives were working with the speaker of house and not informing the executive branch. I am no constitutional scholar but it is clear in the founding documents that the fathers envisioned the president of the United States and commander in chief as being the policy maker when it comes to Foreign Policy and representing the interest overseas. It doesnt mean there is not a role for congress. I welcome a debate about the proper role for congress particularly when it comes to passing a right size military authorization force against isis. So there is a role for congress to play when it comes to Foreign Policy. But we saw congressional leaders trying to to an end run around the executive branch and that is a departure from protocol. Is he trying to send the message he is not going to stand for that . The president was responding to a direct question he received from a journalist in the oval office and it is consistent with the case we have been making that this represents a departure from protocol. I would like to ask the question on protocol. Didnt you hear the Prime Minister show respect for the president saying he has done things for israel that are enormous and some are private and classified. Why didnt the president showing show the Prime Minister the respect of a watching the speech or b sending an official of any level. The president wasnt was preparing for and convened a meeting with this was a meeting that was in the work for a couple weeks. It was an opportunity for the president to visit with his counterparts in europe about the urgent situation in ukraine. This was an important Foreign Policy priority as well and something the president was preparing for and leading in the midst of the Prime Ministers speech. The president did show the respect of reading his speech, talking about it and respond to a question even about it. When the president said he heard no viable alternative from the Prime Minister does that mean the president was expecting a plan for a deal with iran or another way to prevent iran . Did he want a plan . What the president said was the path we are pursuing is the one that can most successfully address the International Communitys concern about Irans Nuclear program. If there are concerns about the plan it is not fair to sit on the sidelines and cpomomplain. The president would make the case there is not a better plan that exist. Isnt it fair to say lay out the details of the plan when you are saying there is no deal and you are worried about leaks and dont want anything to come out so the Prime Minister and the American People dont know. How can you declare a plan from the Prime Minister when you dont know your plan . This is what is clear. The president has a Clear Strategy and a plan for resolving the internationals concern about Irans Nuclear weapons and it would extend the breakout period of 12 months. More than the 23 months that currently exist. And a proposal to put in place inspection measures to make sure iran is living up to their end of the bargain. And that is in the mind of the president the best possible way to resolve the International Communitys concern for iran Nuclear Program. If there is anyone a republican, democrat leader within the israeli government, thinks they have a better way of resolving the concerns about the nuclear plan we would like to see that come forward. This is the best policy path and it depends on one thing. It depends on iran and their leadership making difficult decisions to agree to this point. And there is reason for them to not. It is a tough deal. It requires them to hold back key aspects of their Nuclear Program and requires them to abandoned what we know has been an objective of some government leaders of iran which is to develop a weapon. And it is a tough deal. There is a reason why some people in iran may say no. But it would clearly be in the best interest of the International Community if iran says yes. So on Hilary Clinton, an answer to john where you said according to them these are the emails. Are you acknowledging this white house has made no effort and is making no effort to determine if the secretary of the state broke the law . Are you making any independent effort to determine if she broke the law . It is the responsibility of state officials to ensure state employees are complying with the email act. What the officials have done is ask all of the previous severing secretary of state to forward their emails that contain official business if they have personal records that contain official business they are official records and should be maintained by the state department and that is what Hilary Clintons team did. On accountability this administration has been more aggressive for people leaking classified information, journalist published and scene stories, and general pat find classified information and gets off with a misdemeanor and not doing any jail time. What message does that send . You are as a Senior Leader link information, and youre not going to jail. I dont think the Justice Department did find he disclosed classified information. The charge was improper handling of classified information. Cold war spy names, the president s briefs that is not classified information . The charge that general patreus pled to was related to the handling of the information. That is different. I would refer you to the department of justice for more details. But the president believes it was appropriate for the general to take responsibility for his actions and yesterday you got a question about executive action on tax and some people were reading this as you left the door open to the president raising taxes by executive action. Is that possible . Well ed what i will leave open is always the president s ability to use his executive authority to move the country in the right direction, to expand opportunities for the middle class i didnt ask you about moving forward or backwards. Would the president raise taxes by executive action . Ed there are laws in place that deal with congress and their power of the purse. And it is Congress Responsibility to make decisions about the budget that is why we have an ex tensive converition about the Homeland Security. The president put together a tax proposal on how we can work with congress to close loop holes that only benefit wealthy and wealthy corporations and use the revenue that is generated to create jobs and strengthen the economy over the long term. We are clear about the policies but when it comes to specific steps i will not rule anything in or out. This is related to the president s authority to use his executeive order to do what he thinks is best tr the country. We have not seen a lot from congress. But maybe with the funding for the department of Homeland Security they turned a corner. Hilary clinton is really a world figure. Did Hilary Clinton make a mistake in the white house opinion . Did she do a mistake . What secretary clinton and her team have done is t