To monitor the efforts by the Afghan Government and Afghan Security forces to retake kunduz and that will factor into a longer term assessment of the conditions on the ground which will influence longer term policy decisions the president will have to make. Reporter has the president received those recommendations from commanders in any kind of a formal way as of this time . I dont have any update in terms of the kind of communication of the commander in chief and the commanders on the ground. But the president receives regular briefings and updates from his military commanders through the chain of command and that certainly will continue. Reporter at the United Nations today, palestinian president abbas said hes no longer bound by agreements with israel, theyre going to start pursuing legal means to pursue Palestinian Statehood and are basically abandoning the direct negotiations approach that has been your position for a very long time now. What is the u. S. Response to the palestinians dismissing that approach . I believe mr. President abbas was speaking as i walked out here so i dont have any direct response to what he has said. I will say as a general matter that the United States has long been and continues today to be committed to achieving niece the palestinians and israelis deserve and we have described the resolution of this conflict as a twostate solution. That results in two states for two peoples with a sovereign, viable and independent palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with a jewish and democratic israel. Thats been our position for quite some time and that continues to be our position today. Julia . Reporter thanks, josh. Going back to russias involvement in syria, you just told josh that the department is reviewing those actions. The Deputy Defense secretary told lawmakers on the hill today that russias move was alarming and aggressive and had come before discussions that they were promised to have on deconflicting. Is that same level of surprise being shared by the white house . I didnt see those particular comments. I think what is clear is that we have known for quite some time and i say we im including all of you because weve had active public discussions in here about the significant deployment of military assets and personnel by the russians into syria. And so i dont think its particularly surprising that russia is using those new military capabilities. Particularly in light of their longstanding efforts to prop up the assad regime and in light of the continuing weakness of the assad regime in terms of their ability to control territory inside that country, the russians felt that they need to ramp up their efforts and the reason that i think the second data point that i would remind you of is that theres also a reason that both president putin and president obama have prioritized and agreed on the need for operational tacticallevel conversations to deconflict military operations inside of syria. You would need to have conversations to deconflict military operations inside of syria if you didnt have mans for military operations inside of syria. So the point is that u. S. Military officials have been in touch with their russian counterparts to set up those conversations and i would expect those conversations wouldnvwn t place in short order. Reporter so yes, president obama and president putin discussed the need for conversations to deconflict but during that hour and a half conversation they had at the United Nations did anything did president obama get any kind of indication from president putin about the timing of the strikes or the targets or was this something left completely off the table . I think what i would say is there was not a there was not an operational level conversation in the meeting between the two president s. Those operational conversations were the kinds of conversations that both president s expect their military officials to engage in and, like i said, the United States has been in touch with Russian Military officials to begin those tactical practical level conversations to ensure that our military activities and Russian Military activities are properly deconflicted. Reporter on the hill yesterday lawmakers reached a compromise on the annual Defense Authorization bill and they would use 90 billion from special war funds to avoid sequestration. Would the white house oppose this bill on the grounds that it would end sequestration for defense but not other programs . Well, i think that we would oppose the bill for the reasons that you have described. Because thats an irresponsible way to fund our National Defense priorities. Even republicans in congress have referred to this as a slush fund so this is not a partisan response. In fact, we knows that view that is shared by the by some republicans on capitol hill. Id also point to you direct you to a statement that was released by the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services committee jack reed, a west point graduate from rhode island. And according to his news release he said there are many needed reforms in the Committee Conference report but the use of emergency war funds does not realistically provide for the longterm support of our forces. He continued saying i cannot sign this conference report because it fails to responsibly if i can the sequester and provide our troops with the support they deserve. The position thats articulated by senator reid is the position that president obama has advocated as well. Thats why the president got this bill he have teed. Lets move around. Reporter a quick one on russia. Based on your language, is it fair to say that the u. S. Wasnt given didnt have any of these deconflicting conversations or conversations about coordination before the air strikes began . Its fierts that u. S. Officials had already been in touch with their russian counterparts to set up those meetings but its accurate to say that that those deconfliction conversations have not yet occurred. I would expect that they will begin in short order. And when those conversations start is it merely going to be russia or the u. S. Saying we plan to act in this area so keep your military interests out and safe . Or will there be any coordination of efforts . I think its hard to prejudge at this point what those conversations look like other than that they will abide by the description i have that used here for a couple of weeks now, that these will be tactical practical level conversations and we have long said that we would welcome constructive russian contributions to our count counter isil campaign. So we would welcome Russian Coordination but the purpose of the conversations is to ensure our military activities and the military activities of our Coalition Partners are safely deconflicted from any military operations the russians may be planning. Reporter i wanted to shift over to the budget. There was some reports on cliel yesterday that the president had spoken to leaders from both parties about the possibility of a longer term budget deal that will happen over the next month before Speaker Boehner leaves. I wonder if you can detail what the goals for the talks are, what the parameters for the deals that you guys and the congressional leaders were on. Well, the kinds of conversations that we are interested in having have conversations that prevent a Government Shutdown and conversations that ensure that our National Security and economic priorities are adequately funded which means that Congress Needs to arrive at the kind of bipartisan budget agreement that was reached by senator murray and chairman paul ryan from the house that essentially raised the quester caps to ensure that those priorities were adequately funded. Is what the president has made clear at every turn and something ive made clear, what the president has made clear at every turn in his private conversations is something youve heard me say many times in public which is that republicans have not succeeded and will not succeed in passing budget legislation strictly along party lines. Theyve tried that countless times now. It doesnt work. They dont have enough unity within the Republican Caucus to advance legislation like that. And i think thats even evident when you take a look at the vote we expect to see in the house of representatives for a clean cr to prevent a Government Shutdown. Hopefully that will happen today. So what that means is it means that republicans are going to need to work with democrats in congress to pass compromise legislation and thats why we have insisted at every turn that if republicans in congress are interested in negotiations then they should walk over to senator reids office and to leader pelosis office and accept their invitation to engage in bipartisan negotiations. Any effort to circumvent senator reid and leader pelosi will ultimately fail because theyre going to republicans are going to need the support of democrats in the house and senate in order to pass this legislation. Reporter well, i mean on that point specifically, it doesnt seem that republicans dont want to negotiate with democrats, they want to negotiate with the president directly. The president is not the leader of the house of representatives and the president is certainly not the leader of the senate, either. There are elected representatives of the House Democratic caucus and the senate Democratic Caucus and of course the administration has influence in those two caucuses. And the kind of highly functioning working relationship weve had with those caucuses have been able to advance critical pieces of the president s agenda. But ultimately while the administration will certainly be involved in these budget discussions, leader reid and leader pelosi and their support is going to be necessary to get this done. Reporter why do you think senator mcconnell only wants to work with the white house . Have you guys indicated that youre willing to consider something that House Democrats or Senate Democrats havent . I dont quite know exactly is what their thinking is on this. Senator mcconnell frequently does news conferences on capitol hill so it might be a good question to ask him. I will say that the president is also mindful of the fact that democrats in the house and democrats in the senate will need to support in legislation for it to pass. So in the same way that it would be foolish for leader reid and Speaker Boehner to try to circumvent democrats in congress, the president wouldnt support that effort, either. It seems unlikely the president would support the kind of budget agreement that wouldnt also get strong support from democrats on capitol hill. So maybe thats just a hypothetical exercise but the fact the president understands quite directly that a budget deal wont be possible without the support of democrats in congress which is why it would be foolish to leave democrats in congress out of those negotiations. Reporter last one. Thats okay. I dont want to talk about that at all. Reporter if republicans think the most effective way is to negotiate is directly with the president , the president certainly has done that in the past. Why not have direct one on one negotiations between leader mcconnell and president obama come up with a plan that you guys think can sell and present it and the president can protect the interest of democrats as you just set and carry sway in both those houses and republicans will be responsible for taking care of their budget . There are a variety of reasons for that. There is a basic constitutional responsibility that congress has, which is to pass a budget. Thats what members of congress were elected to do. Thats their basic responsibility and the American People are counting on them to get it done. The second thing is the last time we were faced with this dilemma, the last Time Congress was challenged to pass Bipartisan Legislation to keep the government functioning at a level that appropriately invested in our economic and National Security priorities, that was an agreement that was reached in bipartisan discussions that took place on capitol hill. Senator patti murray and House Republican paul ryan sat down across the negotiating table and hammered out a good agreement. Its not an agreement anybody thought was perfect but it was an agreement that represented a genuine compromise and it succeeded in passing a twoyear budget agreement which is why its been two years since we last had this standoff but the unfortunate thing about last time is that the country had to go through a 17day shutdown before republicans would agree to those kinds of conversations. Were hopeful that republicans will agree to those conversations before a Government Shutdown this time. But i guess the shorter answer to your question, justin, is we know that is a strategy that works and we know that that is a strategy thats consistent with the constitution jon . Reporter josh, back to syria. What is the president s strategy regarding syria right now . Well, john, first and foremost the president s top priority when it comes to syria is making sure the National Security interests of the United States are protected and that has involved the use of military force by the United States against extremists operating inside of syria. So youve seen recent announcements from the pentagon about haji mutazz whos a leading isil operational figure who was killed in a u. S. Military air strike inside of syria last month. The department of defense reported earlier this month that a u. S. Air strike in syria over the summer led to the death of david dujon, an extremist not affiliated with isil but actively engaged in leading efforts to strike the United States and the west and weve talked quite a bit about the u. S. Military operation the president ordered inside of syria against abu siayyaf. There are a list of other extremists we can go through but thats the top priority. The sect priority has been the effort made by the United States and our Coalition Partners to back the efforts of opposition fighters on the ground inside of syria. So these are fighters like syrian kurds, syrian arabs, even turk member fighters inside of syria that have had some success in pushing back isil. So the president you will recall earlier this year made a decision to reply kurdish fighters in kobani who were under siege from isil fighters sr. Because they were resupplied the kurdish fighters mounted an offensive against isil fighters and drove them out of kobani and drove them out of a large swath of northern and northeastern syria. So there have been elements of that strategy that have been successful against isil but ultimately, despite that important military activity that is critical to protecting the basic fundamental National Security interest of the United States, the president is keenly aware of the fact that theres no military solution that can be imposed by russia or anybody else on to syria and this the root of this problem can only be solved with the kind of political transition that results in president assad leaving power. So youre listed some priorities and youve listed some operations that have taken place but can you give me in short what is our strategy in syria . Well, our Strategy First and foremost is to protect the basic core National Security interests of the United States and that means preventing extremists like isil but other groups who may be trying to capitalize on the chaos inside of syria to establish a safe tae venn that can be used to plot and carry out strikes against the United States and our allies. Thats the overriding priority. What the president has also made clear is that we wont commit u. S. Military personnel to a drawn out offensive ground operation against isil or anybody else inside of syria that said we are going to need ground fighters and there have been a couple ways weve tried to build that effort. One way has been the department of defense train and equip operation. Weve been blunt that that hasnt worked out very well. The department of defense is considering changes that could improve the results. What has been more successful, significantly more successful than that, is the support of the United States and our Coalition Partners for those kurdish, arab, and turk men fighters inside of syria that have had some success in driving isil out of some parts of syria. Weve also been able to enlist the support of other u. S. Allies including turkey in an effort to try to close the border between turkey and syria. This is the boarder that stretches five or six miles. Theres a very narrow corridor thats only about 60 miles wide so we have work to do but were enlisting our allies in that effort. But ultimately the root collusion here to this problem is a political transition that results in president assad leaving power. Reporter given the failure of our efforts to train and equipped a modern opposition in syria and given the significant change of the facts on the ground that you have russians conducting air strikes and moving in significant military personnel and equipment is there an everyday