To pick but isnt janet more of an obama like than Larry Summers and the others . The president had Larry Summers worked for him and when summers came under criticism on capitol hill last weekend, meetings with democrats, the president defended him very hard the speculation summers may have the edge in this contest. David interest in. Were going to get questions of Corporate Taxes are going to go down, that sort of thing . Youll hear about lowering Corporate Tax rates in exchange for funding by republicans approval for funding his stimulus programs infrastructure programs and other things that he wants to help to try to stimulate the economy and increased job creation, david. David there is the question of what he calls these phony scandals, the irs, the use of u. S. Agencies even the sec for political tools, political purposes. Will the president speak out on that at all . I suspect he will get a question on that one. It is still dogging this white house and still of course top of mind in the public debate and on capitol hill. David it affected business interest with revelations about the members of the sec being approached the democratic members of congress as recently as early last year asked whether or not certain corporations had been making contributions to Tea Party Like groups. Has that gone anywhere, that investigation . Congress is on top of that and a compass when at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is staying on top of it, no question, david. David the president is excited to come out any moment now if you have a following the press conferences or other events, you know he is more often late then on time. Lets give you a brief what is happening on wall street today. The three major indices are on track actually for the worst week since june in large part due to confusion or when the fed will begin tapering the Bond Buying Program and who will take over after turn fed chief ben bernanke leaves. Dow jones industrials down about 62 points, the s ps off less percentagewise, half as much percentagewise about 4. 4, and the nasdaq down about 5. 4. There are some bright spots in todays trading. Getting right to the floor show. Traders at the New York Stock Exchange and the cme. Lets go to the nyse right now. What are you seeing that is exciting and moving in a positive direction . The only thing we are seeing of any excitement is what people are thinking about for next week. Pretty heavy Economic Data, of course that is one of the major flashpoints for the fed to be sent with the policy will be. The trade you will see next week is the data comes in, coming in weaker, youre going to see people getting along this market because that will signal the fed is not getting inflation that they want so they will continue to put some stimulus and Qualitative Easing Program in there. Inflation starting to heat up across the board, at home in the fed is achieving their inflation target and they absolutely will start to taper some sort in september. Keep an eye on those figures for next week. Were going to trade out the last hour of this week, we still havent violated any strong support levels switch is reevaluating waiting for next weeks data. David i am looking at a big jump in oil, what is going on there . A massive short covering. Betterthanexpected Economic News out of china. The u. S. Are pumping out a record amount of crude oil right now, but the weekly inventory data, massive drawdowns. Rewind back three or four weeks ago nine, 10 million. All of this oil is going to china. China starts to heat up again, we could move all the way back up to 110. David is that a problem were having this spike in oil they provides extra cost for companies particularly transport companies . Will not see that for a few months. It has not been a problem for the equity market so far this year. The generations inside of the oil market or the other commodity space. The thing you have planted the equities prices right here little bit is based on the heels of the secondquarter earnings season seems like valuations got a little bit ahead of themselves and now people say we are at the higher end of the 10year average. Take a little money off the table, seasonally Economic Data provided little bit o in the equity market for nothing to get too excited about. Will consolidate the next couple of sessions and decide whether to move higher or lower based on those numbers. David do either of you care who follows ben bernanke . I think if you see janet follow him, we will see the quantitative easing policies. If Larry Summers comes in, hell restated he thinks it has had little to nothing inside of the economy and that is what he is looking at. David will we see a drop in the market if it is Larry Summers . There is a possibility. You wont see any taper duration of the year. They will hold off, no sense in stopping right now. We have not seen any major impact on the market whatsoever. Keep on getting it going, get the new fed president allocated into the market. David the president of the United States, lets listen in. President obama building a Better Bargain for the middle class and for americans who want to work that went the middle class. At the same time im focused on my number one responsibility as commanderinchief, that is keeping the American People safe. In recent days we have been reminded once again about the threats to our nation. As i said at the National Defense university back in may, in meeting those threats we had to strike the right balance between protecting our security and preserving our freedoms. As part of this rebalancing i called for a review of our surveillance programs. Unfortunately rather than an orderly and lawful process, to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way. Now, keep in mind as a senator expressed a healthy skepticism about these programs. As president ive taken steps to make sure they have strong oversight by all three branches of government. Clear safeguards to prevent abuse and protect the rights of the American People. But given the history of abuse by governments, it is right to ask questions about surveillance. Particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives. Im also mindful of how these issues are viewed overseas because American Leadership around the world depends upon the example of american democracy and american openness. Because what makes us different from other countries not simply our ability to secure our nation, but it is the way we do it with open debate and democratic process. In other words it is not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs. The American People need to have confidence in them as well. That is why over the last few weeks i have consulted members of congress who, this issue from many different perspectives. I had asked the Oversight Board to review where our counterterrorism efforts and our values come into attention and directed the National Security team to be more transparent and pursue reforms of our laws and practices. Today i would like to discuss for specific steps that we will be taking very shortly to move the debate forward. First, i will work with congress to pursue appropriate reforms to section 215 of the patriot act. The program that collects telephone records. As i have said this program is an important tool in our efforts to disrupt terrorist plots. It does not allow the government to listen to any phone calls without a warrant. But given the scale of this program i understand the concerns of those who would worry it could be subject to abuse. So after having a dialogue with members of congress and civil libertarians, i believe there are steps you can take to give American People confidence that there are additional safeguards against abuse. For instance we can take steps to put in place greater oversight, trader transparency and constraints on the use of this authority. I look forward to working with congress to meet those objectives. Second, i will work with congress to improve the publics confidence in the oversight conducted by the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. It was created by congress to provide judicial review of certain intelligence activities that a federal judge must find our actions are consistent with the constitution. However to build greater conduct we should consider changes. One of the concerns people raise was a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct surveillance only hears one side of the story. They tilt it too far in favor of security may not pay enough attention to liberty. While i have confidence in the court, they have done a fine job, i think we can provide greater assurances the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives, security and privacy. Specifically we can take steps to ensure Civil Liberties, concerns have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring the governments position is challenged by an adversary. Number three, we can and must be more transparent. Select the mac so i directed them to make as much information public as possible. Weve already declassified unprecedented information about the nsa, but we can go further. My direction is to make public the legal rationale for the collection activities under section 215 of the patriot act. The nsa is taking steps to put in place a fulltime Civil Liberties and privacy officer and released information a detailed its Mission Authorities and oversight. Finally creating a website that will serve as a hub for further transparencies. This will give americans and the world the ability to learn more about what it does and what it does not do, how it carries out its mission and why it does so. Reforming a High Level Group of outside experts to review and ee intelligence and communications technologies. We need new thinking for a new era. We now have to unravel terrorist plots by finding a needle in a haystack of global telecommunications. Imeanwhile technology is given government putting our own like unprecedented kit will be to monitor it. I am tas testing this independet group to step back and review our capabilities particularly surveillance technologies and they can consider how to maintain the trust of the people, make sure they are absolutely no abuse in terms of how these surveillance activities aae used, ask how surveillance impacts foreignpolicy, particularly when more and more information is becoming public, and providing an interim report in 60 days and if ill report by the end of this year so we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, privacy and our foreign policy. All these steps are designed to ensure the American People can trust our efforts are in line with our interest and our values. To others around the world i want to make clear once again america is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused above all on finding information necessary to protect our people and in many cases protect our allies. It is true, we have significant capabilities. It is also true is we show a restraint that many governments around the world dont even think to do. Refuse to show. That includes some of americas most vocal critics. We should not forget the difference between the ability of our government to collect Information Online under strict guidelines and for narrow purposes and the willingness of some other governments to throw their own citizens in prison for what they say online. Let me close with one additional thought. The men and women of our Intelligence Community work every single day to keep us safe because they love this country and believe in our values. They are patriots, i believe those who have lawfully raised their voices on behalf of privacy and Civil Liberties are also patriots who love our country and want us to live up to our highest ideals. So this is how were going to resolve our differences in the United States through vigorous debate guided by the constitution with reverence for our history as a nation of laws and with respect for the facts. With that ill take questions. Well start with julie of the ap. Thank you, mr. President. Wanted to ask of the foreignpolicy followed of the disclosure of the nsa program you have discussed. Your spokesperson said theres no question the u. S. Relationship with russia has gotten worse since Vladimir Putin has taken office. Must decline to putin giving you have had a working relationship with his predecessor . And will there be any punitive measures taken against russia for granting asylum to Edward Snowden or canceling the september summit really all you can do given host of issues the u. S. Needs cooperation for . President obama there has always been some tension in the u. S. Russian relationship after the fall of the soviet union. It has been competition in some areas. It is truly my first four years in working with the president , we made a lot of progress. We were able to cooperate together on iran sanctions. They provided us help in terms of supplying our troops in afghanistan. We were able to get russia into the wto. It is goodcompetent businesses e theyre more likely to follow international forms and rules. A lot of good work that has been done and that is going to continue to be done. What is also true is when president putin came back into power, i think we saw more rhetoric on the russian side that was antiamerican that played into some of the old stereotypes about the cold war contest between the United States and russia, and i have encouraged mr. Putin to think forward as opposed to backwards on those issues with mixed success. Latest episode is just one more in a number of emergent differences we have seen over the last several months around syria, around human rights issues where it has probably been appropriate for us to take a pause, reassess where it is russia is going, what our interests are, and calibrate the relationship so that we are doing stuff that is good for the United States and hopefully good for russia as well, but recognizing there will be some differences and we will not be able to completely disguise them. And that is okay. Although i am not attending the summit, i will still be going to st. Petersburg because russias hosting the g20. It is important business for our economy and our jobs and the issues concerning americans. I know one question that has been raised is how do we approach the olympics. I want to make very clear right now do not think it is appropriate to boycott the olympics. We have a bunch of americans training hard who are doing everything they can to succeed. Nobody is more offended than me by some of these antigay and lesbian the station you have been seeing in russia but as i said, just this week i have spoken out against thats not just with respect to russia, but a number of other countries where we continue to work with them but we have a strong disagreement on this issue. One of the things im looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze. Which i think would go a long ways in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we are seeing. If russia does not have gay or lesbian athletes, that will probably make their team weaker. Keep in mind that our decision to not participate in the summit was not simply around mr. Snowden. It had to do on a whole range of issues where we think we can make some progress, russia has not moved. So we dont consider that strictly punitive. We will assess where the relationship can advance u. S. Interests and increase peace and stability around the world, where it can we will keep working with them. Where we have differences, we will say so clearly. My hope is over time mr. Putin and russia recognize that rather than a zerosum competition, in fact of the two countries are working together, we can probably advance the betterment of both peoples. Thank you mr. President. Given your nostril much of reforms by the leaks Edward Snowden made and all the surveillance of mems, does your mindset change about him, is he now more whistleblower that he is a hacker as you called him at one point or somebody that should be filed charges and should he be provided more protection. Is he a patriot . And to followup on the personal. Spiegel everybody asking one question would be helpful. Can you get stuff done with russia, big stuff done without having a good personal relationship with putin . President obama i dont have a bad working relationship with putin. They are candid, they are blunt. Oftentimes they are constructi constructive. I know the press likes to focus on body language, he has that slouch looking like a bored kid in the back of the classroom, but the truth is when were in conversations together, often times it is very productive. The issue here has to do with where do they want to take russia . Substantive on a policy front. No, right now this is just a matter of where mr. Putin and the russian people want to go. If theyre looking forward the 21st century and how they can advance their economy and make sure some are joint concerns around counterterrorism are managed effectively, i think we can work together. If issues are framed as if the u. S. Is for it, russia should be against it or we will be finding ways where we can poke each other at every opportunity, probably dont get as much stuff done. So now i have forgotten your first question which was presumably the more important one. No i dont think he was a patriot.