In addition, Congress Needs to do its job. Fighting zika cost money. Research into new vaccines, and by the way they Just Announced the first Clinical Trials in humans that cost money. That is why it might ministration proposed an urgent request for more funding back in february. Not only do they not pass the request they worked to cut it. And then they went for summer recess. The experts and the folks on the front lines have been doing their best. But now the money that we are using is rapidly running out. The possibilities could be delayed. This is not the time for politics they have now contracted it oves in 50 u. S. States we know of more than 1800 cases connected to travel to infected areas and that includes nearly 500 pregnant women. Its now present in almost every part of puerto rico. No we have the first transmission in florida. They were certainly had more. Congress is on a summer recess. A lot of folks talk about protecting americans from threats is a serious threat from americans. Especially babies. Once again i want to urge americans to call members of congress and have them do their job. With that, im going to take some questions and im going to start with someone who just assumed the second most powerful office in the land jeff mason. The new corresponded for Association President for Association President happy birthday. As the Islamic State loses territory you said it has become a more traditional terrorist group. Are you satisfied that the United States and its allies have shifted strategies to address that quacks given the comments this week about donald trump and the volatility of a lack of business to be president are you concerned he will be receiving security briefings about isis and other centered National Security issues . Im never satisfied with our response because if youre satisfied that means the problem was solved and its not. We just spent a couple of hours meeting with the top National Security folks to look at what more can be done. It is absolutely necessary for us to defeat them in iraq in syria. It is not sufficient but it is necessary because so long as they have those bases they can use their propaganda to suggest that somehow there is still some caliphate mean more and and i can insinuate itself in the minds of folks who may be willing to travel there or carry out terrorist attacks. At a time when the region is already unstable. I am pleased with the progress that weve made on the ground in iraq and syria we are far from those areas but what was shown is when it comes to conventional fights it can be beaten with partners on the ground so long as they have the support that we been providing. In the meantime though, you are seeing them carry out external terrorist acts on they have learned something and they have adapted from al qaeda which at have a much more centralized operation and try to plan very elaborate attacks. What they figure out is if they can convince a handful of people or even one person to carry out an attack on a subway or at the parade or some other public venue and killed scores of people as opposed to thousands of people still creates the kinds of fear and concern that elevates their profile. So in some ways rooting out these networks for smaller less complicated attacks is tougher because it doesnt require as many resources on their part or preparation. But it does mean that weve got to do even more to generate the intelligence into work with our partners in order to degrade those networks and the fact is those networks well probably sustain themselves even after they are defeated. But what we have learned from our efforts to defeat al qaeda is that if we stay on it are instilling intelligence gets better. We adapt as well. Eventually we will dismantle these networks also. This is part of the reason why it is so important for us to keep our ion the ball and not panic not succumb to fear because they cant defeat the United States of america or our nato partners we can defeat ourselves though if we make bad decisions. We have to understand that as painful in tragic as these attacks are that we are going to keep on grinding away preventing them wherever we can using a whole government effort to knock down the propaganda to disrupt their networks to take their key operatives off the battlefield and eventually we will win but if we start making bad decisions and killing civilians for example in some of these areas instituting offensive religious test on who can enter the country those kinds of strategies can end up backfiring because in order for us to ultimately win this fight we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations between the west and islam. That plays into the hands of the perversions in the perverse interpretations that theyre putting forward. As far as mister trump we are going to the law which is in both tradition in the law that someone is a nominee they need to get security briefings so that if they were to win they are not starting from scratch in terms of being prepared for this office. Im not going to go into details of the nature of the security briefings that both candidates receive what i will say is they had been havent told these are classified briefings if they want to be president they have to start acting like president and that means being able to receive the briefings and not spread them around. I think ive said enough on that. What is your response to critics that the cash given to iran was a ransom payment was that a coincident that was held up for almost four decades was at the exact same time that the american prisoners were released and can you assure the American People that none of that money went to support them. Its been interesting to watch the story surface. Some of you may recall we announced these payments in january many months ago there wasnt a secret. We announce them. Josh did a briefing on them this wasnt some deal at the time we explained that iran had pressed a claim before a tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had frozen that as a consequence of its working its way through the International Tribunal it was the assessment of our lawyers that we were at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars it was their advice in suggestion that we settle and that is what these payments represent. It wasnt a secret. D itse completely open with interesting how this became a story again. That point number one. We do not pay ransom for hostages. We have a number of americans being held all around the world and i meet with their families and its heartbreaking we have stood up an entire section of inter Agency Experts who devote all of their time to working with these families to get these americans out but those families know that we have a policy that we dont pay ransom. The notion that we would somehow start now in this highprofile way and announce it to the world even as we are looking into the faces of other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage and say to them that we dont pay ransom it defies logic. We do not pay ransom. We didnt here and we dont in the future. Precisely because if we did that we would start encouraging americans to be targeted much in the way that some countries that pupate ransom you pay ransom and up having a lot more of their citizens being taken by various groups. Point number three. The timing of this was in fact dictated the fact that as a consequence of us negotiating around the deal we actually had diplomatic negotiations in conversations with iran the issue was not so much that it was a coincidence as it is that we were able to have a direct discussion. It meant that our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time converged and it was important for us to take advantage of that opportunity both to deal with this litigation risk that have been raised it was important for us to make sure that we finished the job on the Iran Nuclear Deal and since we were in a conversation with them it was important for us to be able to push them hard in getting these americans out. And let me make a final point on this. Its now been well over a year since the agreement was there to stop its Nuclear Program was signed and by all accounts it has worked exactly the way we set it was going to work. You will recall that there were all of these core stories about how i ran it iran was going to cheat and this was again a work and they were to get 150 billion to finance terrorism in all these kinds of scenarios and none of them have come to pass. Its not just the assessment of our Intelligence Community if the assessment of the Israeli Military the country that was most opposed to this deal that acknowledges this has been a game changer and that iran was invited by the door deal and they no longer head the short term break out capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. So what im interested in is if theres some news to be made when i have some of these folks who were predicting disaster say this thing actually worked that would be a shock. That would be impressive. Some of these folks who had said the sky is falling someone said we were wrong and we are glad that i ran no longer has the capacity to break out in shortterm. Instead what we had is the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in january and the only bit o news that is relevant on this ishe fact that we paid cash which brings me to my last point. The reason that we have to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict and maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with iran that we could not send them a check. We could not wire the money. And it is not at all clear to me why does that cash it is that cash as opposed to a check for a Wire Transfer has made this into a new story maybe because it kind of feels like a spy novel a crime novel because cash was exchanged. The reason it was exchanged was because we dont have a Bank Relationship with iran which is precisely part of the pressure that we were able to apply to them so that they would ship a whole bunch of Nuclear Material out and closed out close down a bunch of facilities that as i remember two years ago was peoples top fear in priority that we make sure that they dont have the breakout Nuclear Capacity and they dont. This worked. Repeatedly now he said this election will be rigged against him the Court Foundation of our democratic system. Can you promise the American People that the selection will be conducted in a fair way and are you worried that comments like his could a robe the publics faith in the outcome of the election and if he does when given that you declared him unfit what will you say to the American People. At the end of the day its the decision. I had one vote at the same boat you do all of the voters that are eligible all across the country. I had offered my opinion but ultimately its the American Peoples decision to make collectively. And if someone wins the election and they are president than my constitutional responsibility is to transfer power to that individual. I dont know where to start on answering this question. Of course the elections will not be rigged. What does that mean the federal government doesnt run the election process. States and cities and communities all across the country they are the ones who set up the voting systems and the business and if mister trump is suggesting that there is a Conspiracy Theory that is being propagated across the country including in places like texas were typically its not democrats who are in charge of voting booths thats ridiculous. It doesnt make any sense. I dont think anybody would take that seriously. Now we do take seriously as we always do our responsibilities to monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process if we see signs that a voting machine or system is vulnerable to hacking then we inform those local authorities who are running the elections that they need to be careful. If we see jurisdictions that are violating federal laws in terms of equal access and are not providing ramps for disabled voters or are discriminating in some fashion or otherwise violating civil rights laws than the Justice Department will come in and take care of that. But this will be an election like every other one. I think all of us at some point in our lives played sports or just played in a schoolyard or a sandbox. Sometimes if they lose they complain that they get cheated. But ive never heard of somebody being cheated before the game was over. Or before the score is even tallied. I might have my suggestion be got there and go out there and try to win the election. If mister trump is up ten or 15 points on election day and ends up losing then he can raise some questions. It doesnt doesnt seem to be the case at the moment. Thank you mister president. On that question of isis expansion even talking about because you see that expanding around the world and you see them trying to inspire a tax what is your current level of concern about the homeland. You talked about the your own intelligence advisors about the direct isis threat to americans and if i may follow up somewhere along the same lines what are the assessments today as you see and hear about whether donald trump can be trusted with Americas Nuclear weapons. On your second question and i will address us to any additional trump questions i would ask all of you to make your own judgment. Ive made this point already multiple times just listen to what he has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad. As i recall i just answer the question about this a couple days ago. I just dont want to keep on repeating it or a variation on it. I obviously have a strong opinion about the two candidates that are running here. One is very positive and one is not so much. I think you will just hear any further questions that are directed to this subject i think youll hear pretty much the same variations on the same thing. When i can say is this a Serious Business and the person who is in the oval office and who is the secretary of defense and our joint chiefs of staff and our outstanding men and women in uniform report to. They are counting on someone who has the temperament and good judgment to be able to make decisions to keep america safe. That should be very much on the minds of voters. In terms of the threat that they pose to the homeland i think it is serious we take it seriously as i said earlier precisely because they are less concerned about big spectacular 911 style attacks because theyve seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles in the case of nice, france a truck. The possibility of a loan actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real. That is why our intelligence and Law Enforcement and military officials are working around the clock to try to anticipate potential attacks to obtain the threads of people who might be vulnerable to brainwashing. We are constrained here in the United States to carry out this work in a way that is consistent with our laws and presumptions of innocence the fact that we prevent a lot of these attacks as effectively as we do without a lot of fanfare and abiding by our law is a testament to the incredible work that they are doing. They work really hard at it. That is always a risk and some of you may have read the article in the New York Times today i guess it came out last night online about this individual in germany who have confessed and given himself up and then explained his knowledge of how the Networks Work there was a paragraph in there that some may have caught which said we dont know for a fact that this is true but according to this reporting the individual indicated that they recognize its harder to get its operatives into the United States but the fact that we have what he referred to as open gun laws meant that anybody as long as they didnt have a criminal record to bar them from purchase could go in and buy weapons that made a homegrown extremist strategy more attractive to them. And those are the hardest to stop because by definition it somebody that doesnt have a record if its not triggering something it means into speeding their actions becomes that much more difficult and this is why the military strategy that we head in syria and iraq our necessary but is not sufficient. We have to do a better job of disrupting networks and those networks are more active in europe than they are here but we dont know what we dont know. Its conceivable that there are some networks here that could be activated. But we also has to get to the messaging that can reach a troubled individual over the internet and do a better job of disrupting that. What ive told my team although weve we been working on this now for five or six or seven years to put more resources into it. It cant be an afterthought. At something that we have to really focus on. This is also why and how we work with the Muslim American community the values that we affirm about their patriotism and their sacrifice and why our fellow dealing with them is so important. One of the reasons why we dont have networks and cells that are as active here as they are in certain parts of europe is because the community in this country is extraordinary patriotic and largely successful and serves as our doctors and nurses and their communities in which they are raising their kids with love of country and rejection of violence. The that has to be affirmed consistently if we screw that up or you have to have bigger problems. Yesterday you commuted the sentences of 214. I want to ask you a couple of questions about your clemency process. One is, youve talked about this as offender