Deal with some of the oversight responsibilities that congress has. Of course, Congress Passed the patriot act and some of the authorities to do the surveillance are contained therein. So look for him to ask congress to cooperate with him on that. There are some sort of, i would say, Broad Spectrum of people in support of that from the liberal left as well as the more conservative libertarian side that do want to see those changes. Expect news today from the department of justice. Were expecting some of that legal rationale behind some of these decisions to be released along with new information directly from the nsa, which is intended to give an operators manual for what the nsa does and try to fill in some of the gaps. Officials say theres been too much confusion and con flags with the leaks, understanding what these programs have been about. They hope to kind of lead the way by clearing up some of this. Whatever they do disclose will be scrutinized. Congress will certainly have its say when they get back in the fall. But these are going to be issues that will not eeasily go away because of the Needs National securitywise and the sort of newworld questions it brings about because of the technology we all live with now. Absolutely. All right, kelly odonnell. Please stay with us. Lets bring in josh farrow. Obviously, the National Security issues kelly was just mentioning are probably going to be leading this press conference, but the president has been out on a campaignstyle tour touting his jobs plans, both on housing and more broadly. How much do we expect to hear here today about economics . I think well hear a fair bit. I think the president will want to talk about it in terms of his jobs plan. I think the questions were likely to see are more likely to relate to the big upcoming votes in congress. We need a continuing resolution to keep the government over after september 30th. Were going to need a debt ceiling increase. And the president s messaging about that has been clear. Basically that he has a plan to grow the economy and create jobs and he doesnt want to disrupt that with manufactured crises created by not passing a spending bill so the government would close or by not raising the debt ceiling. I expect thats a message well hear from him. We may hear a question or two about the upcoming appointment of a new Federal Reserve chairman. The signals coming out of the white house has been the president prefers Larry Summers for that job. Most everybody else seems to prefer janet yellen. I think there may be a question about that. My guess is the president will avoid saying anything substantive about that pick until he announces it next month. Josh, obviously weve been saying the most important things hes going to discuss are Foreign Policy related, but a lot of domestic issues here. The upcoming budget battles were going to see this fall, how political do you expect the president to get in terms of playing the blame game against republicans . Well, i think very political. I think for good reason. The republicans have obviously been making noise about tying, keeping the funding open. Now theyre talking about scaling that back to delay obama care for one year. I think the president is going to say, look, theyre playing games with this. I just want to do simple governance where we keep the government open and try to have measures that grow the economy a little bit and create jobs. Its not that he has a bold agenda, but its not an agenda that engages the economy by playing with the budget process. I think thats the way hell portray it. All right. Stay with us, josh. I want to bring in nbcs chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell from d. C. Refusing a meeting with Vladimir Putin seems to me like a coldwar mind set. Does it seem that way to you . That certainly is the temperature. Although, foreign minister lavrov is having a briefing at the end of his talks today with john kerry and chuck hagel. Hes briefing over at the russian embassy. He started out by saying its really good theyre getting together at the minister level. He seems to be trying to smooth things over a little bit. Some of the the russians dont like the fact that president obama when he went on jay leno the other night here on nbc said there seems to be backsliding to a cold war mentality. Putin is a former kgb leader a former top spy. He doesnt like to be reminded of that. That only came after the turn down on Edward Snowden, the problems weve had with them on russia. So its a pretty bad past. Some experts believe that president obama believes theres no reset button with Vladimir Putin. He had a warm relationship with putins predecessor and he wont be able to rebuild this relationship by the end of his term, so he might as well let his cabinet secretaries deal with the russians. He sort of pulled back from this engagement. Andrea, i think were expecting the president any minute. What kind of balance do you expect him to strike on the surveillance issue . Weve heard this is critical for National Security, yet also rolling out some type of new disclosure and oversight. He does believe its critical but that its been poorly explained and perhaps too aggressive. I think thats why he communicated to congressional leaders about ten days ago, a very unusual 90minute meeting on this very subject. Thats where they outlined the changes. Andrea, hold on one moment. Theres the president. Good afternoon, everybody. Please have a seat. Over the past few weeks, ive been talking about what i believe should be our number one priority as a country. Building a Better Bargain for the middle class and for americans who want to work their way into the middle class. At the same time, im focused on my number one responsibility as commander in chief. And thats keeping the American People safe. In recent days, weve 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 have 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, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way. Now, keep in mind that as a senator, i expressed a healthy skepticism about these programs. As president , ive taken steps to make sure that they have strong oversight by all three branches of government and clear safeguards to prevent abuse and protect the rights of the American People. But given the history of abuse by governments, its 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. American leadership around the world depends upon the example of american democracy and american openness. Because what makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation, its the way we do it. With open debate and democratic process. In other words, its not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs. The American People need to have confidence in them as well. Thats why over the last few weeks ive consulted members of congress who have come at this issue from many different perspectives. Ive asked the privacy and Civil LibertiesOversight Board to review where our counterterrorism efforts and values come into tension. And i directed my National Security team to be more transparent and to pursue reforms it of our laws and practices. So today id like to discuss four specific steps, not all inclusive, but some specific steps that were going to be taking very shortly to move the debate forward. First, i will work with congress to have appropriate reforms. As ive said, this program is an important tool in our effort to disrupt terrorist plots, and 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 that it could be subject to abuse. After having a dialogue with members of congress and civil libertarians, i believe that there are steps we can take to give the American People additional confidence that there are additional safeguards against abuse. For instance, we can take steps to put in place greater oversight and Greater Transparency and constraints on the use of this authority. I look forward to working with congress to meet those objectives. Second, ill work with congress to improve the publics confidence in the oversight conducted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court known as the fisc. It was created by congress to provide judicial review of certain intelligence activities so a federal judge must find our actions are consistent with the constitution. However, to build greater confidence, i think we should consider some additional changes to the fisc. One of the concerns that people raise is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct programatic surveillance only hears one side of the story and may tilt it too far in favor of security, may not pay enough attention to liberty. While ive got confidence in the court, and i think theyve done a fine job, i think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives. Security and privacy. So specifically, we can take steps to make sure Civil Liberties concerns have an independent voice in appropriate cases by ensuring that the governments position is challenged by an adversary. Number three, we can and must be more transparent. So ive directed the Intelligence Community to make public as much information about these programs as possible. Weve already declassified unprecedented information about the nsa, but we can go further. So at my direction, the department of justice will make public the legal rationale for the governments 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 that details its mission, authorities, and oversight. Finally, the Intelligence Community is creating a website that will serve as a hub for further transparency. This will give americans and the world the ability to learn more about what our Intelligence Community does and what it doesnt do, how it carries out its mission and why it does so. Fourth, were forming a highlevel group of outside experts to review our entire 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. Meanwhile, technology has given governments, including our own, unprecedented capability communications. Im asking them to step back and review our capabilities. Theyll consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used, ask how surveillance impacts our Foreign Policy, particularly in an age when more and more information is becoming public, and they will provide an interim report in 60 days and a final report by the end of this year so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our Foreign Policy. So all these steps are designed to ensure that the American People can trust that our efforts are in line with our interests and our values. And to others around the world, i want to make clear once again that america is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused above all on finding the information thats necessary to protect our people and in many cases protect our allies. Its true. We have a significant capability. Whats also true is we show a restraint that many governments around the world dont even think to do, refuse to show. That includes, by the way, some of americas most vocal critics. So we shouldnt 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. Theyre patriots. I believe that those who have lawfully raised their voices on behalf of privacy and Civil Liberties are also patriots who love our country and want her to live up to our highest ideals. This is how were going to resolve our differences in the United States, by vigorous discussion as a nation of laws and with respect for the facts. So with that, im going to take some questions. And lets see who weve got here. Were going to start with juli pajulie pace of ap. Thank you, mr. President. I want to talk about the Foreign Policy fallout from the nsa programs. Your spokesman said yesterday theres no question that the u. S. Relationship with russia has gotten worse since Vladimir Putin took office. How much of that declineputin . Also, will there be any additional punitive measures taken against russia, or is cancelling the september summit all you can really do given the host of issues the u. S. Needs russian cooperation for . Thank you. Good. I think theres always been some tension in the u. S. russian relationship after the fall of the soviet union. Theres been cooperation in some areas. Theres been competition in others. It is true that in my first four years in working with president medvedev, we got a lot done. We were able to cooperate on iran sanctions. They provided us help in terms of supplying our troops in afghanistan. We were able to get russia into the wto, which is not just good for russia, its good for our companies and businesses because theyre more likely to follow International Norms and rules. So theres been a lot of good work that has been done and that is going to continue to be done. Whats also true is that when president putin, who was Prime Minister when medvedev was president , 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 ive encouraged mr. Putin to think forward as opposed to backwards on those issues with mixed success. Do i think the latest episode is just one more in another of emerging differences weve seen around syria, around human rights issues where, you know, it is probably appropriate for us to take a pause, reassess where it is that russias going, what our core interests are. And calibrate the relationship so that were doing things that are good for the United States and hopefully good for russia as well but recognizing there are going to be differences and were not going to be able to completely disguise them. And thats okay. Keep in mind that although im not attending the summit, ill still be going to st. Petersburg because russia is hosting the g20. Thats important business in terms of our economy and our jobs and all the issues that are of concern to americans. I know that one question thats been raised is how do we approach the olympics. I want to just make very clear right now i do not think its appropriate to boycott the olympics. Weve got a bunch of americans out there who are training hard, who are doing everything they can to succeed. Nobodys more offended than me by some of the antigay and lesbian legislation that youve been seeing in russia. But as i said just this week, ive spoken out against that not just with respect to russia but a number of other countries where we continue to do work with them but we have a strong disagreement on this issue. And one of the things im really 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 way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that were seeing there. If russia doesnt have gay or lesbian athletes, then it will probably make their team weaker. [ inaudible ]. Keep in mind that, you know, our decision to not participate in the summit was not simply around mr. Snowden. It had to do with the fact that, frankly, 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. Were going to assess where the relationship can advance u. S. Interests and increase peace and stability and prosperity around the world. Where it can, were going to keep on working with them. Where we have differences, were going say so clearly. And my hope is that over time, mr. Putin and russia recognize that rather than a zerosum competition in fact, if the two countries are working together, we can probably advance the betterment of both peoples. Chuck todd. Thank you, mr. President. Given that you Just Announced a whole bunch of reforms based on essentially the leaks that Edward Snowden made on all of these surveillance programs, is that change is your mindset changed about him . Is he now more whistleblower than he is a hacker, as you called