Aeffect waited back then . I would say a couple things about that. The United States has been engaged in an effort to support them. We have been for some time. For more than a year, at least. Separately, the concern that was expressed by the administration at the time and has been its something thats been oft repeated is a concern that we didnt want to provide assistance to every individual who said that they were fighting bashar al assad. Had we done that without thoroughly vetting them and building the kind of relationship thats necessary to understand who were providing weapons to, we would have inadvertently provided weapons to the very people were now fighting in iraq. So, there was a question of who exactly was included in the Syrian Opposition and which of those elements were interested in putting in place a government that actually reflected the will and diversity of the syrian people. And which of those were members of the opposition who were actually extremists who were hoping to use the power vacuum thats been created by this civil war in syria to try to carry out their own vision of an islamic caliphate in this region. So, the reason the administration was interested in carefully vetting the individuals who are part of the Syrian Opposition is because we wanted to make sure our assistance was landing in the hands of the people who were trying to create a government that reflected the will of the syrian people. Not to create an islamic caliphate that was carrying out acts of violence throughout the region. So, this this challenge of vetting the opposition certainly contributed to the to the policy of this administration to ramp up our assistance to that opposition over time. After we had established some relationships and had the opportunity to vet these individuals and get a better sense of what their intentions actually were. John . Reporter josh, jeff asked you a series of very direct questions. I didnt hear a direct answer. So, can you ill try again. Reporter please help me with a yes or no. Ill try. Reporter does the president intend to ask congress for authorization to expand his campaign against isil . Well, i think reporter just a yes or no. The president was asked this direct question reporter he didnt give a direct answer. Seriously. I dont know what buy in. I covered congress for years. I dont know what you mean by congressional buy in. That would imply a vote on something, a vote on appropriations or Congress Resolution or some kind of a vote. Is that what you want from congress on this, a vote, yes or no . Again, if you want to get insight into the president s current thinking about this, then i would refer you to the answer that he gave to chuck in the interview 48 hours ago. But the other thing i would point out, thats also a part of your question is, if the president decides to expand the operation and these are the kinds of questions that are best answered after the president has made some fundamental decisions about what he wants to do there. That, you know, if there is an expansion in the operation that takes place, what consequences are there for a whole range of things . For our diplomatic relationships . What kind of as answer are we going to seek from our partners . What kind of assistance would we seek from regional governments . What role does congress have . So, its heart to hard to unless were talking about a specific order from the president , its hard to talk in very specific terms about what we Want Congress to do. As a general matter what i can say is that the president is interested in their buy in, is interested in a congressional debate, and is interested in consulting closely with leaders in congress so that they feel bought into this process and they feel like the partners they actually are, as the elected representatives of the American People. Reporter remember, the president did make a decision on air strikes of syria under very different circumstances, previously in his decision at that point was that he needed congressional authorization or that he wanted congressional authorization. If he were to go in that direction again, and decide that some kind of an extended air campaign against isil targets in syria were necessary, safe to assume you would have the same view, that he would need congressional authorization . The situation from last year is a little different from the situation this year. The situation last year was related specifically to the issue of chemical weapons being used by assad regime against the syrian people. The situation right now is is related directly to the protection of american citizens in the region. The president does believe that he has all of the authority necessary, as commander in chief of the United States, to order the kind of military action thats necessary to protect american citizens. Including strikes in syria . Again, if there is an expansion, if there is an expansion of the president s military orders or if there is an expansion of the scope of operations that the president s willing to consider, at the point the president s made that decision, we can start making decisions about what sort of congressional role or authorization is required, if any. Reporter give me a sense on the timeline for a decision on this. Something the president s considering right now . Is this something we should expect in the next day or two . Or is this something over we will say when you say this reporter the decision on whether or not to expand military operations. Well, the president has been regularly consulting with his National Security team for weeks now. And when they are having these meet lgz, theyre talking about our broader strategy for confronting the threat by isil. There are a range of developments weve discussed quite a few times here, our dipdi diplomacies with iraqis. Theyve made progress and were hoping this week theyll make additional important progress in forming a cabinet. There are theres important work thats being done by the secretary of state. Hes traveling to the region this week where hes going to be consulting with regional governments. I think the president was pretty powerful in explaining the role that these governments in the region have and the stake they have in resolving this conflict. The president highlighted that so often these sunnidominated governments perceive shialed governments as the principle threat to their ability to lead their country and to remade in power. Its the president s view, and i think that theres some justification for this based on the facts on the ground, they face a greater threat from more extremist sunni elements that have demonstrated significant capacity to wreak havoc in nir region. Theres diplomatic effort to engage the International Community here. There is there are a number of intelligence efforts the president has already ordered. Weve talked quite a bit about how the president at the beginning of this situation ordered an increase in intelligence assets to get a better sense of what sort of to get a better sense of what actually was happening on the ground and to better assess the capability of both isil but also Iraqi Security forces. But also, as you point out, theres the other element to the strategy, the use of military force. That is part of the strategy. But the reason im running through this long list here is to illustrate to you that there are this broad strategy the president has put in place to deal with this is something regularly discussed among his team. Theyre discussing every element of this strategy at every meeting. In his speech wednesday first of all, a prime time address or daytime speech . Were still working through the logistics of the speech the president wants to give. Well give you more details when we know. Reporter is it the purpose of the speech to announce a new phase in this military operation or to outline what he has already outlined in different venues in the interview over the weekend, the press conferences on his last trip, what his strategy is. These are the isil the speech isnt written so i dont want to get ahead of a speech that isnt written. Reporter is it to explain what hes doing or something new . I wouldnt rule out there might be something new in the speech. The principle goal is to make sure people understand what the clear stake is for the American People in our nation in this ongoing violence were seeing in iraq and syria. He also wants to describe what sort of tools are at the disposal of the American Government as they try to protect our interests and our people in the region. And the president wants to have epts to try to lay that out clearly. Does that mean the president will have something new to say in the speech . Ill wait until the speech is written before i guess where hes going to end up. Major . Reporter you were asked a moment ago, as president decided to expand the air war in syria, you said the president will go wherever is necessary. That sounded like a very near confirmation [ inaudible ] no. If the president made a decision like this to expand military operations, you can expect the president would announce that decision. Not just little old me. Its a statement of the president s view, in terms of what authority he has a commander in chief to confront these challenges. The president is determined to act where necessary to protect american citizens. Both in the region, but here in the homeland. The president s demonstrated a willingness to do that on a number of occasions already. And that principle that principle continues to apply in this situation as well. Reporter its not a matter of whether, its just a matter of timing . Well, again, if and when the president has made a decision on long these lines, it will be something the president wants. Reporter wednesdays speech . No, the purpose of the president s speech on wednesday is broader than that. Military action is one element of our strategy. The president has this integrated strategy that relies very heavily on americas forceful diplomatic myight and range of other as spets we have at our disposal. Reporter lets say for the sake of argument, im an american who watched president s press conference and watched the interview yesterday. After seeing wednesdays speech, will i say to myself, wow, theres like 70 brand new, or is it going to be like 91 that is a particularly creative way to ask that question. I think what i would say if i would encourage that american citizen youre describing to tune into the speech and evaluate for themselves just how surprised they are by the president s speech. Reporter can you give us Something Better than that. I cant. Its early at this point. Reporter its mostly what weve heard before. Might be something new. I mean, is it to try to gather the American Peoples attention and say, in case you havent heard, heres what im thinking about, heres the context, but this isnt a declarative speech on how im going to ratchet up this conflict to a higher military level and i need congress to approve it and heres how much its going to cost and the timeline ive put together to envision achieving goals x, y and z. Were still a couple day as way from the speech so im not in a position to provide Additional Guidance to you with what the president may or may not say. Well have the opportunity to try this sgen tomorrow and maybe ill be a little more prepared. Look, the president and his team are working on the speech as we speak. Im probably overcommitting myself now. But i will try to provide a little greater insight for you and your viewers about what the president intends to talk about on wednesday. Reporter i want to follow up on immigration for a second. I want to be clear. What the president decided on saturday is he wouldnt take any action until after the november election, right . What the president said reporter is he going to revisit the entire question of taking executive action until after the election . Because to my mind and many advocates who have been pushing for this, theyre very different things. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to clarify this, to the extent there is any ambiguity here. The president will take executive action within the confines of the law to fix those aspects of the broken immigration system that hes able to fix before the end of the year. And that is a decision he has made. That is something that will occur. Now, some of the static, you might say, in the media over the weekend, was related to the president s earlier commitment to acting before the end of the summer. What the president will has decided is he will act now before the end of the year. The president has not in any way altered his commitment or interest in taking executive action, again, within the confines of the law, to solve to act where congress hasnt. More specifically, to act where Congressional Republicans have blocked congressional action. And the president s commitment to acting on this before the end of the year has not changed. He said yesterday the reason for that is because he needs to explained to American People. Why does he need until the end of the year to explain something . Isnt it true that the dominant factor, if you want to call it static, was static from Senate Democrats saying, this is a maybe a good idea . Maybe you think its a good idea. Its terrible politics for us. We want you to wait until after the election. The president clearly doesnt need nine weeks to explain this to the American People. If you wanted to explain it, he could explain it, just like hes going to try to explain the strategy on wednesday. Seems to me the only rational explanation for this is intervening Midterm Election and democrats do not want to take this on in the tooeft an already tough environment. The reason the president has made the decision to delay his announcement about executive actions hes going to take is specifically because he is concerned mostly about ensuring the solution that he offers is both sustainable and enduring. Reporter if its an executive action, it is sustaining, by definition, until the end of his presidency. He doesnt have to worry about congress. Thats the whole point. What the. The wants to do is ensure all the work thats been done over the last several years to build this powerful Bipartisan Coalition in support of Immigration Reform is sustained. And by injecting an executive action in the midst of this hyperpartisan, hyperpolitical environment shortly before the midterms, that will have a negative impact on the broader public support and on the sustainability of Immigration Reform. So, the president s i guess the short answer to your question is, the president s willing to take a little political heat from the pundits, from some of the advocates in the Hispanic Community in particular, in order to ensure that the policy that he puts forward is one that can be sustained. And the fact is, we havent seen a similar willingness from Congressional Republicans to take a little heat to do whats in the best interest of the country. In fact, weve seen Congressional Republicans do exactly the opposite. Theyve been in a situation where they dont want to take any political heat, even though they know that acting on bipartisan Immigration Reform would create jobs, it would expand economic growth, would reduce the deficit. Thats why its strongly supported by the faith community, by the Law Enforcement community, by the business community, by the labor community. These are all reasons why comprehensive Immigration Reform should move forward. Thats why it passed with bipartisan support in the senate. Theres a small but vocal group among Congressional Republicans in the house of representatives who are blocking this kind of reform. Thats the only reason were having this question right now. Reporter hes not going to do what he said he was going to on the timeline he said he was going to do as an act of kourng . Well, what the president has done look, major, its not a surprise to anybody at the white house, certainly isnt a surprise to me, i wont speak for my colleagues. Its not a surprise to me there were some people in the newspaper over the weekend critical of the president s decision to to announce these executive actions before the end of the year as opposed to before the end of the summer. That criticism was not a surprise. That criticism was anticipated. But the president is willing to take on that criticism so that we can ensure that the executive action that the president takes is sustained, its enduring and we continue to have public support for it. Look, for all of the disagreement there may be around this one issue, there should be no disputing the fact that injecting this issue into the current political environment would be really bad for the issue. Theres no disagreement about whether or not well, maybe it would help some democrats. Maybe it would hurt some others. Maybe it would galvanize base democratic voters, maybe provoke republican candidates into doing things like shutting down the government to benefit democrats. Theres a lot of views on what impact this can have on individual races but theres no arguing that injecting this issue into this sharply political polarized environment would be bad for the issue. And the president believes ultimately that thats the most important thing. That making progress on this issue is the most important thing. No one in washington, d. C. Has invested more in trying to get this done than president barack obama. And if that means the president s to take on a little more heat until we announce our decision, in order to make it more likely that these solutions will be enduring and sustained and successful, the president s happy to take on that heat in order to get that done. Reporter thank you. Lets move around a little bit. Justin . Reporter i want to follow up on that and argue with the idea that thats why were here. Reporter injecting it into the current Political Climate is bad for the issue. I mean, we just went through a year ago saying time and again