The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 08, 2014

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 1/8/2014

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

1:55 P.M. EST

MR. CARNEY: Read any good books lately, anybody? (Laughter.) I don’t have an announcement at the top, so I’ll take your questions.

Q Have you?

MR. CARNEY: No, actually. Nedra.

Q On that book, we got your statement last night, and clearly you disagree with the former Defense Secretary’s characterization of Vice President Joe Biden. But he’s someone who was in this Cabinet, and I wonder what weight Americans should give to his description of Joe Biden as someone who has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security matter?

MR. CARNEY: I would reiterate that the President and the rest of us here simply just disagree with that assessment. As a senator and as a Vice President, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and he has been an excellent counselor and advisor to the President for the past five years. He’s played a key role in every major national security and foreign policy debate and policy discussion in this administration, in this White House. He played important roles obviously in the policy discussions and carrying-out of the policy decisions that the President made with regards to Iraq and in the policy deliberations over Afghanistan.

The President has said many times that he greatly appreciates the advice and counsel the Vice President gives him on matters both domestic and foreign, and that is absolutely the case.

Q How do you respond to Gates’s charge that the White House is too controlling on national security issues, and brings micro-managing and meddling to a new level, in his words? He said he almost considered resigning over it at one point.

MR. CARNEY: Well, let’s say a couple of things first -- that as we noted yesterday, the President greatly appreciates Secretary Gates’s service to the President’s administration and to the country. And Secretary Gates was part of a team here that helped bring about an end to the Iraq war; that helped decide upon and implement a far superior and improved policy in Afghanistan that was much more clear in its objectives and that had, as part of that policy, an end to a war, which was a clear policy objective of the President’s and which we are implementing now.

So when it comes to the internal interagency process, the President expects it to be robust and he expects to hear competing points of view from every member of his national security team. A lot of you wrote about or talked about at the time that the President picked a team of rivals -- and when you pick a team of rivals, you do so in part because you expect competing points of view and competing opinions. And that’s very much what the President expects in foreign policy and domestic policy, and that’s what he gets and he’s grateful for it.

Q Real quickly on the NSA meetings over here in the next couple of days. What’s the purpose of those? Is the President informing these people who are coming to them what he’s planning to do, or is he still collecting information from them?

MR. CARNEY: He is still in the process of deliberating over the Review Group’s report and hearing from others on the issues that were raised in the Review Group’s report -- because remember, the President’s overall review includes not just the Review Group but the PCLOB and others involved in assessing how we gather our intelligence and what reforms we might make to the process. So he’s at that stage still where he’s listening and discussing with a variety of stakeholders these issues, and appreciates very much the opinions and counsel he’s getting on these matters.

Q Did the comments in the book about Vice President Biden prompt the White House decision to let photographers into the lunch today?

MR. CARNEY: No. As you know, the President and the Vice President have a standing weekly lunch. When the Vice President is in town, he attends virtually all meetings that the President holds, especially on national security matters. And as you know, because we’ve discussed this a lot at the end of last year, we have been committed to looking for ways to provide greater access for photographers to the White House and the President. And providing a photo opportunity today was part of that commitment -- fulfilling that commitment.

And again, I don’t think anybody who has covered us or knows the President and the Vice President, knows how this White House functions, has any doubt about the President’s faith in Vice President Biden as an advisor and counselor. So we don’t need to reinforce that; it’s a fact.

Q So the timing of the photo is just coincidence then?

MR. CARNEY: It is -- it was coincidence. He has a weekly lunch, so --

Q So he’ll be back next week?

Q No, but it’s not normally on camera.

MR. CARNEY: No, exactly. But we’ve had, as you could ask our friends in the world of photography here, debate and discussion with them about how we can better improve access for them. This has been something that they’ve raised with us in the past. So you guys can decide for yourselves. The President greatly values the counsel of the Vice President on matters foreign and domestic.

Q What would you think if you were sitting here, Jay? I mean, the timing was a coincidence? I mean, obviously you and I had a back-and-forth about this.

MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I can just tell you what the facts are. I mean, you can decide for yourselves what you want to believe.

Q While we’re talking about former advisors, former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said yesterday that he probably would back the Keystone Pipeline if he were still advising the President. And I’m wondering if that endorsement -- what weight that endorsement would carry with the President as he sort of considers this issue going forward.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I haven’t discussed that report with the President. The process, as you know, is ongoing, housed at the State Department in keeping with tradition of previous administrations for many years. And I don’t have an update on that.

That’s it?

Q That’s it.

MR. CARNEY: Jon.

Q Looking at the President’s schedule today, I think I counted no fewer than four meetings on the public schedule with Vice President Biden. Anything I should read into that? Or --

MR. CARNEY: Again, I trust that you, Jon, and others who have covered this White House have looked at schedules before and know that every PDB when the Vice President is in town, every major national security meeting when the Vice President and President are both in town, the Vice President attends. There’s nothing new about that. The meetings today that have to do with NSA matters are ones the Vice President would of course attend if he’s not traveling. That’s how it works. The lunch that the President has with the Vice President is one that he has had every week when they’ve been in town since they took office.

Q And we should expect that the photographers should be invited back in the next time they have lunch?

MR. CARNEY: We make decisions based on requests and what we can make happen. We committed to provide -- to find ways to try to provide better access for photographers. We’re going to keep working with them and look at ways that we can do that. As I said back when we were having this discussion, there is no question that whatever we do will not be sufficient -- and I think this is an example of that -- but we will always endeavor to provide better access where we can.

Q What kind of a heads-up did Bob Gates give the White House about this book?

MR. CARNEY: Well, we knew Secretary Gates was writing a book, as everybody I think did, or most people did. But we received the book last night.

Q Last night? And any concern that, I mean, here he is revealing blow-by-blow conversations, confidential conversations he had with the President and his other top national security advisors?

MR. CARNEY: Here’s what I would say: Anybody who has the privilege of serving in an administration at a high level and who participates in policy discussions and has confidential conversations with principals and presidents and then leaves office makes a decision about how they’re going to talk or write about that experience and when. And that’s everybody’s decision to make for himself or herself.

I would simply say that the President asked Secretary Gates, Robert Gates to stay on as Secretary of Defense, and he appreciates the service that he gave to this administration, to this President, and very much valued the role he played in this administration and the advice he gave. For other issues, I’ll leave it to other folks to decide, because everyone makes their own decision in that circumstance. Some people write books. Some people don’t. We’re focused on all the things that we need to work on in 2014, both national security matters, domestic matters, economic matters, matters of providing essential emergency assistance to the uninsured -- I mean the unemployed. And that’s what consumes our days.

Q At his farewell, the President said of Secretary Gates, “Quite simply, he is one of the nation’s finest public servants.” Is there anything in this deluge of confidential information that he’s put out and judgments that he’s made about the President and Vice President that causes the President to reconsider that?

MR. CARNEY: Look, I think I answered part of that just now in terms of how the decisions folks make when they leave administrations -- and that’s true of this or any other previous administration. What matters most to the President is the service that his top advisors give him as President, and Secretary Gates provided service to this administration and to previous administrations, and the President is greatly appreciative of that.

And I think it’s important to note, because you see headlines and you see discrete excerpts that tell a story, or one story, or seem to say one thing, but since a lot of what we’re talking about here has to do with the policy review over Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think it’s important to remember that in -- or not remember; maybe some of you haven’t seen this, but it’s been noted in some of the press reports that regarding that policy debate, in his book, Secretary Gates said, “Obama was much criticized by conservatives and hawkish commentators for announcing that the troop surge in Afghanistan would begin to be drawn down in July 2011 and that all U.S. combat troops would be withdrawn and all responsibility for security transferred to the Afghans by the end of 2014. Inside the military there was also much grumbling about the numerical limits he placed on troops. I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” That’s from the book. That’s Secretary Gates’s published opinion on these matters.

Were these substantial, rich discussions? Absolutely, because the policy was so important. And it was much reported on at the time that there were differing views about how we should move forward with our policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. So some of those disagreements or differing views, the reporting here is not different from what we’ve seen in the past.

Q But, Jay, these are some explosive statements that he has made about the President. This is not some outside critic; this was one of his most important, if not most important national security advisor, the guy he chose to keep on to run the Pentagon. And he says that there was a “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials, including the President and the Vice President,” and that this became a big problem for him. I mean, what do you say --

MR. CARNEY: I think I just read to you -- again, you have to take the full picture here, Jon. And I would say on that matter, I think the American people expect that their Commander-in-Chief listen to all of his advisors, civilian and military, when it comes to discussions and debates about matters of war and peace and decisions that affect the lives of our men and women in uniform. And that's how it should be.

The President, the Vice President, everyone in this building who has ever served and worked on these matters has enormous respect for our men and women in uniform, and that includes all of the President’s top senior military advisors.

On policy issues, the President absolutely wants tough questions asked. On matters of national security, he wants, in these discussions and debates, both his military and his civilian advisors to be blunt and candid about their views and to back up their assessments. That’s what you, I think, would expect and want in the kinds of discussions that are held and have been held in previous administrations and previous White Houses, hopefully, when these fateful decisions have to be made.

Q Well, was Gates wrong when he said that the President didn’t believe in his own Afghanistan policy?

MR. CARNEY: I think it is absolutely the case, as many have reported, that it is well known that the President has been committed to achieving the mission of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda while also ensuring that we have a clear path for winding down the war, which will end this year. I mean, these are not separate issues. The mission and the policy included both ramping up and refocusing our mission on al Qaeda as well as making sure we had a policy in place that would wind down that war, because a war without end was not what the President believed was the right policy.

And there were debates about this. So the President believes thoroughly in the mission. He knows it’s difficult, but he believes that our men and women in uniform as well as those civilians in Afghanistan, and others who are working on this issue, have admirably and heroically fulfilled that mission. And they do so today.

Chuck.

Q Can you comment on the inference that Secretary Gates has in the book that both Secretary Clinton and President Obama admitted their opposition to the Iraq surge, that politics played a role in the Iraq mission -- the Iraq surge? It was mostly directed -- there was an inference here that the President also was engaging in this discussion.

MR. CARNEY: What I don't understand about that is anybody who has covered Barack Obama, going all the way back to his race for the Senate, knows that he was opposed to the Iraq war. That was his view running for the Senate; it was his view as a senator; it was his view as a candidate for the presidency. So it would be entirely inconsistent for him not to hold the position that he held with regards to the surge. So I don’t know what conversation that refers to, but it doesn’t track based on what I know and everybody here knows about the President's positions through the years, going back to 2002, on these matters.

Q You have a very real deadline coming up with the Afghanistan government having to do with the decision to keep troops -- what size of force, if any, is there after 2014. Is there a concern by the President that some of the revelations about the President's personal views of Karzai, for instance, is going to make this more difficult.

MR. CARNEY: No. Look, I think that the issues on the table here have to do with the need for the Afghan government to sign the bilateral security agreement, as was envisioned by President Karzai and others, which is a product of the BSA, a good-faith negotiation. And in order for the United States and our allies to plan for a post-2014 mission that would have a military component to it focused on counterterrorism and support and training for Afghan troops, we need this agreement signed promptly. And this is a matter, as I said the other day, of weeks not months.

Q You're not concerned that this book sort of breeds more tension with Karzai?

MR. CARNEY: We have direct and regular communications both from Washington and our embassy in Kabul with President Karzai and his government. And I think these matters are well far along the road, so I don’t anticipate that. He and his government understands our views and our position and the reasoning behind it. And we simply urge prompt action on signing the BSA.

Q Was Secretary Gates's characterization of the President's views of Karzai accurate?

MR. CARNEY: I think President Obama has addressed our policy towards Afghanistan, our relationship with President Karzai. That government and President Karzai, they obviously are in -- it's a challenging situation every day for them, and we work with them every day both through our military and our civilian force there to help them prepare for this transition and to help them in a military way prepare for the increased responsibility for security that comes with it. That has been a clear focus of the mission that the President established after the review of our policy there.

Q But the description was pretty personal: the President can't stand Karzai. Is that --

MR. CARNEY: I wouldn’t necessarily agree -- I wouldn’t agree with that. And I think the issues here are not about personalities, they're about policies. And the decisions the President makes about sending and keeping military forces, American men and women in uniform, in Afghanistan have to do with U.S. national security interests, not those kinds of issues. And that’s why the signing of the BSA is so important for us and our NATO allies to move forward.

Q Going back to Biden, this is the second book in three months where the President is basically -- in some way you guys have come out and had this sort of defend, buck up, whatever you want to describe it, when it comes to Joe Biden’s place. Why do you think it is that Biden has been derided negatively in a couple of these books?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I’m not sure I would agree with that assessment. When asked, we and the President and others simply reassert the fundamental fact here, which is that Vice President Biden is a key advisor on national security matters and domestic policy matters and other matters for this President. And the President greatly values the counsel he provides. That’s just the fact. And it’s a fact known to everyone in this building every day --

Q Why do insiders seem to portray him in these books --

MR. CARNEY: Look, I think when it comes to debates internally the Vice President was one member and continues to be one member of that team of rivals. This is not somebody who the President chose to be someone who simply affirms what others are thinking.

The Vice President has a lot of experience. The Vice President has done a lot of work on a lot of very complex issues, including Afghanistan and Iraq, including a number of domestic policy issues. And he plays an important role in the discussions here, and that role includes expressing an opinion that isn’t always agreed to by everybody in the room. And if it were, it wouldn’t be what the President wanted.

Let me move up and back. Cheryl.

Q Hi. Different subject altogether. This morning, at the U.S. Chamber, Tom Donohue was talking about the state of business, and he said one of businesses biggest concerns right now is overregulation. He accuses this administration of regulatory overreach. Is the President satisfied with the level of regulation on businesses?

MR. CARNEY: Well, let me say a couple of things about that. The President does not believe that we have to choose between protecting the health, welfare, and safety of Americans, and promoting economic growth, job creation, competitiveness, and innovation. We can do both and we are doing both.

The net benefits of rules finalized through the fourth fiscal year of this administration were $159 billion; that’s the net benefits. This is almost four times the net benefits through the fourth fiscal year of the previous administration.

The Obama administration has had a smart, pragmatic approach to ensure we are reducing burdensome regulations. We continue to make significant progress in the President’s unprecedented regulatory retrospective review, or regulatory look-back initiative, where we are streamlining, modifying or repealing regulations to reduce unnecessary burdens and costs. Federal agencies have issued look-back plans detailing over 500 initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the regulatory system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency. And this effort is already on track to save more than $10 billion in regulatory costs in the near term, with more savings to come.

On the broader issues, look, when it comes to helping our businesses grow, helping them create jobs, we are absolutely committed to working with the Chamber and the businesses the Chamber represents, and with members of Congress in both parties on ways that we can do that. Further economic growth and the kind of economic growth that creates jobs that middle-class families can depend on and save money for retirement and for college on, that’s what we’re about, and we want to work with everyone on that. And we just simply don’t agree with assertions that you need to sacrifice the quality of the water our kids drink, or the air they breathe, in order to achieve that. We can do both.

April.

Q Jay, I want to go back to something that Jonathan asked. You said that the President -- well, you said that the White House received the book last night. Who received the book? And did the President get a copy?

MR. CARNEY: I don’t know who else has gotten a copy; I got a copy.

Q Okay. And did you disperse that amongst the White House? Who’s reading it?

MR. CARNEY: Others have looked at it. I haven’t had the time to look at it yet.

Q Okay. And what message does it send to the troops when in this book Gates is talking about how the President was skeptical, if not convinced, that his strategy in Afghanistan would fail? We’ve had so many people die, so many people wounded in Afghanistan. I mean, what does this send to the troops? This is your man of war, your former man of war.

MR. CARNEY: Well, April, as I was saying, it’s well known that the President is committed to the mission that he has asked our men and women in the military to perform in Afghanistan. And one of the principles that underlies the policy decision-making process that this President engages in when it comes to these kinds of issues is that we need to -- when we decide to send -- when he decides to send our military into harm's way, we need to have a clear mission.

And as you know, and everybody here who covered it knows, when President Obama came into office, we inherited a policy in Afghanistan that was in disarray by the judgment of many people on the outside and inside, Republicans and Democrats alike. I think it was -- something said at the time that when you went to Afghanistan and talked to our civilian and military leaders at the end of 2008, early 2009 and asked them what the mission was, and you talked to maybe five or ten different people, you got five or ten different answers.

And this President, as you know, when he campaigned for President, made clear that he felt that we needed to refocus as a nation on the effort in Afghanistan; that the effort in Iraq had been -- which the President had opposed -- had resulted in the United States taking its focus off of the wholly necessary mission to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately defeat al Qaeda core in Afghanistan in the Af-Pak region.

So that was what that policy review was all about -- was producing clarity for our troops and for every American who cared deeply about the fact that we had tens of thousands of troops -- more than 100,000 troops combined in Afghanistan and Iraq. They deserved the clarity that the President's policy, which he devised with Secretary Gates and other members of his national security team -- and that’s why he went about doing it.

Q If he had a chance to talk to Secretary Gates right now -- if the President had a chance to talk to him, what would he say? I mean, these are some strong accusations in this book.

MR. CARNEY: Well, April, I think -- I wouldn’t speculate, but I think our response about the President's appreciation for Bob Gates's service reflects what the President feels and what we all feel.

On the fact that there have been -- that there were some debates in the prolonged policy review over Afghanistan is hardly news. But that process led to a stronger, better policy for our troops and for our national security because it was focused on what the original purpose of going to Afghanistan was about, which was holding responsible those who attacked the United States and killed Americans on September 11th, 2001, and assisting the new Afghan government and the Afghan security forces and helping build them up so that they could eventually be responsible for their own security. Because it was not the President's view -- in fact, it was his stated commitment that he would not endorse a policy that foresaw war in Afghanistan without end. He thought it was very important to ensure that we had a withdrawal date; that even after we surged our forces as part of refocusing the mission and bringing pressure on al Qaeda central, that we would also begin the drawdown -- or after that, begin the drawdown.

And that is the commitment he has made and it is the commitment he's keeping. And it's what the American people expected him to do, he said he would do and he has done. And that applies to Iraq, as well.

Brianna.

Q Thanks, Jay. So when you say that the President thoroughly believed in the mission in the surge in Afghanistan, when Secretary Gates says that Obama was "skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail," about sending 30,000 more troops in, are you saying that he’s wrong?

MR. CARNEY: I'm saying that the President devised the mission and has great faith in the troops who carry out the mission and in the mission itself -- that it’s the right mission to pursue in Afghanistan, it has been. I think that's been borne out. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a challenge. Of course, it is. That's why these debates were so --

Q So Bob Gates is mistaken in his assessment?

MR. CARNEY: You guys can assess the lines -- each line in the book. I'm simply telling you --

Q Well, but you’re in a position obviously to assess it better than we are.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm telling you what the President believes and I think what has been demonstrated again and again by his policy decisions and his statements on these issues. The President oversaw a process to review our policy in Afghanistan and in the Af-Pak region precisely because the circumstances with regards to that policy when he took office were in disarray. And I think that was attested to by many people. There was a need to refocus our strategy in Afghanistan to -- I think Secretary Gates says this -- again, I haven't read the book but I've read some accounts of it -- says this somewhere that it was a good thing to do -- one of the right decisions that Secretary Gates talks about the President making on Afghanistan -- to narrow the mission, refocus it, make sure that it was clear to our troops and our civilian leaders and our military commanders what the mission was, because we owe that to them.

Q But it’s obviously a very serious charge to say that President Obama was sending 30,000 troops into harm’s way without really believing in the mission. Why do you think that he came to that conclusion then?

MR. CARNEY: Again, I think you should ask Secretary Gates or others about the meaning of each sentence in his book. What I can tell you is that he also wrote, as I noted earlier, about all the decisions President Obama made on Afghanistan -- “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” He also says, “I believe the President cared deeply about the troops and their families. I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops.” And I think that's a sentiment that we all recognize to be true.

So the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has to make decisions about when and where we deploy U.S. military forces, and he is extremely conscious of the responsibility that that authority bestows upon him and those who hold his office. And therefore, he would not make decisions about surging U.S. troops without a thorough debate of the policy objectives and the options available to him to achieve those objectives, and a thorough debate about what the proper focus of the mission ought to be.

And I think that that process produced a policy that, as Secretary Gates and others have said -- and Secretary Gates was one of the co-authors, if you will, of the policy -- that did just that: refocused our mission; made it clear for our troops and civilians in Afghanistan what the mission was about, why we were in Afghanistan and why it was necessary to be clear that we weren’t staying in Afghanistan in a combat mission forever. That was the President’s commitment to the American people, and he is upholding that commitment.

Q On unemployment, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday indicating that he wants the short-term bill as is and then is open to talking about offsets, proposing the Republican plan of taking it to his caucus for a longer-term extension of long-term unemployment benefits. And as I understand it, that’s something that has come to in consultation with the White House. There’s a feeling that you all are on the same page, so correct me if I’m wrong on that. How open are you to discussing offsets, and what type of offsets are you thinking?

MR. CARNEY: Well, as I said yesterday, Brianna, we believe the House -- the Senate ought to continue its deliberation on this matter and pass the three-month extension without offsets of this emergency assistance. The House ought to follow suit -- it has been done before by previous Congresses and previous administrations, Republican and Democratic -- because it’s the right thing to do. And because this is not -- the kinds of debates about how you put a longer-term policy together and what that looks like take time, for one thing, and the families who had their assistance cut off last week don’t have the luxury of time.

Q But I’m asking about the long-term --

MR. CARNEY: Well, look, what I said yesterday holds true today, which is that we firmly believe that Congress ought to pass the bill that is currently being considered in the Senate, a three-month extension, and we are happy to discuss with Congress how to move forward beyond the three months. But they have to take care of these families. They used to. They did in the past, Republicans, and they did so 14 out of 17 times without offsets. This kind of assistance is obviously beneficial and a lifeline to many millions of Americans -- 1.3 million in this case with those who were cut off and their families -- but it’s also beneficial directly, economists have told us, to the economy, because this is the kind of funding that goes directly back into the economy and then it spurs economic growth and job creation.

So we hope the House will -- the Senate will complete its work and the House will take similar action. And as we said yesterday and Gene said the day before, we’re of course willing to have conversations about what further --

Q But you won’t have those until the short-term is passed and you won’t say what kind of offsets you might be amenable to?

MR. CARNEY: We want to see Congress act on the three-month, short-term extension of emergency benefits. We are absolutely willing to listen and have conversations about how we move forward beyond the three months. But this is, again, not an esoteric debate. There are families who are without this assistance who fear they will not see that assistance renewed, and in many cases rely on that assistance to put food on the table and to pay their gas and electric bills, which are challenging in parts of the country now because of the severe cold.

Tamara.

Q One of the senators that was -- Republican senators who was critical to this cloture happening yesterday, Rob Portman, was on the floor recently and said that it was very important to him that there be offsets, and he proposed two that would cover the short-term extension, which he says were things that were proposed in the President’s budget: no double dipping on SSI and unemployment benefits, and some reforms to unemployment benefits that apparently the President has proposed before. So are these unreasonable proposals?

MR. CARNEY: Again, when it comes to the absolute necessity to pass a bill that would extend emergency assistance to these 1.3 million Americans and their families, our position is clear: Congress ought to do it now; the bill that’s in the Senate, they should do it now. And looking in the President’s budget, which is a document that was balanced and dealt with a number of issues and finding items that you want to apply here or apply there -- there’s time for discussion about how we pay for things. If you remember, in the President’s budget that’s balanced, it was a balance between revenues and savings. That’s the approach he’s always taken. It’s the approach he believes that has helped lead us out of this recovery, helped create the sustained economic growth we’ve seen, helped create the sustained job creation we’ve seen, and helped bring about the dramatic deficit reduction we’ve seen.

But we need to do more and we need to be focused on economic growth. We need to be focused on middle-class families. We need to be focused on those families and those Americans who are looking for work and need this assistance. They’re not any different from the Americans who needed that assistance in the previous administration, when President Bush signed extensions of the assistance without offsets. They’re the same kinds of people and they deserve the same kind of treatment from Washington, from Congress, from both parties.

Q Were there any assurances made to the Republican senators who the President or others in the administration spoke to about any changes to the unemployment program or offsets in later discussions, or any assurances at all?

MR. CARNEY: Well, as I said, I’m not reading out individual conversations that the President has had with lawmakers. But I can tell you that in the conversations he and others have had, we’ve made clear what our view is: We ought to pass this; we ought to take care of these Americans; we ought to, in doing so, appreciate the positive economic effect that extending these benefits would have. And we are open to then having discussions about how to move forward for a full-year extension. But beyond that, I don’t have more to read out.

Bill.

Q On the Afghan surge, Gates writes, “The President doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out”. Given that there’s a copy of the book floating around, has the President been made aware of that? Is there a reaction to it?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think there are numerous press reports about the book. I don’t know whether the President read them. What I can tell you is that the statement that we put out and the statements I’ve made today about the President’s appreciation for Secretary Gates’s service reflect the President’s views. Generally, when I speak for the President, I don’t do it by osmosis. I do it because I know what his views are.

Q Generally? (Laughter.)

MR. CARNEY: Good catch. Must be the beard.

Again, I can’t analyze every sentence of a book that I haven’t read, but I’ve read press reports of it. I know that --

Q Has the President read it?

MR. CARNEY: No, he has not read it.

Q Will he read it?

MR. CARNEY: I haven’t asked him.

Q Did you give it to him? Is it on his desk?

MR. CARNEY: He doesn’t have my copy. (Laughter.) But what I can say -- again, I can’t analyze or interpret for you every sentence of this book, even if I had read it all. What I can tell you is that the President believes we ought to wind down and end the war in Afghanistan is not a revelation. It was his stated commitment to the American people. So that is why, as part of his policy review, he insisted that we both surge troops and set a date for the beginning of a drawdown and for the completion of that drawdown at the end of 2014. That’s the policy we are continuing to implement. And it is fully in keeping with the President's publicly stated views and commitments.

Q What's the purpose of tomorrow's NSA discussion with leaders in Congress? He's not still seeking information from them, is he?

MR. CARNEY: I know he wants to hear from them to discuss with them the status of his review, which is ongoing. The Review Group's report was publicly released, as you know, so everybody has had a chance to digest that. The President certainly has spent time with it, and as we've said, he believes, with the exception of the one recommendation on which a decision has already been made, a personnel issue, he wants serious consideration of every recommendation from the Review Group.

But there are other pieces of the overall review that are ongoing. And, as you know, when the President has made decisions about what recommendations he will call for implementing and what he will want to further review, and what he may decide we should not pursue, he's going to speak about. And that will happen before the State of the Union address.

Q Jay, on your point about the book a moment ago with Bill that you can't focus on every line in here and analyze it, then why in the statement last night did the White House not refute any of the allegations against the President, but went out of your way to defend the Vice President and analyze at least that part of the book? And when you said to Chuck their relationship is great, he relies on him -- we've heard that before. Why if it's such a strong relationship do you have to go out of your way to defend him?

MR. CARNEY: It might be because the press constantly asks in response to --

Q Well, we also asked about the allegations against the President and that statement did not address it, is my point.

MR. CARNEY: Again, this was in response to a single sentence that made a categorical statement of opinion by Secretary Gates about the Vice President and his views that in that case we could say clearly that the President disagrees with that.

Q On the lunch with the Vice President, you let the photographers in and that is a great positive step, but you did not let any reporters in. And we see this more and more, that you seem to think giving more access is letting photographers in -- which we support -- but we can't have anybody shout a question, we can't have -- if the President wants to defend the Vice President --

MR. CARNEY: He doesn’t. Ed, can I tell you, we let photographers in because he knows he doesn’t need to. We let photographers in because we've had an ongoing discussion about access for photographers. And I thought that was a good thing.

Q And we have an ongoing discussion with reporters as well, though. You're leaving out that we've had an ongoing discussion.

MR. CARNEY: And you're leaving out that word for word, minute for minute, question for question, this President has answered more questions from the free and independent press, or at least as many as his immediate predecessors, which we've discussed.

Q So why not today?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I don’t know of any President in history who's taken questions every day.

Q Not every day. He hasn't taken a question since, what, was it December 20th, the last press conference?

MR. CARNEY: Well you and he were away for quite some time.

Q Yes, absolutely. But it's been a long time.

MR. CARNEY: I'm sure he'll be taking questions, Ed, again soon.

Q We're looking forward to that. Okay, two other quick things. You've stressed the President's commitment to the mission in Afghanistan, given the book. Senators Graham and McCain just came back from Afghanistan. They spoke to President Karzai and they claim that President Obama has not spoken to President Karzai since June or July. How is it that the two leaders -- if he's committed to the mission, how could the two leaders, as you're negotiating a status of forces agreement, how could the two leaders not talk in months?

MR. CARNEY: When did we go to South Africa?

MR. EARNEST: December 15th [sic].

MR. CARNEY: Well, I was physically in the presence of both Presidents when President Karzai and President Obama exchanged greetings.

Q Great. But they had a substantive discussion about the status of --

MR. CARNEY: The President and President Karzai have had discussions in the past. There’s not a lot of mystery about our views on this document that was negotiated in good faith and the need to sign it on the part of the Afghan government. So we have robust and constant communication with the Afghan government, both from Washington and from our embassy in Kabul as well as through our military commanders.

Q When was the last time the President spoke to the lead U.S. commander in Afghanistan?

MR. CARNEY: I’ll have to take the question. I don't --

Q We're in a war footing right now and you don't know the last time he spoke to the commanding general?

MR. CARNEY: I’ll have to take the question, Ed.

Q Okay.

MR. CARNEY: Thank you.

Yes, Jon.

Q Yesterday, the D.C. public schools were open, as well as many other inner-city schools were open, despite
minus-20 degree wind chills. Some of the reasons that the officials are giving is that this is the only place young kids could actually get two warm meals. On the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s War on Poverty, what does this say about America, and how far do we still need to come?

MR. CARNEY: I think it says that we've made progress -- as those of you who have read the report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers know is our view and the President’s view; those of you who saw the President’s statement regarding the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s War on Poverty know -- but that we have work to do. And the President is committed to engaging in that work, because we need to provide ladders of opportunity to Americans who are in poverty, to those who are in the bottom rungs of the middle class, who are struggling to pay their bills every day, every week. We need to provide the kind of opportunity to our kids so that they can enjoy the economic mobility that made this country great and that made it an accepted fact about the United States of America that no matter what your circumstances, you could be anyone and do anything.

That is the heart of the President’s message that he delivered in Anacostia in December. It is what animates much of his deliberation about and policy decisions about economic matters and strengthening the middle class, creating opportunities for those who strive for the middle class. And you will be hearing the President talk about it again and again, as you have throughout his history in public debate.

Q Jay, I’m wondering if you could go beyond the written statement that you all put out on the President’s call to Chancellor Merkel. Did they discuss any further the questions about eavesdropping on foreign leaders?

MR. CARNEY: I don’t have a further readout on that. I believe the President made the call because of her injury.

Q Do you know if he reached her on a hard line or a mobile phone? (Laughter.) It’s a serious question.

MR. CARNEY: I believe the President calls foreign leaders on a hard line.

Q Thanks.

MR. CARNEY: Yes, Connie.

Q There’s still a lot of emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Does this administration believe that all the other problems in the Middle East will be settled if that issue is resolved?

MR. CARNEY: I think that the need to make progress on the Middle East peace process is I think clear to the President, clear to his team, and it’s why Secretary Kerry and others at the President’s direction continue to work so hard on it. I don’t think anybody would agree with an assertion that resolving that conflict resolves all conflicts, but it is certainly a very important issue that merits the focus that Secretary Kerry and the President and other members of his team are giving it.

Steve.

Q Does the White House have any concern that these growing al Qaeda enclaves in Iraq and Syria could pose a direct threat to U.S. security interests here or abroad and could become a similar kind of thing that we saw in Afghanistan before September 11th?

MR. CARNEY: There is no question that as the President’s national security team and the President make decisions about and assessments about the threats against the United States, they are very focused on those extremist groups and individuals and elements that have as their objective doing harm to the United States and harm to Americans and harm to our allies, and those who are more local in their focus.

This is without -- I’m not making a judgment about that, but you can be sure that in terms of the al Qaeda presence in Iraq, we are, as you know -- but that’s how we view these things. And it is absolutely a higher order of concern when we see al Qaeda in a manifestation that represents a threat to the United States, a threat to the American people and a threat to our allies.

And I think that one thing that all of us have observed and learned over the years since 9/11 and even prior to it is that there has been -- there are evolutions and developments in the nature of these extremist movements and their focus. And it’s important to be knowledgeable and understanding of the difference between various groups and their affiliations and their objectives. That’s a broad statement, not about Anbar province.

I think I’ve noted in the past several days the military assistance that we have been working to provide the Iraq government and the consultations that we are undertaking with Iraqi leaders, including the Prime Minister and others, on the essentially two-part strategy that we believe needs to be undertaken and that we are seeing the Iraqi government undertake, which is one that is military in nature and one that is focused on reconciliation and working with Sunni tribes and others in the region to expel al Qaeda from those cities and territories because the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people do not support and do not want al Qaeda in their midst.

Q The Vice President spoke again, made some calls to Iraq this morning. Does the U.S. think that Maliki could have done more to forestall the rise of these groups by reaching out more to Sunnis in Iraq’s political process?

MR. CARNEY: This is a subject that is an ongoing part of the conversations that we have with leaders in the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Maliki. In the call that he made to the Prime Minister, the Vice President encouraged him to continue his outreach to local, tribal, and national leaders. The Vice President also welcomed the Council of Ministers’ decision to extend state benefits to tribal forces killed or injured in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. He also welcomed the Prime Minister’s statement affirming that Iraqi elections will occur as scheduled, as well as the Prime Minister’s commitment to ensuring that humanitarian aid is reaching people in need. The Vice President underscored that America will support and assist Iraq in its fight against international terrorism.

Yes.

Q Thanks, Jay. Just to follow up, as for Syria, the fighting we see and we hear about between ISIL and the moderate rebels, who remain, many of them, Islamists -- does the administration know not only if the aid to the rebels in Syria goes to these moderate still Islamist rebels? Do you know?

MR. CARNEY: You’re asking do we know if the assistance is going where we want it to go?

Q The one -- yes, exactly. And the ones fighting ISIL.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I don’t know specifically the answer to that question. I can tell you, as we’ve discussed over the months, that we carefully evaluate in the provision of assistance where it’s going, and obviously want our assistance -- the humanitarian assistance to go to the people who need humanitarian assistance, the Syrian people who are suffering, and the other forms of assistance to go into the hands of those who have the desires and hopes of the Syrian people as their objective in their efforts and their desire for more democracy and freedom.

So I don’t think that view has changed. I can’t say if we know -- if you’re talking about a particular shipment or -- I mean, these are -- this process is carefully vetted for the reasons that I think underlie your question.

Q How can it be monitored? How is it monitored, these things?

MR. CARNEY: I think that’s a question best directed to State and Defense in terms of the mechanics of that. But it is a concern. As you know, with regards to some aid, it was suspended in a part of the country because of the situation with a warehouse, and that goes to the heart of your question. But that is a reflection of the seriousness with which we take these matters and the need to get aid into the hands of those in Syria for whom it was meant.

Last one, Dan.

Q Can I just follow up on that? What was the result of that investigation in terms of the warehouse and --

MR. CARNEY: I’ll have to direct you to Defense for that. I don’t know.

Q Is it possible to get a list of the kinds of weapons or the monetary level of flow that is now going to the opposition?

MR. CARNEY: I think that’s going to be a question for State or Defense.

Sorry, I missed you, Jared.

Q Thanks. Two questions, both timing things. Is the President going to wait to give this surveillance speech until he gets the -- I think it's two reports from PCLOB, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board?

MR. CARNEY: The President, as you know, meets with and has had discussions with members of that board and others on this issue. I'm not sure about the timing of their review, but he's certainly in conversations with them about their views.

So what we've said is that the President will be making his decision and talking about them in remarks prior to the State of the Union address on January 28th. I'm not sure about the timing for that report, but what I can tell you is the the President has been and will be fully briefed on their views.

Q Do you have a timing yet for the budget? I know last year was delayed a couple of weeks.

MR. CARNEY: I don’t. I don’t have anything on that. Thanks.

Q Preview of tomorrow's event?

MR. CARNEY: We'll get something for you on that. I don’t have anything for you.

Q Thanks, Jay.

END
2:50 P.M. EST

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 07, 2014

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 1/7/2013

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:32 P.M. EST

MR. CARNEY: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being here. Before I take your questions, I have a statement at the top.

For years, health care costs in America skyrocketed with brutal consequences for our country. Escalating costs hurt our economy, eating into workers' wages and holding back hiring. They contributed to our deficits and crowded out crucial investments like education and maintaining a world-class infrastructure. And they've taken money directly out of consumers' pockets with Americans paying far higher health care prices than others around the world for no better outcomes. The Affordable Care Act, for the first time in decades, has helped to stop that trend.

New data released yesterday shows that in 2012 health care spending as a share of the economy declined, something that has happened only a handful of times over the past several decades. And the years 2009-2012 saw the slowest growth in U.S. health care expenditures since the government started collecting this information in the 1960s. These trends have already begun to pay dividends in the form of savings for American consumers, lower costs for businesses, and our rapidly declining deficits.

We have already seen powerful examples of these trends at work with hospitals and other providers making changes to their practices to bring down costs following the enactment of the health care law, prioritizing results over the amount of treatment a patient receives.

As we bring millions more into the health insurance system, we will be working to make sure these encouraging trends continue to bring down health care costs for our economy, for our businesses and for consumers.

After you absorb that, you can fire away. Jim.

Q Thanks, Jay. Today's vote in the Senate advancing the jobless bill, the President called it an "important step." But some of the Republicans who voted for it still insist that there should be some concessions, whether they're reforms to the U.S. system or ways to pay for the $6 billion-plus cost. Yesterday, Gene Sperling, from the podium, said that that was unnecessary, but given the numbers of the vote and the necessary concessions that might be required, does the President now think that there must be some kind of pay-for, some way to accommodate those Republicans to win a vote?

MR. CARNEY: The President believes that this is an emergency situation for 1.3 million Americans and their families. Their benefits were cut off last week. As Gene said yesterday, they expected a check this week and haven't gotten it, and won't unless Congress acts.

Congress should follow the admirable lead of the Senate -- the House should -- and pass a bipartisan bill that extends emergency insurance to the unemployed for three months. And as we said yesterday, Gene and I, once that happens -- to deal with that situation for those Americans and their families -- we and Congress can continue to talk about how to move forward beyond that three-month period.

Think about the fact that, I think Gene said yesterday, 14 out of the last 17 times we have extended emergency unemployment insurance benefits, they have been unpaid for because this extension was viewed as an emergency. That happened under Democratic Congresses and White Houses and under Republican Congresses and White Houses. It happened five times under the previous administration each time when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today, and each time when the long-term unemployment rate was significantly lower than it is today. And when it happened towards the end of the previous administration, with bipartisan support, our deficits were climbing rapidly. Under President Obama, our deficits have been cut in half; they are coming down at a rate faster than we’ve seen since World War II.

I would also point you to the fact that yesterday there was a great deal of skepticism in this room, understandably, that today’s vote would succeed. Last month you couldn’t find a Republican lawmaker, until Senator Heller came forward, who would go on the record supporting extension of unemployment insurance benefits.

Q But it only succeeded because some of those Republican senators believed that they could still get these --

MR. CARNEY: And they passed a bill that extends unemployment insurance. They voted on cloture, and six supported it, that extends -- that would extend, if passed, emergency unemployment insurance benefits for three months without a so-called pay-for. That’s what they voted to do. There’s been bipartisan action in the Senate. We hope to see further bipartisan action in the Senate, and we hope the House will follow suit.

And I understand that as there often is, given Congress’s track record, that there’s skepticism and doubt about the capacity for Republicans to join Democrats, or Democrats to join Republicans to do the right thing by the American people and by the American economy. But they can and they have. They just did when they passed not a grand bargain, but a significant budget deal. And they’ve done it again today in the Senate. And we -- as the President noted earlier today, it’s not a huge amount or a huge accomplishment, but it’s reason to hope. And I think the American people are looking to Washington in this New Year to shed its habit of inaction and obstruction, and instead to embrace common-sense solutions that help the economy, help the middle class, continue this recovery. And that’s what this would do.

Q So would you at this point be willing to issue a veto threat to anything that contains --

MR. CARNEY: Here’s what I won’t do, is speculate about things that don’t exist, because yesterday the informed conventional wisdom said that this would not happen today, and it happened. Yesterday, I think there were two Republicans on the record who said they would support -- they would vote “yes” today. I think we ended up with six. Again, six weeks ago, five weeks ago there wasn’t -- when the President was saying several times a week that we needed to do this and insisted on this, I think most of you were noting to us that there wasn’t any Republican support. So we don’t share the conviction that this can’t happen. We share the profound belief that it ought to and it will.

So we're going to press forward with this. We commend the Senate on the action it took today. And we need to get these benefits in the hands of the American people because, as the President said, this isn't just about helping these Americans, these 1.3 Americans and their families. This is, as independent economists have said again and again and again, a boon for the economy. This is a direct infusion. I mean, when you talk about bang for your buck, this is a direct infusion into the economy, and helps -- economic growth helps job creation, not just helps these individuals as they look for work, but has a broader macro effect. And the failure to extend them has the commensurate negative impact on the economy and job creation.

And that’s, if you can dispassionately look at it only from a macro level as opposed to imagining what life is like in those households where a parent has been looking for work and has been relying to put food on the table on this assistance. There's a long tradition, bipartisan tradition throughout many, many years and many administrations and Congresses of extending these benefits when economic conditions demand that we do it. And we should do it again.

Q Quick question on immigration. Some Democrats even in the House are suggesting that one way to get this overhaul through the House would be to focus on giving immigrants who are here illegally legal status, and not go to the next step which is providing a path to citizenship, and deal with that perhaps later. Is that a step that the President would support? Would that be considered?

MR. CARNEY: The President's views have been clear, and they have not changed. This is a comprehensive problem that needs a comprehensive solution. The only way to advance this is to advance it all, and that includes enhanced border security; it includes measures to hold businesses accountable so that everybody plays by the same set of rules; it includes measures to deal with and provide a path to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented people here; and it includes the measures we need to take to enhance our legal immigration system so that those who come here to get educated stay here to create businesses.

So how the House gets there is obviously up to the House and House leadership. But in the end, we need comprehensive immigration reform. The President put forward principles; he did not expect to get everything that he wanted in terms of the line-by-line bill as he would write it, but what the Senate passed in a bipartisan way adheres to those principles. And that reflects this broad bipartisan consensus across the country. This is a remarkable thing. You know -- you've covered Washington for some time. You don’t get issues as significant as this very often where this is this kind of coalition of Republicans and Democrats, of business and labor, evangelicals.

This is an opportunity that should be seized, and if it is seized, will do great benefit -- bring great benefit to our economy and our businesses, which is, again, the focus of the President and of so many members of both parties here in Washington.

Jeff.

Q Jay, on a completely different subject.

MR. CARNEY: Okay.

Q What does the President think about Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea?

MR. CARNEY: I have not discussed that with him, but I can tell you a couple of things.

Mr. Rodman is on a private trip. And our views about North Korea and its failure to meet its obligations have not changed. And our views about Kenneth Bae have not changed. So I heard about -- I did not see -- some of the comments that Mr. Rodman made, but I'm not going to dignify that outburst with a response. I'm simply going to say that we remain gravely concerned about Kenneth Bae's health and continue to urge DPRK authorities to grant his amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds.

Q Was there any effort by the White House or the State Department to discourage Rodman from doing this trip?

MR. CARNEY: This is travel that's private by nature, and we do not vet private travel to North Korea. We have not been contacted by Mr. Rodman about this trip or his prior trip, and we do not -- the U.S. government does not vet U.S. citizens’ private travel to North Korea.

Q Is there any good that can come from something like this?

MR. CARNEY: Well, look, sports exchanges can be valuable. Sports diplomacy can be valuable. And it's something that we pursue in many places around the world, including through direct support. But this is a private trip. And our focus, when it comes to North Korea, is on sharpening the choice that that regime faces between further isolation, further economic deprivation because of its insistence upon using its resources to fund its military program and fund its nuclear ambitions, or a decision to come in line with its international obligations and taking advantage of the opportunity to rejoin the community of nations, to ease that and potentially end that isolation. That's the very clear choice that the DPRK faces.

Q And just one other topic as well. Senator Murkowski today gave a speech calling for changing U.S. laws about the exportation of crude oil, which is a big issue for lots of people in the energy industry, as the U.S. energy situation changes. What is the White House's thinking about that?

MR. CARNEY: I didn't get a chance to review those. I saw that there was a story about that, but I don't have anything for you on that. You might try the Department of Energy.

Let me move up and back. Chris.

Q Thanks, Jay. Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a stay on same-sex marriages in Utah. As the litigation that brought them there proceeds through the courts, did the President express any disappointment with that decision?

MR. CARNEY: We have no comment on the specifics of this case, because the United States government is not a party to this litigation. But speaking broadly, as you know, the President's views on marriage equality are well established. He believes that loving, committed gay and lesbian couples that want to get married and have access to the full benefits, protections and obligations that marriage brings should be able to do so.

He has also long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples. And he believes strongly that protections should not be taken away from committed gay and lesbian couples who want to take care of their families. So, again, I can't -- we're not party to this case. For the sort of questions of legal nature about it, you might try the Department of Justice. But on the broader issues here, the President has been very clear.

Q The thing I want to ask you, though, is that there is a question about whether the federal government will recognize the marriages that were already performed in that state as legally valid. Are there any conversations taking place between the White House and DOJ about that?

MR. CARNEY: I would refer you to the Department of Justice. I'm not -- again, this is a matter that's in litigation now. We're not a party to the litigation. The views of the President are well known. And when it comes to questions like that, I think the Justice Department is the best place to ask them.

Jon.

Q The Speaker of the House says that a month ago he told the President that any extension of unemployment benefits would have to be paid for and have to include measures to help people get back to work. That was a month ago. That was before this emergency situation where they have expired. Did the President in any way act on that or initiate any discussions about coming up with a plan that would be acceptable to House Republicans?

MR. CARNEY: I thank you for the question, Jon. As a rule, we don't read out conversations between congressional leaders, the Speaker and the Chief of Staff, which is the case here. So I'm not going to get into greater detail about that. I can tell you that our view is clear, as I just expressed, which is that there is a bipartisan bill that has cleared a significant hurdle in the Senate that extends these benefits, these emergency benefits, for three months to make these families, these Americans, these 1.3 million Americans and their families whole as they look for work. And we are absolutely of the mind that the House ought to follow suit. They ought to take care of this. And we can then continue to have conversations about how we move forward beyond the three months, which is what we've been saying for quite some time and what we said yesterday, again, when I think the consensus view was that this vote would fail this morning.

So we believe there's some momentum here and that there ought to be a willingness, a bipartisan willingness by members of both parties in both houses to do what they've done before when the unemployment rate was lower and when the long-term unemployment rate was significantly lower. It can't have been the right thing then and the wrong thing now. And if the argument is solely a matter of fiscal probity, why was, when deficits were climbing in 2008 exponentially, it was the right thing then, but in a period of steep decline in our deficits it's the wrong thing now.

So the premise is flawed. But the fact is the Senate took an important step with bipartisan support today and we believe that the House ought to follow suit.

Q But, Jay, as you know, it passed today with the votes of Republicans who said that they would only support final passage if it is paid for. So the question is -- it's really a direct one here -- is are you -- is the White House opposed to paying for the extension of these unemployment benefits with cuts to other programs?

MR. CARNEY: The White House believes that we ought to do this the way we've done it 14 out of the last 17 times.

Q So the answer is, yes, then you're opposed to doing it in a way that is paid for with cuts --

MR. CARNEY: Yes. We believe that Congress ought to act on this short-term extension of these emergency benefits right away so that those benefits begin flowing again to these families who, by the way, in addition to the other hardships they face in many parts of the country, are contemplating how they pay their heating bills. Louisville, Kentucky, before I walked out here today, was seven degrees Fahrenheit -- seven degrees. That’s what it was here this morning. If you didn’t get a check this week, or you know you're not getting one this week, and you know you've got a heating bill coming, you might be wondering how you're going to pay it.

Q So there's no negotiating with the Republicans on this point?

MR. CARNEY: Let me just -- all I would tell you is that yesterday the same questions were asked on the premise that this would fail in the Senate. It has not failed; in fact, it picked up Republican support. So we are absolutely unwilling to concede that there is not support for doing what Congress has done in the past.

Yes.

Q You talk about what the House should do, so is there some reason to doubt that it will do it?

MR. CARNEY: It wouldn’t be interesting if that weren't the case, Bill.

Q Why not admit that if you really want this to happen, you're willing to talk to them about alternative plans?

MR. CARNEY: Bill, I can only repeat what I've said in the past -- in the very recent past -- which is that Congress has done this before many, many times. The previous President, a Republican, signed it into law, unpaid for many times, bills that had bipartisan support, bills that were passed by Congress when the unemployment rate was lower and when the long-term unemployment rate was significantly lower.

So again, the question you ought to be asking is why was it the right thing to do --

Q Will you let it fail?

MR. CARNEY: But, Bill, that premise is the same you would have asked yesterday on the supposition that it was going to fail today, and instead, it picked up votes. And what we have seen steadily since December, and what we saw this weekend on the Sunday shows, and what we saw yesterday and what we saw today is that more and more Republicans are supporting, publicly, the idea that we need to do this in the way that we've done it before, which is to set aside ideology and recognize that this is the right thing to do for these families and the right thing to do for our economy. It's not that complicated. So hopefully that’s what will happen.

Q If it doesn’t?

MR. CARNEY: Well, that’s the same question you could have asked yesterday -- "Jay, it's not going to pass tomorrow so what do you do then?" So you're suggesting something with certitude that you can't possibly know. And, in fact, I think recent history suggests --

Q And so are you.

MR. CARNEY: I would say that we have the momentum when it comes to the building consensus that this is something that ought to be done.

Q One more thing. On the health care costs, declining health care costs, aren't you giving the ACA more credit than it’s due? Health care costs have been declining between 2009 and 2012, at a time when all consumer spending has declined. So by piggybacking the ACA onto it, aren't you giving it more credit than it deserves?

MR. CARNEY: What I can tell you is that you can disagree about the scale of impact of the ACA on the continued slowdown in health care costs, but according to a range of experts from the Congressional Budget Office to leading health economists, the slowdown does go beyond the recession. I would remind you that we are now obviously in 2014, and the recession, as a technical matter, is something that ended sometime ago. The economy has been growing and creating jobs.

I would also remind you that a number of skeptics, including the aforementioned Speaker of the House, said in August of 2010, "Health care costs will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare." I think he missed on that prediction. Paul Ryan: "Unless repealed, this law will exacerbate the spiraling cost of health care." That was in January of 2011. The opposite happened. The opposite happened.

And it reminds me -- Bill, it's good to do this because you covered it, too -- remember 1993, the Clinton budget? Remember? And some of these members are still in the House and the Senate -- profoundly confident predictions that if this budget were to pass, we would -- the country would go into recession, job growth would be decimated, terrible things would happen, and instead, we saw the longest sustained period of economic growth and job creation in half a century.

So I think we're a little bit better about the prediction business.

Ed.

Q Jay, there have been some reports in talking about the economy that the President may have some new proposals this week, specifically the Promise Zones that have been talked about before. Whether you call it -- or confirm it now, the idea that he has some tax incentives and some other things to help areas of the country that have been historically dealing with poverty, will he have something to say this week on that, and on the anniversary of the War on Poverty?

MR. CARNEY: I don’t have any scheduling announcements to make. I think the program that you cited has been discussed in the past. It's something that we think is a significant help economically, and it's something this President supports. But I don’t have any scheduling announcements with regards to the President or previews of policy proposals he may make or remake.

Q When the President today in talking about the unemployment benefit issue acknowledged, as Gene Sperling did yesterday at the podium, that long-term unemployment is still a big problem in this country, since he's now been in office for five years, will he acknowledge that some of that is his responsibility? It's not just policies from the Bush administration, but he's now had five years. Does he bear some responsibility for long-term unemployment?

MR. CARNEY: The President believes that everyone who is sent to Washington by their representatives bears responsibility for taking action to help the economy and help the American people. And that’s why economic growth, job creation, middle-class security have been the cornerstones of his domestic policy since the day he was sworn into office.

The problem that we've seen with both the reduction in mobility, economic mobility has been one that’s been obviously developing for a number of years and decades. When it comes to -- and he talked about that in his speech here in Washington at the Center for American Progress, so the event sponsored by CAP. And when it comes to long-term unemployment, this is obviously a situation that has been developing for some time, and it was gravely exacerbated by the worst recession since the Great Depression.

And the fact that it is a continuing problem and a problem that calls out for creative solutions only reinforces what the President has said about the need to take action, and the need to do things legislatively and through other means that help Americans out there who have been looking for work for too long. And you've heard the President talk about it a lot because it's very much on his mind.

Q When you talk about the millions of jobs that have been created and some of the recovery that we've seen under the President you certainly take credit for that, that his policies have worked in some ways. Will you also take responsibility that when you have a record number of people on food stamps; when you've got, as he says and Gene Sperling said yesterday, this long-term unemployment problem, some of his policies have not worked.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm not sure that’s what he said. He said that long-term unemployment continues to be a persistent problem that we need to address. And we look forward to collaboration and cooperation from Congress on measures that will help the long-term unemployed, that will help other unemployed Americans strengthen the middle class, help our economy grow. And the President has put forward a host of proposals that are of the nature that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support, including his proposal to combine a simplification and reduction in the corporate tax rate as part of a package of investments that would help build our infrastructure and put people back to work.

So this President is very eager to have conversations with members of Congress about what we can do to further the economic expansion, further the job creation that we've seen. Because there's no question -- given that we started this enterprise here, the President did, when we were hemorrhaging jobs at 800,000 per month, and that job loss was sustained and dramatic -- the work is not yet finished, not even close to finished, which is why it's the President's primary preoccupation.

Tamara. Welcome.

Q Thank you. So it's not entirely unprecedented, though, to pay for unemployment extension. You said 14 out of 17, so that leaves three; I think at least one of those times was under this presidency when the unemployment rate was higher. So does this -- it seems like both sides have something to say here, and that -- is there a way out?

MR. CARNEY: We'll take the 14 out of 17 as opposed to the 3 out of 17 in terms of the preponderance of evidence. But I would simply argue that you have a situation where last week 1.3 million Americans and their families were cut off. You have areas of the country where the unemployment rate is significantly higher than the national rate of 7 percent. You have families who, in many cases, are in very desperate circumstances in terms of the prospect of trying to do without that assistance as the individuals or the primary breadwinner in the family searches for work. And remember, as Gene said yesterday, this assistance comes with the requirement that you're looking for work.

So we're talking about a proposal that extends these benefits for three months -- not a year -- three months. And Congress ought to do what it has done the disproportionate percentage of the time in the past, including under Republican Congresses and Republican Presidents, and extend these benefits so that these families can live without some of the fear that they face during a time of economic hardship and thereby create the time here in Washington for further discussions about how to move forward beyond the three months.

It doesn't seem, given the bipartisan nature of these kinds of efforts in the past, given the pro-growth nature of the extension of these kinds of benefits and pro-job creation nature of it, it doesn't seem like it should be a huge ideological disagreement. In fact, what we've seen over the past several days is that it's not.

And when you hear what Senator Heller says and what other Republicans have said, including some Republicans not in Congress but in the think-tank world, there is a positive economic reason to do this. There is obviously the moral reason to do this, because we should be helping these Americans as they search for work. And that has held true in the past and it ought to hold true now. And we take great heart in the fact that what was largely silence from one side of the aisle in December on this issue has steadily grown when it comes to support for moving forward on this.

So what we think is that the House ought to do what -- follow the Senate's lead. The Senate ought to finish the work of passing this. The House ought to pass it. And then we can move forward with discussions about how to move beyond the three-month period that this extension would cover.

Q So is the hope that the Speaker just doesn't really mean what he has been saying for a month?

MR. CARNEY: Again, I would simply say that, in the past, including under President George W. Bush, these benefits have been extended more often than not, considerably more often than not without pay-fors because of the emergency nature of the assistance and the economic benefit of the assistance at a macro level. And what the bipartisan bill that has been moving through the Senate represents is a compromise, a three-month extension, not a year. And if Congress acts on that, as it should right away, then we can continue discussions about how to move forward. That's the economically sensible thing to do. It's the centrist thing to do. It's certainly -- extending these benefits is not a disservice to the families who are counting on them and to the individuals who are looking for work. So we remain hopeful that Congress will take action.

Q Can you say which lawmakers the President talked to last night lobbying for this bill?

MR. CARNEY: I can only tell you that the President has been in contact with lawmakers on this issue, but I'm not going to itemize a list.

Q And can I just jump back to the Murkowski question earlier? One of the things she asked for specifically was to lift the ban on crude oil exports. It's not necessarily a new issue. Is the President --

MR. CARNEY: I certainly don't believe our position on this has changed, but I saw the headline. I just don't have anything more on it for you. Energy might have something for you. But I just, before I came out here, didn't look into it.

Peter.

Q Jay, the House has passed dozens of bills to create jobs and for skills training for the long-term unemployed, including the SKILLS Act dating back to I think March of last year. They are held up in the Senate right now. What's wrong with those bills presently out there, pushed by House Republicans admittedly, that the President wouldn't be supporting them as a means to try to help accommodate these people?

MR. CARNEY: Well, you would have to be more specific than those bills.

Q The SKILLS Act, specifically.

MR. CARNEY: I think a number of these bills have been scored as terms of their job creation and their cost. Obviously, what needs to happen is for a bill to move through both houses of Congress in a bipartisan way. I understand in the House -- I understand in the House you can pass something with purely Republican support and check it off your list as having done something. But in the Senate, because of the circumstances there and the rules there, you need what we saw today, which was bipartisan action. And the President has put forward a series of proposals that represent what has traditionally been a bipartisan approach to job creation and economic investment and development.

Building our infrastructure is hardly a pursuit that Democrats have engaged in alone over the years. And making a more competitive and more fair corporate tax code is not something you'd normally associate with Democrats alone. So this is just one idea that we've put forward and Gene repeated again over the weekend and this week that we ought to be able to move on, like, comprehensive immigration reform. This is not some ideological pursuit. It has the support of evangelicals. It has the support of big business and small business. It has the support of labor. It has the support of Republicans across the country. It has the support of Republicans on Capitol Hill. So let's do it.

Q So why won't this hold the same fate as immigration reform, given the intransigence?

MR. CARNEY: We believe immigration reform is going to pass. It's going to pass. And it's up to the House to decide when, but it's going to happen.

Q Just for better understanding, Katherine Hackett was the woman who spoke before the President today, and there was a group of those who have been impacted by the cessation of their long-term unemployment benefits. Who pays in situations like that for those individuals to come to the White House, just curious?

MR. CARNEY: I'll have to get that. I don't have any background on the individuals.

Q Then, if I can, specific to the weather that you addressed earlier today -- in Louisville, seven degrees here, a record cold, the coldest in two decades in large parts of America. Can you give us a sense, given the breadth of this as a real issue, what the President has been doing or what contacts he has had today in terms of emergency management?

MR. CARNEY: Well, the President is certainly aware of the dramatic weather that parts of the country have been experiencing. And there have been no requests thus far for federal assistance. But FEMA is monitoring the weather and in contact with state, local and tribal partners through its regional offices. We urge residents to be safe and to follow directions from local officials. If local officials say stay off the roads, avoid travel unless it’s an emergency. Depending on the state, depending on the region, local officials have the best insight when it comes to what’s the right thing and the safe thing to do.

We are confident that the team at FEMA is monitoring this closely and if there is an issue that requires federal assistance, they’ll be on top of it.

Q After 43 years, the activists behind the theft of an FBI office that exposed domestic spying have now come forward, and the FBI spokesperson told NBC News that a number of events during that era, including that burglary, contributed to changes in how the FBI identified and addressed domestic security threats, leading to reforms of the FBI’s intelligence policies and practices. Do you see any relationship between what happened then and the situation with Edward Snowden now, that the two somehow correlate and the impact is the same, that he should somehow be treated the same way those individuals were?

MR. CARNEY: Our view of Mr. Snowden has not changed. He’s been charged with felonies for the illegal leaking of classified information. And our intelligence community experts are better able to address this, but there are dramatic negative impacts to that kind of leaking when it comes to our national security.

Q Are there any positive impacts? Anything of value?

MR. CARNEY: I would simply -- the President was asked a version of this at his press conference at the end of the year and he said it better than I could in terms of how he views these matters. And you know from what he said then and what he’s said in the past that he takes these issues very seriously. He has instituted a review about the NSA procedures and broader issues that encompasses both the review group as well as other elements. And as we've said, you’ll be hearing from the President on these issues before the State of the Union.

Q The President brought the NSA advisory report to Hawaii with him on vacation. Can you tell us a little bit about how much time he spent reviewing that on his vacation, and maybe tell us a little bit whether he has -- has he come to sort of a decision at this point, or close to a final decision?

MR. CARNEY: He and his team are continuing to review the review group’s report, including sorting through which recommendations we will implement and which might require further study, as well as those that we might not pursue. As I mentioned earlier and as we said in December, there are other pieces of the review beyond the review group’s work, which the group presented to the President in December.

We expect that -- in fact, we know with confidence that the President will have made some decisions about which recommendations he wants to implement, which require further review, and which we will not implement, and you will hear him discuss those issues later this month.

Q Can you talk a little bit, though, about in terms of, for example, the last couple weeks in Hawaii, the last couple days -- was he spending time each day on this issue, the President himself and/or people around his --

MR. CARNEY: I didn’t travel with him to Hawaii, but I can say with confidence that this is an issue that he takes very seriously and he consumes vast quantities of briefing materials, and I'm sure he gave and has given the report from the review group a great deal of consideration.

Yes, Sam. I'm sorry -- Brianna. My peripheral is fading with my age. Sorry.

Q It’s the beard.

MR. CARNEY: It’s the beard that's growing up and blocking my view. (Laughter.)

Q You're not going to blame the beard. (Laughter.)

MR. CARNEY: I might. I mean, look what it’s done to you. (Laughter.)

Q Thank you.

Q Oooh --

MR. CARNEY: Sorry. I say that out of affection. (Laughter.)

Go ahead.

Q On unemployment benefits, you're citing momentum on that, which seems to be based on the fact that the White House expected the preliminary vote to fail.

MR. CARNEY: We didn’t; you guys did.

Q Well, some Senate Republicans were indicating they had the votes as early as yesterday afternoon, and then --

MR. CARNEY: Really? I had one of your colleagues tell me an hour before it passed right here in this room that we were three votes short -- two votes short.

Q We reported that Senate Republicans were indicating -- some Senate Republicans --

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think it was close, Brianna. I think there were exactly zero Republicans on the record for this. Then there was Senator Heller, who, admirably, co-sponsored this legislation, and then we ended up with six. It’s what makes these things worth covering, is that none of this was baked in the cake.

Q Yes, it was going to be close, but as Jon noted, the Republicans who voted for it, they want conditions that obviously the White House isn't advocating. And this was a preliminary vote. This was a vote to begin debate. So is this really momentum in terms of a clean extension of long-term unemployment benefits?

MR. CARNEY: Yes.

Q Why is that, if that's not what Republicans who voted, that's not what they want?

MR. CARNEY: Because the operating rhetoric of the moment in December when this was an issue the President was pushing was that Republicans wouldn't support extension, they weren’t necessary -- the benefits weren’t necessary and, in fact, according to one top Republican, they were a disservice to the recipients of the benefits. So I think by anybody’s analysis, that view has evolved in a positive direction.

I think if you look at what senators who were out publicly over the weekend said about this, there has been significant and commendable movement in the direction of moving forward with extending these emergency benefits to the 1.3 Americans and their families -- I keep saying 1.3 -- I mean 1.3 million Americans and their families who had this assistance cut off last week.

Q So the debate has moved from the need for the benefits to the need for a pay-for. You think you can push them beyond that, including House Republicans, to a clean extension?

MR. CARNEY: I think that there is growing bipartisan support for extending emergency insurance to the unemployed. I think that it's irrefutable that the direction of this debate has moved in a favorable way since December.

I acknowledge that this is hard; unfortunately, these kinds of things tend to be hard. But we are hopeful, and we believe and know that it's the right thing to do. And we're not -- we don’t have a corner on that faith and wisdom. We know it's shared by Americans across the country and by economists and by Republicans and Democrats alike.

So we're just going to keep pressing for Congress to do the right thing, which is extend these benefits temporarily, three months. And then, as we've said quite clearly, we should then have conversations about how to move forward, which we're absolutely willing and interested in doing.

Q You cite this as an emergency, the time is now. We know that the checks are not arriving, obviously. But the issue of a pay-for, it's a traditional request of Republicans. It's not something you were blindsided by. I guess I'm asking because the perception is that this is a political fight. So if it's not politics and the checks aren't arriving right now, then why not try to find that middle ground on a pay-for, middle ground that has been found before?

MR. CARNEY: Well, on a relatively rare number of occasions. What I would say is that the ideological fight, if it were to be one, is around horse trading over what are essentially emergency benefits for families in need -- individuals, 1.3 million of them, who are looking for work actively, and who have been suffering under circumstances of long-term unemployment that are unique in our history, and certainly our more recent history.

So this, again, is a short-term extension. And we have made clear that we would look forward to conversations about how to move forward after this three-month extension is passed. Again, this is -- I think those Americans who are watching these kinds of debates, and especially those who are directly affected by what Congress will decide to do here, are only asking Washington to work for them and not against them.

And this is a case where those who support this extension aren't asking for anything extraordinary, right? We’ve just cited how many times this has been done in the past when the circumstances were not as dire for families like these. So we ought to do that. And there's an opportunity here I think that we saw at the end of the year in December with success that Senator Murray and Chairman Ryan had in working out a budget deal to return to normal order a little bit, to obviously not end all division that we have here or -- there's going to be areas no matter what where we disagree and we can't move forward legislatively.

But this is the kind of thing where history shows us we should be able to move forward, and there are a whole host of areas where that opportunity exists. And it doesn’t make you less of a Republican or less of a Democrat to find some common ground here and move forward. And this President has demonstrated his willingness to do that again and again, and he will continue to do so.

Q Last question, just on -- to follow on Dennis Rodman. I don’t know if you've seen the interview --

MR. CARNEY: I haven't, no. I heard about it, yes.

Q Okay. It was rather testy. He suggested that there's a valid reason for North -- for the North Korean government to be holding Kenneth Bae -- I assume you know that he suggested that. Is it hurtful to the U.S.'s position on North Korea and also relations with, for instance, South Korea, when you have someone who has a really rare access, who's freelancing with these kind of opinions?

MR. CARNEY: Well, again, we don’t -- the United States government does not control or vet the private travel of private citizens to the DPRK. The interview that you mentioned -- I won't sort of dignify what I understand was an outburst with a response.

Q But is it hurtful?

MR. CARNEY: Look, our position on Mr. Bae is what it was, and we want to see him released. We remain gravely concerned about his health and continue to urge North Korean authorities to grant him amnesty and immediate release. And that pursuit continues regardless of what's happening with this visit.

Q But you won't say it’s hurtful when this is -- I mean, this is the exposure to America that North Korea has.

MR. CARNEY: I don't know whether I could assess whether it's hurtful or not. What I know is what our position is. And I'm not going to address the assertions made in the interview because they don't merit one, a response or a comment. We believe he needs to be released and granted amnesty.

Jon.

Q Two things, Jay. One, to follow up on Brianna, is there any concern on the White House's part that Dennis Rodman could now be or in the future be in violation of the Logan Act, preventing private citizens from undermining U.S. foreign policy by interacting with foreign leaders?

MR. CARNEY: I haven't heard that discussed.

Q And then, the second thing is on unemployment insurance. Is there a metric that the White House would use for when emergency unemployment insurance is no longer necessary in terms of unemployment --

MR. CARNEY: That's a great question. There's a mechanism built into these benefits, as Gene, far more of an expert than I, discussed yesterday, whereby already benefits are reduced the number of weeks that they're extended or reduced depending on the unemployment rate. And that exists already. There are only some areas of the country where the full benefits, the full extension of benefits are delivered because of the unemployment rate. And as the unemployment rate comes down, weeks are lopped off that time period.

So there is an already existing mechanism within the program that accounts for a reduction in the unemployment rate. Even though we've made substantial progress in bringing down the unemployment rate from its terrible highs from the Great Recession, we still have a lot of work to do. Seven percent is no one's idea here of an acceptable unemployment rate. So that work continues.

And while we have Americans out there actively seeking jobs who depend on this assistance, we need to do the right thing here in Washington to ensure that it continues.

Dan.

Q Thanks, Jay. So we now have these drones and the Hellfire missiles flowing to Iraq. Are there concerns about how the missiles in particular will be used given the consideration about civilian casualties in some of these areas? You're talking about Fallujah, Ramadi. And also, what about the suggestion we've heard by some observers that just sending more weapons will just encourage Prime Minister Maliki to believe that a political solution is not the way to go?

MR. CARNEY: Well, our policy is certainly not to simply send more weapons. We continue to follow events in Iraq's Anbar Province very closely as the situation remains, as you know, volatile. Iraqi tribes, with support from Iraqi security forces, continue successfully to confront Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters in and around the city of Ramadi, and to prepare to confront extremists in the city of Fallujah.

We remain in close contact, as I said yesterday, from here in Washington and from our embassy in Baghdad with all of Iraq's political leaders at the highest levels about how we can continue to support their efforts to defeat our common enemy and about how there needs to be a united effort, a unified effort to combat the ISIL and the threat it poses in Anbar.

And as you may know, Vice President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Maliki and Speaker al-Nujaifi yesterday to press for that unified effort. And we have made clear -- and we believe that Iraq's leaders agree -- that the only way to fight ISIL is through strong coordination between the government of Iraq and local Sunni tribes and officials, who are essential in this effort. Because I think there's no question, despite the divisions in Iraq, that the vast, vast majority of Iraq's citizens reject the extremism that al Qaeda represents. And that's why we're having the conversations at very high levels with Iraq’s leaders about the need to work together to combat ISIL.

And we were pleased to see Prime Minister Maliki and Speaker al-Nujaifi call on the residents of Anbar to rise up against extremist elements, as well as their call on the Iraqi Army to operate in a professional manner with the backing of the local population. This, as you know, is very key.

We were also encouraged by Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s comments that internally displaced Anbaris -- residents of Anbar Province -- are welcome in Najaf and Karbala, which is Iraq’s Shia heartland, and that they would be received by a committee established to meet their needs. And that kind of approach -- unified, in a spirit of reconciliation and cooperation -- is one that we believe is essential to the effort here.

Q Since the Prime Minister was here in November, is President Obama satisfied with the degree of cooperation with what he’s seen in terms of Maliki addressing the sectarian issues and the political reconciliation issues?

MR. CARNEY: Well, this is a matter that we have discussed in conversations at the very highest levels with Iraqi leaders ever since President Obama and Vice President Biden took office in January 2009. I know from my personal experience when I worked for the Vice President, he’s traveled many times to Iraq and spent -- and continues to spend a lot of time on the phone with Iraq’s leaders pressing this very issue, as well as many other issues. It’s an important relationship that we have with the government of Iraq, with the Iraqi people, and our commitment to assisting them in this effort I think is represented both by the military assistance that we're providing and speeding up, but also by the kind of discourse that we have with Iraq’s leaders.

Jared.

Q Jay, yesterday you described -- you said that CMS would be providing demographic data in its next report. Will that be in the annual monthly report that we should be getting in about a week?

MR. CARNEY: I think I just said I knew it was coming soon. I don't know in what form of report. I don't think I said next report, because I don't know.

Q And why has the demographic and geographic diversity, which you have said and which the White House has said for weeks now is the crux of the solvency of the program -- why has that been scrubbed out of the last two months of reports of all of the data we've seen from CMS so far?

MR. CARNEY: I have addressed these questions to CMS, which has been providing briefings and direct information. This is a fairly complicated piece of business, all this data coming in from a variety of sources. It has to be scrubbed; it has to be made accurate. Top-line numbers are a little simpler to come by than more nuanced slices of the data.

But as I said yesterday and as I know CMS has said, we will be providing that data once we're confident that it’s ready to be made public.

Q So it’s not the White House’s policy that age, for example, has been removed from the data that's --

MR. CARNEY: No, no. Look, I think, Jared, if you’ve watched us since the rather difficult days of October, our approach has been very clear. We put out what we have; we acknowledge the wholly unsatisfactory launch that healthcare.gov underwent on October 1st and have made every effort, with a team of folks working 24/7, to fix the problems that caused that rocky start to the launch of the website and other problems as they arise. And there’s no question, even as we've seen dramatic improvement in the functionality of the website and dramatic improvements -- or increases in the enrollments, that we still have more work to do and that we take nothing for granted.

So we're going to get that information to you when it’s ready, and my understanding is that will be soon.

Q You said you wouldn’t lay out specific calls with Republicans in the Senate, but I wonder if you could kind of describe the outreach effort in the last day or two leading up to the vote. And also, looking past the three-month extension, what does the White House see as the best path forward if you -- once you get a short-term extension passed?

MR. CARNEY: On the second one, I'll accept that challenge if and when it arrives. I hope we get to have that conversation if Congress acts, the House and the Senate, to extend benefits for three months.

On the first one, I would simply say that it’s been a comprehensive effort here that has involved obviously the President and others in conversations with members of Congress, members of the Senate as well as the House. And this will continue.

The arguments that are made in those conversations are not unlike the ones we're making publicly. They’re similar -- they’re the same, which is that this is something that we've done in the past; it’s the right thing to do; it’s good for the economy. We have, unfortunately, a high number of long-term unemployed Americans who need this assistance and we ought to take action. And we will absolutely want to have further conversations about how we move forward beyond a three-month extension.

Last one. Steve.

Q Thank you. To follow up on Jared’s question regarding the demographic data -- so if the administration doesn’t have the demographic data and this is the most -- one of the most important factors in determining the success of these exchanges, does it then follow that the administration doesn’t know whether these exchanges will be successful or not?

MR. CARNEY: I don't think we would make declarations about where we're going to be on March 31st in October -- we can make projections about where we hope to be -- but October or November, December or January. I'm not even sure I understand your question. We are confident that we are making significant strides when it comes to enrollees and that enrollees represent a lot of Americans from different regions of the country, age groups and circumstances.

But the issue here is -- I guess this is sort of -- this is the new thing where we're going to find some problem in the system. Well, first of all, we acknowledge problems when they arise and when they need to be fixed. We acknowledge that there needs to be the right mix for the marketplaces to be maximally effective. We believe we will achieve that mix. But we're not going to even imagine or hope that you’ll take our word for it; you’ll evaluate it as you see the proof of it, as you have with the enrollment figures and the numbers that were obviously terrible in October and gradually improved after that.

So we're committed to getting the data to you and you can judge it for yourselves.

Thanks.

END
1:33 P.M. EST

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