Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event

NoMad Hotel
New York, New York

7:25 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hey!  (Applause.)  Everybody sit down.  Sit down.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you so much, guys.  Thank you, everybody.  Everybody have a seat.  Have a seat.

It is wonderful to see all of you.  To those of you who helped to make this evening possible, I could not be more grateful.  I’ve got folks in the room here who have just been tireless in their efforts not just in this campaign but since 2007, and some of you who have been involved since 2003, when I first ran for the Senate.

I’ve got a friend in Chicago some of you may know -- Ab Mikva.  He was a federal judge and he went on to be White House counsel.  And he described being friends with a politician as perpetually having somebody in college -- every so often you have to write this check -- (laughter) -- and, fortunately, I'm about to graduate.  (Laughter.)  So this is it, guys.  (Laughter.)

QSo you’re not going to call us for the library?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, no, no.  (Laughter.)  Somebody else will make that call.  (Laughter.)

This does also remind me of the season that we’re in.  Jim Messina tells this story, my campaign manager -- he was in some event, and this young couple who was there with their adorable four-year-old son, and I guess there was a picture of me somewhere, and so they were very excited.  They said, "Sammy, who’s that?"  And he said, "That's Barack Obama."  "And what does Barack Obama do?"  And the boy thinks for a second and he says, "He approves this message."  (Laughter and applause.)  So that’s what I do.  (Laughter.)  I approve this message.  (Laughter.)  

Fortunately, you guys are not in the battleground states, so you're not completely subjected to this stuff.  But in an intimate setting like this, I want to spend most of my time in a conversation answering your questions.  Let me just make a few remarks at the top, first of all, about the state of the economy and the country, and then talk a little bit about the campaign.

Obviously, we’re still recovering from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  We have made progress -- 4.5 million new jobs, half a million in manufacturing, the strongest since 1990.  The housing market, which has been a huge headwind on the recovery, is just now starting to tick back up again.  And there are so many reasons why America is well-positioned relative to the rest of the world to make sure the 21st century is still the American Century. 

But we have so much more work to do.  Obviously there are millions of people who are still out of work -- in particular, in states like California or Arizona or Florida.  There are hundreds of thousands of people whose homes are still underwater.  And so everything that we continue to do as an administration, everything that I intend to do as President in the second term, is geared towards how do we rebuild this economy so that it is strong, lasting and, most importantly, provides broadening opportunity for Americans who are willing to work hard to get in the middle class. 

That means making sure that we’ve got investments in education.  And I could not be more proud of the education agenda that we’ve pursued over the last four and a half years.  It doesn’t pay immediate dividends, but we’ve seen over 40 states initiate major education reform that provides more flexibility, trains teachers more effectively, increases accountability, but is not having teachers in the classroom teach to the test. 

It means we’ve got to invest in basic science and research, which we have done.  And a major part of the Recovery Act boosted our investments in things like NIH.  But we’ve got more to do to reach a goal that I set, which is we need to double our R&D investment so that it matches up with our historic spending on research and development.  It’s been falling off for many years.

We’ve still got an enormous amount to do on energy.  There is a convergence here of environmental interests and economic interests.  We’ve doubled fuel-efficiency standards on cars and doubled the production of clean energy, but if we can do more, then we can continue to keep pace with the goal that I set of drastically reducing our imports of foreign oil -- and take some carbon out of the atmosphere at the same time, and create hundreds of thousands of jobs all across the country. 

And we’ve got more work to do in achieving the kind of fiscal balance that will provide us a framework for long-term growth.  And that involves making some tough spending cuts -- a trillion which we’ve already made; a trillion and a half of which we’ve identified -- additional cuts -- and about $1.5 trillion worth of increased revenue, primarily from folks in this room and those like us.  And if we do that, then we can stabilize our budget in a balanced, sensible way, and still make the investments that we need in the future. 

We’re going to have some continued headwinds over the next several months.  Europe is still a challenge, and a lot of people in this room who have business in Europe understand that.  I don't think ultimately that the Europeans will let the euro unravel.  But they're going to have to take some decisive steps. And I'm spending an enormous amount of time trying to work with them -- and Tim Geithner is spending a lot of time working with them -- to recognize that the sooner they take some decisive action, the better off we're going to be.

And it's a testament, by the way -- or it's an interesting contrast to what's happened here.  The fact that we took some decisive action in 2008 and 2009, despite it's unpopularity, indicates what we avoided, this chronic bleeding wound that has been an enormous problem not just for Europe now, but for the entire global economy.

So if we can stabilize Europe, position ourselves on education, on science and technology, on energy, and a few other pieces of unfinished business like comprehensive immigration reform, then there's no reason why America should not thrive in the decades to come.

We also have to get through a campaign, though.  And right now, the economy is still rough enough for enough people that this is going to be a close election.  I'm confident that we are running a good campaign and will continue to run a good campaign. But we are being outspent substantially by the other side, and the super PACs are engaging in an experience we have not seen in America democracy for quite some time.  They are spending like nobody's business, mostly on negative ads.  And we're going to have to continue to compete.  We don't anticipate that we're going to match them dollar for dollar -- we don't need to.  But we are going to have to make sure that we can get our message out effectively. 

And this phase of the campaign I think you're seeing a lot of negative ads and a lot of contrast ads -- although when people start saying how terrible it is I just have to remind them that take a look at what Jefferson and Adams had to say about each other, and democracy has always been pretty rough and pretty messy. 

There is going to be, though, as the summer winds down and we get into the fall, the need for voters in these swing states to know not just what they're voting against but also what they're voting for.  And so we'll be spending a lot of time talking about the specific agenda that I intend to pursue in the second term -- which I think will make sure that this economy is going full guns.

So upshot is if the election were held today, I think it would be close  but I think we'd win.  And we now have 99 days left.  If I can say that every single day for the next 99 days, then we will be able to embark on the next phase of this journey. And I'm so glad that you guys are all with me because I couldn't do it without you.

So thank you very much.  (Applause.) 

END 
7:34 P.M. EDT

Press Gaggle by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest Aboard Air Force One en route New York, NY, 7/30/2012

Aboard Air Force One
En Route New York, New York

4:04 P.M. EDT

MR. EARNEST:  Good afternoon, everybody.  You've already heard from me a lot today, so in case there are some last-minute questions on policy, I'll take them.  But mostly, we wanted to just step back here quickly to see if you had questions about the trip and anything else that might have come up in the last couple minutes.  Jen has got something that she wants to start with.

MS. PSAKI:  So before we get started, just two things to highlight for you.  One, as you know, we're traveling to New York today.  The President is going to attend a dinner with 60 people at the NoMad Hotel in New York City.  Tickets for the event cost $40,000 per person.  One tidbit you don't know about yet is that Trevor Smith, who's the winner of the family photo with the President fundraising context the campaign launched, will meet with President Obama.  Trevor is a West Hartford, Connecticut, native.  He lives in Astoria, New York, and is the manager of the Visitor's Center and Events at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

The second thing I just wanted to highlight before we take your questions is you may have seen that Romney did an interview with ABC yesterday, where he was asked whether he had ever paid less than the 13.9 percent rate he paid in 2010.  He said, I don't remember, I'm going to have to get back to you.  That's not an exact quote, just to paraphrase.  And we're looking forward to him getting back.  As we understand, he said he's not going to go back now.  But I think I can speak for many, many millions of teachers, firefighters, nurses in this country who would love to know if he has paid a lower rate in past taxes than the 13.9 percent he paid in 2010 -- which as a reminder, is about half the rate of many middle-class families in this country.

So with that, we're happy to take your questions.

Q    -- who's co-hosting the event tonight?

MS. PSAKI:  I don't have a list of co-hosts.  I'll let you know if there's more information that we're going to provide on that front. 

Q    Any thoughts of Romney's comments in Israel?  Do they suggest that he is not ready for the world stage?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, as soon as Mitt Romney started taking this trip -- he's now been to two countries and he's had two countries where he has made a series of fumbles.  He's been fumbling the foreign policy football from country to country.  And there's a threshold question that he has to answer for the American people, and that's whether he is prepared to be commander-in-chief.

So as I said, as we look to the past events, we know that this raises some questions about his preparedness.  And we'll see how the rest of the trip goes.

Q    Did you mean to say -- do you think that "fumble" is the right analogy?   Maybe you want to go to "scratch" or something?  (Laughter.) 

MS. PSAKI:  I think "foreign policy fumble" has a nice ring to it, so --

Q    Are you advocating for American-style football to be included in the Olympics?  Is that the official position?

MS. PSAKI:  I do love football, especially the Bengals and Andy Dalton.  But that's a whole other, separate question.

Q    What state are the Bengals in?

MS. PSAKI:  Ohio.  (Laughter.)

Q    So what did the Obama campaign do to try to turn around -- to get Solidarity to come in and take a position at odds with Lech Walesa, saying that he endorsed Mitt Romney?  Solidarity then came out and said that he did not speak for them.  I’m just curious what the campaign did after hearing Lech Walesa this morning supporting Romney.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I’ll be honest with you, this is actually the first I’ve heard about it.  I don’t know how recently this happened. 

Q    The DNC has apparently heard about it.  The DNC sent out a bunch of rapid response emails.  I think that’s what Jackie is asking about.

MS. PSAKI:  Look, I mean, I think people are looking at the trip as, again, whether Mitt Romney is meeting the threshold of whether he’s prepared to be commander-in-chief.  We know the American voters are going to judge whether he’s ready, whether he has met that threshold on this trip, through a series of his speeches, through remarks he’s made, again, through fumbles he’s made on the trip.

I don’t have anything for you specifically on what the campaign did in response internally.  But if there’s anything new, we’ll get back to you on that.

Q    Is the President going to be watching the Olympics on Air Force One today?

MS. PSAKI:  We’ll have to see.  I think we’re going to force the Olympics onto all the TVs.  (Laughter.)  So hopefully -- I know there are a number of events going on today.  We’ll get you an update on whether he watches any.

Q    Has he watched anything thus far that you’re aware of? I don’t know if that was in the briefing today and we missed that.

MR. EARNEST:  It was.

Q    Oh, I’m sorry.

MR. EARNEST:  It was.  It’s okay.  I know that he was looking forward to the Olympics starting, so I’d be surprised if 72 hours into it he hadn’t seen anything yet.

Q    Shocked and surprised, or just surprised?

MR. EARNEST:  Just surprised. 

Q    Do you have any preview of the travel for the rest of the week, what themes to expect?

MS. PSAKI:  I don’t want to get too far ahead of where we are.  As you know, he is going to be traveling to Ohio on Wednesday, and he’ll be traveling to Virginia and Florida on Thursday.  You should expect to hear him continue to lay out the choice between his vision for the future, his plan to protect the economic security of the middle class, and how that contrasts with Mitt Romney.  And as we get closer, if there’s anything new to preview, we'll make sure you guys know.

Q    What do you think about Mitt Romney’s fundraiser in Israel?  Is it appropriate?

MS. PSAKI:  Look, I think that if you look at this trip -- and I was on the trip four years ago when President Obama, then-Senator Obama, took the trip when he went overseas -- and that trip was full of not only access to the media -- which I know you all enjoy -- not only did he do several press conferences and press avails, but we also had access for the media after meetings.  There were sprays.  They made remarks.  And we tried to keep it at the highest level possible.

When we look at this trip, it seems clear it’s a bunch of fundraisers and photo ops and fumbles.  So we’re not sure that Mitt Romney is moving the ball forward or that he's passing the threshold he needs to meet for the American people as to whether he’s prepared to be commander-in-chief. 

Q    -- transparency at the highest levels, why won’t you guys release who the fundraisers are and the co-hosts for tonight’s event?

MS. PSAKI:  Well, Hans, we do release information about the cost of tickets, information about where they’re located.

Q    We have no idea who the President is raising money from tonight, not even co-hosts.  We just know that it’s at the nondescript hotel. 

MS. PSAKI:  Well, you’re an excellent reporter for Bloomberg, and I’m sure you will do some reporting when you’re at the event.

MR. EARNEST:  I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Federal Election Commission reporting requirements where you'll see exactly who contributed to the President.

Q    You guys are always taking a dig at Romney for not being transparent and having media access.  And I'm merely asking --

Q    -- campaign dialogue about Obama really understands the working-class, and he's in touch with Americans who are anxious about the economy.  Here you are campaigning in New York; we have multi-thousand-dollar dinner plates for tonight.  How does that chime with what Obama is trying to sell as his personal story of understanding the working-class American, the biography that is out -- they're nervous about the economy?

MS. PSAKI:  You'll hear him talk tonight about his commitment to fighting for the middle class, passing a tax cut for middle-class families to ensure they have that security, the contrast he has with Mitt Romney on those positions.  And I bet you a number of the people who are attending the event today are supporting him because of his strong support for the middle class and for families across the country.

So we all know fundraising is a natural part of any campaign.  But the President has been out there, he'll be out there in Ohio and Virginia and Florida later this week, talking to the American people.  And you'll hear him lay out the same choice tonight that you heard him last week and you heard him lay out the week before.

And one thing for you, on the question of transparency, is that in terms of the bar of transparency, the President and the campaign and the White House have done more than any other White House and any other campaign to be transparent.  We release our bundlers.  That’s something that Romney does not do.  And that’s an area where we'd love for him to come meet our bar.

Q    So when Josh started answering that question, is he answering it on the policy side of it? 

MR. EARNEST:  The policy of the Federal Election Commission, yes.

MS. PSAKI:  The White House and the campaign are both transparent -- so to be clear.

MR. EARNEST:  Thanks, guys.

MS. PSAKI:  Thank you.

END
4:13 P.M. EDT

Presidential Proclamation -- World Hepatitis Day, 2012

WORLD HEPATITIS DAY, 2012

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Worldwide, one in twelve people is living with viral hepatitis -- a disease that threatens the health of millions of Americans and people across the globe. As a leading cause of liver cancer in the United States, it remains a major public health challenge here at home. Because the disease can persist for decades without symptoms, many Americans who are chronically infected are unaware of their infection status. On World Hepatitis Day, we call attention to this silent epidemic, and we rededicate ourselves to the fight against viral hepatitis.

Hepatitis prevention and control begins with awareness. Though all types of viral hepatitis are associated with serious health issues, hepatitis B and C can become chronic infections that often lead to liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. Tragically, complications resulting from viral hepatitis claim thousands of American lives every year -- a burden borne disproportionately by African American, Hispanic, and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, and by persons born between 1945 and 1965. Despite the health issues associated with the disease, a majority of Americans living with chronic hepatitis do not know they are infected.

Hepatitis A and B can be prevented with vaccines, which are recommended for all children -- and for adults who are at high risk of contracting viral hepatitis. While no vaccine exists for hepatitis C, early detection and treatment can curb transmission, limit the disease's progression, and prevent life-threatening complications, including liver cancer.

I encourage all Americans to talk with a physician about hepatitis prevention to learn more about what they can do to stay healthy.

My Administration remains committed to addressing viral hepatitis. As part of our Action Plan for the Prevention, Care, and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis; the Healthy People 2020 initiative; and other Federal programs, agencies across the Federal Government are partnering with States, communities, and stakeholders throughout the private and nonprofit sectors to prevent new cases of hepatitis and help Americans who have already been affected. We are promoting hepatitis outreach and education that shines a light on this public health issue. With the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, we are working to prevent, treat, and control hepatitis B infections in AAPI communities. And by bringing health insurance within reach for more Americans, the Affordable Care Act is helping improve patient access to comprehensive viral hepatitis prevention and treatment services.

On World Hepatitis Day, let us raise awareness of the global health threat of viral hepatitis, renew our support for those living with the disease, and recommit to a future free of this tragic illness.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim July 28, 2012, as World Hepatitis Day. I encourage citizens, Government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and communities across the Nation to join in activities that will increase awareness about hepatitis and what we can do to prevent it.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

BARACK OBAMA