The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 23, 2014

President Obama Signs Washington Emergency Declaration

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Washington and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the area affected by wildfires beginning on July 9, 2014, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of Chelan and Okanogan and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.   Emergency protective measures, limited to direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent federal funding. 

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Michael J. Hall as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 22, 2014

Remarks by the President at a DNC Event -- Seattle, WA

Private Residence
Seattle, Washington

5:04 P.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody!  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.  Well, first of all, everybody give Libby a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  Libby is the same age as Malia, and it turns out that they’re both learning how to drive.  So we are -- Bruce and Ann and I share some concern.  (Laughter.)  But they seem like sensible young ladies, so we’re hoping that everything goes smoothly this summer.

It is so wonderful to see everybody.  There are just a couple people I want to acknowledge.  First of all, obviously, for Bruce and Ann to have me back in their house and the whole family here -- they’ve been such great friends and great supporters.  So can everybody please just say thank you to them.  (Applause.)  And we are very grateful to them.

Jay Inslee was here, along with Trudi.  They skipped ahead because we’re doing something else.  But give them a round of applause anyway.  You can tell them later that we appreciate them.  (Applause.)

Your outstanding mayor, Ed Murray, is here.  (Applause.)  And County Executive Dow Constantine is here.  (Applause.)  Dow, by the way, is a new dad -- 10-week-old daughter.  Mazel tov.  You can’t beat daughters.  (Laughter.)  You can’t -- sons you’re okay.  (Laughter.)

Let me start just by talking about something that is obviously of great concern to the people of Washington, and that’s the forest fires that have been sweeping across a big chunk of the state.  As I was driving over here, I had a chance to talk to the Governor and get a full briefing on what’s happened.  Obviously, these are very difficult fires.  Our firefighters take such risks and sacrifice so much to fight them, but it’s a big challenge -- and state troopers as well.  And we actually lost a state trooper as he was trying to clear out from a fire that was taking place there -- a former Marine -- and I had a chance to speak with his widow and offer our condolences.

So what we’ve done is to make sure that we are coordinating as best we can with the federal -- or with the state and local officials.  We were able to get on the phone -- my director of FEMA, Craig Fugate -- and we were able to authorize today an emergency declaration when it comes to electrical power, which is one of the most immediate concerns, and then we’re going to be working with the state on additional declarations that may need to take place.  But I just want to make sure that everybody knows that we are going to be thinking about and then helping people who are being severely affected by these fires.

It is also important to know that I’ve been talking to Western governors generally about the issue of forest fires, because although any given year you can’t definitively talk about weather patterns and attribute them to a particular source, what is clear is the trend lines indicate the potential for increased forest fires.  We’ve seen the budget for forest fires jump at an extraordinary pace over the last several years, so much so that we’re going to have to call on Congress to change how we fund forest fires.  And a lot of that has to do with drought.  A lot of it has to do with changing precipitation patterns.  And a lot of that has to do with climate change.

And so I raise that because in all the day-to-day challenges that we face that are extraordinarily important, a long-term challenge that has to be dealt with right now is making sure that the planet works for the next generation and the generation after that.  And so we’re very proud of the work we’re doing right now -- (applause) -- with our Climate Action Plan to make sure that we’re building resilience, and that’s what we’re talking with a lot of Western governors about -- how can we start adapting our infrastructure to what are already increases in temperature, but then also what can we do to mitigate the damage that’s happening in climate change.

All of which brings me to why we’re gathered here today -- in addition to the nice views.  (Laughter.)  When I came into office, we were facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  In fact, the contraction was actually technically more severe than the Great Depression’s.  The difference is, is that we responded faster.  The American people responded with extraordinary resilience.  And so if you look at the last five years, we’ve now had 52 straight months of job growth.  We’ve created 10 million jobs.  The unemployment rate is the lowest since 2007.  (Laughter.)  We’ve seen the biggest drop in the unemployment rate in 30 years just this past year.  Even the long-term unemployed -- which has been a chronic problem -- they’re starting to be able to get back to work.  There are more job openings now than there have been since 2007. 

You look at some of the other trends -- obviously the stock market is up, which is not just good for Wall Street, it’s also good for a lot of 401(k) holders, who remember how scared they were back in 2009 and 2010.  We have seen U.S. companies do extraordinarily well -- not just here, but around the world.  Exports on the rise.  Our deficits have been cut by more than half.  Our energy production has been extraordinary.  We’re now producing more oil in the United States than we are importing, and that’s the first time that’s happening in a couple of decades.  (Applause.)  Our natural gas production makes us the leading producer in the world and has skyrocketed.  But, in addition, when it comes to clean energy, we’ve tripled the amount of wind power that we have; increased solar power by tenfold -- all of which has contributed to the biggest reductions in carbon pollution of any advanced country on Earth. 

And so we’ve made enormous progress across the board on a whole range of fronts -- from an auto industry that’s come back and is now going to be doubling its fuel efficiency standards; to the fact that our high school dropout rate has been reduced.  College attendance is in record highs.  There are a lot of reasons for optimism.  And, by the way, there’s this one other thing -- there are millions of people now who have health care that didn’t have it before.  (Applause.)  And that includes people right here in Washington State.

AUDIENCE:  Thank you!

THE PRESIDENT:  And yet, despite all this, people are anxious.  Now, some of that has to do with some big challenges overseas.  I am very proud that we have ended one war, and by the end of this year we will have ended both wars that I inherited before I came into office.  (Applause.)  But whether people see what’s happening in Ukraine, and Russia’s aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it’s financing and arming separatists; to what’s happened in Syria -- the devastation that Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise --although we’re trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function; to ongoing terrorist threats; to what’s happening in Israel and Gaza -- part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s based on economies that work for all people.

But here in the United States, what people are also concerned about is the fact that although the economy has done well in the aggregate, for the average person it feels as if incomes, wages just haven’t gone up; that people, no matter how hard they work, they feel stuck.  And that’s not an illusion.  Because what’s happened is, is that a lot of our gains, a lot of the progress that’s been made in this economy -- and this is like a 20, 25, 30-year trend -- have gone to the folks at the very top.  And middle-class families find themselves with stagnant incomes, even as the cost of health care or the cost of a college education for their kids keeps on skyrocketing. 

And part of what people are also anxious about is the fact that government doesn’t seem to be responsive, at least at the federal level, to those concerns.  Things in Congress feel broken.  And that’s why so many people end up feeling cynical, and they feel that, you know what, it doesn’t really make any difference -- whether it’s Democrats, Republicans -- nobody is looking out for us.  Nobody is thinking about our lives and how maybe we can just get a little help.  We’re willing to work hard, we are responsible, we’re looking after our families, but who’s there when things are a little tough or we need to go over a hump, who’s there to give us a hand up?

AUDIENCE:  You are!  (Applause.) 

THE PRESIDENT:  And so -- and part of what happens then is, is that people get cynical.  And when people get cynical, they withdraw.  And you get a spiral effect, a negative spiral in which special interests and those who are most vested in the status quo end up having more power, and people who really need government to work for them, on their behalf, they withdraw, they opt out.  And that makes government even more dysfunctional.

So my job every single day is to make sure that people around the country who are working hard and doing the right thing, they know somebody is fighting for them.  And that’s something that we’ve been doing with Congress, wherever possible.  Today we actually signed a bill.  It was shocking.  (Laughter.)  I said to the -- it was a bipartisan bill.  Republicans and Democrats passed it.  I said, doesn’t this feel good?  (Laughter.)  Let’s do this again.  (Laughter and applause.)  We can do it on immigration reform, or we can do it on the minimum wage, and we can do it on infrastructure spending. 

But -- uh-oh, see, you guys got us too excited.  What happened, everybody?  Do we have a back-up mic, WHCA?  Can you hear me back there? 

AUDIENCE:  Yeah!

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  There’s one behind you.

THE PRESIDENT:  There’s one behind me?  You think that might work?  (Laughter.)  Might as well try it, right?  Testing -- one, two, three.  Testing -- one, two, three.  All right, let’s try this one.  Good idea.  (Laughter.)  How’s that?  No?  It was still a good idea, though.  Testing, testing.  WHCA?

That’s all right.  You know what?  There weren’t always mics around.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We can hear you!

THE PRESIDENT:  You can hear me. 

So we passed a bill.  So wherever I can make progress with Congress, I want to do it.  Because right now there are a whole bunch of things we can do that should not be partisan.  We should be willing, as Democrats and Republicans, to work together to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our airports, a smart grid, all of which would put people to work right now, but would also lay the foundation for economic development in this country for years to come.  (Applause.)  We should be able to do that.  We should be able to help working families who desperately need help on child care and early childhood education.  That’s something that shouldn’t be partisan. 

Every study shows if you invest a buck in early childhood education, you get seven dollars back.  (Applause.)  (Inaudible.)  That’s something we shouldn’t be doing on a bipartisan basis.  When it comes to increasing the minimum wage -- 28 million people we could pull out of poverty potentially just by increasing the minimum wage.  And when people have money to spend in their pockets, folks at the bottom of the economic ladder, that money gravitates up.  It means businesses -- (new microphone given).  Oh, thank you.  (Laughter.)  Testing -- one, two, three.  (Applause.) 

It means businesses have more customers.  And you get a virtuous cycle going up.  So there are a bunch of things that we know the American people agree with.  Immigration reform -- we know that it would make the economy stronger, it would drive down the deficit.  You would have 11 million people who can come out of the shadows, pay taxes, pay a fine, and then now are able to live out the American Dream, because this has always been a nation of immigrations as well as a nation of laws.

We know how to solve some of our big problems.  But what we’re going to have to do is break the logjam in Washington.  So where I’m able to get Congress to help, I want to work with them.  Where I can’t get Congress to help, I’m going to do everything I can on my own.  (Applause.)  Everything I can on my own.  If they don’t want to pass a sensible climate change bill, we’re going to go ahead and put forward a Climate Action Plan and make sure we’re working with the EPA under authorities we already have to reduce carbon.  (Applause.) 

If they don’t want to do something on the minimum wage, at least we can make sure that federal contractors are paying their workers a minimum wage, in the same way that we can make sure federal contractors are not discriminating against the LGBT community.  You should not have to worry about being fired just because of who you love.  (Applause.)  The same way that we can make sure that, with respect to federal contractors, that if women are being paid less than men, they should be able to find out about it and do something about it, because I believe that when women succeed, America succeeds.  And I’ve got a couple of daughters; the idea that they would be paid less than men infuriates me if they’re doing the same job.  And I think it does for most Americans.

These should be partisan issues.  If Congress can’t act, we’re going to go ahead and act. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Spirit of a (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT:  There you go.  A Hawaiian girl here.  (Laughter.)

But here is the key part for all of you:  There are some issues that without Congress we can’t solve the way we need to.  Only Congress has power of the purse.  We can’t make sure that everybody across the country has access to affordable child care without congressional action.  We can do some things, but we can’t do everything.  We can’t make sure everybody benefits from a minimum wage, even though states and cities like Seattle are doing the right thing, but there are a whole bunch of folks who don’t live in Seattle.  Without Congress, we’re going to have problems.  We can make college loans somewhat more affordable, but with congressional action we could be doing so much more.

And so the reason you are here today and the reason I’m here today is because I want a Congress that can actually get the job down.  I want a Congress that is serious about you -- not serious about their jobs, but serious about your jobs.  Not serious about their quality of life, but serious about your quality of life.  That’s what we’re fighting for.  (Applause.) 

And that’s why these midterm elections are so important.  I do not want anybody here to succumb to cynicism.  Cynicism is a choice, and hope is a better choice.  But in order for us to make hope live, in order for hope to be more than just a slogan, we’ve got to work.  We’ve got to work to make sure that members of Congress -- whether the Senate or the House of Representatives -- are serious about you.  And I will say, for all the Democrats around here, I’m not overly partisan. 

The truth is, my favorite President is the first Republican President -- he’s a guy named Abraham Lincoln.  (Laughter.)  If you look at historically -- Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.  And Richard Nixon founded the EPA.  And historically, we have had bipartisan cooperation on big issues.  The problem is not the Republican Party per se, the problem is this particular group right now -- (laughter) -- that have kind of gone off the rails.  And what we need is people who are serious about solving problems, and believe in the possibilities of government not solving every problem but solving some problems; not solving every problem 100 percent, but maybe solving some problems 50 percent. 

We can do that.  That is achievable.  But it requires the level of participation that so far, at least, Democrats don’t always display.  We are very good on presidential elections -- I can testify to that.  (Laughter.)  But sometimes during midterms we get lazy and our folks don’t turn out.  That’s going to have to change in this election, and that’s why your help today is so important. 

Let me just close by saying this -- because I think about Libby, and I think about Malia, and I think about the next generation.  Sometimes when you’re watching the news -- which I generally don’t do because I -- (laughter) -- whatever they’re reporting on I usually know about.  (Laughter.)  But it can get depressing, right?  It can feel as if, oh, nothing is working and everything is a crisis.  And when I talk to interns at the White House -- and we have them in every six months or so -- these amazing young people, hugely talented.  They’re idealistic, they’re optimistic.  And I say to them, don’t lose that optimism; don’t lose that idealism.  If you had to choose a period in human history in which to be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be, and what position or what nationality -- you just had to choose what’s the timeframe -- you would choose now.

The world has never been healthier, it has never been wealthier, it has never been more tolerant, there’s never been more opportunity than there is today.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t extraordinary problems out there to be solved.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t huge challenges that we have to meet.  But it is worth remembering that even in this country, the greatest country on Earth, 50 years ago I couldn’t be standing here; that 25 years ago, your mayor couldn’t be married.  And because of this extraordinary impulse in all of us to imagine and dream something better, and then work for it and not give up, and be persistent and pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off after setbacks, and being willing to endure skeptics and naysayers -- because of that spirit, we’ve been able to make enormous changes.

This week was the 45th anniversary of man landing on the moon.  And I had Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and the wife of Neil Armstrong into the White House yesterday.  And I thought about how when I was six, seven, eight years old, sitting on my grandfather’s shoulder in Hawaii as the capsules were brought back from the Apollo launches, nobody went to the moon because they were skeptics.  Naysayers didn’t send anybody to the moon.  That singular moment in human history, that happened because of that spirit.  And that spirit has to translate in our politics as well.

That’s why you’re here.  That’s why we’ve got to get to work.  That’s why I ran for President.  And if we allow that spirit to live, nothing can stop us.

Thank you, everybody.  Appreciate you.  (Applause.)

END
5:26 P.M. PDT

The President Signs the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

July 22, 2014 | 29:19 | Public Domain

President Obama and Vice President Biden deliver remarks before the signing of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

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Remarks by the President and Vice President at Bill Signing of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

12:18 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, everyone.  It’s great to be here.  (Applause.)  Please, thank you very much.  Thank you, distinguished members of Congress and members of labor and business, and the community.  Today, as the President signs the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, we’re using this occasion also to present to the President a roadmap he asked -- requested in the State of the Union message, how to keep and maintain the highest-skilled workforce in the world.  And this is a perfect build-on as to what the bipartisan consensus that Congress recently reached.

I had the best partners in preparing this report that I could ask for -- Tom Perez at Labor, Penny Pritzker at Commerce and Arne Duncan at the Department of Education.  I talked to governors, mayors, industry leaders, presidents of community colleges and colleges, and unions, and a lot of members of Congress, many of whom are here.  And I have to acknowledge at the out front -- at the outset, my wife, Jill, has been an incredible advocate for community colleges and the role they play in training the workforce.

But most importantly, I spoke with an awful lot of Americans who are -- as all of you have, particularly members of Congress, who were hit exceedingly hard by the Great Recession, but are doing everything they possibly can to find a job -- willing to learn new skills in order to have a decent, middle-class job.  One thing I hope that’s been put to rest -- and I know we all share this view -- Americans want to work.  They want to work.  They’re willing to do anything that they need to do to get a good and decent job. 

And they show us that our single greatest resource is not -- and it’s not hyperbole -- remains the American people.  They’re the most highly-skilled workers in the world and the most capable people in the world.  And they’re in the best position to learn the new skills of the 21st century that the workforce requires.  There’s that phrase -- all has changed, changed utterly.  Well, all has changed.  It’s a different world in which people are competing in order to get the kind of jobs they need, whether it’s in advanced manufacturing or clean energy or information technology or health care -- all areas that are booming, all areas where America is back. 

So the core question that we set out to answer -- and I’m sure my colleagues did as well -- was how do you connect?  How do you connect these workers who desperately want a job, who will do all they need to do to qualify, how do you connect them with jobs?  How do Americans know what skills employers need?  It sounds like a silly question, but how do they know?  And how do they get these skills once they know what skills are needed for the job?  And where, where do they go to get those jobs?

This report is designed to help answer those extremely practical questions.  It includes 50 actions that the federal government and our outside partners are taking now to help fill this skills gap.  There is this new strategy that we think will lead directly to more middle-class jobs.  These actions are going to help promote partnerships between educational institutions and workforce institutions.  They’re going to increase apprenticeships, which will allow folks to learn -- and earn while they learn.  And it will empower job seekers and employers with better data on what jobs are available and what skills are needed to fill those jobs. 

Let me tell you a story why all this matters.  And I’ve been all over the country and invited by many of you into your districts and states in order to look at programs you have that are similar to what we’re proposing today.  But I was recently -- and I could talk about many of them, but I was recently in Detroit just last week.  And I met with an incredible group of women at a local community college.  Now, all of these women came from hardscrabble neighborhoods in Detroit.  They happened to be all women, it was coincidence, but they all made it through high school.  They ranged in age I’m guessing somewhere from 25 to their mid-50s.  But they all got a high school education, and they were absolutely determined to do more to be able to provide for themselves and their family. 

Through word of mouth, Tom, they heard about a coding boot camp, computer coding -- a coding boot camp.  And it’s called [Step] IT Up America.  And it was a partnership between Wayne County Community College and a company called UST Global.  Now, it’s an intensive, four-month -- just four months, but intensive eight-hour day -- I think it’s almost the whole day -- don’t hold me to the exact number of hours, but intensive training program where these women happen to be, as I said, there were about a dozen and a half women learn IT skills needed to fill jobs at UST Global. 

UST Global represents a lot of other IT companies as well.  Knowing vacancies exist -- they estimate over a thousand vacancies just in the greater Detroit area.  And upon completion of this program, UST Global hires the students, and the lowest starting job is at $45,000 a year and the highest is $70,000 a year.  These are coders, computer programmers.  But there’s a key point:  UST Global doesn’t train these women out of some altruistic sense of charity.  They do it because it’s a very, very smart business decision.

There’s an overwhelming need for more computer coders -— as does not just UST Global, but the entire industry.  By 2020, our research shows there will be 1.4 million new IT jobs all across this country.  And the pay is in the $70,000 range.

I was so proud of these women.  As I said, my wife teaches in a community college.  Her average class age of people in her class is 28 to 30 years old.  Just think of yourself, what courage it takes.  You’re out of high school.  You’re graduated.  You’ve been bumping along in a job trying to make it.  You’ve been out, two, five, 10, 15 years.  And someone says, there’s this opportunity to take this program to learn Java, to learn a new language, to learn how to operate a computer in a way that you can code it.  It takes a lot of courage to step up.

It takes a willingness to be ready to fail.  These women were remarkable, but not just these women.  They write code, so they look -- they weren’t out there.  They were -- they knew someone who had gotten a job because of the program, and they thought they could do it.  So they learned an entire new language, and they displayed an initiative that was remarkable to see.  They showed up.  They worked hard because they want a good-paying job.  They want to make a decent living.  They want to take care of themselves and their families.

Folks, that's what -- as I know all of my colleagues believe -- that's what this is all about.  It’s not just information technology.  Manufacturing -- 100,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs available today in the United States because the employers cannot find workers with the right skills.  That number of highly skilled manufacturing jobs is going to grow to 875,000 by 2020.

And, folks, I was recently up in Michigan.  And Dow Kokam has a plant there that's -- they couldn’t find anybody with photovoltaic technology, didn't know how to run the machines.  So the community college and the business, they roll the machines right into the community college because of the help you all have provided in Congress, the funding.  And it’s like an assembly line.  These are good-paying jobs.

And in energy:  26 percent more jobs for petroleum engineers, average salary 130,000 bucks a year; 25 percent more jobs for solar panel installers, $38,000 a year; 20 percent more jobs needed -- more electricians are needed, earning $50,000 a year -— all now and in the near term.  These are real jobs.  These are real jobs. 

Health care:  There are 20 percent more jobs -— or 526,000 more that are needed in the health care industry -— registered nurses, jobs that pay 65,000 bucks a year.  There’s training programs in all of your states and districts, where you go out there, and while you’re a practical nurse, you can still be working and be essentially apprentice, while you are learning how to become -- and taking courses to be a registered nurse.

Physician assistants -- badly needed as the call for health care increases.  What’s the number, Tom, 130,000 a year roughly?  These are jobs all within the grasp of the American people if we give them the shot, if we show them the way, let them know how they can possibly pay for it while they are raising a family, and they’ll do the rest.

To maintain our place in the world we need to keep the world’s most skilled workforce right here in America, and to give a whole lot more hardworking Americans a chance at a good, middle-class job they can raise a family on.

But we also know the actions in this report are only a beginning, and as is the legislation.  The fact of the matter is that so many people over the last two decades have fallen out of the middle class, and so many in the upcoming generation need to find a path back.  Well, there is a path back if we all do our jobs -- from industry, to education, to union leaders, to governors, to Congress, to the federal government. 

And the mission is very simple.  It goes back to the central economic vision that has guided most of us -- I can speak for the President and I -- from the first day we got here.

The mission is to widen the aperture to be able to get into the middle class by expanding opportunity.  No guarantees, just expanding opportunity to American men and women who represent the backbone of the most dynamic, thriving economy in the world.  That's a fact.  We are the most dynamic, thriving economy in the world.

But in order to thrive, their education and training has to be as just as dynamic and adaptable as our economy is.  So, folks, America is back.  We’re better positioned today than we ever have been.  According to A.T. Kearney, we are the most attractive place in the world for foreign investments by a long shot, of every other country in the world.  Since this survey has been kept, the gap between number one and number two is wider than it ever has been.  Manufacturing is back, folks.  They're coming home.  Instead of hearing -- my kids, instead of hearing about outsourcing, what are you hearing now?  You’re hearing about insourcing.  Companies are coming back.

We’re in the midst of -- we take no direct credit for it -- we’re in the midst of an energy boom.  North America will be the epicenter of energy in the 21st century -- the United States of America, Mexico, and Canada.  We remain the leader in innovation.  We have the greatest research universities in the world.  We have the most adaptive financing systems in the world, to go out and take chances on new startups.  And American workers are the most productive in the world.  They want to work.

But to seize this moment, we need to keep the world’s most skilled workforce here in America.  And I think today in this bipartisan group -- we’re ready.  The American people are ready.  And I know the man I’m about to introduce is ready.  He wakes up every morning trying to figure out how do we give ordinary Americans an opportunity.  This is just about opportunity, man.  Simple opportunity -- how do we give them -- because they -- an opportunity because they are so exceptional. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think everyone in this room shares that goal -- providing for opportunity.  And the man I’m about to introduce, that's all he talks about, it seems to me when he talks to me. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.  Everybody, please be seated.  Thank you.  Well, welcome to the White House, everybody.  And I want to thank Joe for the generous introduction, but more importantly, for everything he does, day in, day out, on behalf of American workers.  And I want to thank the members of Congress who are here from both parties who led the effort to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act.  

When President Clinton signed the original Workforce Investment Act back in 1998, he said it was, “a big step forward in making sure that every adult can keep on learning for a lifetime.”  And he was right -- the law became a pillar of American job training programs.  It’s helped millions of Americans earn the skills they need to find a new job or get a better-paying job.  

But even back then, even in 1998, our economy was changing.  The notion that a high school education could get you a good job and that you’d keep that job until retirement wasn’t a reality for the majority of people.  Advances in technology made some jobs obsolete.  Global competition sent other jobs overseas.  And then, as we were coming into office, the Great Recession pulled the rug out from under millions of hardworking families. 

Now, the good news is, today, nearly six years after the financial crisis, our businesses have added nearly 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months.  Manufacturing is adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.  The unemployment rate is at its lowest point since September of 2008 -– by the way, the fastest one-year drop in nearly 30 years.  There are now more job openings than at any time since 2007, pre-recession.  For the first time in a decade, as Joe mentioned, business leaders around the world have declared that the number-one place to do business, the number-one place to invest isn’t China, it’s the United States of America.

So thanks to the hard work of the American people and some decent policies, our economy has recovered faster and it has gone farther than most other advanced nations.  As Joe said, we are well-positioned.  We’ve got the best cards.  So we have the opportunity right now to extend the lead we already have -– to encourage more companies to join the trend and bring jobs home; to make sure that the gains aren’t just for folks at the very top, but that the economy works for every single American.  If you’re working hard, you should be able to get a job, that job should pay well, and you should be able to move forward, look after your family. 

Opportunity for all.  And that means that even as we’re creating new jobs in this new economy, we have to make sure that every American has the skills to fill those jobs.  And keep in mind, not every job that’s a good job out there needs a four-year degree, but the ones that don’t need a college degree generally need some sort of specialized training. 

Last month, I met just a wonderful young woman named Rebekah in Minnesota.  A few years ago, she was waiting tables.  Her husband lost his job, he was a carpenter doing construction work.  He had to figure out how to scramble and get a new job that paid less.  She chose to take out student loans, she enrolled in a community college, she retrained for a new career.  Today, not only has her husband been able to get back into construction but she loves her job as an accountant -- started a whole new career.  And the question then is how do we give more workers that chance to adapt, to revamp, retool, so that they can move forward in this new economy.

In 2011, I called on Congress to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, update it for the 21st century.  And I want to thank every single lawmaker who is here -- lawmakers from both parties -- who answered that call.  It took some compromising, but, you know what, it turns out compromise sometimes is okay.  Folks in Congress got past their differences and they got a bill to my desk.  So this is not a win for Democrats or Republicans.  It is a win for American workers.  It’s a win for the middle class.  And it’s a win for everybody who is fighting to earn their way into the middle class.  

So the bill I’m about to sign will give communities more certainty to invest in job-training programs for the long run.  It will help us bring those programs into the 21st century by building on what we know works based on evidence, based on tracking what actually delivers on behalf of folks who enroll in these programs -– more partnerships with employers, more tools to measure performance, more flexibilities for states and cities to innovate and to run their workforce programs in ways that are best suited for their particular demographic and their particular industries.  And as we approach the 24th anniversary of the ADA, this bill takes new steps to support Americans with disabilities who want to live and work independently.  So there’s a lot of good stuff in here.

Of course, as Joe said, there is still more that we can do.  And that’s why we’ve rallied employers to give long-term unemployed a fair shot.  It’s why we’re using $600 million in federal grants to encourage companies to offer apprenticeships and work directly with community colleges.  It’s why, in my State of Union address this year, I asked Joe to lead an across-the-board review of America’s training programs to make sure that they have one mission:  Train Americans with the skills employers actually need, then match them to good jobs that need to be filled right now.

So today, I’m directing my Cabinet -- even as we’re signing the bill -- to implement some of Joe’s recommendations.  First, we’re going to use the funds and programs we already have in a smarter way.  Federal agencies will award grants that move away from what our Secretary of Labor, Tom Perez, who has been working very hard on this, what he calls a “train and pray” approach, and I’ll bet a lot of you who have dealt with folks who are unemployed know what that means.  They enroll, they get trained for something, they’re not even sure whether the job is out there, and if the job isn’t out there, all they’re doing is saddling themselves with debt, oftentimes putting themselves in a worse position.  What we want to do is make sure where you train your workers first based on what employers are telling you they’re hiring for.  Help business design the training programs so that we’re creating a pipeline into jobs that are actually out there.  

Number two, training programs that use federal money will be required to make public how many of its graduates find jobs and how much they earn.  And that means workers, as they’re shopping around for what’s available, they’ll know in advance if they can expect a good return on their investment.  Every job seeker should have all the tools they need to take their career into their own hands, and we’re going to help make sure they can do that.

And finally, we’re going to keep investing in new strategies and innovations that help keep pace with a rapidly changing economy -- from testing new, faster ways of teaching skills like coding and cybersecurity and welding, to giving at-risk youth the chance to learn on the job, we will keep making sure that Americans have the chance to build their careers throughout a lifetime of hard work.   

So the bill I’m signing today and the actions I’m taking today will connect more ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs.  Of course, there is so much more that we can still do.  And I’m looking forward to engaging all the members of Congress and all the businesses and not-for-profits who worked on this issue.  I’m really interested in engaging them, see what else we can get going.

I’ll give you a couple of examples.  Our high school graduation rate is the highest on record.  More young people are earning their college degrees than ever before.  But we still have work to do to make college more affordable and lift the burden of student loan debt.  I acted to give nearly five million Americans the opportunity to cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of their income -- particularly important for those who were choosing careers that aren’t as lucrative.  But Congress could help millions more, and I’d like to work with you on that.

Minimum wage.  This week marks five years since the last increase in the minimum wage.  More and more states and business owners are raising their workers’ wages.  I did the same thing for federal contractors.  I’d like to work with Congress to see if we can do the same for about 28 million Americans -- give Americans a raise right now.

Fair pay.  Let’s make sure the next generation of women are getting a fair deal.  Let’s make sure the next generation of good manufacturing jobs are made in America.  Let’s make it easier, not harder, for companies to bring those jobs back home.  Tomorrow, senators will get to vote on the Bring Jobs Home Act.  Instead of rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas or rewarding companies that are moving profits offshore, let’s create jobs right here in America and let’s encourage those companies.

So let’s build on what both parties have already done on many of these issues.  Let’s see if we can come together and, while we’re at it, let’s fix an immigration system that is currently broken in a way that strengthens our borders and that we know will be good for business, we know will increase our GDP, we know will drive down our deficit.

So I want to thank all the Democrats and Republicans here today for getting this bill done.  This is a big piece of work.  You can see, it’s a big bill.  (Laughter.)  But I’m also inviting you back.  Let’s do this more often.  It’s so much fun.  (Laughter and applause.)  Let’s pass more bills to help create more good jobs, strengthen the middle class.  Look at everybody -- everybody is smiling, everybody feels good.  (Laughter.)  We could be doing this all the time.  (Laughter.)

Our work can make a real difference in the lives of real Americans.  That’s why we’re here.  We’ll have more job satisfaction.  (Laughter.)  The American people, our customers, they’ll feel better about the product we produce. 

And back in 1998, when President Clinton signed the original Workforce Investment Act into law, he was introduced by a man named Jim Antosy from Reading, Pennsylvania.  And Jim spoke about how he had been laid off in 1995 at age 49, two kids, no college degree.  With the help of job training programs, he earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science, found a new job in his field. 

Today, Jim and his wife, Barb, still live in Reading.  Over the past 16 years, he’s been steadily employed as a programmer, working his way up from contractor to full-time employee.  In just a few months, Jim now is planning to retire after a lifetime of hard work.  A job training program made a difference in his life.  And one thing he’s thinking about doing in his retirement is teaching computer science at the local community college, so he can help a new generation of Americans earn skills that lead directly to a job, just like he had the opportunity to do.   

Well, I ran for President because I believe even in a changing economy, even in a changing world, stories like Jim aren’t just possible, they should be the norm.  Joe believes the same thing.  Many of you believe the same thing.  I believe America is -- I don’t just believe, I know America is full of men and women who work very hard and live up to their responsibilities, and all they want in return is to see their hard work pay off, that responsibility rewarded. 

They’re not greedy.  They’re not looking for the moon.  They just want to be able to know that if they work hard, they can find a job, they can look after their families, they can retire with dignity, they’re not going to go bankrupt when they get sick, maybe take a vacation once in a while -- nothing fancy.  That’s what they’re looking for, because they know that ultimately what’s important is family and community and relationships.  And that’s possible.  That’s what America is supposed to be about.  That’s what I’m fighting for every single day as President. 

This bill will help move us along that path.  We need to do it more.  Let’s get together, work together, restore opportunity for every single American.  So with that, I’d like to invite up some of the outstanding folks who are sitting in the audience who helped make this happen.  And I’m going to sign this bill with all those pens. 

Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.)

END
12:48 P.M. EDT

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The President Offers Condolences at the Dutch Embassy

July 22, 2014 | 1:20 | Public Domain

President Obama visits the Embassy of the Netherlands in Washington, D.C. and signs a condolence book for those killed in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine.

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Remarks by the President at the Embassy of the Netherlands

Embassy of the Netherlands
Washington, D.C.

11:26 A.M. EDT

Q    Mr. President, do you have any message for the Dutch people?

THE PRESIDENT:  Obviously, we're all heartbroken by what’s happened.  And this is an opportunity for me to extend on behalf of all the American people our deepest condolences over the loss of family and friends; to express our solidarity with the people of the Netherlands, with whom we've been friends and had the deepest ties for centuries; and to assure the Dutch people that we will work with them to make sure that loved ones are recovered, that a proper investigation is conducted, and that ultimately justice is done.

DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION MR. MOLLEMA:  And we thank the President for being here.  There’s been an outpouring of support from the American people, and I can only say that on behalf of the Dutch people, we're deeply grateful.  Thank you very much.

END
11:27 A.M. EDT

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 22, 2014

Readout of the President’s Call with Prime Minister Rutte of the Netherlands

President Obama spoke this afternoon with Prime Minister Rutte of the Netherlands.  The Prime Minister thanked the President for his visit to the Dutch Embassy in Washington earlier in the day and said it was greatly appreciated by the Dutch people.  Both leaders agreed that once the remains of the victims have been properly repatriated, the main priority must be to secure the crash site in order to allow for a full and transparent international investigation.   The President welcomed the action taken today by the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council strongly condemning the actions leading to this tragedy and preparing additional sanctions against those destabilizing Ukraine.  The President and Prime Minister noted their concerns about further evidence that Russia is continuing to send weapons and fighters across the border to support the separatists, while continuing to mass its own forces.  Both agreed the EU and United States must remain united with regard to events in Ukraine and that Russia will face increasing costs if it continues its support for violent separatists and fails to cease its efforts to destabilize Ukraine. 

The Apollo 11 Mission: 45 Years Later

Garrett Brinker
July 22, 2014
07:00 PM EDT

Forty-five years ago today, two American astronauts -- Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong -- landed on the moon's Sea of Tranquility, and Neil Armstrong planted the first footprint on the surface of the moon. As he made those first steps, Armstrong uttered that simple phrase we still remember today: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Today, President Obama joined all Americans honoring that giant leap forward, by inviting Neil Armstrong's wife, Carol, Michael Collins, the astronaut who piloted the spacecraft that orbited the moon, and Buzz Aldrin, to the White House. Armstrong passed away in 2012.

President Barack Obama meets with Apollo 11 astronauts

President Barack Obama meets with Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, right, Carol Armstrong, widow of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Patricia Falcone, OSTP Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs, left, in the Oval Office. This week marked the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. July 22, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In the President's statement on today's meeting, he honored the bravery and leadership that these heroes displayed, and acknowledged the influence that their mission has had on mankind:

The United States of America is stronger today thanks to the vision of President Kennedy, who set us on a course for the moon, the courage of Neil, Buzz, and Michael, who made the journey, and the spirit of service of all who’ve worked not only on the Apollo program, but who’ve dared to push the very boundaries of space and scientific discovery for all humankind.

As we commemorate that day, we take a look back at the Apollo 11 mission and the extraordinary influence of the U.S. space program.

Related Topics: Technology, Virginia

The First Significant Legislative Reform of Our Job-Training System in a Number of Years:

David Hudson
David Hudson
July 22, 2014
06:20 PM EDT
President Barack Obama signs H.R. 803

President Barack Obama signs H.R. 803, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act after delivering remarks on job training, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium, July 22, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)

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We need to make sure workers in America can find jobs that meet their skills, or get trained with the skills they need for a better job.

That's why, in this year's State of the Union address, President Obama tasked Vice President Biden with leading a review of our country's job-training programs to make sure that they have one mission: training our workers with the skills employers need, and matching them to good jobs that need to be filled right now.

The effort to make our federal training programs more job-driven was also bolstered by the bipartisan passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which President Obama signed into law this afternoon.

Related Topics: Jobs, Economy

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 22, 2014

Readout of the Administration’s Call With Governors on the Situation at the Border

This afternoon, White House and Senior Administration Officials including DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Acting OMB Director Brian Deese, CBP Commissioner Kerlikowske, and CBP Deputy Chief Vitiello, as well as representatives from ICE, FEMA and DOD held a call with governors from across the country to discuss the Administration’s comprehensive response to the humanitarian situation at the border. The Administration is focused on addressing the immediate and pressing challenges to make sure we are responding in an efficient and timely way, ramping up prosecution efforts against criminal smuggling networks and confronting the root of the problem with top-level diplomatic efforts in Central America. 

As part of the President’s whole-of-government approach, the Administration is working with states and local communities as they identify temporary sheltering capacity for unaccompanied minors. Officials noted on the call that preliminary data show that average daily apprehensions of unaccompanied children by the Customs and Border Patrol have dropped by about half from June to July.  Administration officials underscored the importance of continuing this progress and working with Governors to provide appropriate care for those apprehended at the border. To bolster the Administration’s and the Governor’s efforts, officials reiterated the need for Congress to fully fund our supplemental request because if Congress doesn’t act soon our hardworking border patrol agents and immigration courts won’t have the resources they need to do their jobs and care for and process these children. Officials also addressed several questions about the notification process for Governors when unaccompanied minors are placed in their states.  No action replaces long lasting solutions provided by comprehensive immigration reform and the Administration again called on Congress to fix our broken immigration system through common sense reform.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 22, 2014

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

  • Jeffery M. Baran – Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • Stephen Burns – Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri – Chairman, National Indian Gaming Commission, Department of the Interior

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

  • Anita Bevacqua McBride – Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
  • Joseph Falk – Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

President Obama said, “I am grateful that these impressive individuals have chosen to dedicate their talents to serving the American people at this important time for our country.  I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Jeffery M. Baran, Nominee for Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Jeffery M. Baran is currently Staff Director for Energy and Environment on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, a position he has held since May 2014.  Prior to this, Mr. Baran served on the Committee on Energy and Commerce as Senior Counsel from 2011 to 2014, and as Counsel from 2009 to 2010.  He served as Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2003 to 2008.  From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Baran worked as a law clerk for Judge Lesley Wells of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.  Mr. Baran received a B.A. and M.A. from Ohio University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Stephen Burns, Nominee for Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Stephen Burns is currently the Head of Legal Affairs for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency, a position he has held since 2012.  Prior to joining the OECD, Mr. Burns served at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a variety of roles.  He was General Counsel from 2009 to 2012, Deputy General Counsel from 1998 to 2009, and Associate General Counsel for Hearings, Enforcement and Administration from 1994 to 1998.  Mr. Burns also served at NRC as Director of the Office of Commission Appellate Adjudication from 1991 to 1994, Executive Assistant to NRC Chairman Carr from 1989 to 1991, Legal Assistant to Commissioner Carr from 1986 to 1989, and Deputy Director of the Regional Operations and Enforcement Division from 1986 to 1986.  He began his career at the NRC as an Attorney in the Regional Operations and Enforcement Division from 1978 to 1983.  Mr. Burns received a B.A. from Colgate University and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law Center.

Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri, Nominee for Chairman, National Indian Gaming Commission, Department of the Interior

Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri is currently Vice Chairman and Associate Commissioner of the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), positions he has held since 2013.  He also served as Acting Chairman of the NIGC from October 2013 to April 2014.  Prior to joining the NIGC, Mr. Chaudhuri was Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2013.  He served as an Associate Judge on the Puyallup Tribe of Nations Court from 2011 to 2012, an Appellate Judge on the San Manuel Mission Band of Indians Appeals Court from 2009 to 2012, and an Appellate Judge on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court from 2006 to 2012.  Previously, he served as a Deputy Public Defender in the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office from 2010 to 2011 and as Managing Attorney at the Chaudhuri Law Office, P.L.L.C. from 2006 to 2010.  Mr. Chaudhuri also held Appellate Judge appointments on the Gila River Indian Community Court of Appeals from 2008 to 2010 and on the Yavapai-Apache Nation Court of Appeals from 2005 to 2009.  From 2001 to 2006, he served as an Associate at Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P.  Prior to this, he served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Noel Fidel of the Arizona Court of Appeals from 2000 to 2001 and a Judicial Clerk for the Honorable James Ackerman of the Arizona Court of Appeals from 1999 to 2000.  Mr. Chaudhuri received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.

President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Anita Bevacqua McBride, Appointee for Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

Anita Bevacqua McBride is Executive in Residence at the School of Public Affairs at American University.  She was first appointed to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2009.  Previously, she served at the White House in various capacities, including Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush from 2005 to 2009 and  Special Assistant to the President for White House Management in 2001.  Ms. McBride served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary and White House Liaison at the Department of State from 2001 to 2003, and as Senior Advisor in the Bureau of International Organizations at the Department of State in 2004.  From 1987 to 1992, she was Director of White House Personnel under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.  Ms. McBride is a member of the U.S. – Afghan Women's Council and serves on the boards of the White House Historical Association and the National Italian American Foundation.  She is the recipient of the National Guard and Reserve's Patriot Award and the University of Connecticut’s President's Award of Distinction.  Ms. McBride received a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Connecticut.

Joseph Falk, Appointee for Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

Joseph Falk has been a Public Policy Advisor at Akerman LLP since joining the firm in 2003.  Previously, he was President and CEO of the Metropolitan Mortgage Company in Miami, Florida, where he worked from 1978 to 2001.  Mr. Falk is currently Vice Chairman of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Miami, Florida and a member of the Board of Directors of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.  He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers since 1995, and served as its President from 2001 to 2002.  He was on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ Consumer Advisory Council from 2007 to 2009.  Mr. Falk received a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. 

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
July 22, 2014

Daily Briefing by the Press Secretary Josh Earnest, 07/22/14

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

11:20 A.M. EDT

MR. EARNEST:  Good morning, everybody.  Don't start off too many briefings by saying that.  It's nice to see you all.  We're doing this early today to accommodate the President’s travel and the speaking event that he has a little after noon today.  So we'll try to be quick.  I do have one statement quickly at the top.

As you know, some of your colleagues who are in the in-town travel pool today are not here right now.  They’re with the President who is visiting the Embassy of the Netherlands here in Washington, D.C., to sign a condolence book honoring those who were lost in the tragic shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine.  So I don't anticipate that the President is going to have any remarks there, but there should be some footage that you guys will have access to of the President signing that condolence book.

With that, Julie, do you want to get us started today?

Q    Thanks, Josh.  Is there White House reaction to the federal appeals court ruling this morning that basically invalidates the health care subsidies for people in states that haven't set up the exchanges?

MR. EARNEST:  I know that there will be a statement coming from the Department of Justice on this.  They obviously are representing the position of the United States government and the administration for the D.C. circuit, so I'd refer you to that statement.  I do have a couple of thoughts, though, you won't be surprised to hear.

The first is it's important for people all across the country to understand that this ruling does not have any practical impact on their ability to continue to receive tax credits right now.  Right now there are millions of Americans all across the country who are receiving tax credits from the federal government as a result of the Affordable Care Act that is making health care more affordable for them, and while this ruling is interesting to legal theorists, it has no practical impact on their tax credits right now.

The second is there are four different cases of making this point that are making their way through the federal court system. Two of them have been dismissed at the district court level; two of them are awaiting their initial rulings.  This, of course, is the appeal of one of those cases.  So there is decidedly mixed legal opinion about this, but for those who are keeping score, we're still ahead two to one here.

What I do anticipate the Department of Justice will do is they will ask for a ruling from the full D.C. circuit.  As you know, this was a decision that was issued just by three members of the D.C. circuit, two of whom ruled against the federal government and one agreed with the government’s position. 

Now, it's important for people to also understand that some of those district courts that have thrown out this case have been decided by judges who used some pretty strong rhetoric in doing so.  There’s a judge in this case at the district level who said, “There is simply no evidence in the statute itself or in the legislative history of any intent by Congress to support the claims that are made by the plaintiff.”  In another case that was making the same legal argument a judge wrote that the theory propounded by the plaintiffs was “not a viable theory.”

The last thing that's important -- and this is -- there’s a lot of high-minded case law that's applied here; there’s also an element of common sense that should be applied as well, which is that you don't need a fancy legal degree to understand that Congress intended for every eligible American to have access to tax credits that would lower their health care costs regardless of whether it was state officials or federal officials who are running the marketplace.  I think that is a pretty clear intent of the congressional law.

This will work its way through the legal process and we are confident in the legal case that the Department of Justice will be making. 

Q    Obviously, as these cases do work through the legal system, there could ultimately end up being a practical impact on people who are receiving subsidies.  Can the health care law work effectively and continue to, as you say, be affordable for Americans without the subsidies being available in all states?

MR. EARNEST:  We are confident in the legal position that we have that millions of Americans --

Q    If that legal position no longer becomes tenable, can the law work if these subsidies are not widely available?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, that is a hypothetical we may be able to entertain at some point, but right now we are confident in the legal basis that supports our case.  The Department of Justice will litigate these claims through the federal court system.  And again, our confidence is rooted in the fact that it is pretty obvious what the congressional intent was here.  Their intent was for every eligible American who applied for tax credits to make their health care more affordable to have access to those tax credits regardless of whether it was state officials or federal officials who were running the marketplace.

Q    And if I could ask on a separate topic, can you give us some context on the President’s decision to send Denis McDonough and Lisa Monaco to Germany today?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, you’ve seen the statement that has been put out -- I think the statement originated in Germany where the Chief of Staff and Ms. Monaco currently are.  This meeting was the result of a telephone conversation between the President and Chancellor Merkel in the last week or so where they agreed that Mr. McDonough and Ms. Monaco, who are the President’s Chief of Staff and his top Homeland Security Advisor, respectively -- that they would travel to Germany to meet with their counterparts to talk through some of the issues that have been covered in the media.

It was an opportunity for them to meet and discuss in the course of intensive talks the state of bilateral relations and future cooperation.  There were a full range of issues that were discussed, including intelligence and security cooperation.  Mr. McDonough and his counterpart agreed to set up a structured dialogue to address concerns of both sides and establish guiding principles as the basis for continued and future cooperation.

Q    Did McDonough and Monaco bring with them any specific information or answers for the Germans on these two allegations of U.S. spies in Germany?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I'm not going to get into the substance of the talks.  I would describe the talks as productive and a useful trip.  But as we've said a couple of times as it relates to these reports, it is the view of the United States that differences of opinion or differences of perspective on these kinds of matters are best resolved through established diplomatic and intelligence channels, and that's exactly what we're doing.

Steve.

Q    What does that mean, structured dialogue?  What does it mean?

MR. EARNEST:  I think it's simply the basis of future discussions on these kinds of issues.  And again, it is our view that these kinds of differences are best resolved through these private established channels and not litigated through the media.

Q    President Putin is saying Russia would use its influence to allow a full investigation into the downed jet.  Are you detecting a change in tone from the Kremlin?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, there was some news from that region that we welcome for a change.  We welcome the news that most of the remains of those who perished in Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 as well as the black boxes are now in the hands of Dutch and Malaysian authorities.  While that is one step in the right direction, international investigators led by the Dutch still need immediate and full access to the site.

As you point out, Russia did say today that it will use its influence over the separatists to get them to fully cooperate, and we intend to hold the Russians to that.

Q    And so investigators still don't have access, though?

MR. EARNEST:  They don't have --

Q    Are there still the intimidation tactics, the firing in the air and --

MR. EARNEST:  I think what we have seen is we have seen conditions on the ground improve.  And that's illustrated by the fact that we've made progress on a couple of -- those two matters that I addressed at the top.  I don't think we've seen yet the level of cooperation with international investigators that we’d like to see to this point. 

This is a complicated issue and one we anticipate that -- we anticipate it's going to require some work to get the kind of cooperation that we would like to see.  But time is of the essence here.  And as the President said yesterday, it is the least that those separatists could do to cooperate with international investigators, give them the access that they need to that site so that they can conduct a transparent investigation and determine what exactly happened.

Jim.

Q    Anything new on the evidence in the plane crash investigation?  I know yesterday some senior administration officials were telling reporters on background that the black boxes were not perhaps as important as the wreckage itself.  And there are some reports about burn marks on some of the pieces of wreckage at the crash site.  Is that a promising sign?  Any new evidence to present that bolsters the U.S. case as to what happened?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, there has been a lot of evidence that’s already been presented that paints a pretty compelling picture.  If you’ll indulge me for a little bit here, I just want to review what that is.  We’ve been saying for months, and in some settings the Russians have acknowledged, that they’re actively supporting the rebels, the separatists in eastern Ukraine.  In fact, some of the separatist leaders are actually of Russian citizenship.

We’ve seen reports of heavy weapons moving across the Russian border into Ukraine.  In fact, that was the reason for the sanctions regime that this administration anthnounced last week, was the continued evidence of heavy weapons moving from Russia into Ukraine.  We’ve seen evidence that Russians are training separatists on how to use those weapons.  Those weapons include anti-aircraft weapons.  In fact, the separatists have bragged in the last several weeks of shooting down three different aircraft.  And there’s ample social media evidence to indicate that the separatists have access to the kind of SA-11 missile system that is capable of reaching aircraft that are flying at high altitudes. 

Now, the other thing that we know is that the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by a missile that was fired from the ground.  That missile was fired from a separatist-controlled area.  And at the time, the Ukrainian military was not operating anti-aircraft weapons in that area at that time.  After the plane was downed, there were ample social media accounts to indicate that an SA-11 system that appeared to be missing one specific missile was being transported back across the border from Ukraine to Russia.  There were also social media accounts of separatists talking about shooting down an airplane.

So there is a lot of evidence that’s already been marshaled.

Q    Is it a circumstantial case at this point, to use a legal term?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, there will be a role for a more formal intelligence assessment to be presented.  I do expect that you’ll hear from intel officials later today who will have some more data to present and some more evidence to indicate -- I guess, some more evidence to educate you about what we know so far about that situation, but I will leave specific intelligence assessments to them.  They’re the experts who can analyze this data and can be more effective in drawing a more conclusive case. But I will leave that to them.

Q    Apparently U.S. carriers are now making the decision to not fly over parts of Israel because of the violence down there. Does the administration, I guess, support that?  Was the administration pivotal in making that change and asking the carriers to do this?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, as it relates to the airspace in Gaza, it’s my understanding that the FAA has not issued any notices related to the ongoing violence in that region of the world.  I do think this does serve to illustrate, though, that it’s individual carriers who make the decision about their flight plans and whether or not to alter specific routes based on hostilities on the ground.

Q    Some people have raised the question about Malaysian Airlines and should they have been flying over that airspace in Ukraine.  Does the administration have a take on that as to whether that was --

MR. EARNEST:  Ultimately, it’s individual carriers -- in this case, Malaysian Airlines -- who is responsible for determining the appropriate flight path.

Q    Okay.  And one question on the trip this week that the President is taking out West to do some fundraising.  He, I guess, was going to go on the Jimmy Kimmel Show but then that, I guess, booking was canceled by the White House.  Was the White House concerned about the image that might be put out if the President was there on a late-night talk show with everything going on?

MR. EARNEST:  What I can say, Jim, is that we had been in touch with representatives of Mr. Kimmel’s show about the possibility of participating -- about having the President participate in that program on this trip.  We ultimately elected not to have the President do that interview over the course of this trip, and that is at least in part related to the challenges of doing a comedy show in the midst of some of these other more serious matters that the President is dealing with in the international scene.

Q    This wasn’t a good idea.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, at this point, we just elected not to do it.

John.

Q    Thank you, Josh.

MR. EARNEST:  You’re welcome.

Q    Getting back yesterday to the U.S. being supportive of the European Union also joining in sanctions against Russia, you’re obviously aware of the difference between Britain and France on the sale of the Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia. Does the U.S. have a dog in the fight, and does it believe that France and all of the EU members have to be united in order for sanctions to work?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, John, we have said many times that we believe that sanctions would be most effective when they are closely coordinated with our international partners.  That’s why you’ve seen intensive discussions between the President and individual leaders, particularly in Western Europe, about the sanctions regime that should be put in place to further isolate Russia.

So this has been a months-long endeavor.  And there have been important steps that have been taken by the United States in coordinating with our partners to impose economic costs on Russia.  There is ample evidence to indicate that the Russian economy has suffered as a result of those economic costs.  As it relates specifically to the proposed military transaction between the French and the Russians, we have in the past -- I think the President was traveling in Brussels in June and he articulated some concerns about the sale of that military equipment to the Russians.

Again, this is a little bit of a common-sense thing.  We’ve seen ample evidence that the Russians are flouting international norms, supporting efforts to violate the territorial integrity of independent sovereign nations.  It seems like a suboptimal time, if you will, to be transferring advanced military systems to them.

So we’ve made our concerns known, and we will continue to work in close coordination with the British, the French, the Germans and others as we coordinate the effort to further isolate the Russian regime.

Q    You made concerns known to President Hollande? 

MR. EARNEST:  Yes, I believe that the President had the opportunity to say this both privately and publicly.

Olivier.

Q    Josh, I know how much you love getting ahead of  announcements.  This intelligence presentation -- to whom, what’s the setting, who are the officials?  And I definitely did not get that impression from either the briefing yesterday or the background briefing we had either that you guys felt any sort of pressure or had any intent to lay out more of an intelligence case than you already had.  Obviously, I misread that.  But did anything change in the last 24 hours that made this decision necessary?

MR. EARNEST:  No, I don’t think that anything changed the calculus on that matter.  In terms of the logistics, I’d refer you to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, because I think they’ll have some more information about this later today. 

But, look, we want to be as forthcoming as we can, understanding that there are important intelligence equities to protect, about the evidence of what exactly happened.  This is something that we would envision would be integrated with an ongoing forensic investigation at the crash site. 

I don’t want to leave you or anyone with the impression that somehow whenever an intelligence assessment is arrived at by the U.S. intelligence community some way supersedes the ongoing work that’s being performed on the ground.  That work is important.  That work will also give us important information about what exactly transpired in this tragic circumstance.  But we are working with the international community to try to make sure that international investigators have access to the site so that they can conduct that investigation while, at the same time, we’re going to do our best to present the information that we have already obtained or assessed about what exactly happened last week.

Q    Are you in a position to say whether that intelligence assessment has been shared with, say, the Dutch and the Malaysians and the Ukrainians?

MR. EARNEST:  I’m not in a position to talk about how that intelligence has been handled, but you can try to Office of the DNI and maybe they will be able to share some additional light on that.

Major.

Q    A couple things, Josh.  There are reports that the EU is going to oppose a new round of sanctions against Russia after consultations today.  Do you have any confirmation of that or any reaction to that?

MR. EARNEST:  I’m not in a position to confirm that.  I know that these talks have been ongoing and are headed into the evening hours over in Europe.  We certainly would welcome additional steps from the international community, principally our allies in Western Europe, that would impose additional economic costs in Russia.  We, for rather obvious reasons, think that those additional costs are justified.

Q    Is there a triggering mechanism if the EU goes ahead and does another round and the United States might then follow suit, or is the United States government content with where it is in its own sanctions application against Russia?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, “content” is not the word that I would use.  I think that we’re continuing to review the sanctions regime that's in place, and we are going to continue to work with the international community to coordinate efforts to impose costs on Russia.  And our willingness to consider adding additional costs is something that continues to be a live option.

Q    You mentioned that there’s no practical effect of this federal appeals court ruling today.  Is there not a practical effect in that it creates an atmosphere of uncertainty?

MR. EARNEST:  That's what I was trying to clear up.

Q    Well, for those who are in the health care industry itself who are trying to comply, implement, follow, and are trying to understand if they're going to have patients who have subsidies or don't, doesn't that uncertainty itself have a practical effect as the law is implemented?

MR. EARNEST:  I don't think it does for two reasons.  One is we feel very strong about the sound legal reasoning of the argument that the administration is making.  The second is there’s a clear, common-sense case to be made there, which is that the intent of Congress was to ensure that every eligible American who applied for tax credits to make their health insurance more affordable would have access to those tax credits whether or not the marketplace was operated by federal officials or state officials.  The intent here is pretty clear, and we feel confident about our case.

Q    Just to be safe, is the administration considering any legislative fix, if necessary, to clear up any ambiguity the court noted in the legislative language?

MR. EARNEST:  The President has said countless times that he’s willing to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to make improvements to the law.  But the prospects for that -- considering that Republicans have voted more than 50 times to repeal the entire law, the prospects for the kind of legislative fix that might actually improve the law seem rather unlikely.

Q    We’ve asked you about the structured dialogue.  It sounds to me that there will now be a formal channel of communications that did not exist before between this administration and the Merkel administration on these issues of intelligence and anything else that might crop up.  But since the precipitating factor was intelligence, is that a fair understanding of this somewhat opaque language actually means?

MR. EARNEST:  I don’t know that I would necessarily describe it as a new channel, primarily because conversations between Lisa Monaco, for example, and her counterpart in Germany are not unprecedented.  There was a robust intelligence-sharing relationship that has existed between the United States and Germany for quite some time that even predated --

Q    You don't send the Chief of Staff and the Chief Counterterrorism Advisor of the President to Berlin when everything is normal.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I do think that the --

Q    You would agree with that?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I would agree with your observation that published reports indicate that there were a number of things that needed to be discussed in those private channels between U.S. officials and our German counterparts.  We value the close and ongoing security cooperation and intelligence relationship that we have with the Germans.  As I mentioned before, that is a relationship that significantly benefits the American people.  It’s also a relationship that benefits the German people.  So it’s in the interest of both sides to ensure that those channels remain open.  They do.  That security cooperation relationship continues to function at a high level.

That said, if it is necessary for us to establish this structured dialogue to resolve some of the concerns that have been aired publicly, we’re willing to do that, and that is a testament to our desire to resolve these differences of opinion in a way that both satisfies the Germans, but also in a way that protects the private nature of the topic being discussed. 

Q    On the President’s trip this week, apart from the Kimmel show, could you address what many Americans believe is either the trivial or unnecessarily distracting obligation of Presidents, including this one, to raise money in the course of conducting important matters of state?

MR. EARNEST:  I think the critical standard that everyone -- that I would suggest that people apply -- I think people can apply whatever standard they’d like, but my suggested standard would be whether or not those political activities interfere with the President’s constitution responsibilities as the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America.

I think what was demonstrated on Thursday, at least in the context of last Thursday’s schedule, that even in the midst of some urgent international matters, the President was able to attend to American interests around the globe while conducting the political functions that go along with the job. 

We anticipate that that will be the case this week.  That’s why there have been no changes to the schedule announced thus far.  But if we make some changes to the schedule, they will reflect the need for the President to be focused on -- they will reflect the need for the President to rearrange that schedule to assure that he can fulfill his functions as Commander-in-Chief.  Right now, we don’t anticipate that a change in schedule will be necessary.

Q    Before I let you go, on behalf of the Correspondents Association, I just want to lodge a formal complaint about the Apollo 11 event today.  The astronauts, who are among the most visible, televised, national heroes this country has ever known, that entire program is financed by the American taxpayers -- stills -- a presentation of that limits television coverage of that event.  We believe that that is a classic definition of something that should have the broadest press coverage imaginable and we are therefore lodging a complaint against your decision to keep us out.

MR. EARNEST:  Understood.  I appreciate that.  These are legitimate American heroes -- on that, you and I can agree.

Carol.

Q    Is there any concern in the White House that if the EU or the U.S. were to move forward on sanctions against Russia at this particular time that that would somehow complicate the effort to get President Putin to intervene with the separatists to get access to the crash site?

MR. EARNEST:  I think the hope right now, as the EU considers additional steps, in concert with the United States, to impose additional costs on Russia would actually be to compel President Putin to live up to his assertion that he will intervene with separatists to allow access to that site.  That would be part of that goal. 

I think there is a broader goal in mind beyond just that immediate priority, which is we do need to see Russia demonstrate some respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.  We do need Russia to stop supplying these heavy weapons to Russian-backed separatists.  We saw the tragic consequences of that ongoing effort to provide weapons last week and, put simply, we need Russia to acknowledge their commitment to basic international norms and to the idea that it is entirely possible, even normal, for the nation of Ukraine to have a strong, cooperative, even close relationship with their neighbor, Russia, while at the same time having productive economic ties with the West. 

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.  And if that is what the Ukrainian people desire -- and there are strong indications that that is what they would like to see for their country -- it is not appropriate for anybody, including the Russians, to interfere with the Ukrainians to make that kind of decision about the direction of their own country.

Q    Are there any plans for President Obama to personally make the case to Putin?

MR. EARNEST:  I don’t have any phone calls to read out at this point, but we’ll certainly keep you appraised of any --

Q    -- any you anticipate?  I mean, all the other leaders have spoken with him since this happened.

MR. EARNEST:  I’m not aware right now of any scheduled telephone calls between President Putin and President Obama, but if that changes we’ll let you know.

Ed.

Q    Josh, on health care, I understand what you’re saying about the legal aspects, and it seems like conservatives are even acknowledging that the Affordable Care Act is likely to survive this.  But will you acknowledge that it could be a bit messier if 36 states don’t have these subsidies?

MR. EARNEST:  No.  What I believe and what this administration believes is that the legal basis for our case is strong and we have effective advocates at the Department of Justice who will be making that case before the D.C. circuit.  It is pretty clear even to those of us that don’t have a fancy legal degree that the intent of Congress was to ensure that every eligible American would have access to tax credits that would lower their health care costs.

Q    But legal experts are also citing various Supreme Court decisions, one written by Justice Scalia on the right, one written by Justice Kagan, who was nominated by this President, that take dim views of the idea of the government and government bureaucrats rewriting laws that don’t turn out as they expected. So given that’s out there as well, why are you so confident that your legal basis is sound?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, the other legal expert that I would cite is the district judge who ruled in this case who would anticipate that the government would implement the law in line with Congress’s intent.  And this judge -- who ruled in this case at the district level, admittedly -- did say that there is simply no evidence in the statute itself or the legislative history of any intent by Congress to support the claims that are made by the plaintiff.

So I guess to put it more simply, it’s the view of this administration, as agreed by this judge, that the way that we have implemented the Affordable Care Act to maximize the benefits for people all across the country -- millions of Americans are benefitting from this right now -- that that is cleanly in line with the easily understood intent of the United States Congress.

Q    I want to quickly voice my support for what Major was saying about access, but I will not belabor the point.  I do want to follow up on --

MR. EARNEST:  Duly noted.

Q    Thank you.  I want to follow, though, on his substantive question about the President’s schedule this week.  You gave kind of a clinical response that the functions of being Commander-in-Chief can be dealt with.  And I understand the presidency follows you whether you’re going to -- this President goes to Martha’s Vineyard or the last President went to Crawford, Texas.  You can deal -- you can have secure phone calls, et cetera.  What about the President’s time?  What about the fact that there’s five work days this week and three of them he’s fundraising?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I will hazard a guess that a significant portion of the President’s time each of those days will be dedicated to participating in the presidential daily briefing, getting updates from his national security team about the situation on the ground, making phone calls to world leaders, consulting with his national security officials who are traveling across the world -- whether it’s his Chief of Staff traveling to Germany, or his Secretary of State who is currently in Cairo right now. 

The fact of the matter is, the President, like most professionals, has the capability to deal with more than one priority at a time, and particularly, somebody who has the trappings of the presidency alongside him.  He’s got his own airplane.  He’s got dedicated phone lines.  He has senior advisors who will be accompanying him every step of the way to make sure that he has access to the information and technology necessary to represent American interests in the midst of these challenging international times.

Q    Right, and again, I understand he has all the trappings, but there’s no concern about the image that -- yes, he can have these calls, but his schedule is basically dominated by fundraising this week. 

MR. EARNEST:  Maybe the public schedule that you see, but what you --

Q    What other meetings is he having that we’re not seeing?

MR. EARNEST:  What will be clear to you as the President goes through the next several days is that he will be paying all of the necessary attention to make sure that American interests are represented in each of these circumstances.  Again, he can do that through phone calls.  He can do that through conversations with staff either in Washington, around the globe, or traveling with him along the West Coast.  That will be the urgent priority.

And I guess this is the other important point.  If it becomes clear that there is something that the President is not able to do from the road that is critical to advancing American interests, we will alter the schedule to ensure that the President can fulfill those responsibilities.

Peter.

Q    Can I ask a question following up on the Apollo 11 anniversary, 45th anniversary this week?  We heard from a former NASA administrator this week who said given the fact that we now -- the U.S. relies on Russian rockets to take our astronauts to the International Space Station, he said, we are in a “hostage situation.  Russia can decide that no more U.S. astronauts will launch to the ISS.  And that's not a position that I want our nation to be in.”  Is that a position that our nation should be in?  And are there concerns given the new hostilities between the U.S. and Russia?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, Peter, as we’ve talked a number of times, the relationship between the United States and Russia is multifaceted.  We certainly do cooperate closely with the Russians when it comes to our space program.  But we’re also closely cooperating with the Russians when it comes to dealing with Iran in the context of the P5-plus-1 talks to resolve the international community’s concerns about the Iranian nuclear program.  We also are coordinating at a different level as it relates to the situation in Gaza and the Middle East. 

We have an important relationship with Russia.  The other example -- I left out the best example.  We worked very closely with Russia to eliminate the declared chemical weapons stockpile from Syria just in the last month or so.  Currently those chemical weapons are being destroyed aboard a U.S. ship out at sea.  We have acted with the international community, including the Russians, who played an important role, to make sure that those chemical weapons couldn’t be used by the Assad regime and couldn’t be used by terrorists who were able to get their hands on those chemical weapons.  That made the world a safer place, and that is the direct result of close cooperation between the U.S. government and the Russian government.

What continues to be true, however, is that Russia does have important responsibilities as it relates to Ukraine to make sure that they're adhering to broadly accepted international norms about the right of sovereign countries to make their own decisions about the future of their country.

Q    So simply put, you disagree with the assessment that we are in a “hostage situation” in terms of our ability to travel in space right now?

MR. EARNEST:  I think what I would say is that we have clear differences of opinion with the Russians about the way that they’ve handled -- the way that they’ve conducted themselves when it comes to Ukraine.  But it doesn't prevent us from accomplishing other priorities in cooperation with the Russians.

Q    There’s been a lot of international outrage associated with the giant disparity in terms of the number of casualties on the Israeli side versus the Palestinian side, given the crisis taking place in that country -- the number approaching 600 or more on the Palestinian side; number just shy of 30, I think, largely Israeli soldiers, on the Israeli side.  The U.S. announced that it would provide more than $40 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.  The U.S. provides I think it’s above $3 billion in aid annually to Israel.  Is there any concern in the disparity in the aid that the U.S. provides, especially given the fact that supporting Israel’s military efforts and at the same time supporting efforts to help those victims on the other side?  We’re on both sides of this.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, Peter, I think many people will agree that every single life that has been lost in this conflict, when it comes to innocent civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, is a tragedy.  And our hearts go out to the families, the Israeli families and the Palestinian families, who have lost innocent loved ones in this terrible conflict. 

That’s why you have seen the Secretary of State travel to the region to try to get both sides to agree to the terms of a cease-fire that had previously been in place.  It’s why you’ve heard the President get on the phone with world leaders, including the Israeli Prime Minister, to try to bring this violence to an end.  It’s also why you’ve seen the commitment of U.S. resources to organizations on the Palestinian side to try to meet the basic humanitarian needs --

Q    But is $40-plus million enough to meet the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians?

MR. EARNEST:  It certainly is a start, and it will certainly make a difference.  But what will make the most difference is both sides coming together and agreeing to that cease-fire.  And this has to start with Hamas ending the barrage of rockets that they’re firing aimed squarely at Israeli civilians. 

I’ll also point out that those Israeli civilians are protected by an Iron Dome system that was developed and implemented in cooperation with U.S. officials to protect the lives of Israeli civilians.  So you are right to assess that there are a number of different ways where the United States has intervened to try to protect the lives and welfare of innocent civilians on both sides of this conflict, and trying to get both sides to agree to a cease-fire to reinstate the terms of the November 2012 cease-fire is a continuation of that effort.

Q    Finally, we’ve litigated largely the situation of the optics associated with fundraising on the West Coast this week, but the President does arrive in Washington State today for a pair of fundraisers.  It’s also a state that right now is dealing with the worst wildfire in that state’s history -- 150-plus homes have been lost.  Has the President been involved in any conversations with the Governor of that state, Jay Inslee?  Does he have any intentions to make a last-minute trip out there to visit with some of those people who lost everything in the destruction?

MR. EARNEST:  I don’t have any updates to the President’s schedule to announce, but the President this morning did receive a briefing from his homeland security team about the latest on the wildfire situation that’s raging in Washington State and in some places in Western Canada as well.  When the President arrives in Washington, he will get an in-person briefing from the Governor about the response to those wildfires and to get an assessment about how local communities in Washington State are being affected by the wildfires.

I also want to point out that included in the supplemental appropriations request that this administration forwarded to Congress two or three weeks ago were additional sums of money dedicated to responding to wildfires throughout the American West.  Unfortunately, we have seen congressional Republicans indicate a willingness to obstruct that funding.  That is disappointing.  But we’re going to continue to keep pushing on Congress to make sure we have the resources that we can bring to bear to meet the needs of those communities that are affected by wildfires.

Roger.

Q    Thank you.  Back to Ukraine.  How much does the administration believe what happened with the separatists in Ukraine and the Malaysian plane is a reflection of Russia, and how much a reflection of the risks of untrained rebels having access to weapons?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, as I pointed out, Roger, there are some basic facts that we know about the situation on the ground in Ukraine.  We know that for months now heavy weapons have been moving across the border from Russia into Ukraine.  We know that the Russians have been training Russian-backed separatists in the use of those weapons, including anti-aircraft weapons.  We know that the separatists have claimed credit for shooting down three different aircraft in the last several weeks.  And we’ve seen the same social media reports that you have seen that indicate separatists did at one point on Thursday have possession of an SA-11 system that is capable of reaching aircraft that are flying at high altitudes.

We also know that it was a missile that was fired from the ground that downed the doomed Malaysian jetliner.  We know that that missile was fired from separatist-controlled territory.  And we know that the Ukrainian military was not operating anti-aircraft weapons in that area at that time.

So we have expressed our concern about these circumstances, specifically Russia’s willingness to provide heavy weapons to the separatists, on many, many occasions.  In fact, we explained that one of the reasons that the President had decided to put in place tougher sanctions against Russia last Wednesday, the day before the jetliner was downed, was because Russia continued to provide these heavy weapons to Russian-backed separatists.  That clearly has had dangerous consequences for the people of Ukraine.  Unfortunately, it has had tragic consequences for innocent civilians from countries around the world now. 

So we’re going to continue to compel the Russians to shut down the border and to stop providing heavy weapons and materiel to Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine.

Q    Is there any training going on that intel shows?

MR. EARNEST:  We have seen some evidence that the Russians actually are training Russian-backed separatists to use some of this equipment.

Q    Still training?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I don’t have an up-to-date, up-to-the-minute assessment to provide you, but we know that that has happened with some frequency in the past.

Jon.

Q    Josh, back to the D.C. circuit court opinion.  I understand you believe you’ll win on appeal, but if this opinion is upheld, does it effectively gut Obamacare by eliminating up to 5 million subsidies?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, Jon, as you point out, there are millions of Americans across the country who do benefit in a very important way from the Affordable Care Act.  Millions of Americans are eligible for tax credits that make their health insurance more affordable for them.  That is one of the hallmark achievements of the Affordable Care Act, and it is clear that the intent of Congress was to make sure that every eligible American had access to those tax credits, whether or not the marketplace was operated by federal officials or by local state officials.  So we feel very confident in the legal case that we’ll make before the court, and the Department of Justice will be responsible for pressing that argument and we feel confident in the argument they’ll be making.

Q    Okay, but that didn’t answer my question.  I said if this decision is upheld -- and you were just slapped down by a circuit court -- if this decision is upheld, does it effectively gut Obamacare?  It means, for instance, that you can -- the President can no longer say that people can have access to health care for the price of a cell phone bill.  I mean, this would wipe away 4.7 million right now -- 4.7 million people’s subsidies.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, you and I agree with the fact that there are millions of Americans that currently benefit from this provision of the law.  And we are confident that that law has the kind of legal basis to withstand legal scrutiny.

Q    If it is upheld, does it gut Obamacare?  It’s a simple question.

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I know it’s a hypothetical question, though, and one I’m not in a position to entertain.  We feel confident in our legal case.  We’ve already won two cases at the district court level.  We’re going to the -- the Justice Department will be pressing this case before the entire D.C. circuit, and we feel confident about the case that they’ll be making.

Q    The law very clearly states that the subsidies are available to those who enroll through state exchanges.  Does the letter of the law matter to the White House on this?  That is the letter of the law -- it says state exchanges.

MR. EARNEST:  Again, I don’t have the fancy legal degree that I referred to earlier, but I do think that what the courts are charged with doing is evaluating the intent of Congress.  And the intent of Congress in this case I think is not just clear, it’s transparent.  Congress intended for every eligible American to have access to these tax credits that lower their health care costs, whether or not the marketplace was run by federal officials or state officials.

Q    Okay.  And I’d like to come back to Major’s point about the Apollo 11 representatives that were here at the White House today.  Why the intense secrecy around this event?  Why not allow television cameras into that?

MR. EARNEST:  It’s merely a scheduling matter, Jon.  There’s a number of things on the President’s schedule.  We’ve had the trip to the Dutch Embassy today.  The President is making remarks over in the EEOB with the Vice President to talk about job training.  And the President needs to get on a plane at one o’clock this afternoon.  So the President has a very busy schedule and we weren’t able to accommodate television cameras this time.

Q    Just for the record, the last pool spray took 38 seconds.

MR. EARNEST:  Understood.

Q    I mean, the President’s schedule -- couldn’t he have been maybe five minutes later for the fundraiser out in Seattle? You really couldn’t accommodate a few minutes for open coverage of this?

MR. EARNEST:  Not this time, Jon.

Q    I mean, let me ask you, because I find that explanation, frankly, a little hard to believe, given that this is such a small amount of time to come in and have a little bit of --

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I’ll just say that in the past that there have been some television journalists who have complained about the small amount of time that was granted to some --

Q    Yes, and I think I’ve probably been one of those -- complaining when 38 seconds maybe could be a couple of minutes.

MR. EARNEST:  Understood.

Q    But is it because some of those Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, shortly before he died, going to Congress, was very critical of this President for the way he has handled the space program.  I mean, the words of Neil Armstrong, who was a very private person, as you know, before Congress saying that the President’s canceling of the Constellation Program was “lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable.”  Is that why the President did not want to see television cameras into this photo op?

MR. EARNEST:  Absolutely not.  The President invited the crew members of Apollo 11 to the White House to honor their contribution to space exploration and to innovation in the field of science.  It’s a genuine honor for the President to have them here today, and he’s proud about the fact that they chose to come.

I will also say that we are proud of the policy that this President has put in place to take our space program to the next level and we’re very optimistic about the future of the American space program.

Q    You mentioned the supplemental before on the border crisis and wildfires.  Today the Speaker said that he believes that the supplemental is not going to pass unless changes are made to the 2008 law and that the President needs to push Democrats on the Hill to do that.  So I wanted to know what your response is to the Speaker.  But also is there anything that you can tell us about how the President is speaking to Democrats on the Hill about that issue?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, I can tell you that White House officials have been in regular touch with Democrats and Republicans about the importance of Congress acting to approve the supplemental appropriations request that this administration has sought.  The bottom line here is the federal government needs additional resources to make sure we are appropriately managing the urgent humanitarian situation at the border.

What we’re seeking specifically is funding for additional immigration judges, ICE prosecutors and asylum officials who can more efficiently and effectively process the claims that are made by those who have been apprehended at the border.  That enforcement of the law is something that we have prioritized and something that we need additional resources to do efficiently.

Q    But has the President spoken to the Democratic leaders on the Hill about it in recent days?

MR. EARNEST:  I don't have any specific telephone conversations from the President to read out, but I can tell you that a number of White House officials have been in touch with their counterparts on Capitol Hill about this matter.

Q    Just real quick, a second -- I think that some people in the White House have shot this down yesterday -- just to get it out there.  Has the President or anyone on his behalf bought a house in California or planning to buy a house in California?

MR. EARNEST:  I’ve seen those reports, too.  Those reports are not accurate.

So, Mark, I’ll give you the last one.  I understand the President is about to speak.

Q    All right.  Josh, can you tell whether President Obama enjoys doing fundraisers, or does he regard them as a distasteful chore?

MR. EARNEST:  Mark, I can tell you that the President enjoys traveling all across the country and meeting Americans from all walks of life and talking to them about the country that they love and that he loves.  The President will have the opportunity to meet over the course of this trip to the West Coast, if the schedule holds, a variety of individuals and the President is looking forward to the opportunity that he’ll have to visit with them.

In terms of fundraising, it’s a responsibility that Presidents in both parties for generations have been responsible for.  And the President, like his predecessors, is interested in supporting members of his party who are on the ballot in 2014 and that's part of what he’ll be doing over the course of this week.

Thanks, everybody.

Q    Josh, it’s 100 days for the Nigerian girls since they went missing.  Any comment?

MR. EARNEST:  Not from here, but we may be able to follow up on that.

END  
12:08 P.M. EDT