AP transcript of an interview with President Barack Obama on Thursday.
Q: Appreciate the time.
Obama: You bet.
Q: News out this morning: unemployment rate up to 9.5 percent, and it's of course expected to go higher, as you've said that it probably would. What do you tell Americans who are worried that this really will be a jobless recovery, that they may not be able to find jobs, even if the economy gets better?
Obama: Well, obviously we are deeply concerned about the employment rate. It's one of the things that I am most focused on when I think about long-term economic policy.
We have successfully stabilized the financial markets, and that's important, because that was a huge drag that helped precipitate the crisis. We've started to see some stabilization on housing. But what we're still seeing is too many jobs lost, too many families who are worried about whether they're going to be next in terms of job loss ...
Q: Or whether they can find another.
Obama: ... or whether they can find another. And what we also know is that, even before this crisis, back in 2000 through 2008, when the economy was growing, it wasn't generating enough well-paying jobs to keep pace with the growing population. That's why, even as we deal with the short-term crisis issues, it's so important for us to lay the foundations for long-term economic growth. We've got to figure out what the next growth engine is beyond credit card debt and home equity loans ...
Q: Right.
Obama: ... and derivatives on Wall Street. And that's the reason why we've emphasized reforming our health care system, which has been a drag on our overall economy, and why clean energy is so important, because if we're weatherizing every building and home in America, if we are creating windmills and solar panels and biofuel facilities, that is a huge promising area, not only for jobs here in the United States but also for export growth, and we've got to lift up our exports.
So the last piece of this puzzle is also going to be education. We've got to produce more engineers, more scientists. We have to have more innovation. And although it's been more quiet than some of the other reforms we've been talking about on energy and health care, our secretary of education is really emphasizing how do we lift up performance for all our children so they'll be prepared for the jobs of the 21st Century.
Q: Going to Russia this weekend. Why are you meeting with Putin?
Obama: Well, I have developed a very good relationship with President Medvedev, and I think that we're going to be able to get some important business done setting up a framework for a post-START treaty that will bring down the levels of nuclear warheads on both the Russian and the U.S. sides.
But Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia, and I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction. I think Medvedev understands that. I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new. And to the extent that we can provide him and the Russian people a clear sense that the U.S. is not seeking an antagonistic relationship but wants cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation, fighting terrorism, energy issues, that we'll end up having a stronger partner overall in this process.
Q: And you think maybe sitting down with the Prime Minister can help pull him out of this old way of thinking?
Obama: I think meeting with the Prime Minister ensures that he and Medvedev are hearing the same things and seeing the same things so that they can move in concert in cooperating with us on some critical issues.
Q: A lot of experts think that Russia is the real obstacle to confronting North Korea or Iran in an aggressive way, the kind of aggressive way that the U.S. is advocating on the international stage. Do you agree?
Obama: I don't, actually. So far what we've seen is fairly remarkable cooperation from Russia on North Korea. We've seen the same thing from China. I think the sanctions regime after the nuclear tests and the missile launches by North Korea have been robust in part because Russia and China have been willing to go further than they've been willing to go in the past.
In my conversations with President Medvedev, he has acknowledged that Iran's development of a nuclear weapon would be a destabilizing force in the international community and that he is interested in working with us in trying to find a way that Iran can step away from the brink on this issue.
So, so far at least, we've seen good cooperation on these issues.
Q: But you didn't get military force, for example, to board ships, the North Korean ships, in the sanctions. Wasn't Russia the obstacle?
Obama: No, I think that what we saw was the most robust sanctions regime that we've ever seen with respect to North Korea. In international diplomacy, people tend to want to go in stages, and what we're seeing right now is that implementation of the sanctions regime that was set up is going very well. If ...
Q: But you think there's room for more later?
Obama: There potentially is room for more later, but keep in mind that what we're also trying to do is to keep a door open for North Korea to start acting in a responsible way; to recognize that a denuclearized Korean Peninsula is the only way that they are going to achieve the kind of commercial ties and development opportunities that can be good for their people. And we want them to know that path is still available.
Q: You've talked about wanting to set up a legal framework for prolonged detention, which would be a pretty big sea chain in this country's jurisprudence. As a constitutional scholar, expert, does it give you any pause to have, as your legacy, this kind of legalized limbo?
Obama: It gives me huge pause, and that's why we're going to proceed very carefully on this front. And it may turn out that after looking at all the dimensions of this, that I don't feel comfortable with the proposals that surface in how to deal with this issue and...
Q: What might make you uncomfortable?
Obama: Well, as you said, we don't have a tradition of detaining people without trial. The problem that we're confronting here is that there's been a clear distinction in the past between criminals here in the United States and war, which happens in the theater somewhere. We've detained war prisoners during times of war, but the war ended.
Here you've got a situation where we have and other extremists who would gladly blow up Americans, and yet we don't have a clear terminal point, there's not going to be some surrender ceremony where Emperor Hirohito signs the papers. And given that fact, how to manage extremists who want to do us harm and may not fall neatly under traditional criminal jurisprudence here in the United States or even international laws, but making sure that both the American people are safe and our Constitution is upheld is a very difficult thing.
I'm confident that we can do much better than we're doing so far. What we've done in Guantanamo is just leave them there in limbo for seven years without any recourse. We now know that they have habeas rights, and that means that they are able to answer charges and have legal representation. We're going to be able to prosecute a sizable number of those who are being held in our U.S. courts. The military commissions structure that we are setting up, I think, will meet the demands of our legal traditions.
And the question then is going to be, how do we handle folks who we have very strong evidence have engaged in criminal activities or violated laws of war, but the evidence is, through multiple, you know, hearsay documents that can't be introduced in court or comes from classified information that we can't compromise in a open situation - how we deal with those situations is going to be one of the biggest challenges of my administration.
Q: If you can't get legislation through Congress to establish some kind of framework, will you do it by executive order?
Obama: I am not comfortable with doing something this significant through executive order. I think it is very important that the American people and Congress, in conjunction with my administration, come up with a structure that is not only legitimate in the eyes of our constitutional traditions, but also in the eyes of the international community, because part of our task in defeating these extremists is winning over allies and populations that right now feel as if we haven't been living up to our highest ideals.
Q: The Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy is well under way as we speak, with 4,000 Marines going into southern Afghanistan. The risks are freshly evident with the capture of a U.S. soldier. You're going to have to decide at some point whether you increase the number of troops, whether the number you have there is sufficient. How are you defining success to make those decisions?
Obama: Well, I have a very narrow definition of success when it comes to our national security interests, and that is that al-Qaida and its affiliates cannot set up safe havens from which to attack America.
Q: How do you measure this?
Obama: Well, I think we can measure it by whether or not they've got training camps where people are coming in, getting trained in explosives, being sent out and directed in carrying out terrorist activity. And that is our core interest in the region.
And what I've said to the Pakistani government, what I say to the Afghan government, is we want to do everything we can to help you secure your own borders; we want to help ensure that your people are benefiting from development and improved agricultural systems and education systems and health care systems. All those things are things that we want, in concert with the international community, to achieve, but from a very narrow national security perspective, we can't tolerate a situation in which terrorist organizations are acting with impunity.
And the key strategy for us at this point, the benchmarks of success that we've laid out are: Are we building a Afghan National Army and police structure that can secure itself without the assistance of NATO forces or U.S. forces? Is Pakistan able to maintain its borders so that al-Qaida or affiliates aren't operating there? And I think those goals can be achieved without us increasing our troop levels.
Q: Do you think you'll have to face a decision about whether to go up or down sometime this year?
Obama: Well, what we've consistently said is that after the Afghan election, assuming that we've been successful in consolidating security, the election moves forward, you've got a new Afghan administration in place, that we will do a reassessment of where we're at. And I think that we want to constantly fine tune how we approach the issue.
Q: On Iran, are you reconciled at all to the idea that you would have to live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Most experts think that they will have a nuclear bomb maybe within your term.
Obama: I'm not reconciled with that, and I don't think the international community is reconciled with that. Now, how we get from what we know is required for international security - which is a nuclear-free Iran - how we get from here to there is a big challenge. And it's gotten more difficult in light of what's happened postelection in Iran.
Obama: So understand, though, that this is not just a U.S. position. The biggest concern is not simply that Iran can threaten us or our allies like Israel or its neighbors in the region. A very real concern is, is that Iran possessing a nuclear weapon triggers an arms race in the region and suddenly countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Turkey all feel obliged to get nuclear weapons. And if you've got the most volatile region in the world and everybody armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, you've got a recipe for potential disaster ...
Q: But if you have experts saying that they could very possibly have a bomb within one to five years, then you have to be planning for how your strategy changes or what you do when that happens.
Obama: Our planning is how to prevent us from getting too close to that point.
Q: Let me ask you about affirmative action, it's back in the news with recent Supreme Court cases - the New Haven firefighters case, the Texas voting rights case. Do you think there is still times and incidences in our society where hiring on the basis of race or admissions on the basis of race are still needed?
Obama: I don't think that hiring on the basis of race or admissions on the basis of race alone is constitutionally plausible and I don't think that crude quotas like that are necessary. I do think that there are still circumstances in which on a college admissions or on a hiring decision, taking into account issues of past discrimination, taking into account issues of diversity of a workforce or a student body can still be appropriate.
But I think that they have to be done in a way that is thoughtful. So when I look at the firefighters case, I say to myself, if New Haven had thought through how it was going to approach the issue ahead of time and said, we think merit and highly qualified firefighters are absolutely important; that doesn't contradict our desire to make sure that there's diversity in a city that's 60 percent black and Hispanic. Let's design promotion approaches that reconcile those two things, and we don't have people taking tests, studying for them, and then thinking that they were going to be promoted automatically on the basis of those tests, suddenly being disappointed.
Instead of doing it that way, doing it in a way that's thoughtful and everybody has the same clear expectations, I think that would survive Supreme Court scrutiny and I think a lot of people would say that that's fair. I think what people instinctively probably reacted to on that particular case had more to do with the fact that the people who had studied for those tests already had a set of expectations that were thwarted. But keep in mind that the Supreme Court didn't close the door to affirmative action if properly structured in this case and ...
Q: But they're moving the ball a little bit.
Obama: But they are moving the ball and, look, society evolves.
Q: Do you think they're jumping the gun a little bit ahead of where society really is?
Obama: This was a very narrow case, so it's hard to gauge where, where they will take it. I'll be honest with you, though, I've always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue, or should be less than an issue, than it's been made out to be in news reports. It's not - it hasn't been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates would claim, and it hasn't been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics has been.
I think the way to move forward on race is to make sure that every kid from the time they're born is getting good nutrition and good education, is succeeding in K through 12, and we're opening opportunities for all young people. Because when everybody's got a level playing field, everybody's competing, and we've dealt with some of the legacies of discrimination that have resulted in substandard schools or extreme poverty in some communities, then affirmative action ends up being an afterthought and we can really just make sure that everybody's treated fairly in an environment that, in which race is rarely taken into account.
Q: On Iraq, it's a big week there with the pullout from cities of U.S. troops. Do you have, you've said that violence will probably go up; others have said that, as well. Do you have a level of violence or a level of, not to be crass about it, where you might have to rethink the schedule of withdrawal, that both you've laid out and is laid out in the agreement with the Iraqis?
Obama: I don't think we've got a level of violence in our minds where it hits that point and then suddenly we see whether the Iraqis want to rethink this thing. I think Ray Odierno and our troops have done an extraordinary job in handing over security to Iraqis in a way that can allow Iraqis to succeed. We're going to see the last vestiges of AQI, al-Qaida in Iraq, and other extremist organizations, try to see if they can stir the pot. I'm confident that Iraqis don't want to return to the spiraling violence that we saw a couple of years ago.
What I think is still going to be critical, though, is for the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Kurds ... I think what's still going to be critical is to have politicians in Iraq reconcile their respective communities on things like the oil laws, on issues like how much power provincial governments have versus the federal government. There's still a lot of work to be done there. And right now, I think, because a national election is coming up, we're not seeing as much compromise and cooperation as we'd like to see. So that's where we're going to be focusing a lot of effort.
Q: You don't sound like you're wedded to your schedule no matter what.
Obama: Well, I've always said that as commander in chief, I reserve the right to make changes based on changing circumstances to protect U.S. security. But I am very confident in our ability to continue to abide by the agreements that we've made with the Iraqis. They want sovereignty. They have been able to really improve their security capacities. And I want to get our troops home.
Q: A lot of folks in the black community are concerned about how you reacted to Michael Jackson's death, that it wasn't respectful enough or out front enough. How do you react to that?
Obama: Well, I'm not, I don't know. I know a lot of people in the black community. I haven't heard that.
Q: Well, I'm getting a lot of e-mail about it, and a lot of folks feel like there wasn't an official statement or something from you. It's not the typical way that the White House responds when somebody of stature dies.
Obama: Well, look, you're the first person who has actually asked me about it. So I think that Michael Jackson is, will go down in history as one of our greatest entertainers. I grew up on his music. Still have all his stuff on my iPod. I think that his brilliance as a performer also was paired with a tragic and, in many ways, sad personal life. But I'm glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great joy that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer.
Q: I think we're about to run out of time, but do you have time for just a couple quick, fun questions?
Obama: Yea.
Q: Tell people something about the White House that they might know, some secret about this building that they might not know.
Obama: Some secret about - the pastry chef here makes the best pie I've ever tasted, and that is causing big problems for Michelle and myself. I mean, whatever you, whatever pie you like, he will make it, and it will be the best pie you've ever eaten. And so we are having to figure out how to resist ordering pie every night.
Q: That would be hard for me, too. What's a pet peeve with your aides?
Obama: What's a pet peeve about me?
Q: That you have with aides towards you.
Obama: That I have, you know, I love my staff.
Q: That was a softball.
Obama: Probably my biggest pet peeve is the shine police. You notice that even before this interview, they constantly want to powder my nose and forehead and it's never enough - that I find quite irritating.
Q: I'm supposed to ask you, Kobe or Michael?
Obama: Oh, Michael. I mean Kobe, Kobe's terrific, don't get me wrong. But I haven't seen anybody match up with Jordan yet.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President.
Obama: Thank you. I enjoyed it.