CBS "60 Minutes" Interview - Transcript
Interview
CBS "60 Minutes" Interview - Transcript
CBS "60 MINUTES" INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
INTERVIEWER: STEVE KROFT
SUBJECT: ECONOMY; SUPPORT FOR SECRETARY GEITHNER; GUANTANAMO; LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
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MR. KROFT: By most accounts, this past week was one of the most difficult in the young presidency of Barack Obama. At the heart of it all was the public upheaval over $165 million in bonuses paid to employees at AIG, a company largely responsible for bringing the world's financial system to its knees and now being propped up by U.S. taxpayers. The bonuses touched off a cultural war between Wall Street and Main Street, both of whose support the president needs to help stabilize the economy.
After campaigning in California to drum up support for his $3.6 trillion budget, the president sat down with us in the Oval Office for a conversation about the AIG debacle, the economy and getting the hang of the world's most difficult job.
(Begin videotape.)
MR. KROFT: Were you surprised by the intensity of the reaction and the hostility from the AIG bonus debacle?
PRES. OBAMA: I wasn't surprised by it, our team wasn't surprised by it. The one thing that I've tried to emphasize, though, throughout this week and will continue to try to emphasize during the course of the next several months as we dig ourselves out of this economic hole that we're in is we can't govern out of anger. We've got to try and make good decisions based on the facts in order to put people back to work, to get credit flowing again. And I'm not going to be distracted by what's happening day to day. I've got to stay focused on making sure that we're getting this economy moving again.
(Pause interview.)
MR. KROFT: The president ordered his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to use every legal means to recover the bonus money from AIG. If it's not repaid, it will be deducted from the company's next bailout payment. But the House decided to extract its own revenge, passing a bill that would impose a tax of up to 90 percent on the AIG bonuses and on the bonuses of anyone making more than $250,000 a year who works for a financial institution receiving more than $5 billion in bailout funds.
(Resume interview.)
MR. KROFT: I mean, you're a constitutional law professor. Do you think this bill is constitutional?
PRES. OBAMA: Well, I think that, as a general proposition, you don't want to be passing laws that are just targeting a handful of individuals. You want to pass laws that have some broad applicability. And as a general proposition, I think you certainly don't want to use the tax code to punish people. I think that you've got a pretty egregious situation here that people are understandably upset about, so let's see if there are ways of doing this that are both legal, that are constitutional, that uphold our basic principles of fairness but don't hamper us from getting the banking system back on track.
MR. KROFT: You've got a piece of legislation that could affect tens of thousands of people. Some of these people probably had nothing to do with the financial crisis and some of them probably deserve the bonuses that they got. And is that fair?
PRES. OBAMA: Well, that's why we're going to have to take a look at this legislation carefully. Clearly, the AIG folks getting those bonuses didn't make sense. And one of the things that I have to do is to communicate to Wall Street that given the current crisis that we're in they can't expect help from taxpayers but they enjoy all the benefits that they enjoyed before the crisis happened. You get a sense that in some institutions that has not sunk in, that you can't go back to the old way of doing business, certainly not on the taxpayer's dime. The flip side is that Main Street has to understand that unless we get these banks moving again, then we can't get this economy to recover. And we don't want to cut off our nose to spite our face.
MR. KROFT: Your Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been under a lot of pressure this week. And there have been people in Congress calling for his head. Have there been discussions in the White House about replacing him?
PRES. OBAMA: No.
MR. KROFT: Has he volunteered to or come to you and said, do you think I should step down?
PRES. OBAMA: No. And he shouldn't. And if he were to come to me, I'd say, sorry, buddy, you've still got the job. But look, he's got a lot of stuff on his plate, and he is doing a terrific job. And I take responsibility for not, I think, having given him as much help as he needs.
(Pause interview.)
MR. KROFT: Obama says Geithner is not only responsible for the banks, the bailouts and the automobile industry, he also has to make sure the money is being spent wisely and to report to Congress. Yet nearly one dozen high-level Treasury Department jobs remain unfilled, and Geithner still has no deputy. Two people under consideration for the post withdrew their names after going through the vetting process.
(Resume interview.)
PRES. OBAMA: You know, this whole confirmation process, as I mentioned earlier, has gotten pretty tough. It's been always tough, it's gotten tougher in the age of 24/7 news cycles. And a lot of people who we think are about to serve in the administration and the Treasury suddenly say, well, you know what? I don't want to go through some of the scrutiny and embarrassment in addition to taking huge cuts in pay.
MR. KROFT: Have you offered some of these high-level positions at Treasury to people that have turned them down?
PRES. OBAMA: Absolutely, yeah. And not because people didn't want to serve. I think that people just felt that, you know, that the process has gotten very onerous.
MR. KROFT: Your Treasury secretary's plan, Geithner's plan and your plan, really, for solving the banking crisis was met with very, very, very tepid response. And you have a lot of people criticizing it. A lot of people said they didn't understand it, a lot of people said it didn't have enough details to solve the problem. I know you're coming out with something next week on this but, I mean, these criticisms were coming from people like Warren Buffett, people who had supported you and you had counted as being --
PRES. OBAMA: And Warren still does support me. But I think that, understand Warren's also a big player in the financial markets, who's a major owner of Wells Fargo, so he's got a perspective from the perspective of somebody who is part owner of a bank. You've got members of Congress who have got a different perspective which is, we don't want to spend anymore taxpayer money. You've got a whole host of players, all of whom may have a completely different solution. Right? And you know, one of the challenges that Tim Geithner has had is the same challenge that anybody would have in this situation. People want a lot of contradictory things, you know. The banks would love a lot of taxpayer money with no strings attached. Folks in Congress as well as the American people would love to fix the banks without spending any money. And so at a certain point, you know, you've got just a very difficult line to walk.
MR. KROFT: You need the financial community to solve this crisis.
PRES. OBAMA: I do.
MR. KROFT: Do you think that the people on Wall Street and the people in the financial community that you need trust you, believe in you?
PRES. OBAMA: Part of my job is to communicate to them, look, I believe in the market, I believe in financial innovation, and I believe in success. I want them to do well. But what I also know is that the financial sector was out of balance. You look at how finance used to operate just 20 years ago or 25 years ago. People, if you went into investment banking, you were making 20 times what a teacher made. You weren't making 200 times what a teacher made.
MR. KROFT: There is a perception right now, at least in New York which is where I live and work, that people feel they thought that you were going to be supportive, and now I think there are a lot of people that say, look, we're not going to be able to keep our best people, they're not going to stay and work here for $250,000 a year when they can go work for a hedge fund, if they can find one that's still working, and make a lot more.
PRES. OBAMA: I've told them directly, because I've heard some of this, is they need to spend a little time outside of New York. Because, you know, if you go to North Dakota or you go to Iowa or you go to Arkansas where folks would be thrilled be making $75,000 a year without a bonus, then I think they'd get a sense of why people are frustrated. I think we have to understand the severity of the crisis that we're in right now. The fact is that because of bad bets made on Wall Street, there have been enormous losses. I mean, there were a whole bunch of folks who on paper, if you looked at quarterly reports, were wildly successful, selling derivatives that turned out to be completely worthless.
MR. KROFT: And insuring them.
PRES. OBAMA: And insuring them. Now, you know, gosh, I don't think it's me being anti Wall Street just to point out that the best and the brightest didn't do too well on that front and that, you know, maybe the incentive structures that have been set up have not produced the kinds of long-term growth that I think everybody is looking for.
MR. KROFT: Were you surprised at the depth of this recession when you got here? Did you know it was this bad?
PRES. OBAMA: I don't think that we anticipated how steep the decline would be, particularly in employment. I mean, if you look at just, you know, hundreds of thousands, now millions of jobs being shed over the course of two months or three months, that slope is a lot steeper than anything that we've seen before. Now, there's a potential silver lining which may be that things are so accelerated now, the modern economy is so intertwined and wired that things happen really fast for ill but things may recover faster than they have in the past.
MR. KROFT: Do you believe that there is still some systemic risk out there, that the financial system could still implode if you had a big failure at AIG or at Citibank?
PRES. OBAMA: Yes. I think that systemic risks are still out there. And if we did nothing, you could still have some big problems. There are certain institutions that are so big that if they fail, they bring a lot of other financial institutions down with them. And if all those financial institutions fail all at the same time, then you could see an even more destructive recession and potentially depression. I'm optimistic about that not happening because I think we did learn lessons from the Great Depression.
MR. KROFT: Is there some limit to the amount of money we can spend or print trying to solve this crisis?
PRES. OBAMA: There is.
MR. KROFT: And are we getting close to it?
PRES. OBAMA: The limit is our ability to finance these expenditures through borrowing. And you know, the United States is fortunate that it has the largest, most stable economic and political system around. And so the dollar is still strong because people are still buying Treasury bills, they still think that's the safest investment out there. If we don't get a handle on this and also start looking at our long-term deficit projections, at a certain point people will stop buying those Treasury bills.
MR. KROFT: Do you have any idea when this might end or when things might start getting better?
PRES. OBAMA: Well, we're already starting to see flickers of hope out there. Refinancings have significantly increased. Interest rates have never been lower. That promises the possibility, at least, of the housing market bottoming out and stabilizing. It's not going to happen equally in every part of the country.
(Pause interview.)
MR. KROFT: On the subject of the ailing automobile industry, the president said he is still committed to helping General Motors and Chrysler avert bankruptcy. But he says they have yet to demonstrate that they can remain economically viable, and there are major political obstacles.
(Resume interview.)
PRES. OBAMA: I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry. (Laughs.)
MR. KROFT: Eighteen percent are in favor, 76 percent against.
PRES. OBAMA: It's not a high number.
MR. KROFT: You're sitting here, and you're laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money. How do you do it? I mean, explain your mood and your laughter. Are you punch drunk?
PRES. OBAMA: No, no. There's got to be a little gallows humor to get you through the day. (Laughs.) You know, sometimes my team talks about the fact that if you had said to us a year ago that the least of my problems would be Iraq which is still a pretty serious problem I don't think anybody would have believed it. But we've got a lot on our plate, and a lot of difficult decisions that we're going to have to make.
MR. KROFT: Afghanistan.
PRES. OBAMA: Speaking of which.
MR. KROFT: What should that mission be?
PRES. OBAMA: Making sure that al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That's our number one priority. And in service of that priority, there may be a whole host of things that we need to do. We may need to build up economic capacity in Afghanistan. We may need to improve our diplomatic efforts in Pakistan. We may need to bring a more regional diplomatic approach to bear. We may need to coordinate more effectively with our allies. But we can't lose sight of what our central mission is, the same mission that we had when we went in after 9/11, and that is these folks can project violence against United States citizens, and that is something that we cannot tolerate. But what we can't do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems. So what we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy, and there's got to be an exit strategy. There's got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift.
MR. KROFT: Afghanistan has proven to be very hard to govern. This should not come as news to anybody given its history as the graveyard of empires. And there are people now who are concerned we need to be careful what we're getting ourselves into in Afghanistan because we have come to be looked upon there by people in Afghanistan and even people now in Pakistan as another foreign power coming in and trying to take over the region.
PRES. OBAMA: I'm very mindful of that and so is my national security team and so is the Pentagon. Afghanistan is not going to be easy, in many ways, and this is not my assessment, this is the assessment of commanders on the ground. Iraq was actually easier than Afghanistan. It's easier terrain. You've got a much better-educated population, infrastructure to build off of. You don't have some of the same destabilizing border issues that you have between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And so this is going to be a tough nut to crack. But it is not acceptable for us to simply sit back and let safe havens of terrorists plan and plot.
MR. KROFT: One question about Dick Cheney and Guantanamo. I'm sure you want to answer this.
PRES. OBAMA: Oh, absolutely.
MR. KROFT: A week ago, Vice President Cheney said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and to change the way prisoners are treated and interrogated was making America weaker and more vulnerable to another attack. And that the interrogation techniques that were used at Guantanamo were essential in preventing another attack against the United states.
PRES. OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney, not surprisingly.
You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history. The facts don't bear him out. I think that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage to our image and position in the world. And the fact of the matter is, after all these years, how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment which means that there is constant, effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.
MR. KROFT: Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.
PRES. OBAMA: Well, there's no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we've got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up. The whole premise of Guantanamo, promoted by Vice President Cheney, was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. I fundamentally disagree with that. Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.
MR. KROFT: What do you do with those people?
PRES. OBAMA: Well, I think we're going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they are not released and do us harm but do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is the legacy that's been left behind. And you know, I'm surprised that the vice president is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable. Let's assume that we didn't change these practices. How long are we going to go? Are we going to just keep on going until, you know, the entire Muslim world and Arab world despises us? Do we think that's really going to make us safer? I don't know a lot of thoughtful thinkers, liberal or conservative, who think that that was the right approach.
(Pause videotape.)
MR. KROFT: When we come back, President Obama talks about the rigors of his new job, while giving us a tour of the White House grounds.
(Announcements.)
MR. KROFT: Aside from running the Harvard Law Review and directing his own presidential campaign, President Barack Obama entered the White House with no real executive experience. Now he's grappling with the challenges of running one of the largest enterprises in the world under the most trying circumstances. How's he handling the pressure? What's an average day like? And how are his wife, Michelle, and their young daughters adjusting? The president talked about all of that as he gave us a tour of the White House grounds.
(Resume videotape.)
MR. KROFT: So have you gotten into a routine?
PRES. OBAMA: I have. You know, I typically workout in the morning. Michelle's often there with me. After the workout, have breakfast, read the papers, read my morning security briefing. And then I come down here and talk to our national security team, then we talk to the economic team. After that, who knows? Anything goes. But typically, between 7 and 10:00, I sort of know what I'm doing.
MR. KROFT: And this is the living quarters.
PRES. OBAMA: This is the living quarters up on the second floor. We've got a gym right over there up on the third floor. And the second floor is our bedrooms on this side. We've got a dining room on that side. You know, pretty nice digs.
MR. KROFT: How are you finding the job?
PRES. OBAMA: It's exhilarating, it's challenging. You know, I find that the governance part of it, the decision-making part of it actually comes pretty naturally. I think I've got a great team. I think we're making good decisions. The hardest thing about the job is staying focused because there are so many demands and decisions that are pressed upon you.
MR. KROFT: What's the hardest decision you've had to make in the last 60 days?
PRES. OBAMA: Well, I would say that the decision to send more troops into Afghanistan. You know, I think it's the right thing to do, but it's a weighty decision because we actually had to make the decision prior to the completion of a strategic review that we were conducting. You know, when I make a decision to send 17,000 young Americans to Afghanistan, you can understand that intellectually, but understanding that that means for those families, for those young people when you end up sitting at your desk, signing a condolence letter to one of the family members of a fallen hero, you're reminded each and every day at every moment that the decisions you make count.
MR. KROFT: What's the most frustrating part of the job?
PRES. OBAMA: The fact that you are often confronted with bad choices that flow from less-than-optimal decisions made a year ago, two years ago, five years ago when you weren't here. A lot of times, when things land at my desk, it's a choice between bad and worse. And as somebody pointed out to me, the only things that land on my desk are tough decisions because if they were easy decisions somebody down the food chain has already made them.
MR. KROFT: How many decisions do you have to make a day?
PRES. OBAMA: Can't count them.
MR. KROFT: Lots.
PRES. OBAMA: Lots.
MR. KROFT: Every time somebody walks in your office --
PRES. OBAMA: There's a decision, otherwise they don't get a meeting.
MR. KROFT: And you're briefed for all that before it happens.
PRES. OBAMA: I am. I spend a lot of time reading. People keep on asking me, well, what are you reading these days? Well, mostly briefing books. You know, you get a little time to read history or, you know, policy books that are of interest. But there's a huge amount of information that has to be digested, especially right now, because the complexities of Afghanistan are matched, maybe even dwarfed by the complexities of the economic situation. And there are a lot of moving parts to all of that.
MR. KROFT: Do you take a day off?
PRES. OBAMA: I do. It's never a full day, but typically Saturdays and Sundays, you know, I'll wander down to the Oval Office, I'll do some work, but I'll still have time for the kids.
(Pause interview.)
MR. KROFT: On most days, the president says he and the first lady are able to have a family dinner with their children. And he usually sees his two daughters in the afternoon when they come home from school and pay him a visit in the West Wing. He can look out the window of the Oval Office and watch them play on their new swing set.
(Resume interview.)
PRES. OBAMA: It's a pretty spectacular swing set. I have to say that I was not the purchaser of this. The admiral, our chief usher, Admiral Steve Rochon, took great interest when we said that we should get a swing set, and found what I assume must be the Rolls Royce of swing sets.
MR. KROFT: You didn't have one of these when you were a kid.
PRES. OBAMA: I sure did not. I thought we were going to get, like, two swings. But they went all out.
MR. KROFT: Have the girls had kids over after school?
PRES. OBAMA: They have, and they've tested it out, and it got a thumbs up.
MR. KROFT: Are they liking it here?
PRES. OBAMA: You know, they are adapting remarkably, in ways that I just would not have expected.
MR. KROFT: Well, this is pretty cool.
PRES. OBAMA: Well, it's cool, but what's interesting is actually how unimpressed they are with it. I mean, they're going to school. They're unchanged. They're the same sweet, engaging, happy, unpretentious kids that they were.
MR. KROFT: And they're having fun.
PRES. OBAMA: They do seem to be having fun. And Michelle is thriving as well. I mean, she just started a vegetable garden out here.
MR. KROFT: Where is that? Is that nearby?
PRES. OBAMA: No, that's pretty far down. But they just actually -- all the chefs from the White House staff went down there with her, and they started digging ground, and they're going to be planting stuff. This is part of the message that she wants to send about good nutrition.
(Pause interview.)
MR. KROFT: Michelle Obama had broken ground for the vegetable garden a few hours earlier on the South Lawn with the help of some Washington school children, just a small patch of land on the sprawling White House grounds that cover 18 acres. As for the 55,000 square foot house, the first family is still exploring the 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms.
(Resume interview.)
MR. KROFT: Have you gotten lost in here yet?
PRES. OBAMA: I have, repeatedly. (Laughs.)
MR. KROFT: Harry Truman called the White House the "great white jail." And Bill Clinton said he couldn't make up his mind whether it was the finest public housing in America or the jewel of the prison system.
PRES. OBAMA: The bubble that the White House represents is tough. And one of the things that I've been constantly struggling with is how to break out of it. You know, I've taken to the practice of reading 10 letters selected from the 40,000 that we get every night just to hear from voices outside of my staff. The inability to just go and, you know, sit at a corner coffee shop and have a chat with people or just listen to what folks are saying at the next table, that, I think, is something that, as a president, you've got to constantly fight against.
(End interview.)
(End tape.)
(Announcements.)
END.
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