Live Updates: Obama’s News Conference
President Obama faced questions Friday about how
his administration plans to respond to a North Korean cyberattack and
manage a historic opening with Cuba.
Obama News Conference Caps a Busy Period
Obama Calls for Overhaul of the Tax Code
President Obama said an all Democratic Congress would have provided a better opportunity to overhaul the tax code.
However, he said taxation is one area where Democrats and Republicans can find agreement.
Mr. Obama said he
would like to see the tax system simplified and more fair so that
companies with better accountants are not paying less.
Regarding corporate
“inversions”, where companies merge with overseas firms to lower their
tax bills, Mr. Obama said the practice needs to be fixed.
Sony’s Decision to Pull Movie Is a ‘Mistake,’ Obama Says
President Obama
questioned Sony Pictures’ decision to pull “The Interview” after terror
threats and a hack of the company’s systems.
“I think they made a mistake,” he said.
He later added: “We
cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start
imposing censorship here in the United States.”
Rejecting the Suggestion That He’s a Lame Duck
President Obama
rejected the notion that he was a lame duck, proclaiming that he is
energized and excited about the prospects for his final two years in
office.
“I’m not going to be
stopping for a minute in the effort to make life better for ordinary
Americans,” Mr. Obama said. “My presidency is entering the fourth
quarter. Interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter.”
Mr. Obama said that he
could get more done with the help of Congress but that he was hopeful
there were burgeoning signs that cooperation is possible.
Trumpeting America’s Economic Gains
President Obama made
the case on Friday that the United States is better off than it was
before he took office, opening his end-of-the-year news conference by
plugging his economic record.
Highlighting job
creation, a revived manufacturing sector and the end of the auto
bailout, Mr. Obama said that the United States has made significant
strides in the last year.
“The six years since
the crisis have demanded hard work and sacrifice on everybody’s part,
but as a country we have a right to be proud of what we’ve
accomplished,” Mr. Obama said. “Pick any metric that you want, and
America’s resurgence is real. We are better off.”
‘America’s Resurgence Is Real’
In his opening remarks
for his year-end news conference, President Obama claimed American
leadership overseas on several fronts: the campaign against the Islamic
State, the response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, the effort to stem
the Ebola outbreak and the historic opening to Cuba.
“Take any metric you want: America’s resurgence is real,” he said.
Mr. Obama also noted
that the United States had put more people back to work than every other
advanced economy in the world, combined.
Obama’s News Conference: What to Expect
President Obama will be giving his final news conference of the year momentarily, before he heads off on his Hawaiian holiday.
The Times’s Michael Shear previewed some of the topics that will be on the minds of White House correspondents for First Draft earlier this week:
Reporters will no doubt want to ask about the recent torture report, the president’s disagreement with Representative Nancy Pelosi of California over the spending bill, the continuing clash over immigration and the still-tense issue of race relations. It’s always a tradition for reporters to question the president’s ability to get anything done in the last two years of an administration, especially with Congress controlled by the other party.
We’ll be providing live updates of Mr. Obama’s remarks, and they will also be streamed online:
President’s End-of-the-Year News Conference
President Obama will
hold a question-and-answer session that is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
Eastern time. It is the first time that Mr. Obama will face reporters at
the White House since Nov. 5.
Check back on First Draft for live coverage and analysis.
Obama News Conference Ends a Busy Year
President Obama on
Friday afternoon faced questions about how his administration plans to
respond to a North Korean cyberattack and manage a historic opening with
Cuba.
Today in Politics
Holiday Break From Policy Fights and Partisan Bickering. (We Think.)
Good Friday morning from Washington, where
Democrats are celebrating an unexpected number of Senate confirmations
and the Capitol is still echoing with the unusually large number of
farewell speeches. But with President Obama and
Congress leaving town, the city prepares for two weeks of silent nights
after a last-minute burst of Cuba controversy. From New York, Maureen Dowd has the backstage scoop at Stephen Colbert’s last “Report.”
President Obama leaves
Friday for a two-week vacation in Hawaii, ending a frantic three-week
stretch that saw Congress fitfully conclude its business just hours
before the president made his announcement that he was restoring
diplomatic relations with Cuba.
As is the custom, the president is scheduled
to meet with reporters before his departure, and much of the questioning
will no doubt center on his decision to renew ties with Havana.
There are plenty of other subjects to pursue:
his aggressive exercise of executive authority; the administration’s
strong defense of the C.I.A. director after the release of the Senate’s
torture report; the cyberattack on Sony Pictures; and his expectations
for the new Republican Congress.
Mr. Obama has complicated that relationship
with the historic Cuba decision and his unilateral move to ease
deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally. But the
president and his advisers seem to have calculated that with the
midterms behind them — and new Republican muscle in front of them — the
president might just as well pursue his agenda on his own.
Congress doesn’t return until Jan. 6, and the
president is not due back until after New Year’s Day. That means the
capital could be in store for a relatively quiet period after a year
with plenty of partisan conflict and a decisive Republican triumph in
last month’s elections. But as recent events have shown, news has a
timetable of its own.
– Carl Hulse
From the Halls of Congress, a Chorus of Thanks
Goodbyes are never easy, especially when you
are leaving the comfortable confines of Congress. And this year, the
valedictory speeches were always emotional, sometimes salty and
occasionally awkward.
Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas revealed that he had reunited with a junior high school girlfriend, a woman named Joi. “So when I say God has brought joy in my life,” he said, “I mean it, literally.” (They were engaged during the lame-duck session that just ended.)
For Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, a confession was in order. During his tearful so-long,
Mr. Begich admitted that he had once sneaked his son into the Senate
chamber and took pictures, violating its rules against photography.
“I will cherish that photo,” he said.
Over in the House, Representative Michele Bachmann was in sermon mode, telling a smattering of colleagues that
the Ten Commandments were the foundation of American law. She offered
thanks to her donors, her family and her “prayer warriors.”
But none of the speeches lived up to the blunt final address of Senator Ernest Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who retired in 2005 after almost 40 years in office.
“We had,” he said, “five drunks or six drunks when I came here. There’s nobody drunk in the United States Senate. We don’t have time to be drunk.”
He wasn’t through, reminiscing that Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was the only woman in the Senate when he arrived, and “she was outstandingly quiet.”
“Now we’ve got 15 or 17, and you can’t shut them up.”
– Alan Rappeport
Senate Democrats Get Last-Gasp Surprise: Cascade of Confirmations
The Democrats enjoyed unexpected success in the final days of Congress, ramming through scores of presidential nominees.
But the Senate returned more than 150
nominations to the White House, including candidates for senior agency
positions, judicial nominees and ambassadors as well as many requests
for military promotion. They will all have to await the new Congress.
Some of the nominees will return, with Loretta E. Lynch,
the president’s choice for attorney general, heading the list. But
others are not expected to see their names back before the Senate,
including Michael P. Boggs, a Federal District Court
nominee from Georgia. His nomination ran aground because many of Mr.
Obama’s fellow Democrats did not like the positions he embraced as a
Georgia state legislator.
Antonio F. Weiss, an investment banker and nominee for a top Treasury post, is in the sights of Senator Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts and the Democrats’ progressive wing, mainly because of
his Wall Street background. Still, Democrats are celebrating how many
of the president’s choices they were able to put in place.
– Carl Hulse
1959: When Castro Sat Down With Congress and Met With Nixon
The Times’s lead headline on April 18, 1959, was a welcome one to many here in Washington: “Castro Declares Regime Is Free of Red Influence.”
It had been less than four months since Fidel Castro had seized power in Havana from the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and the future dictator of Cuba was on an unofficial good-will tour of the United States. He was mobbed at National Airport, addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors, lunched with the acting secretary of state and met with Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
He even went to the Capitol, where, for an
hour and a half, he sought to assure members of the Senate Foreign
Relations and the House Foreign Affairs Committees that his intentions
were benign. “I have said very clearly,” The Times quoted him as saying,
“that we are not Communists.”
It wasn’t a controversy-free visit. Mr.
Castro was dogged by protesters at every stop. Still, The Times reported
that Washington was “so dazed” by the 32-year-old leader that after his
departure, “this town will then try to sort out its impressions of the
bearded young man who has been holding it by its lapels for five days.”
Yet there was a hint of what was to come, and it was found in a subhead on The Times’s story about Castro’s remarks:
“Executions Defended.”
– Steve Kenny
What We’re Watching Today
President Obama gives a pre-vacation news conference before heading off to Hawaii.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is expected to be in Chicago to meet with potential donors as he weighs a run for president.
You Are There: Backstage With Colbert and Friends
“This is a very bizarre crowd,” Bradley Whitford told Terry Gross. “It’s like they put Vanity Fair in a blender.”
Mr. Colbert bid goodbye to his willfully
ignorant, right-wing doppelgänger with a fast-paced show that ended with
a rendition of the old Vera Lynn World War II song “We’ll Meet Again.”
It was sung by what Mr. Colbert called “Friends of the Show,” an
eclectic mix of former guests from various worlds, everyone from Brian Greene, who invented string theory, to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, from Cyndi Lauper to Henry Kissinger, Willie Nelson to Paul Krugman, Gen. Ray Odierno to Big Bird, David Remnick to Ric Ocasek.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of
Wikipedia, updated Mr. Colbert’s wiki site to say he “was” the host of
“The Colbert Report” as he rode on the bus to the after-party.
Jon Stewart, who had teared
up at the piano, looked on like a proud dad as Mr. Colbert stood on his
desk holding a sword and thanked the “Daily Show” host for giving him
the nerve to do the “Report” and teaching him how to lead it. Mr.
Stewart kissed Mr. Colbert on the cheek and told him he loved him.
Mr. Colbert also thanked his group of
erstwhile guests for putting up with “that idiot,” noting that sometimes
he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“He’s worse than a politician,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting congressional delegate, joked as she and Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat, watched Mr. Colbert linger talking onstage afterward. “He goes on and on and on.”
– Maureen Dowd
Our Favorites From Today’s Times
The Obama administration is moving quickly on its plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky says it’s “probably a good idea,” but Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is not backing down on his plan to stop the White House.
A Department of Homeland Security report concludes that the Secret Service needs another 85 agents and 200 officers to fulfill its mission properly. (And, it says, the White House fence needs to be at least four feet taller.)
Oklahoma and Nebraska say that Colorado’s legalization of marijuana is causing them problems, so they’ve filed a suit to shut down what they say is a drug pipeline.
The United States is considering a “direct confrontation” with North Korea over the cyberattack on Sony Pictures.
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters were surprised by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s announcement that he was “actively considering” a presidential race, Politico reports.
Venezuela’s leaders are fuming about President Obama’s Cuba announcement, according to The Guardian. The Miami Herald asks if an ailing Fidel Castro approved the deal.
The Atlantic explains why Congress has given up on the fight to crack down on the sales of medical marijuana.
A Tea Party group wants Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina to challenge John A. Boehner for speaker, but Mr. Gowdy is not interested, The Hill says.
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