Oliver Willis reports on his meeting with President Obama today…
THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

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Internal Transcript October 27, 2024

ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
WITH BLOGGERS

Roosevelt Room

3:14 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, listen, I know we’ve got limited time, so I’m not going to give a long speech on the front end.

I thank you guys for coming in. Obviously a huge part of my base reads you guys, cares about what you do. The staff does as well. I think that what the blogosphere has done is to create a conversation that encourages activism across our citizenry, and I think that’s absolutely crucial.

We benefit from the constructive feedback and criticism that we get, and it helps hold us accountable. But you guys obviously have also done a great job holding the mainstream press accountable, and that’s really important to us.

So I’m glad that I’ve got time to sit down with you guys. This is completely open, so you guys can take it wherever you want. And what I’ll do is I’ll just go down the line, everybody gets a question, and then we can just mix it up. How does that sound?

Q Sounds great.

THE PRESIDENT: Sounds good? All right. John, we’ll start with you.

Q Thanks for having us here, Mr. President. Just to start off, because the news of the day is obviously what just happened in Kentucky. What’s your feelings on the thought of a Rand Paul supporter actually stepping on the neck of a female MoveOn supporter?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, I think that one of the things that I’ve always tried to promote is civility in politics. I think we can disagree vigorously without being disagreeable. And what we saw on the video was an example of people’s passions just getting out of hand in ways that are disturbing.

In fairness, I don’t expect every candidate to be responsible for every single supporter’s actions, but I do think that all of us have an obligation to set a tone where we say the other side is — may be wrong but it’s not evil, because when you start going down that path of demonizing folks, then these kinds of incidents are more likely to occur. And my expectation in the remainder of this campaign is that all candidates out there are a little more careful about making sure that they’re framing the debate around issues and sending a clear message to their supporters that our democracy works when we disagree, we debate, we argue, it gets contentious, but that there are certain lines we don’t cross.

Q Mr. President, you’ve said that you want to work with Republicans after the election, but there’s probably a pretty good chance that they’re not going to advance with you. Is there sort of a breaking point you have of where you try to work with them and they just refuse to budge, which they’ve indicated so far? Is there a breaking point for you just like you’re going to have to go off on your own and find a way around them?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, the — I’m a pretty stubborn guy when it comes to, on the one hand, trying to get cooperation. I don’t give up just because I didn’t get cooperation on this issue; I’ll try the next issue. If the Republicans don’t agree with me on fiscal policy, maybe they’ll agree with me on infrastructure. If they don’t agree with me on infrastructure, I’ll try to see if they agree with me on education.

So I’m just going to keep on trying to see where they want to move the country forward.

In that sense, there’s not a breaking point for me. There are some core principles that I think are important for not just me to stick with but for the country to stick with. So if the Republicans say we need to cut our investments in education, at a time when we know that our success as a nation is largely going to depend on how well trained our workforce is, I’m going to say no. And there are going to be areas where, after working very hard, we just can’t find compromise and I’m going to be standing my ground, then essentially we debate it before the American people.

But I don’t go into the next two years assuming that there’s just going to be gridlock. We’re going to keep on working to make sure that we can get as much done as possible because folks are hurting out there. What they’re looking for is help on jobs, help on keeping their homes, help on sending their kids to college. And if I can find ways for us to work with Republicans to advance those issues, then that’s going to be my priority.

Q Along those lines, Mr. President, on the economy, we do have 9.6 unemployment; economic projections aren’t looking very positive from anybody, with the ongoing foreclosure crisis, as you suggested. Can we expect further initiatives coming out of the administration and maybe Congress post-election?

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. We can’t stop. A concern I have right now is that the main economic idea that the Republicans seem to have is continuing the tax cuts for the top 2 percent, and then a vague statement about cutting spending without identifying what those spending cuts might actually be. And I don’t know any economists who would say that’s a recipe for more job creation.
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