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Josh Earnest White House Press Briefing

Aired November 19, 2014 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I mean, you said you hoped this action would not foreclose the possibility of Congress acting to do something more broadly in a bipartisan fashion, so why not start here and bring Republicans in and say this is what I'm doing, here are details. I know you don't approve of how I'm doing it but, you know, let's start to work together on something else.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I wouldn't rule out that those kinds of conversations occurring. We've had any number of countless conversations with Republicans both in the -- mostly in the House but also in the Senate prior to the passage of the Senate bill trying to find areas where Democrats and Republicans could find common ground to make progress on comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate succeeded in that effort and 14 Senate Republicans joined Democratic Senators to support a common-sense proposal.

We would like to see the House operate in similar fashion. They've had almost a year and a half now to do exactly that. And they would if that bill were allowed to come up for a vote. The House Republican leadership has concluded that they don't want that bill to come up for a vote, probably because they oppose it and fear it would pass if the House did vote on it.

You can describe the people having dinner with the president as Democrats. That would be true. You can describe them as people who are genuine supporters of common sense immigration reform that would also be true. That would be the principle topic of discussion at dinner. We should not, however, allow disagreement over this issue to be a deal breaker over all of the others including the appointment of highly qualified professionals to serve an important role in government.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: John Boehner said many times and other Republicans as well that the president taking this action would poison the well not only in terms of immigration reform in the next Congress but in terms of a whole range of other issues and it will make cooperation with the White House very difficult on issues far beyond immigration. I'm told he sent that message directly to the president when they had lunch here. Does the president take John Boehner at his word when he said that the president taking this action will poison the well on a whole range of issues?

EARNEST: I think you highlight what I think is a pretty stark difference in approach between the House Republican leadership at least and those of us who work here for the Democratic president. We've seen House Republicans pass 40, 50, 60 different measures to defund or repeal Obamacare, as they call it, and it would be easy for the president after the fourth or fifth time to say, if you are focused on defunding Obamacare, there's no reason we can get anything done for the American people. There is no suggestion by me or anyone at the White House that repeated efforts by Republicans to repeal the president's signature initiative was somehow poisoning the well. We chalked it up to a difference of opinion. It rests on a piece of legislation that makes sure millions of people have healthcare and we slowed the growth in healthcare costs and patient protections that are popular with the American public. We can have legitimate differences of opinion, and I'm not disagreeing that the difference of opinions exist because they do but what do you do in reaction to them? We won't allow differences of opinion to interfere with our efforts to find common ground.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What I'm asking is, does the president believe John Boehner when he says that if you go forward and take this executive action, we will not be able to work with you not just on immigration but on a whole range of other issues and it will poison the well. Does he believe the speaker when he says that?

EARNEST: I think the president always takes the speaker at his word. But I think the president also is willing to allow the speaker to change his mind.

Jared?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Following up on that, let's say Speaker Boehner doesn't change his mind and says this is a deal breaker for a host of other issues, and I realize that's the wrong approach you feel to take, but if that's the case, is this immigration reform that the president is so intent on doing tomorrow, is it a big enough issue as far as legacy, as far as all of the goals of this administration, is it worth that gamble? Is it worth that risk?

EARNEST: Jared, this is something I've said before. Let me pose it to you again. This is the way that the president sees it. Sitting before him right now is a fundamental question. Right now we've got bipartisan legislation that passed through the Senate. We have House Republicans who have blocked it for more than a year and a half who indicated that they will block it through the rest of the year. And have also indicated, in answering a question from one of your colleagues, that they're not really willing to commit to bringing it up next year. The president sits at his desk wondering, should I wait interminally for Republicans to take an action they say they oppose or should I use all of the authority that the American people have elected me to exercise to make progress for the American people in a way that would be good for our national security, in a way that would be good for strengthening security at the border, and in a way that's good for economic growth and good for middle class families and consistent with our values as a nation of immigrants. When you sort of stack up all of the pros and cons there, I think that this is one of those decisions -- the president often says that, as president of the United States, only the tough decisions reach his desk. This may be the one exception.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Isn't one of the cons, at least the threat of serious inaction when it comes to nominations, when it comes to a budget, when it comes to a host of other issues that certainly are important to both Republicans and the president?

EARNEST: I guess that is predicated on a premise that Republicans have been exceedingly cooperative with the administration when it comes to the budget and nominations and other things, too. It may be a difference of degree but not in substance.

Mara?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When you formulated these actions, did you do some kind of analysis on how many illegal immigrants you thought would come out of the shadows to take advantage of this temporary relief?

EARNEST: What I anticipate we'll be able to do, once you see the proposals tomorrow, is to talk to you a little bit about the number of people who could be or would be affected by this.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I'm asking a slightly different question. Not how many could be but how many are willing to do something -- in other words, identify themselves as illegal, which is what coming out of the shadows is, knowing that the next president could take this temporary deportation relief away from them and deport them. I'm saying it's a risk.

EARNEST: That's true.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I wonder if you consider that.

EARNEST: It's certainly something that was considered when the president made his announcement about DOCA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This is an analysis that was done about population of people who would be affected by that decision. There was a discussion about the number of people who are likely -- I think they call it a take-up rate, the number of people who would make themselves available to benefit from this decision. And I would expect that a similar analysis would be conducted in this instance as well. But we'll have more to say about this tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can I re-ask a question on an unrelated topic.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It's a real segue.

EARNEST: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What is the administration's position on lifting the 40-year-old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil? There's a ban on it since the '70s. I'm wondering --

(CROSSTALK) EARNEST: Right. This is a little bit like a pop quiz.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No, I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't know.

EARNEST: Just to make sure I get it right, why don't we get back to you before the end of the day, Mara?

OK, Mike?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I was really struck by your first answer to Jonathan's first question.

EARNEST: Is that a compliment?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It sounded like, when you were saying, hey, if there's legislation defunding this, would you veto it, and you said we'll see how exactly it's written. It sounds to me like what you're saying is this is the order but we would be willing to negotiate with Republicans over the scale and scope of this order, short of them passing new immigration legislation.

EARNEST: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Am I fairly interpreting your response? Otherwise, why would you say we'll wait and see?

EARNEST: Mostly, because I didn't want to comment on a hypothetical. I didn't want to rule anything out. Oberiously, we would take a dim view of efforts by Republicans to try to curtail the president's executive authority using a writer on a budget proposal. But that said --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there room here, after the Republican cry about this, for them to come back with you and say we're not going to pass legislation but we might do this for you if you do scale back the order a little bit in this way or that way or add this or add that?

EARNEST: I think the president is not just open but interested in conversations with Republicans who have a genuine interest in trying to make progress on the kinds of priorities that the president has identified and that the American people support. I think that we're open to conversations. Does that mean that we would be -- like I said, I can't imagine a scenario where the president would be interested in curtailing his own authority in a way that didn't have the kinds of positive benefits that he intends.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Curtailing authority is curtailing use of your authority. You always have discretionary use. EARNEST: That's true. This is a difficult one, Mike, because it's a

hypothetical situation. Let me just say, I think the one thing I can say that's rooted in fact and will continue to be true is that we're always going to be open with conversations with Republicans who have a genuine interest in trying to strengthen or improve on policy priorities that the president identified and the American people support.

Major?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Following up on that line of questioning, just so I understand what the priorities are because, yes, it's a hypothetical in a general sense but it may actually not be that hypothetical. If Republicans put a writer on a Continuing Resolution in which a lot of other very important funding mechanisms for the government, Ebola, is, everything else are there, and this action is the one item that jeopardized all of the rest, what is the president's more preferred priority?

EARNEST: Well, if an eventuality like that does occur, we'll have ample opportunity to debate it and discuss it, and if that happens, I'm sure we will. I'm not going to weigh in on it from here.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: By the president's own timing, he intended to do this. He made a public promise to do this in September and then delayed signaling to everyone that the timing of this is completely fluid. It's discretionary. It's at the president's discretion.

EARNEST: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In that sense, putting it up against a Continuing Resolution in a government shutdown scenario is also a discretionary decision of the president. It seems like he's intentionally putting it right next to these other things. I wonder if that's a signal he's trying to send that this is more important than anything else that has to get done before the president and Congress wrap this up legislative --

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: It's not the intent. The fact of the matter is, Major, that we've been happy if Congress passed a budget last year when they were supposed to instead of moving forward with the Continuing Resolution that kicked the can to the middle of December. Again, this is not an effort to provoke a standoff here. In fact, the fact that Republicans have refused to act on immigration reform is why we are where we are anyway. So --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: If you had done it in September, you would had a C.R. in late September, I mean, it is --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- by your choosing, they are closely aligned with one another. These two things by the president's own choice. EARNEST: Again, it was Congress' choice to pass the C.R. that only

extended the budget through December 11th. Are both parties responsible for the fact that things are happening in relatively close proximity? Probably. Again, even if -- regardless of when the president had decided to move forward with this action, I'm confident that there are plenty of Senators who would have found a way to raise a ruckus about this using legislative process, and that will occur this time, too, but that would have happened regardless of which season of the year this decision was announced.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In that context, this authority is negotiable within a conversation about keeping the government open. Is that fair?

EARNEST: I don't want to leave you that impression. It's a hypothetical scenario. Would the president negotiate? That would assume that Republicans are willing to negotiate after we spend a lot of time talking about how they're not willing to negotiate because the president took this action. I don't want to go too far down this hypothetical road. I will just say as a practical matter a couple of things. One is, the president is always open to conversations with Republicans. And two, he's always open to those conversations when they are in pursuit of strengthening policies that he thinks are good for the country and that the American people support.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A very simple blockhead question which I sometimes come up with. Is there something the president signs, is this a new order, does it have a number attached to it, or is it something in which he communicates to his bureaucracy a set of guidelines that implement authorities in a different way?

EARNEST: We'll have more to explain about this tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you --

EARNEST: It's a legitimate question to ask. But once the president has made these decisions, we can talk more. Once the president --

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: Let me just clarify. Once the president announces these decisions, we'll be in a better position to talk about how they are effectively implemented.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You can't even explain the mechanics of it?

EARNEST: I can once the proposal has been laid out. I don't want people to read into the description of the mechanics and assume that they know something about what the president has decided.

Wendell?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I believe you suggested a couple of times now that one of the goals of the president is to encourage people to come out of the shadows with this executive order. It was my understanding that the way to do that was the path to citizenship that Republicans call amnesty and object to. Given that, I think the president made clear that he cannot offer people that. Do you really expect this order to encourage people to come out of the shadows?

EARNEST: Well, again, once the president has rolled out what he proposes to do, we can have a discussion on what that intended effect would be.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, then let me ask you this. Is it possible that the path to citizenship Mr. Obama insisted be part of a comprehensive immigration reform is not necessary to lure people out of the shadows?

EARNEST: Again, we'll have an opportunity to discuss this once the president has made clear what he intends to do.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So if he's meeting tonight with these Democrats, are we to assume this is a done deal and the decisions have been made and it's not likely to change between now and when he speaks to the American people tomorrow night?

EARNEST: It's my understanding that there will continue to be a couple lingering policy decisions that have to get notched down. But for all intents and purposes, the president will be ready to move forward when he gives his address tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are those related to legal questions or waiting to hear what Democrats reaction is to it tonight?

EARNEST: Well, I see what you're asking now. I may have misunderstood your first question. I would anticipate over the course of dinner, the president will have a robust opportunity to speak to them about decisions he's made and to communicate to them what impact he hopes those decisions will have. I would not anticipate that there's going to be a lot of horse trading or negotiating or back and forth in the context of the dinner. The vast majority of these decisions have been made. There are details to be locked down. This is more of an opportunity for the president to share his thinking with those who share his values on these issues, not really a negotiating session.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you give us a little sense of his thinking in terms of the sell he has to make? Our new NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll shows that 48 percent of people disapprove of executive action on immigration. Only 38 percent approve. There is a pretty wide disparity in terms of Republicans versus Democrats, but clearly almost half of the people don't think he ought to do this. So can you tell us a little bit about the formulation of the case he's going to make and how high the hill is that he has to climb?

EARNEST: I'll say a couple things about that. The first is that I didn't see the exact wording included in the poll. If wording was along the lines of, do you believe that this is a policy problem that should be fixed with legislation rather than executive action, then it sounds like he may have called the presidential cell phone, because he would answer the poll in the same way as, it sounds like, a plurality of Americans did. Which is the president believes that Congress should step forward and take steps necessary to fix our broken immigration system, but they haven't. And so that is --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- approve or disapprove of the president taking executive action on immigration or do you not know enough to have an opinion at this time?

EARNEST: The president clearly has an opinion. But the --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he was on the call.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

EARNEST: I'll get back to you later.

(LAUGHTER)

I think the point is, the case the president will make is that we have seen that Congress has not acted and so the question is, should the president use the authority that's invested within the Constitution, invested with the presidency, to try to address some of these problems. And the president, I think, pretty inequivicly believes that the answer to that question is that he should take steps necessary to try to solve some of these problems.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He also thinks he needs to make his case to the American people?

EARNEST: No question he needs to explain that to the American public and some of that needs to involve what are the consequences for actions he'll be announcing. Are there benefits associated with our national security and border security and our economy and job creation? The president will, and all of us, will spend quite a bit of time talking about that, not just tomorrow night but for the days and weeks ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Because he knows that he has a tough job to make his case?

EARNEST: I think because he feels he has an obligation as president of the United States to explain to the people who elected him precisely why he's taking the actions that he's taking.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

Is there some political mischief part of the calculation here? Will the Republican Party become so upset, after their big victory, they'll drive the wagon train off the cliff --

(LAUGHTER)

-- and start shutting down the government? Is that part of the calculation and the timing?

EARNEST: Are you suggesting that would be the first time that they would do that?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, certainly, this --

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: Well, I think what -- the intended audience for this message is the American people. And the president is hopeful that the American people will carefully consider exactly the steps that he announced that he's going to take. He's hopeful the American people will carefully evaluate the consequences for the steps that he's planning to take. And I think if people do that, I think the vast majority of Americans will share his view that these are steps that he should take. That these are steps that, on par, are good for the country. And that these are steps that if Congress were to take to make them permanent, they should supersede any sort of executive action that the president has taken. We look forward to having this conversation. It's an important one.

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

EARNEST: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In a number of occasions, the president said he couldn't act legally without Congress, notably last year in San Francisco speech, where he was heckled, said he couldn't violate the law and had to work with Congress. How do you square that?

EARNEST: I think, as it relates to the hecklers, they were suggesting the president should stop all deportations. That's was sort of the thrush of the president suggesting that he needs to follow the law. And that's true. And that's why the White House feels an obligation to fulfill your desire to understand the legal foundation that the White House will be using as the president moves forward with these executive actions.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In the context of DOCA, why couldn't he do the same thing he did to correct or to somehow lessen the spike in deportations?

EARNEST: Again, in terms of the steps the president may take, we'll have an opportunity to evaluate those tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I know that Alexis asked this. But I would like to press down a little bit. Are you considering an implementation date sometime after the Republicans take control of Congress in order to give them a chance to perhaps move legislation?

EARNEST: Let me just say as a general matter to you and Alexis, the kinds of proposals the president is talking about are not the kind of things you flip a switch and start the next day. We'll have an opportunity to discuss what this process of implementation looks like once we have proposals in front of us tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will there be a date certain?

EARNEST: We'll have more on this tomorrow.

Lori?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A question for you in the address. It's clear he's not going to be able to cover or protect 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. But in his address tomorrow to the nation, will he have a message for those who will be left out? What is the next step for them?

EARNEST: I think there are a couple of things. Again, I don't want to prejudge what the president may have decided here. The president does want to send a forceful case that rooted to our nation's values, that the strength of this country comes from our diversity, and that diversity largely comes from the decision that people made generations ago to coming to this country and to bring their talent and skills to building this country and creating a place where their family and their community cannot just survive but actually thrive. And talking about those values is an important part of the speech. And I think that hearing the president talk on personal terms I think will be part of a message that the president hopes everyone will receive. That will certainly be part of it. Again, after you've seen the speech or at least the text of the speech, you'll be able to evaluate which part you believe will resonate with people who may not be directly affected by these actions.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Also, Speaker Boehner just put out a statement saying that if he does go ahead with executive action he would have cemented his governing with lawlessness. However, others say it's not necessary for the president to take this action and maybe to push Congress to go ahead and approve some type of immigration reform. Is that the purpose of him part of him, part of this, taking this step and taking executive action in trying to protect or fix what he says is wrong with the immigration system?

EARNEST: I'll say a couple of things about the court. I happened to see that, too. I mean, the thing that -- there were a couple of things that stuck out to me. The first is -- again, we'll have ample opportunity to discuss legal basis for the president's executive actions once he's announced them.

We've heard rhetoric about lawlessness from the House Republicans for some time. Their most recent statement referred to "Emperor Obama." The fact of the matter is the president is somebody who is willing to examine the law, review the law, and use every element of that law to make progress for the American people. And if that's something the Republcians are critical of, that's maybe a criticism that the president wears with a badge of honor, I think.

As it relates to -- the other part of the quote is that the president taking this aciton would ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue. What's ruining chances for congressional action is speaker of the House who is unwilling to bring up a bipartisan proposal for a vote. That doesn't have a lot to do with the president. That's a responsibility that lies on the desk of the speaker of the House.

Steve?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A couple days ago, there was a conference call on EPA regs, and he basically, flat-out, said that he didn't think there was any way House Republicans were going to be able to stop them. Can you make a statement about the immigration actions that you don't see the White House is confident, the president is confident Republicans in Congress are not going to be able to stop them.

EARNEST: Well, I -- not many people are able to exude the confidence of the senior administration official to which you referred. Let me say that I do retain plenty of confidence that the executive actions that the president will announce tomorrow will have the positive intended effect that we intend, which is to say that we're confident that there is a strong legal foundation for the president taking these actions. And we're confident that even though Republicans object to it, that these are steps, that will be fully implemented and will strengthen the economy, create jobs, strengthen border security and strengthen national security, and do the other kind of things that the president believes are in the best interest of the country.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

EARNEST: Well, I -- we'll see what Republicans try. But I -- there's a lot of confidence that's retained in these proposals.

Justin?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I want to ask about two things. There are reports that he'll be attending alongside the president. I'm wondering if this is a public burying of the hatchet after the midterm elections.

EARNEST: Well, I think that you asked me a couple times about this. You work at "The Hill." You are obligated to care about these issues.

(LAUGHTER)

Let me just say that the president continues to value the strong working relationiship that he has with Senator Reid. And previous questions about this I have cited have the litany of successful -- the litany of legislation passed successfully through the United States Senate because of the stewardship and leadership of Senator Reid. That's been the view of everyone here at the White House, up to and including the president, and that continues to be the view here. So the president is looking forward to going to Leader Reid's home state. And I haven't heard whether Reid will be able to attend. I don't have an update on his schedule. But if he does, we would be pleased to have him there.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I want to ask about this in terms of a lot of announcements from the White House in the last week or so has been the climate deal and --

EARNEST: Net neutrality?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yeah, exactly. All of which have revved up the president's Democratic base, liberal base. I know the president spoke after the elections about how he's going to try to change things and work out compromise more. And so I wonder how you can square a lot of announcements that upset Republicans and some Democrats with that kind of new approach you said you were going to undertake but haven't yet?

EARNEST: This goes back to a question I -- I don't know if it was Roberta or someone else -- where -- I think this goes back to the president's philosophy that we can't allow a disagreement over a single issue to become a deal breaker over every one. You're right. The president has talked about net neutrality and making progress to cut carbon pollution and even an announcement to reform our broken immigration system. At the same time, Justin, the president was in the Oval Office just a couple hours ago signing a piece of legislation that supported Republicans. The president was pleased to do that.

I would not, in the context of signing that bill, the president also threw in the waste basket, proverbially, an executive order that would have taken the kind of steps that were already included in that legislation. That's pretty good evidence of the president's willingness to allow legislation to supersede any sort of executive action that he takes. That was true of this child care bill and it would be true of any immigration reform that was able to make its way through Congress.

But the other point I want to make, Justin, is the president also did a couple things that presumably Republicans would support in addition to signing that bill, and the president spent time on his trip in Asia focused on trying to open up overseas markets for American goods and services. That's something that the president believes is good for the country and good for American businesses and good for American workers. He convened a meeting at the U.S. embassy in Beijing with the leaders of countries that presumably would sign onto a Transpacific Partnership Trade Agreement. This is something that some Democrats support, and certainly not all of them. But we have seen enthusiastic reaction from Republicans to this proposal.