Transcript: Obama on 'Face the Nation'

Complete Text of White House Interview With Bob Schieffer

(CBS)  The following is a complete transcript of an interview with President Barack Obama by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer, conducted at the White House on September 18, 2009.

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Schieffer: Mr. President, thank you very much

Obama: Thank you

Schieffer: You have made speeches, you've addressed the joint session of Congress, you've done interviews, but the polling continues to show that people are still skeptical about your health reform plans.

Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, has done a lot of work on health care over the years, summed it up this way - these are his words: "If anyone believes that Washington can do a plan that will cost close to a trillion dollars, cover all Americans, not raise taxes on anyone, not increase the deficit, not reduce benefits or choices for our families and seniors, then I have a bridge to sell you."

Have you promised too much, Mr. President?

Obama: No I don't think I've promised too much at all. Look - first of all, everybody acknowledges this is a problem. Everybody acknowledges that the current path we're on is unsustainable. Not just for people who don't have health insurance, but for those who do.

We just had a study come out this week showing that premiums for families went up 130 percent over the last decade. Those costs probably went up even higher for the average employer and that's part of the reason why you're seeing each successive year fewer Americans having health insurance from their employers than they previously did.

Health care inflation went up 5.5 percent this past year when inflation was actually negative because of this extraordinary recession. So we know that standing still is not an option.

Now what I've said is we can make sure that people who don't have health insurance can buy into an insurance pool that gives them better bargaining power. For people who have health insurance we can provide health insurance reforms that make the insurance they have more secure. And we can do that mostly by using money that every expert agrees is being wasted and is currently in the existing health care system. So -- in fact what we've got right now is about 80 percent consensus on how we would accomplish that.

Now let me be honest: With a piece of legislation this complicated and a sector of the economy that's about one-sixth of our economy there's a reason why for the last 40 years people have been talking about this and it hasn't gotten done &30151; it's hard. And there are a lot of moving parts. And so I appreciate fact that the American people are really cautious about this because it's important to them and the majority of people still have health insurance. What I'm trying to do is to explain the facts, which are if we don't do anything a lot of Americans are gonna be much worse off and over time the federal budget just can't sustain it.

More from "Face the Nation" (9/20/09):
Obama: No Higher Taxes With Health Reform
Obama: 24-Hour News Cycle Feeding Anger
No Answer on More Troops in Afghanistan
Obama: Moscow Move 'Bonus' of Missile Plan

Schieffer: Let me just ask you - the main concern that people seem to have is that this plan is somehow going to mean a tax on middle class Americans. Now you promised during the campaign -

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: … that that was not gonna happen.

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: No tax increase on people who made under 250,000 dollars.

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: No payroll tax, no capital gains …

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: … no tax of any kind on Americans. Can you still make that promise to people today?

Obama: I can still keep that promise because, as I've said, about two-thirds of what we've proposed would be from money that's already in the health care system but just being spent badly. And as I said before, this is not me making wild assertions.

You know, you always hear about waste and abuse in Washington and usually it doesn't mean much because nobody ever finds where that waste and abuse is. This is money that has been directly identified that the Congressional Budget Office, that Republican and Democratic experts agree is there, that is not improving the quality of our health. So the lion's share of money to pay for this will come from money that's already in system.

Now, we are going to have to find some additional sources of revenue for the other third or so of the health care plan. And I've provided a long list of approaches that would not have an impact on middle class Americans. They're not going to be forced to pay for this. Insurance companies, drug companies are gonna have to be ponying up, partly because right now they're receiving huge subsidies from folks.

Schieffer: But aren't they going to then pass it on to consumers? I mean that's what you know the Chamber of Commerce is saying. They're starting a big ad campaign right -

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: - now, they're saying you're gonna put these taxes on these insurance companies on people that make things like X-rays and lab tests and all of that and they're just going to turn right around and pass it right on to the consumer.

Obama: Here's the problem, they're passing on those costs to the consumer anyway. The only difference is …

Schieffer: But this would be more

Obama: No, the difference is that they're making huge profits on it, Bob. I mean, let's take the Medicare HMO programs that are being run by insurance companies. It's estimated by everybody that they're overcharging by about 14 percent. This amounts to about $177 billion over 10 years. About $17 billion a year, $18 billion a year. That's just going to pad their profits, hasn't been shown to make Medicare recipients any healthier. And in fact because those huge subsidies are going to insurance companies, Medicare recipients are not getting a good deal. Now if we are enforcing what should be the rules around Medicare and making sure the people are getting a bang for the buck, it's not going to be possible for insurance companies to simply pass on those costs to Medicare recipients because ultimately it's Uncle Sam that's paying for those services anyway.

Look, bringing about change in this town is always hard. When you've got special interests that are making billions of dollars, absolutely they're gonna want to keep as much of that, the profits that they're making, as possible. And by the way, those insurance companies even during these down years have been making terrific profits. We don't mind them making profits, we just want them to be accountable to their customers.

Schieffer: Let me ask you a little bit about the tenor of this debate. It seems to me that there is a sort of meanness that has settled over our political dialogue. It started this summer at these town hall meetings …

Obama: Right.

Schieffer: We saw this outbreak when you spoke to the joint session. Some people clearly just don't agree with your policy.

Obama: Absolutely.

Schieffer: But there seem to be others that are just, just mad, angry. President Carter is now saying that he thinks it's racial. Nancy Pelosi says it could be dangerous. What do you think it's all about?

Obama: Well look, what I think we have to remember is that at various periods in American history people get pretty rambunctious when it comes to our democratic debate. That's not new. And every president who's tried to bring about big changes I think elicits the most passionate responses. Maybe you hear what people had to say about Abraham Lincoln or what they had to say about FDR, or what they had to say about Ronald Reagan when he first came in and was trying to change our approach to government. That elicited huge responses.

Now I think that what's driving passions right now is that health care has become a proxy for a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy, particularly coming off a huge economic crisis. And the only thing that I've been trying to say is - number one, I have no interest in increasing the size of government. I just want to make sure we've got a smart government that is regulating for example the financial institutions smartly so I don't have to engage in any kind of bank bailouts. That's point number one. And point number two, even though we're having a passionate disagreement here, we can be civil to each other. And we can try to express ourselves acknowledging that we're all patriots, we're all Americans and not assume the absolute worst in people's motives.

And I have to, one last point I've got to make, Bob, and that is I do think part of what's different today is that the twenty-four-hour news cycle and cable television and blogs and all this, they focus on the most extreme elements on both sides. They can't get enough of conflict, it's catnip to the media right now. And so the easiest way to get 15 minutes of fame is to be rude to somebody. In that environment I think it makes it more difficult for us to solve the problems that the American people sent us here to solve.

Schieffer: Mr. President, seven former directors of the CIA have sent you a letter today asking you to reverse the decision of the Attorney General to reopen the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations that took place after the attacks on September 11th. Would you consider that?

Obama: Well first of all, I have utmost respect for the CIA. I have said consistently that I want to look forward and not backward when it comes to some of the problems that occurred under the previous administration, or when it came to interrogations. I don't want witch hunts taking place. I've also said though that the Attorney General has a job to uphold the law…

Schieffer: So you intend to let him go forward?

Obama: He's got to make judgment in terms of what has occurred. My understanding is it's not a criminal investigation at this point. They are simply investigating what took place. And I appreciate the former CIA directors wanting to look after an institution that they helped to build. But I continue to believe that nobody's above the law. And I want to make sure that as President of the United States that I'm not asserting in some way that my decisions over rule the decisions of prosecutors who are there to uphold the law.

Schieffer: Afghanistan.

Obama: Yeah.

Schieffer: We keep hearing that General McChrystal is about to ask you for tens of thousands of new American troops to go to Afghanistan, our David Martin has reported that. Are you considering something of that nature? Sending that large a force to Afghanistan?

Obama: I'm not considering it at that point because I haven't received the request. But I just want to remind people how we got here. When I came in Afghanistan was adrift because we frankly hadn't focused on it. I immediately ordered a top-to-bottom review. Part of that review was when General McChrystal got to Afghanistan for him to do his own assessment. In the meantime I sent 21,000 troops to make sure that we could secure election that was going to take place in the early fall.

The election is now complete. General McChrystal has completed his assessment. But my job is to make sure that we get a strategy that focuses on my core goal, which is to dismantle, defeat, destroy al Qaeda and its allies that killed Americans and are still plotting to kill Americans…

Schieffer: Well if he asked you for that many troops, you're going to have a hard time saying no, are you not?

Obama: Let's be clear, my central focus is, what are we doing to protect the American people and the American homeland? Afghanistan and Pakistan are critical elements in that process but the only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe. And so whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we'll figure out how to resource it. We're not gonna put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we're automatically going to make Americans safe.

Schieffer: Didn't you say on March 27th that you had announced a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan? I thought you already had a strategy.

Obama: Well we did. But what I also said was that we were gonna review that every six months because this is a very complicated terrain. We had just started getting our troops in. In fact the 21,000 that I already ordered in are just now getting in place. And what I did not want is a situation in which we are just continually sending more and more troops or putting more and more resources without having looked at how the whole thing fits together, making sure that our efforts in terms of building Afghan capacity is in place, that our civilian and diplomatic efforts are in place. So what we're going to do is to continue to reassess, review what's taking place and make sure that our strategy and resources fit together for the aim of making sure that al Qaeda is not able to attack the United States.

Schieffer: You announced yesterday a major change in American strategic strategy when you said that we would not go forward with the missile defense system that would be there on the border of Russia. The Russians saw that as a poke in the eye from the very beginning. But even people who agree that that missile system is out of place are asking questions. Shouldn't you have tried to get something from the Russians in exchange for doing that?

Obama: Well keep in mind that when George Bush announced his strategy for putting missile defense in place, in the Czech Republic and in Poland, I said at the time I think we need missile defense but I want to make sure it works, that it's cost effective, that the technologies are operable, that it's our best possible strategy. And that hadn't been shown. So when I came in I asked the same people who had signed on first one - Bob Gates, my Secretary of Defense, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff - tell me given the intelligence you have now and the technology we possess and what we know about the Iranian threat, which always been our main concern, not Russia, tell me if the system that we've designed is the best possible system. And they came back to me and said, you know what, given what we know now we actually think that this is a better way of doing it. So we're not eliminating missile defense - in fact what we're doing is putting a system in that's more timely, more cost effective, and that meets the actual threats that we perceive coming from Iran.

Russia had always been paranoid about this, but George Bush was right, this wasn't a threat to them. And this program will not be a threat to them. So my task here was not to negotiate with the Russians. The Russians don't make determinations about what our defense posture is. We have made a decision about what will be best to protect the American people as well as our troops in Europe and our allies. If the by-product of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iiran, you know, then that's a bonus.

Schieffer: Mr. President our time is up. Thank you so much.

Obama: Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Bob.

[jvermeer51]

During the interview, Mr Schieffer said, ?It seems to me that there is a sort of meanness that has settled over our political dialogue. It started this summer at these town hall meetings ??

When Sandra Bernhardt said that if Sarah Palin dared set foot in Manhattan, she would be gang raped by her big black buddies, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When Pete Stark said Pres Bush sent US soldiers to die for his personal pleasure, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When liberals drove around in cars with ?a village in Texas is missing its idiot? bumper strips, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When the NAACP created an ad which said if Republicans get votes, black churches will burn, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When Democrats in Congress demanded an investigation of whether Pres Bush negotiated with Iran to delay releasing the embassy hostages, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When Clark Clifford called Pres Reagan an amiable dunce, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When Democrats ran an ad with Spiro Agnew?s name and a laugh track, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When liberal intellectuals mocked Pres Eisenhower for his syntax and the books he read, that must not have been mean since meanness started with the town hall meetings.
When an Obamacare proponent bit off the finger of an Obamacare dissenter, that could have been mean since that was after the town hall meetings. However, I doubt if Schieffer had that in mind.
Nothing said at town halls meetings remotely approaches the regular denigration by liberals of anyone not like themselves. For Schieffer to make his statement merely shows that within the echo chamber of the liberal media, hatred is so common as to be unnoticeable.

[Scoutdog100]

What a silly softball interview, by a nice coddling network to let Obama spread his PR.

Obama lies, and SeeBS loses more credibility by acting as his messenger.

In this brief interview, Obama promises us that he will somehow impose an excess profits tax on boith medical device makers as well as insurance companies. Then he goes on to say "I have no interest in increasing the size of government" - I guess he expects to control two more areas of the market without adding to the size of government - just the extent of it's control.

Obama is a tool and a liar. And will never do a straight interview or debate with a real adversary.

[Repenter]

read WarningtoAmerica.com

[jonisaputz]

Just so much more slight of hand rhetoric from Obama. And Scheiffer - too bad you turned into yet another one of the biased media men. I used to watch this program every sunday but well not again. In fact, I turn off anything connected with Obama because he lies and then tries to lie his way out of the lies.

[david393071]

"Schieffer: Didn't you say on March 27th that you had announced a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan? I thought you already had a strategy."

"But even as he outlined the new strategy, McKiernan made it clear he was still not convinced there were enough troops to pull it off."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/11/eveningnews/main5007510.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

President Obama (no US Military experience) did not have a new strategy for Afghanistan. That was General McKiernan's War Plan. His mistake was that after the Politicians did not listen; he went public (the CBS interview above)and got fired for embarrassing the current Politicians for not listening to the Commanders on the Ground. General McKiernan's mistake was asking for more Special Warfare US Military and not the Conventional Warfare US Military from Iraq; as Afghanistan is Asymmetric Warfare NOT Conventional Warfare. Historically, Conventional Warfare versus Asymmetric Warfare; Conventional Warfare always loses.

General McChrystal is on the spot as he wears the Special Forces Tab (Qualification) and knows that if he asks for more US Special Warfare he too will get fired. The reason is political, as after the President Clinton Reduction In Forces, the US Military capabilities were cut to the bone, with those RIFed forming Blackwater (Xe), Triple Canopy, and the other lost US Military capabilities filled by Halliburton, KBR, etc.. This lead to the current shortfalls in US Military Special Warfare (decades to train, "operational" experience, replace). What also did not help was the Defense Budget Cuts, just like Vietnam; with President LBJ coming on televison to embarass Congress (about the budget cuts), "this is killing our boys at Vietnam". You cut the Defense Budget after you withdraw us, so that there are no shortages of ammunition, weapons replacement, equipment, and training. And if you think this is not political, how about Congress trying to force the USAF to buy obsolete 1990s "Cold War" Era Aircraft (F-22) instead of the 10 year newer F-35.

http://www.cbsnews.com/1770-5_162-0.html?query=f-22&tag=srch&searchtype=cbsSearch

August 2009. US President meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Monday, Aug 10, 2009
in Guadalajara, Mexico:

"And immigration remained a sore spot. While Obama has said he'd like to start crafting an overhaul that legalizes millions of Mexican immigrants, there's little chance of Congress acting this year, since even top administration priorities like health care and climate policy are moving slowly amid heated partisan debate."

I don't know why he is hesitating, that would insure him 23 Million Votes. See post 1.49 where the number came from. http://world-news.newsvine.com/_news/2009/08/10/3137503-three-amigos-join-forces-in-swine-flu-fight#comments

Those previously Illegal Immigrants, 23 Million, might forget who made them Legal and vote for the wrong Candidate. So if he "tackles" this problem, just prior to the next Election, you know why. Which would become a "causative fact" versus a current "opinion". Just wait and see what he does to prove his own guilt or innocence. (DON'T SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU).

So yes, Joe Wilson caught the President in a "white lie", you are going to pay for the Illegal Immigrants when they become legal. And since they do not pay Income Tax since they get paid cash under the table so that the IRS does not turn them over to INS or ICE, you pay for all of (H.R.3200) for them (legalized illegal immigrants). Joe Wilson went public like General McKiernan after he got voted down and no one would listen: "The vote was close, 26-27, but the Democrates prevailed and the legislation came out of committee allowing illegal aliens to participate by default."

[markusmalek]

Michael Steele is full of you-know-what. If the republicans had ANY interest in reforming health care, they would have done it a few years ago when they had the white house and a majority in both the house and the senate. But they did NOTHING to reform health care when they had the chance.

Democrats need to stop trying to appease the republican senators and representatives who are in love with the health insurance industry. It doesn't matter how many concessions democrats make, it will NEVER BE ENOUGH for republicans. Democrats need to stop squandering this opportunity and pass a plan that will ensure that every American citizen has quality health care at a fair price.

[david393071]

"Now let me be honest: With a piece of legislation this complicated and a sector of the economy that's about one-sixth of our economy there's a reason why for the last 40 years people have been talking about this and it hasn't gotten done &30151; it's hard. And there are a lot of moving parts. And so I appreciate fact that the American people are really cautious about this because it's important to them and the majority of people still have health insurance."

This just verified that this has nothing to do with the Medical Profession. And that this is just payback to the Insurance Corporations for previous Campaign Contributions. "one-sixth of our economy" = Insurance Corporations, NOT MEDICAL PROFESSION.

REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM DOES NOT EQUAL INSURANCE CORPORATIONS. GET THE INSURANCE CORPORATIONS OUT OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. The President's speech indicated that the Insurance Corporation were to blame for all the problems in the Medical Profession (Health Care), ok, so get them out of the Medical Profession.

Real solution.

Co op Health Care.

Decreases cost 80% (last part of video) by Doctor David Ores, New York.1:45

August 17, 2009 4:11 PM

As Republican and Democratic lawmakers continue to debate the Obama administration's public health care option, Nancy Cordes reports that a co-operative plan may serve as an effective compromise.


http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5247963n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

[pappylichty]

I found Bob Schieffer's request of Michael Steele for a comment on the reported White House asking Gov Patterson of NY to drop out of the race to be highly unfair and partisan. There is no neutrality in such a request. Why? Schieffer never gave the President a chance to speak to the Patterson issue, so why bring it up with Steele? The points the President made about health care, Schieffer allowed Steele to rebut, but not so the Patterson case for the President. "Liberal press"? Hardly! Totally biased! Richard and Mary Lichty

[stuart-johns]

Schieffer: Mr. President, thank you very much


Yes I agree. Thank you very much Mr. President. You are doing a great job so far in bringing this country the change it so wants and needs.