Press briefings

October 14, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Let me give you guys a quick readout on the President's morning meeting. As you know, the President met for three hours with his national security team in the Situation Room. This was the fifth in a series of meetings assessing our strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.    » read more »

October 7, 2009 -- MR. GIBBS: One quick series of announcements before we get going. I want to walk you through just a scheduling thing for the middle of November.

The President, as you know, will be traveling to Asia next month to strengthen our cooperation with this vital part of the world on a range of issues of mutual interest. The President will begin his trip in Tokyo, Japan, on November 12th and 13th. We leave here on the 11th.

The President's visit will provide an opportunity to deepen coordination with this key ally on a range of economic, security and other issues. The President will meet for a second time with the Japanese Prime Minister.    » read more »

September 17, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good morning. Oh, Mr. McCormick, a special appearance. Wow.

We're doing this a little early today so you all can watch the President's events or travel, as you maybe needed to do.

Before we take our regularly scheduled questions, we'll hear from Secretary Sebelius, who will talk to you all about some demonstration projects and grants and a program that the President, as you know, during the recent joint session of Congress, asked her to look into regarding medical malpractice.

So I will turn it over to the Secretary.    » read more »

August 31, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back. Just one quick scheduling announcement. On Tuesday, September 15th, the President will address the National AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh. And with that -- hold on. Divert the cameras over here.

Q When did you say?

MR. GIBBS: Tuesday, September 15th. Big month for Pittsburgh.

Fire away.

Q Is the President still asking Israelis to stop all settlement building in the territories, the Palestinian territories?    » read more »

June 23, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon, everybody. Today, I want to start by addressing three issues, and then I'll take your questions.

First, I'd like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.    » read more »

June 22, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Let me just make a quick statement on something that the First Lady is going to speak about later this afternoon.

Today the administration is kicking off President Obama's summer service initiative, United We Serve. United We Serve is a call to all Americans to join a volunteer effort this summer and be part of building a new foundation for America one community at a time. United We Serve officially starts today and runs through the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11th.    » read more »

June 19, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Let me take 10 seconds to get organized. Let me quickly go through a week ahead for your planning.

The President will spend the weekend in Washington and has no scheduled public events. On Monday the President will sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in the Rose Garden. On Tuesday the President will meet with the President of Chile at the White House. On Wednesday the President will hold a town hall meeting here at the White House in the East Room on health care, which will be broadcast on ABC during prime time. On Thursday the President --

Q Do you know what time?

MR. GIBBS: I believe it's taped at 8:00 p.m. and broadcast at 10:00 p.m., if I'm not mistaken.    » read more »

June 17, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: All right -- get semi-organized. Ms. Loven.

Q Thank you. The President said yesterday that it wouldn't be right to be seen as meddling in Iran's internal politics. Iran said today that's exactly what Washington is doing. Do you have a reaction?    » read more »

June 9, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: It's my never-ending pursuit to try to bring maybe a special guest once every day this week. (Laughter.) So just once a day.

Q What are you paying them?

MR. GIBBS: Top dollar.

Before we get started, if you have PAYGO questions or want to talk about that, obviously Peter Orszag, OMB Director, will talk a little bit about PAYGO and take a few of your questions on that.

Peter.

DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Thank you, Robert. Glad to be here.    » read more »

June 8, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Before we do our regularly scheduled programming -- I'll do this after Jared -- I've got an announcement before we do our regular questions. But before we get started Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist, will walk us through the roadmap to recovery that the President and the Vice President spoke about today.

He'll take a few of your questions and then back to me. Jared.

MR. BERNSTEIN: Thank you, Robert. This is different, I usually face you one at a time.

The President and the Vice President today outlined the roadmap to recovery, which spotlights some of the ways we're going to accelerate the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act during its second 100 days.    » read more »

May 28, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: One quick announcement before we get started. The United States will host the next G20 summit, September 24th through the 25th, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Q Where?

Q What?

MR. GIBBS: Did I get a little murmur there? That's -- there's a Terrible Towel back there somewhere, wasn’t there? There you go.

At the Pittsburgh summit, President Obama will meet with leaders representing 85 percent of the world's economy, take stock of the progress made since the Washington and London summits, and discuss further actions to assure a sound and sustainable recovery from the global economic and financial crisis.

Q Why Pittsburgh?    » read more »

May 27, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. My condolences to all of you that weren’t allowed to go to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, including myself. Let me get organized here.

Mr. Feller.

Q Thanks, Robert. Two questions on the Supreme Court, please. As expected, the debate to try to define Judge Sotomayor is underway from interested parties from the left and from the right. The President obviously had his say yesterday to the American people, but I'm wondering, as this debate unfolds and heads towards confirmation, what is the White House's plan today, every day, to try to influence the debates, to try to make sure your message stays out there?    » read more »

May 26, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Before we get going here, let me start with a couple of quick announcements.

On his trip next week, the beginning of the trip, President Obama will make a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While there the President will meet with His Majesty King Abdullah to discuss a range of important issues, including Middle East peace, Iran and terrorism. That's the front end of the trip.

Q What day is that?

MR. GIBBS: That would be -- we leave here -- I don't know all the time differences. We leave here the evening of June 2, so I guess that's the evening of June 3.

Q Why was this added on?    » read more »

May 22, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Thanks for coming out here a little early -- I've got a meeting with the President, a few of us do, a little after 1:00 p.m., so I'm going to try to practice some brevity today. We'll see if that works out.

Let me give you a quick run through of the week ahead. At 6:30 tomorrow morning the President will announce his Supreme Court nominee. (Laughter.) Gotcha! I'm done. That's obviously a joke, but I did love to see that -- if somebody can quickly text me the name of a chiropractor because at least four dozen necks snapped in one direction. (Laughter.)

Q If it's quarter to seven it's --

MR. GIBBS: Don't worry, you'll get a text message. It's cool.    » read more »

May 19, 2009 -- James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- MR. GIBBS: A renewed guest appearance. Thank you all for coming. As we talked last week here, you all know the national security priority that Pakistan is for this administration. President Obama asked all those in the administration to respond quickly to the conditions that we're seeing now in the Swat Valley and in Pakistan. And I will turn it over to the Secretary of State for an announcement on that.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Robert. And I appreciate the opportunity to provide some information about what our government and the people of the U.S. are doing with respect to the humanitarian crisis that is affecting Pakistan.    » read more »