methodical strategy is starting to turn the corner. >> part of the strategy is to deny isil, and correct me where i'm wrong -- part of the strategy here is to deny land to isil, and then it is to attack its financial infrastructure, right? it's oil refineries and the oil business that it is conducting to make money. in that has been part of the strategy, and -- and that -- jamie, by its nature is going to take some time to unfold. correct? >> well, it is, but every month or so the pentagon releases another map showing how much territory isil has had to give up since the peak of its time when it swept across iraq and syria, seeming to take whatever territory it wanted to. the president mentioned about 40% of the territory it once was able to move freely in, it is not able to anymore, so we're

seeing the -- the blotches on the map slowly shrink, but as one of the briefers said today, isil still has a lot of fight left in it, and this is still going to be a hard battle. the main calculus is the pentagon continues to believe that the only way to defeat isil and make it stick is for local forces to beat them on the ground, and then hold and govern the area to prevent them coming back. >> all right. i want to get to courtney keeley now. meetings are underway in new york involving diplomats from 17 nations, and they are discussing a political transition to the end of the war in syria. courtney talk us through what is going on there, what is on the table and the stakes involved here. >> reporter: really high stakes moment by moment, hour by hour,

we have secretary of state john kerry meeting with 16 other world powers, including the saudis, russians, and iranians all at the table today talking about what they can do next to somehow start a national ceasefire across syria, and somehow effort some kind of resolution, so they are working on a draft resolution today, going through the language. the first meeting today which happened just as the large meeting was supposed to go on, an individual meeting between foreign minister -- the russian foreign minister, sergei lavrov, and secretary of state john kerry sat down about pretty much the idea of transition. does bashar al-assad stay or go? that's the weighty issue right now, but right -- but what will happen next is secretary of state john kerry is supposed to take this draft resolution that they are trying to agree on as we speak to the u.n. security council. the u.s. will chair it today, secretary of state john kerry, and the first time since the conflict began, the question

will be will russia veto it? they are trying to get russia to see this resolution through and then start what might be a ceasefire in syria in january. >> right. i'm going to come back to you in a couple of moments. we're going to take a break. we understand the president has been delayed a bit. obviously when the news conference begins we'll take you there. but for now we'll take a quick break. you are watching al jazeera america.

>> okay. we should tell you, we have been given the two-minute warning to the president. that inside the next two minutes or so, maybe a little bit more than that, we should hear from the president. i want to get to al jazeera's national security contributor. walk me up here to the president taking the podium. what would you expect to hear from the president or what would you like to hear? >> those are two very different questions. i think mike and jamie hit it out of the park. he is going to cover all of his accomplishes over the last year. >> the economy. >> the fed had to raise the

interest rate. >> doug you did a great job. here is the president of the united states. >> clearly this is not the most important event taking place in the white house today. there is a screening of "star wars" for gold star families and children coming up. so i'll try to be relatively succinct. let me say a few words about the year behind us, and the year ahead, and then i'll take a few questions. when i look back on this year, the one thing i see is that so much of our steady work is paying off for the american people in big ways. our early actions to rescue the economy set the streak for longest private sector job growth on record, with 13.7 million new jobs in that time, the unemployment rate has been cut in half, down to 5%. and wages grew father than at

anytime since the recovery region. so a lot of the decisions we made early on have made off. years of steady implementation of the affordable care act, helped to drive the rate of the unemployed in america to below 10%. health care prices have been at their lowest level in decades, and 6 million people have signed up through healthcare.gov for coverage beginning january 1st. new customers are up one third over last year, and the more who sign up, the stronger the system becomes. and that's good news for every american that no longer has worry about being one illness or accident away from financial hardship. on climate, our early investment in clean energy ignited a clean

energy industry boom. last week in paris nearly 200 nations forged an historic agreement that was only possible because of american leadership. around the world from reaching the deal to prevent iran from developing a nuclear weapon, to reestablishing diplomatic relations with cuba, to concludes a landmark trade agreement to make sure that american workers and businesses are operating on a level playing field and that we rather than china or other countries are setting the rules for global trade. we have shown what is possible when america leads. and after decades of dedicated advocacy, marriage equality became a reality in all 50 states. so i just want to point out, i said at the beginning of this year that interesting sufficient happens in the fourth quarter, and we are only halfway through. i do want to thank congress

forrening the year on a high note. i got to sigh an education bill that is going to fix some of the challenges that we had with no child left behind, and promises to invest more in high-quality early childhood education. we signed a transportation bill that allows states and local governments to plan and actually get moving putting people back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges. we got xm bank back to work, and today they passed a bipartisan budget deal. i'm not wild about everything in it, but it is a budget that as i insisted, invests in our military, and our middle class without idealogical provisions that would have weakened wall street reform or rules on big polluters. it's part offen a agreement that

will permanently extend tax credits to 24 million working families. it includes some long-sought wins like strengthening america's leadership at the imf, and because it eliminates the possibility of a shutdown for the first time -- or for the first nine months of next year, congress and i have a long runway to get important things done on behalf of the american people. now there's still a lot of work to do. for example, there's still a lot more that congress can do to promote job growth and increase wages in this country. i still want to work with congress, democrats and republicans to reform our criminal justice system, and earlier today i commuted the sentences of 95 men and women who has served their debt to society. and of course our most important job is to keep americans safe. i have had a lot to say about

that this week, but let me reiterate. the united states continues to lead a global coalition in our mission to destroy isil. isil has lost about 40% of the populated areas it once controlled in iraq, and it is losing territory in syria. as we keep up the pressure, our air campaign will continue to hit isil harder than ever, taking out their leaders, commanders, and forces. we're stepping up support for partners on the ground as they push isil back. our men and women in uniform are carrying out their mission with courage and this holiday season all of us are united in our gratitude for their service. squeezing isil's heart, its core in syria and iraq will make it harder for them to pump their terror and propaganda to the rest of the world.

at the same time as we know from san bernardino, we have to remain vigilant here at home. our counter terrorism, and law enforcement communities are working 24/7 to protect our home lab, and all of us can do our part by staying vigilant, by saying something if we see something that is suspicious, by refusing to be terrorized and by staying united as one american family. in short for all of the very real progress america has made over the past seven years, we still have unfinished business, and i plan on doing everything i can with every minute i have left as president to deliver on behalf of the american people. since taking office i have never been more optimistic about a year ahead than i am right now. and in 2016 i'm going to leave it all on the field. with that i'll take some questions. i'll start with are roberta from

reute reuters. >> reporter: you said there is no specific or credible threat of an attack, but how is it really possible to know? aren't similar plots going to be just as hard to detect beforehand? and some laws are saying that your government should review the social media of all people applying for visas to come to this country. what do you think of that idea? should that be mandatory? >> you are absolutely right that it is very difficult for us to detect loan wolf plots or plots involving a husband and wife in this case because despite the incredible vigilance and professionalism of all of our law enforcement, homeland security, et cetera, it's not that different from us trying to detect the next mass shooter. you don't always see it.

they are not always communicating publicly, and if you are not catching what they say publicly, then it becomes a challenge. we are continuing to work at every level to make sure there's no slip between information sharing among agencies. we're continuing to strengthen our information sharing with foreign countries, and because in part of the tragedy in paris, i think you are seeing much greater cooperation from our european partners on these issues, but this is a different kind of challenge than the sort that we had with organization like al-qaeda that involved highly trained operatives who were working as cells or as a network. here, essentially you have isil

trying to encourage or induce somebody who, you know, may be prey to this kind of propaganda, and it becomes more difficult to -- to see. it does mean that they are less likely to be able to carry out large complex attacks, but as we saw in san bernardino, obviously, you can still do enormous damage. the issue of reviewing social media for those who are obtaining visas, i think may have gotten garbled a little bit, because it's important to distinguish between posts that are public, social media on a facebook page, versus private communications through various social media or apps, and our

law enforcement and intelligence professionals are constantly monitoring public posts and that is part of the visa review process that -- that people are investigating what individuals have said publicly and questioned about any statements that they maybe made, but if you have a private communications between two individuals, that's harder to discern by definition, and one of the things we'll be doing is engaging with the high-tech community to find out how we can in an appropriate way do a better job if we have a lead to be able to track a suspected terrorist, but we're going to have to recognize that no government is going to have

the capacity to read every single person's texts or emails, or social media. if it's not posted publicly, then they are going to be feasibility issues that are -- that are probably insurmountable at some level, and it raises questions about our values. keep in mind it was only a couple of years ago where we were having a major debate about whether the government was becoming too much like big brother. and overall i think we have struck the right balance in protecting civil liberties and making sure u.s. citizen's privacy is preserved, that we are making sure that there is oversight to what our intelligence agencies do, but, you know, we're going to have to continue to balance our feeds for security with people's

legitimate concerns about privacy, and because the internet is global, and communications systems are global, you know, the values that we apply here oftentimes are ones that, you know -- folks who are trying to come into the country are also benefiting from because they are using the same technologies, but this is precisely why we're working very hard to bring law enforcement, intelligence, and high-tech companies together, because we're going to have to really review what we can do technically as well as consistent with our laws and values in order to try to discern more rapidly some of the potential threat that may be out there. david jackson. >> reporter: [ inaudible ] transfer prisoners to the united states for trial. but some people think you already have the executive

authority to make those transfers and close gitmo. are you willing to do that? >> well, we have been working to reduce the population. we have a review process for those who are eligible for transfer. we locate in countries that have accepted some of these detainees. they monitor them, and it's been determined that they can be transferred, and my expectation is by early -- by early next year, we should have reduced that population below 100, and we will continue -- continue to steadily chip away at the numbers in this guantanamo. there is going to come to a point where we have aer reducible population. people who pose a significant threat, but it is difficult for

us to try them in article 3 court. some of those are going through a military commission process, but -- there's going to be a challenge there. now, at that stage, i'm presenting a plan to congress about how we can close guantanamo. i'm not going to automatically assume that congress says no, you know, i'm not being coy, david, i think it's fair to say there is going to be significant resistance from some quarters to that, but i think we can make a very strong argument that it doesn't make sense for us to be spending an extra hundred, two hundred, $300 million, a billion dollars to have a secure setting for 50, 60, 70 people. and we will wait until congress

has definitively said no to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it, before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here. i think it's far preferable if i can get stuff done with congress. >> it's election year [ inaudible ]. >> david as i said -- you know, and i think you have seen me on a lunch of issues like immigration, i'm not going to -- i'm not going to be forward leaning on what i can do without congress before i have tested what i can do with congress. and every once in a while they will surprise you, and -- and this may be one of those places, because i think we can make a really strong argument, guantanamo continues to be one of the key magnets for jihadi recruitment.

the question early about how did they propagandize and convince somebody here in the united states who may not have a criminal record or history of terrorist activity to start shooting, this is part of what they feed, this notion of a gross injustice. that america is not living up to its professed ideals. we know that. we see the internet traffic. we see how guantanamo has been used to create this methodology that america is at war with islam. and for us to close it is part of our counter terrorism strategy that is supported by our military, our diplomatic and intelligence teams. so when you combine that with the fact that it's really expensive that we are essentially at this point detaining a handful of people, and each person is costing

several million dollars to detain when there are more efficient ways of doing it, i think we can make a strong argument. i -- but i'll take -- you know, i'll take your point, that it will be an uphill battle. every battle i have had with congress over the last five years has been uphill, and but we keep on surprising by getting stuff done. sometimes that may prove necessary. but we try not to get out ahead of ourselves on that. julie case. >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. i wanted to ask you about the broader challenges [ inaudible ]. republicans running for president have said [ inaudible ] regime changes with like iraq and libya, and having gone through the experience of the arab spring and the aftermath, i wonder how you see the u.s. east rule in the middle east in terms of

trying to push dictators out of power? and specifically on syria, at this point is your expectations that bashar al-assad's presidency will outlast yours? >> you know, there's been a lot of revisionist history sometimes by the same people making different arguments depending on the situation. maybe it's useful just for us to go back over some of these issues. we did not depose mubarak. millions of egyptians did because of their dissatisfaction with the corruption and dictatorship of the regime. and the notion that somehow the u.s. us was in the position to pull the strings on a country that is the largest in the arab world, i think is mistaken.

what is true, is that at the point at which the choice becomes mowing down millions of people or tries to find some transition, we believed, and i would still argue that it was more sensible for us to find a peaceful transition to the egyptian situation. with republican to libya, libya is sort of an alternative version of syria in some ways. because by the time the international coalition interceded in syria, chaos had already broken out. you already had the makings of a civil war. you had a dictator who was threatening, and was in a position to carry out the wholesale slaughter of large numbers of people, and we worked

under u.n. mandate with a coalition of folks in order to try to avert a big humanitarian catastrophe that would not have been good for us. those who now argue in retrospect we should have left gadhafi in there, seem to forget that he had already lost control of his country, and we could have, instead of what we have in libya now, we could have had another syria in libya now. the problem with libya was the fact that there was a failure on the part of the entire international community and i think the united states has some accountability for not moving swiftly enough and underestimating the need to rebuild government there quickly. and as a consequence you now have a very bad situation.

and as far as syria goes, i think it is entirely right and proper for the united states of america to speak out on behalf of its values, and when you have an authoritarian leader that is killing hundreds of thousands of his own people, the notion that we would just stand by and say nothing is contrary to who we are, and that does not serve our interests, because at that point us being in collusion with that kind of governance, would make us even more of a target for terrorist activity -- >> reporter: [ inaudible ]? >> but -- but the reason that assad has been a problem in syria is because that is a

majority sunni country, and he had lost the space that he had early on to execute an inclusionive peaceful transition, he chose instead to slaughter people, and once that happened, the idea that a minority population there could somehow crush tens of millions of people who oppose him is not feasible, it's not plausible. even if you were being cold eyed and hard hearted about the human toll there, it just wouldn't happen. and as a consequence, our view has been that you cannot bring peace to syria. you cannot get an end to the civil war unless you have a

government that is recognized as legitimate by a majority of that country. it will not happen. and this is the argument that i have had repeatedly with mr. putin. dating five years ago, at which time, the -- his suggestion as i gather some republicans are now suggesting was assad is not so bad, let him just be as brutal and oppressive as he can, but we'll keep order. i said, look, the problem is that the history of trying to keep order when a large majority of the country has turned against you is not good, and five years later, i was right. so we now have an opportunity and john kerry is meeting as we speak with syria and turkey and iran and the gulf countries and other parties who are