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 interested. we now have an opportunity not

to turn back the clock. it will be very difficult to completely overcome the devastation that has happened in syria already, but to find a political transition that maintains the syrian state that recogni recognizes there are a bunch of stake holders inside of syria, and hopefully to initiate a ceasefire that won't be perfect, but allows all of the parties to turn on what should be our number one focus, and that is destroying daesh and its allies in the region. and that is going to be a difficult process, a painstaking process, but there is no shortcut to that. [ changing captioners ] my part, that is a hard headed calculation and what is going to be required to get the job done. >> do you think he will remain

in power a year from now? >> i think that assad is going to have to leave in order for the country to stop the blood letting and for all the parties involved to be able to move forward in a nonsectarian way. he has lost legitimacy in the large majority of the country, is there a way to construct a briz bridge with a political transition and allows those us and the russians and iranians to ensure that their equities are respected, that minorities like the alowites are not crushed or retribution is not the order of the day, i think that is going to be very important as well and that is what makes this so

difficult. you know, sadly had assad made a decision earlier that he was not more important personally than his entire country, that kind of political transition would have been much easier, it's a lot harder now but john kerry has been doing some excellent work in moving that process forward and i do think that you've seen from the russians a recognition that after a couple of months they're not really moving the needle that much in this despite a sizable deployment in syria and of course that is what i suggested would happen. because there is only so much bombing you can do when an entire country is outraged and believes that its ruler doesn't represent them. >> i would like to ask you about

specifically what are your top legislative priorities for next year and how has the new speaker paul ryan changed the dynamic with you and capitol hill? and can you be more ambitious next year doing things like maybe completing the transatlantic trade partnership or even getting tax reform? >> well first of all, it's important to give credit where credit is due. john boehner did a favor to all of us including now speaker ryan by working with us to agree on a top line budget framework. that was the basis for subsequent negotiations. he was able to do that because he was going out the door and was then given i think a little more room to maneuver than he previously had. having said that i also want to

give speaker ryan credit, i called both him and mitch mcconnell as well as nancy pelosi and harry reid for the orderly way in which they actually negotiated a budget, the way congress is historically and typically supposed to work. we have gotten kind of used to last-minute crisis and shut down threats and so forth and this is a messy process that doesn't satisfy everybody completely but it's more typical of american democracy and i think that speaker ryan deserves a role in that. i will say in his interactions with me he has been professional, he has reached out to tell me what he can do and what he cannot do. i think it's a good working relationship. we recognize that we disagree on a whole bunch of other stuff and

have fundamentally different visions for where we want to move the country but perhaps because even before he was elected he had worked on capitol hill i think he is respectful of the process and respectful of how legislation works. so kudos to him as well as all the leaders and appropriators who are involved in the process and i want to repeat because sometimes we can take for granted what has happened. i said early on in this process that i wasn't going to sign a budget that did not relieve se quester, this artificial austerity making it difficult to invest in education and military and said i would not accept a lot of ideological riders that were attached to a big budget

deal and we met our goals and because of some terrific negotiations by the democrats up on capitol hill and i think some pretty good work by our legislative staffs here we are going to be able to fund the environmental protection, we are going to be able to make sure that we are investing in things like early childhood education and making college more affordable. we are going to be able to implement the clean power plant rule. we are going to be able to continue to invest in clean energy that spurs on innovation. we are going to be able to make sure that our military gets the equipment and the training that it needs in order to be effective in fighting i.s.i.l. and other threats around the world. so it was a good win. and there are some things in there that i don't like but that

is the nature of legislation and compromise and i think the system worked. that gives me some optimism that next year on a narrow set of issues we can get some more work done. as david said it's an election year and obviously a lot of the legislative process is going to be skewed by people looking over their shoulders worried about primary, trying to position themselves relative to the presidential candidates so that makes it harder. but i think there are going to be a handful of areas where we can make real progress. one of them you already mentioned, trans pacific partnership which now has been out, congress had a chance to review and it meets the bar that i set. it is consistent with what i promised which is the most

prolabor, proenvironment, progressive trade deal in history that eliminates just about every tariff on american manufacturing goods in countries that up until this point have charged a tax essentially on anything that american workers and american businesses sell in these areas. it brings those taxes down to zero on basically all american manufactured products, a huge win for agricultural because now the people of japan are going to be in a better position to enjoy american beef and american pork which up until this point even though we are much more efficient producers as tagged with a tax that makes our products uncommon -- un competitive in japan markets and

it's in democrat and republican parties and it's going to be an interesting situation where we are going to have to stitch together the same kind of by partisan effort in order for us to get it done. a second area i think is possible is criminal justice reform. there has been sincere, serious negotiations and efforts by democrats and republicans to create a criminal justice system that is more fair, more even handed, more proportionate and is smarter about how we reduce crime. and i've really been impressed by the dedication of a core group of democrats and republicans, some of them, the most liberal democrats and republicans coming together saying this is the right thing to do. we have a good bill in the

senate that passed with by partisan support out of committee and my hope is it gets to the floor and that we can pair it up with a good bill out of the house and an area where you potentially can see and save money, reduce recitivism and people who make a mistake on nonviolent crimes have to pay the price, have to serve time but are released in a reasonable fashion, that they have more support so they are less likely to go back into the criminal system subsequently and that's an area where i think we may be able to make a big difference. those are just two examples. we will keep on looking for a number of examples like that and wherever there is an opportunity i'm going to take it. ok okay. phillip. >> thank you, mr. president. you mentioned climate change

already and at the time of the signing of the deal in paris you said it was potentially a turning point for the world, this was a deal that was or not a legally binding document and you bypass congress pretty much completely, are you worried at this point that a republican president who make take over from you in the white house could stop the deal in its tracks entirely and considering that possibility are you more interested in campaigning for a democratic nominee considering that danger? >> i think it's fair campaigning for a democrat nominee even without that danger. and i am very confident that we are going to have a terrific democratic nominee and whose phone is that guys? come on now. somebody, you recognize your ring. don't be embarrassed just turn it off. there you go. okay, can i still hear it? all right, i think it's off now.

i think we will have a strong democratic nominee. i think that democratic nominee will win and a democratic successor and i will campaign hard to maybe it happen for a variety of reasons because they are more likely to share my fundamental vision about where america should go. but having said that what i think people should also feel good about is that the agreement struck in paris, although not legally binding when it comes to the targets that have been set does create this architecture in which all around the world countries are saying this is where we are going. we are going to be chasing after this clean energy future. this is how we are going to meet our goals. we are going to double down on solar power and double down on

wind power, we are going to invest more heavily in bio fuels, we are going to figure out battery technologies. and what you saw in this budget which i think was really significant was an extension of the solar tax credits and wind tax credits that we had helped to really boost early on in my administration and that it resulted in wind power increasing three fold, solar power increasing by 20 fold. those tax credits are now going to be extended for five to seven years and as a consequence that combination of market signals means that the private sector is going to start investing much more heavily. they know this is coming. and it's not just coming here, it's coming around the world. so you now have a global marketplace for clean energy

that is stable and accelerating over the course of the next decade. that then creates a different dynamic. and that is independent of what congress does but also helps to shape what congress does because the more people that are now getting jobs in solar installation and production, the more that you have companies who are seeing how american innovation can sell products in clean energy all across the asia pacific and in europe and in africa. suddenly there is a big monetary incentive to get this right. and that has been the history of environmental progress in this country and now we have exported it around the world. every time we have made a decision do you know what we are going to have clean air. the predictions were everything

would fall apart and low and be hold turns out that american innovation makes getting clean air a lot less expensive than people expected and happens a lot faster than expected. when we made a decision that we were going to double fuel efficiency standards on cars everybody said it's going to ruin the american auto industry and the american auto industry has been booming over the last couple years. acid rain. when georgia hw bush instituted a system to charge for the emissions that were causing acid rain they said you can't do that and it's going to ruin business and turned out it was smoother, quicker, faster, better and acid rain folks who were born, i don't know, some of you reporters are getting younger or i'm getting older, may not remember it but that was a big deal. most folks don't remember it any more because it got solved and there is no reason why the same

won't happen here. now do i think there is going to be a lot of noise and campaigning next year about how we are going to stop paris in its tracks? there will probably be a lot of noise like that. do i actually think that two years from now, three years from now even republican members of congress are going to look at it and say that is a smart thing to do? i don't think they will. keep in mind that right now the american republican party is the only major party that i can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change. it's an out liar. many of the key signatories to this deal, the architects of this deal come from center right governments. even the far right parties in many of these countries and they

may not like immigrants for example but they admit yeah the science tells us we got to do something about climate change. so my sense is that you know this is something that may be an advantage in terms of short term politics in the republican primary and it's not something that is going to be a winner for republicans long-term. >> you mentioned leadership, is it embarrassing to you the other party denies climate change? >> no, it's because first of all i'm not a member of that party. second of all it didn't stop us from being the leader in getting this done. i mean this is something i've been working on now for five, six years. when i went to copenhagen i essentially engaged in 24 hours after diplomacy to salvage from a pretty chaotic process the

basic principle that all countries had to participate. we couldn't have a rigid division between developed countries and developing countries when it came to solving this problem. that was the initial foundation for us then working with other countries, culminating in the joint announcement with china, bringing in india, bringing in brazil and the other big, emerging countries and working with the europeans and getting this done, this would not have happened without american leadership. and by the way the same is true for the iran nuclear deal, the same is true for the trans pacific partnership, the same is true for stamping out ebola. something you guys may recall from last year which was the potential end of the world. you know, at each juncture what we've said is that american's

strength and american exceptionalism is not just a matter of us bombing somebody, more often it's a matter of us convening, setting the agenda, pointing to other nations in a direction that is good for everybody and good for u.s. interests, engaging in painstaking diplomacy, leading by example and sometimes the results don't come overnight. they don't come the following day. but they come. and this year what you really saw was that steady, persistent leadership on many initiatives that i began when i first came into office. all right. >> mr. president. >> i've got april. >> mr. president, i want to ask

you something about criminal justice and the stuff you said and your administration contends the united states is 5% of the world's population and 25% of the global jail population, what legislation are you supporting that will significantly test incarceration in the country and going back to the assad issue does assad have to go to different heights? >> well, we are going to defeat i.s.i.s. and we are going to do so by systematically squeezing them and cutting off supply lines and cutting off financing and taking out their leadership and taking out their forces and infrastructure and do so with partnership with forces on the ground that sometimes are spotty, sometimes need capacity building, need our assistance, need our training but we are seeing steadily progress in many of these areas. and so they are going to be on

the run. now, they are going to continue to be dangerous so let me just be very clear because whenever i say that we have made progress in squeezing the territory they control or made real in roads against them what people will say is, well, if something happens around the world then obviously that must not be true. but in any battle, in any fight, even as you make progress there is still dangers involved. and i.s.i.l.'s capacity both to infiltrate western countries with people who have traveled to syria or traveled to iraq and the savviness of their social media, their ability to recruit disaffected individuals who may be french or british or even

u.s. citizens will continue to make them dangerous for quite sometime. but we will systematically go after them. now, in order for us to stamp them out thoroughly, we have to eliminate lawless areas in which they cannot still roam. so we can disable them, we can dismantle much of their infrastructure, greatly reduce the threat that they pose to the united states, our allies and our neighbors but in the same way that al-qaeda is pinned down and has much more difficulty carrying out any significant attacks because of how we have systematically dismantled them they still pose a threat, they are still operatives interested in carrying out terrorist attacks because they still

operate in areas between pakistan and afghanistan or more prominently right now in yemen that are hard to reach and our long-term goal has to be able to stabilize the areas so they don't have any safe haven and in order for us to do that in syria there has to be an end to the civil war and there has to be an actual government that has a police capacity and a structure in these areas that currently aren't governed. and it is my firm belief and the belief of the experts in this administration that so long as assad is there we cannot achieve that kind of stability inside of syria. and, you know, i think the history over the last several years indicates as much. so that's going to continue to

be a top priority for us. moving aggressively on the military tract and not letting i.s.i.l. take a breath and pounding away at them with our special forces and our air strikes and the training and advising of partners who can go after them, but we also have to keep very aggressive on this diplomatic tract in order for us to bring countries together. all right? everybody, on criminal justice reform i answered the question. i'm hopeful. >> legislation, supporting. >> in april what i said was that i strongly support the senate legislation that already has been put forward. i'm hopeful that the house can come up with legislation that follows the same principles which is to make sure that we are doing sentencing reform but we are also doing a better job in terms of reducing resit --

recitivism and if we can do that i'm optimistic we can make a difference and when you use the term mass incarceration statistically the overwhelming majority of people who are incarcerated are in state prisons and state facilities for state crimes. we can only focus on federal law and federal crimes and so there is still going to be a large population of individuals who are incarcerated even for nonviolent drug crimes because this is a trend that started in the late 80s and 90s and accelerated at the state levels. but if we can show at the federal level that we can be

smart on crime, more cost effective, more just, more proportionate, then we can set a trend for other states to follow as well. and that is our hope. this is not going to be something that is reversed overnight so just to go back to my general principle, april, it took 20 years for us to get to the point we are now. and it will be 20 years probably before we reverse some of these major trends. okay everybody i got to get to star wars. thank you. thank you guys. appreciate you. thank you. >> the president joking at the end there, he started with a star wars reference and end the year end news conference with a star wars reference and quickly and let's get to mike and i ask you this whenever we wrap up one of these events, what were the takeaways for you and then we

are drill down? >> well, first of all i think the president over all was very buoyant and started off by listing what he views as the many accomplishments and carried over into the rest of the questioning and there are some eyebrows raised with what he said with syria and arab spring and he recounted a conversation he had with putin about assad and he said he is right about syria and will raise some eyebrows and certainly the president continues to be shall we say kind of prickly when it comes to the issue of syria and in the face of so much criticism and the back and forth he has gone through with vladimir putin and on the issue of guantanamo bay and next year guns, guantanamo bay and trade and talking to april of national urban radio criminal justice

reform, the major ticket items the president will be tackling and on guantanamo bay there are 17 inmates cleared for transfer, 107 and down to less than a hundred and probably 90 if you do the math, less than 100 at the end of the year and the irreversible minimum of individuals who cannot be tried in article three or civilian court in the united states, a lot of people dispute that notion, that concept that these people, that this irreducible minimum of what is regarded as hard core individuals who remain at guantanamo whether that is an active description but over all i think you heard the president talk up the economy. he talked a lot about foreign policy and about sierra in particular and putin and certainly about this issue of surveillance and social media in the wake of the san bernardino attacks, tony. >> all right mike and back to you i believe in a second, we are working on timing here and let's get to jamie mcintyre and

jamie same question for you takeaways. >> well, you know, i think when you heard president obama say that he is going to hand i.s.i.l. a lasting defeat he also essentially acknowledged the weakst part of the strategy and reliance of other forces on the ground, not u.s. forces to really carry out the dirty dangerous fighting that has to be done to defeat i.s.i.l. and sometimes the united states is going to have to work with forces that are spotty i think is the term he used and that is a real challenge. you know, when you talk about the special operations forces that are operating in syria a lot of people think what could 50 or less fewer the special operations forces actually accomplish battling i.s.i.l. in syria and what people don't understand is the main mission the forces have is trying to find the local forces on the ground that are worth supporting and worth working with and as they