region and that's why i said to them, let's double down and partner much more effectively to improve our intelligence capacity and our interdiction capacity so that fewer of those arm shipments are getting through the net. but the legal authorities we're still possess and obviously we got our own unilateral prohibitions and sanctionses in place around nonnuclear issues like support for hezbollah and those remain in place. on terms of the larger issues in the middle east, obviously, that's a longer discussion. i think my key goal when i turn over the keys to the president, the next president is that we are on track to defeat isil.

that they are much more contained and we're moving from the right direction there. that we have jump-started a process to resolve the civil war in syria which is like an en sore in the region and is giving refuge to terrorist organizations who are taking make age of that chaos to only hat in iraq, not have we pushed back isil, but we have also created an environment in which sunni, to and kurd are starting operate and function together and to be in a conversation with all of our pardonners in the region about how we have strengthened their security partnerships so they feel they

can address any potential threats that may come including threats from iran. and that includes providing additional additional security assurances and cooperation to israel, building on the unprecedented cooperation that we have already put in place and support that we have already put in place. it includes the work that we have done with the g.c.c. of the camp david making sure we execute that. if we have done those things than the problems in the middle east will not be solved and ultimately it's not the job of the president of the united states to solve every problem in the middle east. the people of the middle east have to solve some of these problems ourselves. i think we can provide that next president at least a foundation for continued progress in these various areas. the last thing i would say and is is a longer term issue is

we have to address the youth in the region with jobs and opportunity and a better vision for the future so that they are anhilistic by the violent dead-end that organizations like isil offer. again, we can't do that entirely by ourselves, but we can partner with well intentioned organizations, states, n.g.o.s, religious leaders in the region. we have to do a better job of that than we have been doing so far. all right, michael crowley. michael: thank you. you alluded earlier to iran's

role in syria, just to focus on that for a moment. many analysts and some former members of your administration believe that the kind of negotiated political settlement that you say is necessary in syria will require working directly with iran and giving iran an important role. do you agree and is that a dialogue you'll be actively seeking and what about the fight against isis, what would it take for there to be explicit cooperation between the u.s. and iran? president obama: i do agree we're not solving the problems in syria unless there is buy-in from the russians, the iranians, the turks, our gulf partners. it's too chaotic. there are too many factions. there is too much money and too many arms flooding into the zone. t's gotten caught up in both sectarian conflict and geopolitical jockeying and in order for us to resolve it,

there is going to have to be agreement among the major powers that are interested in syria that this is not going to be one on the battlefield. so iran is one of those players and i think that it's important for them to be part of that conversation. i want to repeat what i said earlier. we have not and i don't anticipate any time in the near future restored normal diplomatic relations with iran, so i do not foresee a formal set of agreements with iran in terms of how we're conducting campaign, but clearly iran has influence in iraq. iraq has a majority shia population. they have relationships to

iran. some are natural. we expect somebody like prime minister abaddy to meet with and negotiate and work with iran as its neighbor. some are less legitimate where ou see iran financing shia milishas that in the past have killed american soldiers and in the future may carry out atrocities when they move into sunni areas. we're working with our diplomats on the ground as well as our military teams on the ground to assess where can we appropriately at least econflict and where can we work with the prime minister around the overall to regain the sovereignty.

where do we tell him, you know what, what iran is doing there is a problem and we can't cooperate in that area, for example, unless you get those folks out of there because we're not going to have our troops even in advisory or training roles looking over their shoulders because they're not sure what might happen to them. shows conversations have been ongoing. i think they will continue. the one thing you can count on is that any work that the u.s. government does or the u.s. military does in iraq with other partners on the ground is premised on the idea that they are reporting to under the chain of command of the iraqi government and iraqi security forces. if we don't have confidence that ultimately the p.m. is directing those soldiers, then it's tough for us to have any kind of direct relationship.

major garrett. thank you, mr. president. as you well know there are four americans in iran, three held on trumped-up charges according to your administration, one whereabouts unknown. can you tell the country, sir, why are you content with all of the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscious of this nation, the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four americans. and last week the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said under no circumstances should there be any relief for iran in terms of ballistic missiles or conventional weapons. it was perceived that was a last-minute capitulation in these negotiations leaving the meant gone feel you let the joint chiefs of staff out to dry. would you care to comment? president obama: i give you credit for how you craft those questions.

the idea that i'm content with american citizens languishing , major that's -- major, that's nonsense and you should know better. you have met with the families of some of those folks. nobody is content. and our diplomats and our teams are working diligently to try to get them out. if the question is why we did not tie the negotiations to their release, think about the logic that that creates. suddenly iran realizes you know what, maybe we can get additional concessions out of the americans by holding these individuals. it makes it much more difficult for us to walk away if iran somehow thinks a nuclear deal

is dependent in some other fashion on a nuclear deal. if we had walked away from the nuclear deal, we would still be pushing them just as hard to get those folks out. that's why those issues are not connected. we are working every single day to try to get them out and out until to get they're rejoined with their families. to the chairman's testimony, to some degree i already answered this with carol. we are not taking the pressure off iran with respect to arms and ballistic missiles. as i just explained, not only do we keep in place five years the arms embargo under this particularly new u.n. resolution, not only do we maintain the eight years of the ballistic missiles under this resolution, we have a host of other multilateral and unilateral authorities to allow us to take action where we see

iran engaged in those activities, whether it's six years from now or 10 years from now. so we not lost those legal authorities and, in fact, part of my pitch to the g.c.c. countries as well as to prime minister netanyahu is we should do a better job making sure that iran is not engaged in sending arms to organizes like hezbollah and as i just indicated, that means improving our intelligent capacity and our interdiction capacity with our partners. ok. april ryan. april: thank you, mr. president. i want to change the subject a bit. earlier this year on the flight to selma, you said on matters of race, you will close remaining gaps that are left in state and federal government. now, how discrimination justice

reform fit into that equation and what gaps remain for you in the, towards the end of your presidency and also, what does it mean to travel to kenya, your father's homeland in the next couple of weeks as president of the united states? and lastly, would you revoke the medal of freedom from bill cosby? tom brady you stuffed a lot in there, april -- president obama: you stuffed a lot in there. >> i learned from jonathan carl. president obama: who, jonathan carl, is that what you said? on criminal justice reform, obviously i gave a lengthy speech yesterday, this i have been thinking about a lot, first working eric holder and loretta lynch, we have been working on along with other prosecutors of the u.s. attorneys office, it's an outgrowth of the task force

that we put together post-ferguson and the garner ase in new york. and i don't think that the criminal justice system is of usly the sole source racial tension in this country resolution. it's part of the broader set of challenges that we face in creating a more perfect union. the good news is that this is one of those rare issues where got some republican and democratic interesting as well as federal, state, and local interest in solving the problem. i think people recognize there are violent criminals out there

and they got to be locked up. we need to have tough prosecutors. we have to support our law enforcement officials. police are in a tough job and helping to keep us safe and we are grateful and thankful to them. he know this huge spike in incarcerations is also driven drug offenses where the sentencing is completely out of proportion with the crime. and that costs taxpayers enormous amounts of money. it is debilitating communities who are seeing huge proportions of the young men in their communities finding themselves with a criminal regard rendering them oftentimes unemployable. so it compounds problems that these communities already have.

so i am very appreciative of folks like dick durbin and cory booker alongside mike lee and rand paul and other folks in the house who are working gether to see if we can both reduce some of these mandatory minimums around nonviolent drug offenders, again, i tend to not have a lot of sympathy when it comes to violent crime. when it comes to nonviolent drug offenses, is there work that we can do to reduce mandatory minimums, create more diversion problems like drug courts. then can we do a better job on the rehabilitation side inside of prisons so that we are preparing these folks who are eventually going to be released to re-enter the workforce. on the back end, are we doing more to link them up with re-entry programs that are

effective. this may be an area where we could have some really legs icant bipartisan that doesn't -- legislation that doesn't eliminate the challenges that we got. getting them in the court system in the first place, early childhood education, good jobs, making sure that we're not segregating folks in impoverished communities that have no contact with opportunity. but this can make a difference. i met these four ex-offenders as i said yesterday and what was remarkable was how they had turned their lives around. these were some folks who had been some pretty tough criminals. one had served 10 years. one was a repeat offender that ad served a lot of time. in each instance, somebody

intervened at some point in their lives once they had already been in the criminal justice system, once they had already gotten in trouble and said, you know what, i think you can live a difficult way and i'm willing to help you. and that one person, an art teacher or e.d. somebody who was willing to offer a guy a job, i want to give a shout-out to five guys because one of the guys there was an ex-felon and five guys gave him a job and he ended up becoming a manager at the store and was able to completely turn his life around. the point was somebody reached out to that person and gave a chance. how about reaching out to these guys when they're 10, 11, 12, or 8 or waiting until they went through a criminal justice

program. that's part of why we're doing my brother's keeper. this is an area where i feel modestly optimistic. i think in the meantime, we got to stay on top of keeping the crime rate down because part of the reason i think there is a conversation taking place is violent crime has significantly dropped. last year we saw both incarcerations and the crime rate drop and this can always turn if we start seeing renewed problems in terms of violent crime and there is parts of the country where violent crime is still a real problem including my hometown of chicago and in baltimore and part of what i have asked attorney general lynch to do is to figure out how can we refocus attention if we're going to do a package of criminal justice reforms, part of it would be actually having a greater police presence and more law enforcement in the communities that are really getting hit hard and haven't seen some of the drops in violent crime that we have seen

in places like manhattan, for example. with respect to the visit to kenya, it's obviously a thing i'm looking forward to you. i'll be honest with you, visiting kenya as a private more is probably meaningful it me than visiting as president because i can actually get outside of a hotel room or a conference center. and just the logistics of visiting a place is always tough as president, but it's obviously symbolically important and my hope is that we can deliver a message that the u.s. is a strong partner, ot just for kenya, but for sub-saharan africa generally built around the progress of issues of health and education, focus on counterterrorism issues that are important in east africa and some of the tragedies that have happened inside of kenya and continued

to encourage democracy and the reduction of corruption inside that country, but sometimes 's held back this incredibly ifted and blessed country. and with respect to the medal of freedom, there is no precedent for revoking a medal. we don't have that mechanism. and as you know, i tend to make it a policy not to comment on the specifics of cases where there might still be, if not criminal, than civil issues involved. you give a , if woman or a man for that matter

without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape. and in this country, any civilized country should have no tolerance for rape. all right, have we exhausted a round of questions here? i think there is a helicopter that is coming, but i really have been enjoying this iran debate. topics that may not have been touched upon, criticisms that ou heard that i did not answer , go ahead. i know josh is getting a little stressed here but i just want to make sure that we're not leaving any stones unturned here. reporter: thanks, mr. president, i'll be brief. the argument is made that iran

has a cash windfall, billions to spend. your people seem confident they're going to spend it at home. why are you confident they're not spending on arming hezbollah, arming others, et cetera? president obama: i think that's a great question and i'm glad you brought it up. i think it is a mistake to characterize our belief that they will just spend it on aycare centers and roads and paying down debt. we think they have to do some of that because rohani was elected specifically on the premise of improving the economic situation inside of iran, that economy has tanked since we imposed sanctions. so the notion that they're just immediately going to turn over 100 billion to the irgc or the force i think runs contrary to all of the intelligence we have

seen and the commitments that the iranian government has made. do we think that with the sanctions coming down that iran will have some additional resources for its military and for some of the activities in the region that are a threat to us and a threat to our allies. a likelihood that they have some additional resources. do i think it's a game changer for them? no. they are currently supporting hezbollah and there is a ceiling, a pace at which they could support hezbollah even more particularly in the chaos that is taking place in syria. so can they potentially try to get more assistance there, yes. should we put more resources

into blocking them from getting that assistance to hezbollah? yes. is the incremental additional money that they've got to try to destabilize the region or send other proxies, is that more important than preventing iran from getting a nuclear weapon? no. so i think, again, this is a matter of us making a determination of what is our prior. the other problem with the argument that folks have been making about oh, this is a windfall and suddenly iran is flush with cash and they're going to take over the world, and i say that not tongue in cheek because if you look at some of the statements by some of our critics, you wouldty that iran is, in fact, going to take over the world as a consequences of this deal, which i think would be news to he iranians.

that argument is also premised on the notion that if there is no deal, if congress votes down this deal, that we're able to keep sanctions in place with the same vigor and effectiveness as we have right now. and that i can promise you is not true. that is absolutely not true. i want to repeat, we're not writing iran a check. this is iran's money that we are able to block from them having access to. that required the cooperation of countries all around the world, many of whom really want .o purchase oil from iran the imposition of sanctions, their cooperation with us has cost them billions of dollars, made it harder for them. they've been willing to do that because they believed we were

sincere in trying to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully and they considered that a priority, a high enough priority that they were willing to cooperate with us on sanctions. if they saw us walking away or more specifically if they saw he u.s. congress effectively vetoing the judgment of 99% of the world community that this is a deal that resolves the iranian weapons program, uclear weapons program in an equitable way, the sanction system just unraveled. so we could still maintain some of our unilateral sanctions but it would be far less effective as it was before we were able to put together these multilateral sanctions. so maybe they don't get $100 billion, maybe they get $60

billion or $70 billion instead. the price for that that we've is is that now iran pursuing a nuclear weapon. we have no inspectors on the ground. we don't know what's going on. they're still getting some cash windfall. we have lost correct in the eyes of the world. we will have effectively united iran and divided ours from our allies, a terrible position to be in. i made some notes about the other arguments that i have heard here. that's a good one. the notion -- so let's address this issue of, because that's the other big argument that's been made. let's assume that the deal

holds for 10 years so iran doesn't cheat. now at the end of 10 years, some of the restrictions have been lifted, although, remember, others have stayed in place for 15 years. for example, they still got to keep their stockpiles at a minimal level for 15 years. the inspections don't go away. those are still in place. 15, 20 years from now, their commitment under the nonproliferation treaty does not go away. that's still in place. the additional protocol that they have to sign up for under this deal which requires a more extensive inspection and verification mechanism, that stays in place. so there is no scenario in which a u.s. president is not

12, 13, ger position 15 years from now if in fact iran decided at that point they still wanted to get a nuclear weapon. keep in mind, we will have maintained a one-year breakout time. we will have kept them under severe restrictions, had observers. they will have made international commitments supported by countries around the world. hold on a second. and if at that point they finally decided, you know what, we're going to cheat or not even cheat. at that point they decide openly we're now pursuing a nuclear weapon, they're still in violation of this deal and the commitments they have made internationally. and so we are still in a position to mobilize the world

community to say, no, you can't have a nuclear weapon and they're not in a stronger position to get a nuclear weapon at that point, they're in a weaker position than they are today. we are not in a weaker position to respond. criticseverything the , that atng were true the end of 10 years or 12 years now is in a iran position to decide it wants a that they are at a breakout point, they won't be at a breakout point that is more dangerous than the one they are in right now. they won't be at a breakout point that is shorter than the

one that exists today. least maket we at sure that for the next 10-15 years, they are not getting a nuclear weapon and we can verify decideafterwards if they they have changed their mind, we are much more knowledgeable about their capabilities and still inr programs and a position to take whatever actions we would take today? >> [indiscernible] president obama: i'm always hopeful that behavior may change for the sake of the iranian people as well as people in the region. there are young people there who were not getting the opportunities they deserve because ofconflict,

sectarianism, because of poor governance, because of repression that should oppression, because of terrorism. we shouldopeful that do something about that but i'm not banking on that. to say this deal is the right thing to do. it is incumbent on the critics of this deal to explain how an american president is in a worse position 12, 13, 15 years from now if in fact at that point iran says we are going to pull out, kick out inspectors and go for a nuclear bomb. presidentppens, that will be in a better position been rightld have

now. the choices would be tougher today than they would be for that president 15 years from now. yet heard logic that refutes that. i think we have hit the big themes. i will address this again. i suspect this is not the last we've heard of this debate. the president of the united states at a news conference in the east room of the white house . that lasted a little over an hour. the main focus of the news conference, the nuclear deal with iran. congressional briefings have begun. he has reached out to congress because congress has 60 days to pass this agreement that he and john kerry and all of the negotiators took so long and worked so hard at securing. , he wasortant to him stressing that our relationship with iran will not be

normalized, he doesn't expect a normal relationship with iran. that is going to be a situation this leaves us in a position to react forcefully if iran does violate the agreement. puts us in a position of power and he does not think it puts iran in a position of power after the 15 years comes to an end. says the president t argument i've been hearing that buys larg defies logic. we have major developments underway in athens. matt: there have been protests and possibly riding in athens. do we have a live shot? david is standing by we are tape -- they have

been throwing molotov cocktails. this started within the last hour. the greek parliament began debating the eu agreement at 8:00 a.m. our time this morning and is expected to vote this evening. a long day in greek parliament and the vote is yet to come, but the protesting and writing just started to get violent. rioting just started to get violent it we are witnessing rioters threw molotov cocktails. what sparked this? just said and that's when things turn. people have been gathering in front of parliament. protesting, passing out and hangingalking out as this debate was underway inside the parliament building.

soment down to shoot footage of what was going on and things turn on a dime. there were molotov cocktails thrown on the south side of the square. right police outside. -- riot police outside. thousands of people have gathered. many have come down this way. things really turned in the last couple of minutes. the explosions continued. we just heard a couple more. have come outce and have begun using tear gas as well. you say the right police beenot police have stationed there. was there anticipation early on that things might turn violent? the past several days and weeks, those protests have been peaceful. this was the biggest one i've

seen since i've been here in athens. there was talk this morning about this protest, how big it was going to be. they were reports that anarchist groups would be here as well. when we were walking around, we were surprised -- people gathering, talking, reading literature, holding signs. we saw the flax, the banners of the anarchist groups. matt: you've been there for a week now. time youmost of the are around during the daylight when you don't see these anarchist groups out. how strong is that action of people that are pushing for violence, disruption and chaos? we've heard there is a neighborhood that has a lot of anarchists living in it. there were a lot of leftist

groups, including the communist party planning to come here tonight. they are leading the main opposition to the plan that you mentioned. if you were to look at the signs down there, all of the merging forgiveness of the debt, voting no to this plan. you see on the screen there, the protests have taken a violent turn. police disperse and tear gas. we will follow this story and bring you any developments as soon as we get them. matt: let's go from iran to greece to back here in the u.s., the fed has released its beige book. i want to get reaction, market reaction from the newsroom. looking at the numbers right now, the dow and s&p and nasdaq all just slightly in positive territory for most of the day.

, the dowe past minute and nasdaq did flip into the negative territory and we can see the s&p has as well. a bit of reaction here, but generally speaking, not much movement across the board as we andjanet yellen speak president obama speaking on iran. mark: thank you so much. out whilebook came the president was speaking. let's get some perspective on the fed's beige book report. let's bring in the chief u.s. economist at this and mark diesel from pimco. thank you both so much. let me start with you. anything surprising in the report? >> it seemed a little bit more downbeat at the margin. i was looking for anecdotal

evidence on retail activity and wage growth. we got mixed retail, uneven manufacturing and wage growth only modest pickup. is any of this terribly surprising? no, it's consistent with what we've seen in the data. one of the things i did not find surprising -- it tends to be kind of boring. the border towns or border had noticed some weakness due to the strengthening dollar. tourism which was up everywhere else was down here in new york. i assume for the same reasons. is that starting to be something the fed has to take into account? will that affect liftoff? >> the weakness in the new york district is something that has

been going on and was reported in the previous beige book. matt: a broadway problem? nothing good? >> the strong dollar and external demand. when they talk about border town retail weakness, they are referring to the canadian border where the currency has weekend quite considerably. matt: if janet yellen starts to raise rates and 18 other central around the world are still putting some sort of qe into effect, doesn't capital flow here? >> a gradual tightening cycle is already in the price. the only way to push the dollar higher would be to speed up the projected rate pass. we think there will be further gradual appreciation, but nothing as dramatic as we've seen over the past month.

how do the low energy prices factor into what we've seen region by region? >> there continues to be weakness in the city districts. those are exposed to the energy sector and that is spilling over into the manufacturing sector. the pace of contraction and manufacturing is starting to abate. as all of the companies that -- production is leveling off. we are close to reaching a bottom in terms of capital investment in the oil and gas sector. that has been a drop in growth that should start to dissipate going forward. and isge book suggests still not quite apparent that consumers are really willing to spend the savings from lower gasoline prices. you atet me go out to

pimco. is this starting to be a concern? more and more data points come in showing us these low energy prices are not turning into retail spending dollars. , weakness and manufacturing, it's starting to become a real issue. it's not that they are only buying cars and nothing else, it's a problem. mark: we are quite constructive on the consumer, 68% of the economy. and janetbook yellen's testimony highlighted that you've got strengthen labor market -- in the labor market. the auto sales were good, the housing market is turning sharply. one thing a lot of people are not focused on, if you look at the bank earnings this week, loan origination is up 9-12%. the banks are reengaged, mortgage applications up 30% for

some of these banks. the consumer animal spirit is improving. things are starting to lend again. we are looking at this quite constructive on the u.s. economy given the data that has been coming out. matt: to be fair, on the other side, you do see labor tightness in a lot of regions, even in the dallas area where they had weaker manufacturing. will that start to pick up? will we see wage growth because of that? we do think wages are going to start to pick up. if you look at the unemployment rate, it has come down in the last year .8%. it has come down to .2% in the last two years. 2.2% in the last two years. it's becoming more difficult to hire skilled workers. for housing, if you look at the

25-34-year-old cohort, that job that is over 700,000 incremental jobs added over the last year is the strongest it has been in 15 years. ,hen you decompose this data the labor market data is getting much better. that's a sign that wages will improve. one of the concerns janet yellen expressed when she was talking to lawmakers today, warned about this, one of the key uncertainties that could weigh on u.s. growth. we went to david in athens and you saw those pictures, the showdown in athens between the police and some writers -- rioters. will that affect u.s. growth near-term? mark: we ultimately think it's going to play itself out through a stronger dollar. there's no question the u.s. economy is doing better than europe. greece has been a big headwind, the markets have been focused on greece.

the u.s. economy is picking up steam in europe is trending along at a low growth rate. the ecb will likely reengage and could even accelerate qe. the opposite is happening here in the united states where the fed is set to raise rates. femae essentially this playing out in global divergence where the dollar will continue to strengthen versus the euro. -- this theme playing out. matt: what about these issues we see overseas in greece and china and iran? are you concerned about any kind of spillover that would affect our growth? annette: there will most likely --very modest and manageable i wanted to go back to the testimony this morning. she was asked about what are those risks and could they change the outlook for fed policy and she said, look, when we met in june and produced are forecast, we knew these risks were out there and we discounted

them in our forecast. knowing that, we still thought it would be appropriate to hike rates this year. the fed is discounting this as well. things could evolve differently, but in all likelihood, these are manageable problems. mark: u.s. housing, you believe it is still a bright spot given what's happened in the labor market. why? have beent pimco bullish on housing for 3-4 years and we are still very positive. household formation is picking up. you've added a lot of jobs in that first time buyer cohort. 18-34-year-olds living at home right now. that will change. lows. is at 15 year you are not having enough inventory relative to demand. inventories are at or near

15 year lows. we are quite constructive on housing. the sector can grow at 10% nominal growth rate, two times faster than the overall economy simply because you are still recovering from a very low base. are you as constructive on housing and the retail and the consumer? and at: absolutely. housing, i agree 100%. we are under producing to the tune of 400,000 units annualized. there is a lot of ketchup that has to happen on the construction side. what about the consumer side? retail sales numbers. if consumers are buying cars because they have to. ton will they start going closing stores -- clothing stores? mark: they have been doing that,

but doing it in a choppy fashion. it's difficult to be bearish on the consumer when the labor market is getting close to full employment and you are starting to see anecdotal evidence of wage pressures and consumer confidence is at levels consistent with real spending. i still have to go with the underlying fundamentals. let's let you get the final word here. liftoff expected in a couple months in september. mark: we are. we are confident that the data is strong enough and the fundamentals will lead to a federal liftoff in september. we don't think the market has priced that in. we think the front end of the was yield curve is vulnerable. we think rates will have higher at the front end of the curve. a very long afternoon.

thank you both for your patience as we went through the president's news conference. matt: we are still keeping our eyes on what's going on outside parliament in athens. protesters getting violent, throwing molotov cocktails and police. please responding with tear gas. -- police responding with tear gas. of are looking at footage what looks like a live shot, it has called down a little bit -- calmed down a little bit. these debates in the greek parliament started at 8:00 a.m. new york time. they have been in there already for already seven hours. they will not vote for another three or four hours. it will be a late night in athens. it's a big deal. minister gave an

interview last night. he says he understands that he disappointed some people. when he was elected this winter, ofwas elected on a platform we cannot deal with this austerity anymore because it is crippling the greek ability to grow. their debt to gdp is like 175% now. he said we will fight the austerity. polls on july the 5. they agreed with premised or the prime minister. then come a deal is made were the austerity measures now are tougher than the ones that were first implement it. -- implemented. matt: lexus of risk saying he tsipras saying it

was blackmail. it looks like things have called down a little bit. have police removed the violent protesters? david: it seems like it has gotten noticeably quieter. i was just looking over the roof -- the protest has moved up to -- it'se parliament been many minutes since we heard explosions. there is still cheering and chanting, but it seems like much less than there was here 15 minutes ago. mark: we were just talking about this comments made on state tv last night. onk us through what is going and what you have heard so far about possible defections from lawmakers upset that they feel the prime minister capitulated

when he was negotiating with the international creditors could david: parliament began meeting in athens. there have been speeches all day. starting last night with an interview you mentioned when he sat down with state television, the first time he defended his agreement to the steel with the european units -- this deal with the european union. the former finance minister in greatat a part detail, speaking on the floor of parliament about it. syriza the members of signing a statement against this particular plan. i'm just looking at these headlines crossing now. is current finance minister saying that greece and europe need alliances during austerity,

europe will be tested in the coming years. walk us through the timeline. they started the debate early this morning. they are not expected to vote until late. when can we start expecting to see headlines roll across the terminal about the actual vote, about action on this debate? david: i interviewed some of you from the centrist party this morning. he said he was looking forward to a very long day, debate that could last until 6:00 the morning. we've been told that that could have been much sooner. with all that's happening here with the debate inside the parliament so robust, so intense , it's hard to say when it's going to happen. you within theto 1:00 hour and you were talking to us about the conversations

that you've had with the local business owners. some of the people on the ground there. i was wondering if you could go over that again. what have these people been telling you about this situation involving greece? david: people are frustrated with how long this process has taken. thathave said candidly they are happy that some agreement has been reached. happy as a country to be moving on in some small way. you talk to small business owners that say it's not so good here because they are well aware of what that plan entails. broadening the tax base. raising the sales tax. i was talking to somebody who owns a small business and he said you don't have to be an economist to understand that by raising the sales tax, that will

put an undue burden on the poor people in this country. you have people who make 600 euros a month worried that they will have to pay more than that to the government every month. that's what people are worried about. mark: a lot of activity in athens. be safe. a lot of stuff going on in the streets. down -- calmedd down. the formerll talk to defense minister from germany in just a moment. mark: see you tomorrow. ♪

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matt: welcome back to the bloomberg market day. i am joined by alix steel. a lot going on. in the last hour, we heard from president obama and a little protest turned to riots in athens, greece. on thenbelievable images ground. part of me wonders why this did not happen any earlier. the groundook on that what is happening. can you set the scene for us? have subsidedtest a bit. we can still hear some chanting and protesting on the ground, but we went out to see what was going on. for the last couple of hours, it has been very peaceful. we hear 13,000 people have aroundd in the square parliament. when the sun set, things began to turn. a few molotov cocktails were thrown south of the square. that