>> stocks closing mixed this afternoon. >> the question is "what'd you miss?" >> we breakdown results in minutes. unleashes aey package of stimulus including a rate cut as britain feel the effects of the brexit vote. >> we look ahead to the brexit jobs report. ♪ >> we begin with our market minutes. a mixed close is generous. the much little change. the dow down two points. 6.5 points.aining if you look within the s&p 500,

six out of 10 of the sectors closed down. financial and energy. >> it was interesting that -- scarlet reminded me to think you look at the vicks and it is down 12.36. the imap is what i want to focus on the s&p and i will type it out so it comes out correctly. i am pointed up, i'm just waiting -- mike, bring it up. you can see materials is the beginner. health, defensive sector and financials the big losers. financials because they did so well yesterday. take a look at some of the losers. i may be focused too much on the winners. it is interesting to take a look at the big losers on the day. metlife is a huge one. the miss on earnings.

>> government bond markets, the big story is the bank of england , u.k. 10 year yields getting its all-time 10 year low. more bond buying and corporate bond buying, everything. there's also reaction and u.s. 10 year yields as well. poundcurrencies, the tumbling the most in four weeks. 133 to 131. it is still well within that range at settle into after the initial brexit shot. what i do want to focus on is the south african currency. that chart shows the dollar losing steam. this is after the ruling african national congress lost ground in local elections. the national vote is set to solve -- fall below 60% for the first time.

the opposition party has been generating a lot of headlines because it has been campaigning to root out corruption and making it easier to do business. >> hence the strength ofthe oppn the rand. >> after getting slammed, oil had a big two days. this is a today chart of west texas intermediate crude. up 5.67%. that has been the big commodity story. nice bounce back and oil. >> in terms of earnings reports, let's bring in linkedin. $1.13. that looks to be a big beat. million.ine, $932.7 also a beat on the top line as well. you can see the stock will be slightly higher after the trading. ulativee members, -- cum

members, 450 million. >> this would have been an exciting earnings for investors if it was not cap's by the microsoft buy. -- ijust do not feel like use facebook like taking transit. >> people use it if they are looking for a job. fortunately you are employed. >> for now. >> let's get more insight into tonight's historic -- he is with us from his new york office. is done college and economics professor danny. let's start with you. did mark carney throw enough at it to avert a recession? did he do enough? >> i'm not sure he is not enough

to revert a succession but i think it is a darn good start. it is clear this is an opener and the minutes actually say a majority of members thought they probably could have cut even further. , so -- so, this is a cut in rates. the one thing i think he made a big error on is not doing negative rates, which probably was not a smart idea because he may well have to go there and the danger there is than if he does go there people panic and say this must be really bad. but i'm not sure if he has done enough to avert recession. we are going to wait to see is whether the new chancellor is able to do anything. we will see. point, i do great not want to talk over that. as far as negative rates, it is kind of controversial. they have not proven out so well in japan or in europe, certain

not for banks profitability. what you think about that decision? >> i'm very sympathetic to the notion that negative interest rates are sufficiently peculiar. you do not use them lightly. they give rise to a slower economy or even a mild recession, that may not rise to the extremity of concern to want to take you there. i'm sympathetic not too much to pre-committing not to go there -- i think the professor makes a point and i regard -- but i would not rush to go there myself, so i suppose i cannot fault them for not doing it at the bank of england. clear he does not want to go to negative interest rates at what he is going to do is to add a new term funding ism to ensure the rate cut passed on to households and businesses. is there precedent for this being effective? >> i think there is a real issue

in that regard. sectorsish -- household are fairly heavily indebted. a lot of that is mortgage debt. a lot is related to short-term interest rates. when you cut them you have cut the revenue of the banking system. and you do not want the banks to have less revenue, you want them to be healthy enough so that they will lend to support the economy. you have to do something on the other side of the ledger and i think it makes a lot of sense to be mindful of that and to create a facility like this one, in effect to insulate the banks against the shocks of that interest margin which otherwise would come. that does encourage them to pass this through to their ultimate borrowers. >> i want to go back to your criticism of mark carney for ruling out negative rates. might have to go there anyway even if he doesn't like the idea. what do negative rates accomplished from the central bankers perspective that cannot

be achieved with purchases or forward guidance or some kind of commitment? in your view that could force a central banker to go there? businessot think thoroughly as a stupid i think this is about throwing the kitchen sink at it. about doing all sorts of things you could do to add the datagiven that appears to have thought of a cliff in the last six weeks. in some sense i think of stimulus as a continuum and i know the bank does. if you cannot cut the price of money, then increase the quantity. i think as well is that what really is the fundamental difference -- let's -.1.etween plus .1 and i do not think there is a huge amount of difference. i think the answer is that this

is really about trying to do the stimulus you can, trying to get as much traction as you can from a package of measures. weekly talked about a package -- and remember, this package -- for008, i actually voted qe, then we got fiscal policy working with it. is not obvious which of these little bits separately work. i do not know the answer, i do not think anybody does. this is trying to do everything you can with post-brexit data falling off a cliff. knowing that in 2008, we do not know exactly when the hard data came in -- we did not know until june 2009 that the economy and entered recession in april 2008 other than looking at the current indicators that are collapsing around us. >> i want to ask you both about this.

when the bank of japan when to negative rates earlier this year, we saw pretty significant tumble in japanese banks. so, there was this view that the financial sector does not like negative rates. was that an improper inference to draw? the view was it is bad for the financial sector, you can see in the markets. if it is best for the financial sector, why not avoid it? i would like to get both of your perspectives starting with you, dan. >> we will see. obviously the bigger it is, presumably, the greater the difficulty. i think the earlier commentator was right. you want to make sure that you can protect your banks. i think the discussion is interesting because in 2008, we were told that .5 was the lord about. i wanted to cut below .5, i

remember. everybody said because of the range, the impact it would have on banks and buildings and others, then you could not do it. now we have come full circle. the same argument is being said again about the move -- zero seems ok, a move to negative. in some sense the banks have a chance and financial organizations have a chance to adjust to that. target, but itg into thousand eight we said you cannot go below .5, they were below today. necessarily by the beacon not go there. i think a negative rate in some it is-- you might think the cost of securing these large amounts of cash. it is not clear to me that in haven, that negative rates been a disaster. they just confirm that negative rates will survive another two years. i'm not convinced that a small negative is a disaster. isi think the real issue

that business investment is what is at stake in brexit more so than i think consumer behavior. if business investment is the issue, one thing we know is that is not that sensitive to interest rates. when all is said and done you probably are going to wind up needing a fiscal effort and if you're going to take the route of a fiscal effort, why experiment with negative interest rates which have a certain peculiarity attached to them. with the cuther and buying bonds when -- my problem's carmakers want to move out because they will now have to pay a massive tax in europe. was mark carney able to do about it other than assuage the market fears? what did he do? -- can he do? >> obviously the uncertainty is

having a major impact. report today was from the agency said they expected a negative aspect from the bow and --nover, capital spending you may be right at the bank of any cannot caps on it. a move to negative rates would not ensure that the u.k. does not go into recession. yet, this may be not enough. or other this new government is sorting out these brexit negotiations and reduced the uncertainty because investment will plummet in employment hiring is going to plummet. i agree, these may not be enough, they may be too small, they may not count. that is a really sensible point. of thing wehe kind could suck up for the entire episode, unfortunately we do not have time. thank you for joining us.

we should get them for an hour of cocktails. >> we should do live programming from there. --even without the programs even without the cameras. a quick check on earnings and how some companies are trading in the after-hours. beating expectations ahead of the microsoft deal. revenue as well as epf. priceline as well. dow jones reporting it is in talks to be sold to a private equity firm. that stock up by 30%. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ welcome to bloomberg. we are here on this thursday. as they live shot of the pentagon. we are awaiting a providential news meeting. securityary and officials to assess what is working in networking and the fight against islamic state. the president is also expected to discuss the u.s. air campaign against islamic state targets in libya. as soon as the president begins his remarks we will of course bring those to you live. in other news, florida gov. rick scott met a local -- met with in miami where it is believed more than one viruscases of the zika may have an spread through mosquito bites. we knew this pattern.

we knew rain season was coming. and they knew they were going to recess. the president and congress had to figure out how to work together. if you get elected, go work together. >> the national institutes of health will run out of money to fight the zika virus by the end of the month. republicans and democrats in congress failed to agree on additional zika funding. the white house reallocated other funds to help fight of all appeared hillary clinton leads donald trump by double digits in pennsylvania. according to a new poll, 49% of likely voters backed mrs. clinton compared to 35% for mr. trump. favorably byewed 47% of voters and unfavorably by 49% drop his view favorably by 33% of voters and unfavorably by 62%. egypt's military said the leader

of islamic state affiliate has been killed in the sinai peninsula. was killed by counterterrorism forces backed by warplanes. several of his aides along with 45 members of the group reportedly were also killed. authorities in dubai are retrieving evidence from the emirates jet that crashed landed and burst into flames this week. all 300 people on board escaped. investigators will send the plane's flight data and recorders to abu dhabi for analysis. investigators are expected to look into the landing gear with reportedly did not deploy. global news with four hours a day power more than 2600 journalists and analysts and more than 120 countries. i am mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. mark will continue to monitor the pentagon for us as we walk you through a couple of charge that we found the most interesting of the day. our deep dive. i will kick it off with one i

discovered watching tom keene on bloomberg surveillance yesterday. he had on michael purvis. here you see in white, the p/e ratio going out at 18.3 and below. blue. earnings forecast going down. the pe is getting bigger, earnings getting lower. he has raised his s&p 500 targets the 2250. he has lowered his s&p earnings 115.ast 120 to the reason is he is banking on multiple expansion to continue. he thinks pe will get into 20 or even higher than 20 in as widely has a higher s&p target would lower earnings. >> is that a function of rates?w

>> exactly. what the central banks are doing everything's ben bernanke is trying to rates? push investors into riskier assets by making safer assets useless to invest in. he has succeeded in that and so more people will be pushed into stocks to look for you. >> i like you had to look at your tie. >> i have ben bernanke on my tie today. >> ahead of this jobs report tomorrow, i'm looking at what my favorite charts i like to check. it is a chart going back three decades. the unemployment rate in blue against gdpeficit in white spirit that is reversed so the lower unemployment late -- this becauseted in a part donald trump came out and said he wanted spend a lot more to prime the pump with more deficit spending, which of course would be a break from orthodox because most people do not talk about deficit spending

especially when the economy is doing ok. but it is interesting how much the deficit is a cyclical phenomenon. we talk about policy. to spend more, spend less or cut spending or raise taxes. but ultimately what drives the deficit is the economic cycle, the business cycle. when the unemployment is high, deficits widen. when the unemployment rate is low, deficit goes down. fascinating relationship. >> you should present this to the candidates. >> i would send them an e-mail. >> unemployment is low but interest rates are also exceptionally low. it could be an argument, some of the candidates has discussed it, for borrowing a ton of money and doing something about the roads and airports in this country. >> it will be nice if that actually happened when it. >>-- happened one day. >> did i win battle of the

charts today? hilly clark was given credit over london. the chart is 2505 and the bte library. what this shows you is something scarlett alluded to earlier -- wage inflation. the bls putsieve up his number -- wages grew 2.6% . up. the forecast is for another which i think%, we would agree is better than a stick in the eye. 3.6%. of rising as unemployment is coming down, wages are going up. put, thosegreenspan were the two measures by which the fed made a decision whether or not to raise or lower interest rates. now they are very concerned about the markets. fed a captive of

the markets. >> i think this is really important simply because that there is no wage growth, no inflation. target points over and over again but look -- it is there. they tried to adjust away demographics and stuff this is something i actually think about a lot. especially in the political --ctrum, there is one group the other group often says look out well we are doing. much likeuth is housing prices, you cannot say that housing prices across the country are rising because it is a regional issue. tom keene likes to talk about the bifurcation of america. there is a book about the rising income inequality.

it is hidden by measures like this when we look at something broadly -- >> it averages it out. we talked earlier about how nike will exit the golf equipment business or lease making golf equipment, leaving the field wide open to callaway. >> real-time intraday trade analysis. >> the top chart here, we can bring it down. that is the intraday chart for callaway. the stock rose as much as 8.5%. here is where it gets interesting. this is absolute volume in the stock. bar, thelice of the blue bars those trying to sell. you can break it down and five minute a commencement how much of it is beta, how much is ask. let me raise this city can get a

better look. what percentage of the volume was bid versus ask? it pretty much was even. at different times during the day it was a very different story. you can see early on in the day the bids got pretty high around 1:00 p.m.. >> a lot of buyers around noon. the last five minutes leslie day they were no buyers. everybody was selling a stock because they wanted to take -- >> you see the stock closing right around it slow. >> this function is awesome. have yours broken down into one minute sizes. to look at andr 30 minute slices. it makes it easier to see which

part of the date were buyers, which were sellers. r.i.t.a.. so, what's going to happen? >> i'm looking for a slightly weaker than expected forecast for tomorrow. 170, the consensus is 180. i know that is a born divergence. -- boring divergence. ? we have really tremendous given the dramatic swings lately. like -- we had a weak report on the headline. >> people hand waved that away. no.e -- we had ayou are saying

there was not much going on in the economy aside from consumer spending. q2.s true for that makes these jobs reports that much more important to watch because if the labor faltering,avering or then potentially consumer spending is want to falter as well and we are simply not going to get the economic lift necessary to continue to propel the economy. >> it has not been consumer spending that is the problem. >> it is everything else. consumer spending is a solution. the question is can we see that outperformance extend into the second half of the year to continue propel in the economy? historically if we work this far below 2% wind -- trend growth

that is bad news for the economy developing downdraft. >> cai plug another function of the terminal? fucnt --plug another i love bloomberg intelligence. but i little fun on the terminal is sometimes good to have. whis go allows you to enter your own guess from what you think the nonfarm payroll is going to be. you can choose from any number of events on the drop-down menu here. you plug in nonfarm payrolls change you can see the survey right now is for a gain of 180. last month we blew it away. what is your i will use your number as my guess. i hit submit. uesscan into your ga

anytime before it comes up tomorrow. if you guess it in any other -- you get to be in the league champions. you've got rolling 10 releases, i think whis go is a great way to get involved, and you can find the smartest people on the bloomberg on this thing. scarlet: the headline number in the jobs report is that nonfarm payrolls changed, but the one that politicians look at, the one the rest of the country look sks at, is the unemployment rate. it has its flaws but it really tells what's happening in the labor economy. it's projected to come down further. it's being backed up by some of the other metrics like participation rate -- >> labor force participation, a lot of the comments that that maybe2016 -- thought that

2016 to be the year where it starts to turn higher. janet yellen was optimistic as well. but we haven't really seen that materialize yet. but i don't think that necessarily means it's not happening, just that it is happening later than expected, because wage pressures have been slow to materialize. when we see more wage inflation in the economy, we should see participation start to perk up. it's not surprising that we aren't getting much wage inflation, because the economy is moving forward at such a slow speed. joe: in your analysis today, you pointed out that it would not be completely contradictory to see continue to downshift in the pace of job creation, but due to the lack of slack, wages continue to accelerate. >> exactly. we are very lucky that this growth wall we've seen is happening at just the time the economy has achieved full employment. to get the unemployment rate moving lower, we need to see job gains on the order of about

100,000 per month. even with that first chart we showed with jpm payroll, we should -- with gdp and payroll, that still means the unemployment rate will continue to move lower. not at as fast as the pace as we have seen, but it continues to trend lower. below 5% is below full employment, which means we will get those wage pressures, providing a critical lifeline to consumer spending. joe: let me ask you the 35,000 foot question. i canter member if it was on b.i. or the website, but i saw a bloomberg view piece about the economy and this slow and steady pace at which we have been recovering. what do you think about that idea? that we're working off debt, still looking at gains in wages, and also seeing unemployment

getting down to full employment? isn't this slow and steady recovery better than a quick bubble fueled recovery that we would have had in the past? >> absolutely. it depends how slow and how steady. if we are plodding along at 2%, i think that is just fine. 2% gives us the luxury of moving very slowly to normalized monetary policy. 1%, which is what we have seen, steadyo to and to really support continued recovery. hee: is the said captain -- t fed captive to it? >> i think it is captive to economic performance. i think you can draw that conclusion, but i would say no, they are captive to economic performance, and economic performance has been extremely disappointing over the last levera

quarters. scarlet: carl, thank you. we get the jobs report tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. we are waiting for president obama to begin speaking at the pentagon, giving a briefing on isis. we'll bring you that when he appears. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: welcome back -- mark: welcome back. if you minutes, president obama will talk about his national security council and america's efforts to combat the islamic state. as soon as the president begins his remarks, we will bring them to you live. in other news, the democratic vice presidential nominee tim kaine says cities would have

strong partners in washington is hillary clinton wins the white house. he spoke today at the national urban league's cities conference in baltimore. >> hold us accountable for the promises we are making. we have a lot of work to do; you know that better than anyone. we have a lot of problems that need solving, and face it, this campaign has laid bare some of the deep divisions that still remain in this country -- racism, sexism, islamophobia, so much else. mark: republican nominee donald trump's campaign declined an invitation to speak. house speaker paul ryan is reforming his support -- reaffirming his support for mr. trump. since he declined to back him, he says his endorsement is not "a blank check." he says the only endorsement he cares about is from the voters in his congressional district. he faces a primary challenge on tuesday. the men accused of the june 2015 killings of nine black parishioners at a charleston, s.c. church has been assaulted

by an inmate. the sheriff's office reports he was in the shower when he was beaten by another inmate at the charleston county jail. he was not seriously injured. secretary john kerry says at $400 million payment made to iran wasn't related to the settlement of the nuclear deal or to the release of the four americans being held by tehran. he says the payment, plus an additional $1.3 billion in interest, was tied into a decades-old dispute over a failed military equipment deal that hates the 1970's, before the islamic revolution in 1979. day,l news, 24 hours a powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. joe: let's get a recap of the major indices from today. not all that much going on

anywhere. fairly see the dow earl barely up, s&p verily y up. not much from the headline moves. as far as individual movers, the earnings picture, which has been mixed, led to some pretty big losses, especially on the insurance side. if you look at metlife, there was a big miss. i was a going to get to linkedin quite yet, i was just going to talk about prudential and metlife, both of whom missed it is $.66. 21st century fox didn't impress people with its "teenage mutant ninja turtles" release. those were some of the biggest losers, the top 10 on the s&p 500 today. and on the government bond front, once again, we saw a new record low, this time in the u.k., where mark carney threw

the proverbial kitchen sink at the economy post brexit, expansion of t we, bond buying -- expansion of qe, bond buying, rate cuts. bazooka,led out a considering the size of the u.k. economy. as opposed to what we see from the bank of japan -- joe: you expect the bank of japan to disappoint; in this case, people thought he went further -- scarlet: it was what was expected in terms of cutting rates, but with everything else, he exceeded expectations. joe: what the bank of japan does always seems to be disappointment. scarlet: they have succeeded in the past; they got people to the point where they expect the boj to go overboard every time and now they aren't doing that. the fiscal moves and boj moves are constant. scarlet: the bank of england --

go, and whatrs you see is the worst performer and best performer. the best performer is the pound, the worst the south african rand, up 1.3%. this is even the case if you expand it, which covers more ground. the pound, we know what happened there. the rent was interesting because we had local elections in south africa. the ruling party lost ground in itselections, the share of national vote will be below 60% since before nelson mandela left the party. the opposition party is, i would call it, investor friendly, pledging to rule out corruption and make it easier to do business. ringitt recovery.

let's take a look at a daily chart of west texas intermediate crude. it's up nearly 6% over the last few days. a lot of doom and gloom recently about rising production, a lot of inventory that went into the oil bear market, but we have had a nice bounce back. also i saw today that alan greenspan call for oil. >> [laughter] scarlet: why did you laugh? >> i just think it's interesting. scarlet: we are waiting for the president to come out and speak at the pentagon. he will give us an update after he met with the national security council on isis. you can see the podium where he will be speaking in washington. we will bring you his news conference when it begins. this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: will come back. -- welcome back. in just a few moments, the president of the united states is going to hold a press briefing at the pentagon. the president had a meeting with his national security council; today they discussed efforts to combat islamic state. as you are no doubt aware, over the past couple days, we have been hearing reports that the president has authorized airstrikes in parts of libya, where islamic state militants were believed to be holed up. that is something that had not happened until earlier this year, in february. the president is in the middle of this campaign, this heated campaign, between the person he helps succeeded, hillary clinton, and the republican nominee donald trump, and there has been a back and forth about what to call terrorists, mr.

trump saying we call the radical islamic terrorists, mrs. clinton saying we need the world community and our allies to help fight against the islamic state and that this is not a fight against islam, but a fight against militants. the president is expected to discuss that aspect as well. mr. obama made a note to this week that he didn't feel mr. trump was fit to lead, to be president of the united states. what is at stake not only in the selection, but people closely watching the president's remarks as he tries to let the world know how the united states and its allies have been dealing with islamic state. what is on the table going forward about how they will deal with the militants? what, if anything, the united states can do with its allies, particularly those in the middle east in the fight against the islamic state. the president of the united states meeting with his national security team at the pentagon today to discuss the islamic state, what the united states is and is not doing at this point

to try to deal with islamic state, which the republicans have said is the number one threat facing the united states. donald trump making those remarks earlier this week. the president of the united states, at one point, this was perhaps a couple years ago, he referred to islamic state as a j.v. team, a bunch of thugs riding in the back of abandoned cars and tanks terrorizing people, but as we have seen, the reach of islamic state has expanded across the globe. we have had incidents in france, incidents in other places around the world. the islamic state has claimed responsibility, and in areas where they have not, officials in those localities have said the attacks have borne the hallmarks of the islamic state. we here at bloomberg television are awaiting remarks and the president of the united states. this is a live shot of the podium. an update on what the president

is expected to say -- he is expected to tell the united states about that briefing that we had today -- that he had today with his military commanders and his strategy going forward about the islamic state. as soon as this press briefing gets underway, and of course we're looking at a live shot now, we will come back and bring it to you. scarlet: great preview of what we might expect. something else that might come up is that egypt's army is seeing it killed the leader of islamic state's local affiliate in the north of the sinai peninsula. flow's a lot of news around this that doesn't get the headlines at a necessarily deserves, given all the words between the presidential candidates -- joe: absolutely. and i think one of the most interesting things that the president will be asked about -- they will take five or six questions -- surely one will have to do with the airlift of cash, hundreds of millions of

dollars to iran. we just heard the secretary of state saying that it has nothing to do with the nuclear deal, nor does it have anything to do with the four americans recently released from captivity, but that it dates back to money the workload before the -- they were owed. >> i just dealt with my national security council on the campaign to destroy isil. secretary carter in chairman dunford, who just returned from the middle east, for hosting us. we thank them for their continued leadership of our men and women in uniform. shortly after the horrifying attack in orlando, in the week since, we have continued to be relentless in our fight against isil. on the ground in syria and iraq, they continue to lose territory. tragically, we have also seen

they still have the ability to direct and inspire attacks. we have seen terrible bombings in iraq, jordan, lebanon, saudi arabia, yemen, and afghanistan. attacks on airports, a restaurant in bangladesh, bastille day celebrations in france, and a music festival in germany. the decline of isil in syria and to make it shift to tactics we have seen before, with greater emphasis on high-profile attacks, including in the united states. as always, our military, diplomatic, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement professionals are working around the clock with other countries and with communities here at home to share information and prevent such attacks. over the years they have prevented many. but as we've seen, it is still very difficult to detect and ne actorsoan actor

determined to kill the innocent. that is why as we discussed today we will keep going after them aggressively at every front. the air campaign continues to sil targets.tar 1500 strikes so far, including in raqqa and mosul. america's armed forces will continue to do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. with our exterior technology, we are conducting the most precise air campaign in history; after all, it is the innocent civilians of syria and iraq who are suffering the most, and they need to be saved from isil's terror. whether allegations of civilian casualties, we take them seriously. we work to find the facts, to be

transparent, and to hold ourselves accountable to doing better in the future. we continue to take out senior isil leaders and commanders, including the minister of war, andtop commander in mosul, in yet another significant loss, its minister of war. none of their leaders are safe, and we are going to keep going after them. forcesground in iraq, keep pushing them back. the coalition support finally liberated falluja. d iraqire more areas, an forces retook a strategic air mosul.st 40 miles from the last major isil stronghold in iraq. given the success of the

additional 560 u.s. support personnel i ordered two iraq to turn this base into a logistical hub and launchpad for forces as they push into mosul. meanwhile in syria, a coalition of local forces continues to take the fight to isil as well. the coalition is fighting its way into the town, a gateway for isil fighters coming out to attack europe, which is why isil is fighting hard to hold it. back, were beatinen are gaining vast amount of intelligence which we will use to keep destroying their networks and stop foreign fighters. we also continue to intensify our fight against al qaeda in syria, which the matter what name he calls itself, cannot be allowed to train against us. i do want to step back and note

the broader progress that has been made in this campaign so far. two years ago, isil was going across iraq to the outskirts of baghdad, and to many it looked invincible. since then, they have lost at sinjar, at ramadi, and no falluja. kobani,, they lost in and al-shaddadi. they have lost territory across vast stretches of borders, and all major transit routes. isil has not been able to reclaim any significant territory they have lost. has noto repeat -- isil had a major successful offensive operation in either syria or iraq in a full year. even isil leaders know they will

keep losing. they are increasingly technology they might lose mosul and raqqa, and they are right. we will keep driving them out until they do. in other words, isil turns out not to be invincible. they are, in fact, inevitably going to be defeated. but we do recognize at the same time that the situation is complex, and this cannot be solved by military force alone. last month, the united states and countries around the world stretched more than $2 billion in funds to help iraq stabilize and rebuild their communities. we are working with iraq so the military campaign to liberate mosul has humanitarian efforts to protect civilians. byisil cannot return exploiting divisions are new grievances. in syria, as i repeatedly said, defeating isil and al qaeda

requires an end to the civil war, and the assad regime's brutality against the people that pushes people into extremism. they continue to violate the cessation of hostilities, including vicious attacks on defenseless civilians. it blocks food for reaching families that are starving. it is deplorable, and the depravity of the syrian regime has rightly earned a condemnation of the world. involvement raises very serious questions about their commitment to pulling the situation back from the brink. the u.s. remains prepared to work with russia to try and reduce violence and strengthen our forces against iso-, but so far -- against isil. given the deteriorating situation, it is time for russia to show that it is serious about pursuing these objectives.

we willyria and iraq, keep working with allies and partners to stop isil wherever it tries to spread. we are conducting strikes and support of government forces as they fight to retake land, and we will continue to support the government. in afghanistan, one of the reasons i decided to maintain our current force posture was so we can keep eliminating isis presence there, and we delivered another blow their last month when we took out a top leader. finally, it should be clear by now, and no one knows this better than our military leaders, that even as we need to crush isil on the battlefield, their military defeat will not be enough. so long as their twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence, groups like isil will keep emerging, and the international community will

continue to be at risk of getting sucked into the global whack a mole we are always reacting to. that is why we are also working to counter violent extremism more broadly, including the social, economic, and political factors that helped fuel groups like isil and al qaeda in the first place. nothing will do more to discredit isil and its claims to being a caliphate than when it loses its base in raqqa and mosul. we will keep working with muslim partners, especially online, to expose them for what they are -- murderers who kill innocent people, including families and children, who set off bombs near mosque.hets mosqu

we refuse to let them undermine the unity and values that keep our nation strong. one of the reasons that america's armed forces are the best in the world is because we draw on the skill and talents of all our people, from people of all faiths, including muslim americans who give their lives for our freedom. i think the entire world was inspired to someday when muslims across france joined their captive neighbors in mass, and in a moving display of solidarity, prayed together. that has to be the message we echo in our countries and communities. peace be with you, and also with you. before i take questions, i want to say a few words on another topic. as our public health experts have been warning for some time, we are now seeing the first locally transmitted cases of the zika virus of mosquitoes in the continental united states. this was predicted and predictable. so far we have seen 15 cases in the area of miami. we are taking it extremely

seriously. cdc experts are working shoulder to shoulder with florida health authorities. there's a very aggressive effort underway to control mosquitoes there, and pregnant women have been we will keep working as one team to slow the spread of the virus. i want to be clear, though. our public health experts do not expect to see the kind of widespread outbreaks of zika here that we have seen in brazil or puerto rico. the kind of mosquito most likely to carry zika are limited to certain regions of our country, but we cannot be complacent. zika expect to see more cases. even though the symptoms for most people are mild, and many may never even know they have it, we have seen the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe. so again i want to encourage every american to learn what th