easy to backup but we have seen the committee come in under what has been requested and say we need reforms more than we need more money here. i would guess that in the end .hey're going to come close it's tough to say no to veterans, but the fact we are having more discussions and the fact that the v.a. is looked at as a place for there could be a lotavings, that speaks to the fiscal restraints on capitol hill right now. will how much pressure senator isakson be able to put on? reporter: a lot. it struck me that where he has indicated he's making progress is when he sat down with the veterans committee in the senate and i think he said we spent hours going over it and they came up with a bipartisan agreement that this was something that needed to be done. clearly that has not happened on

the house side. outside the formal hearing process, just sitting down and explaining what he's trying to do one him a lot of allies on the senate side. that sort of speaks to the dysfunction in congress. reporter: senator isakson has done more negotiations with the v.a. and white house than his house republican counterparts. if the white house signs off on this, if they can get house republicans to sign out on it. host: and the pipeline of veterans coming into the system, your facial expression tells the story. reporter: the number of women coming into the the a is going to double and they have unique requirements and demands. the number of service-connected disabled veterans is going up in their demands are going to increase. either know a lot of veterans who have lost limbs or have

genital ones. their care and costs are going to increase and increase. we have the world war ii and korean veterans population going down slightly but this new generation is demanding costly services and they are good at demanding services. i think they use the gay services more than previous generations. host: and they live in the age of social media pressure as well . that is changing the game as well. thank you for your time. x we are live now in hanover, germany, moments away from a news conference with president obama and german chancellor angela merkel. president obama visiting germany as part of his european trip in the wall street journal reports part of the reason is a personal to chancellor merkel,

visiting a trade show in hanover. we expect this news conference to get underway shortly. live coverage here on c-span.

>> again, here we are in hanover summit germany, expecting a news conference with president obama and german chancellor angela merkel. we will show you a portion of this morning's washington journal.

host: one party does have its ballot. why did you decide to become a candidate for the const party? think the rule of law is very important and the constitution is very important and i'm trying to preserve those things and reestablish the rule of law in america. the people in the constitution party wanted me, so here i am. host: and the platform of the constitution party includes the following mission statement. the mission is to ensure the tossings of liberty ourselves and our posterity at all levels of government. candidates will uphold the principles of the declaration of the independence, the constitution of the united states, and the bill of rights. thes our goal to limit

federal government enumerated under constitutional functions. what does that mean to you and to your party? guest: it means in the constitution, article one, section eight delegates only 17 powers to the federal government. the 10th amendment, all other powers are reserved to the states or the people respectively. that is what we mean by that. we think the constitution should be followed in its original intent. host: what is your background and what do you bring to the party and this national debate? , i'm aby profession lawyer. i've been a lawyer for 35 years approximately. i've been in the constitution party since its original founding in 1992. i've been vice-chairman of the party three different terms and in 2008, i was vice presidential candidate.

nomination at the convention in salt lake city, we covered your speech along with your running mate, but it did not get a lot of national attention. in thisou break through kaleidoscope of media? i'm sitting here talking to you, so that certainly helps. i've only had the nomination for a week and here i am on national television. thanks to yout and i think out was there, but it is not easy to cut through the fog and get media coverage in this day and age. people seem to be so dissatisfied with the four candidates still existing in the democrat and republican parties that we are getting some attention. gotten quite a bit of

attention from the convention. scott bradley is your running mate, what does he bring to the ticket? for 20i have known him years. he's a man of integrity and understands the issues that confront the country. gifted incially issues from the west. he's from utah and has a good understanding of federal control of land in the west, which is a big issue for all who do not own 90% of their own state. those are the things he brings. complete understanding of the country and the founding furthers -- founding fathers and the precepts under which they found that our government. host: as you look at the history of third parties in recent times

since 1992 and 1996, the last time a third party had any significant impact in a general hard for why is it so you and other candidates to breakthrough in america's two-party system? because democrats and republicans control the system and control access to the ballot. the states with the most electoral votes like california and texas, new york, many other states, those states have the requirements for access to the ballot. those are controlled by the democrats and republicans in the state legislature. year ofn the ninth .itigation against the state

they always appeal. they control the process and you make the process exclusive and theys how for 160 years have traded power back and forth. it's like a drug. once you have it, you don't want to give it up. host: we are talking with the constitution party presidential candidate. what is your goal in this cycle? my first goal is to be president. along with that goal, my goal is to get the issues important to the constitution party and have both of the public hear them. to make the constitution party stronger and help build state parties around the country. host: our conversation includes your calls and comments. open.one lines are

if you are a member of the constitution party or third-party in general, give us a call. a call from michigan, good morning. ask thei would like to difference between the tea party and constitution party and what is your view on the social issues going on? first heartrd the about the difference between the tea party groups and constitution party. that is theo constitution party is a political party and the tea party groups are political activists. a candidate for public office might say he's a member of the tea party.

that means those groups support him, but it is not a legitimate political party like the constitution party. host: the second part dealt with social issues, whether it is a right or other hot button issues like that. are you asking a question about where i stand on those issues? if you want to take the issue of abortion, we are certainly against it. it's a principle of the party and we believe strongly in the right to life and those waiting in their mothers limbs to be born are legitimate persons. deserving of are the right to life. same-sex marriage as a social issue, if you want me to comment on that, i'm a i personally don't

believe in it but i believe the government has no place in marriage to begin with. wants you to buy a license to do everything but in my view, marriage is an act between us and god. god determines what marriage is and it's not up to the government. this is from jd reading -- what is the constitution's party goal and what are you doing to get to the debate stage for the general elections? do you have a strategy? guest: that's a good question. my friend with free andy has done some things to get us in debates and we usually end up relegated to third party debates the republicans and democrats control access to the debates and they are not going

to legitimize other parties by letting them in, whether the constitution party, the green party or libertarian party. they are not going to let them into the debates because they assume if people had a chance to hear their views and see their candidates, they might choose someone different. it is a difficult process when you have a debate process set up and controlled by the two major parties. is it too late for the constitution party this year? will you be on my ballot in november? how many states will you be on the ballot? i don't know what state you are from, but we are on the ballot in 18 states. and wemoving forward expect to be on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the election. if you tell me what state you are from, i could tell you whether we are on the ballot.

we hope to be on the ballot in enough faith and i hope we will be. maria, westville, new jersey, independent line. thank you so much for broadening the conversation. i want to make a comment and i have a question. thatmment is i feel jefferson said the tree of liberty has to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. if everything is found on we, the people, what is our duty to ?arch on washington and the other thing i want to know is if the gentleman could -- what do you think of the import tariff replacing the irs? could you have someone on from the american citizens party? are covering all of the

third parties not only here on and theton journal" next one will be the libertarians. they gather in orlando, florida on memorial day weekend. i will try to answer as many of those comments as i can or member. mass action and march on washington is certainly a right. i'm a candidate for public office and national office, so i've pledged to not overthrow the u.s. government by force. i don't advocate anything like i don't think mass -- i think mass action is a political right and is justified . the rest of the question, i

think i remember a question about taxes and what would we do about it? i'm an advocate of the constitutional taxes set out the taxing authority in the hands of the states and says tax should be collected through apportionment in the states as the census is apportioned. the states would be responsible, which would return power to them and take it away from washington. as far as taxes on imports, that is one of the planks in the constitution party platform. i personally have no problem with free trade. i'm opposed to various free trade agreements, but if the i did to work out a deal with it says you don't charge us for trade, we won't

charge you for trade, i see nothing wrong with that. i'm not a person who wants to go in front of the american people and say everything you buy is going to cost a lot more. we have to be careful about too much tax on imports. it could provoke trade wars and damage the economy. other than that type of fear, we certainly supported. jody has friend tweeted back saying that she is from arkansas. guest: yes, i am on the ballot in arkansas. vote for me and i would appreciate it if he would. host: what's the difference between the constitution party and libertarian party? could there be a merger between them? there are many differences, but i can give you a couple of primary differences. the libertarian party supports

open borders and we don't. we support secure borders. i read the other day there most likely candidate, gary johnson, he identified himself as an economic conservative. he said he was in favor of open borders and in favor of abortion, which he referred to as pro-choice. those are two primary differences. he said he was an economic conservative. i try not to label myself with the terms conservative or liberal or whatever they might be. i don't like to wear those labels but there are some differences like that. host: robert is joining us from south carolina. the independent line. overr: i hear over and

that we don't have the right to ite for president, but believe we do. would you clarify that? guest: are you talking about the electoral college? the bush the gore decision. question afy your little bit more. the right of citizens for the united states to vote for president or vice president or senator or representative of congress should not be denied or abridged. the issue is voting for president or vice president. don't understand the problem. why would you be denied the

right to vote? correctly,i recall chief justice rehnquist based bushinion on gore v. that people did not have the right to vote for president. but then it said 24 men and should not be abridged. that is what it says for sure. host: this is a call from another robert saying ask your guest to comment on roadblocks, if any to nullify third parties. i don't know about the term nullify, but they keep third parties from becoming a much louder voice by denying access to the ballot. it takes millions of dollars

which third-party people do not have to gain access to the ballot. that's because the requirements to get signatures and so many states are so high and egregious to hire people to collect those signatures for you. ways except for programs like this. they are always refusing to into the debates and marginalizing the third parties and many other ways. marginalized would be a better word, i think. this program is carried live on the bbc parliament channel. the newly minted constitution party nominee -- she's a graduate of east tennessee university and earned his law degree from memphis state

university. he was a retired u.s. marine corps officer. mike from tampa, florida, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question regarding the constitution party. the efforts that you make to try to president and congress of the united states. i don't believe there are any members in congress that are members of the constitution party. are you not just spinning your wheels? that might be your opinion. it's not my opinion. theave no members in congress or the senate. we don't think it is spinning our wheels. we don't object to the two parties that have led the wentry for 160 years and

offer people a return to constitutional government and they returned to the rule of law. bebelieve they're going to successful. people are going to go back to the charter of liberty, and that is the constitution and when they do, we are here. another viewer saying i expected a third-party to be popular following the anti- government sentiment out there with the rise of donald trump and senator sanders feeding into the anti-establishment fervor. have you sent that with your own party and do you sense it is an area that you can tap into? absolutely. i've only been the nominee for here i am on but national television and that hasn't happened in a while.

we have had a tremendous response to my speech at the convention and c-span did it for me and then al jazeera covered and our e-mails and web responses are all growing. we sense it and we are going to try to take advantage of it. decatur, arkansas. good morning. get us i want someone to quick as possible back to the constitution laws. the judges don't believe in the constitution. walk onnk they can people and it says in the they can comehat on private property at any time to arrest anybody. this is my question.

it says they cannot come on private property to arrest without a legitimate warrant. there are certainly act now that have given authority over the act like the patriot act and nsa security. in general, i certainly agree and i respect the constitution. that's why i'm here. what i would say to people such as yourself is if you want things to be different, you will have to elect from people and choose something different besides democrats and republicans. because for 160 years, they have led the country exchanging power back and forth, each time getting worse and worse. .e do representative returns our next call is from memphis, tennessee on the independent line. caller: good morning.

my question is a comment in regards to the constitution as a whole. i would like to hear your viewpoint on this. word that has always been present in the constitution is we the people. that has not been properly defined because the reality is aristocracy -- provide for the common defense, provide for the general welfare and secure the blessings of for the slaves without rights under our federal control. the reality is the united states documente slaves to a

formulated by a handful of purposes of for the maintaining a status quo in this country. host: thank you for the call. are certainly entitled to your opinion. the constitution does provide under article five and avenue for amendment. if we think it is outdated or not valid, we can always amended and change it. but to ignore it is to ignore the rule of law and to elevate people in positions of public trust beyond what they have a right to have. the website is constitution party.com and they issuesven fundamental that make up the party including life, liberty, family, property, the bill of rights, state rights, and american sovereignty.

ohio, goodm dayton, morning, democrats line. good morning. my question is about the 10th amendment. the last part says for the will of the people. keep saying the democrats have all these programs like social security and now we are violating the constitution. but the will of the people counts also. it's your comment on that? guest: if you want to amend the constitution, there's an avenue for doing that. it is what it is and it says what it says. you paint with a broad brush a lot of things like social security, but things are either constitutional or they are not. delegated power and

everything else is reserved for the people. the people in the federal government are two different things. if the people in the states want to do something in this program or that program, that is their right. the constitution limits the federal government. host: : ladies anderkel idntlemen i would like to be a welcome to the president of the united states of america, barack obama. i amet me tell you that to have an opportunity not only to continue our talks, but today is going to be a very

remarkable day because we're relationspen together. we have an opportunity to talk about the whole spectrum of international issues. we don't need to spend too much on this. let me tell you barack, that i very much value our candidate open talks that are always based on mutual trust. we talk about a whole range of issues and we do so today as we have done many times previously and i sure hope that we should continue to do so. we use this opportunity here to numeroust international issues such as and also terrorism

asked questions related to migration in general. the european union is a totination for many refugees those who don't enjoy peace at home. we support the geneva talks. and we are greatly concerned that the cease-fire did not hold. i was able to see yesterday what this means of suffering distress of one's people when there is fighting in their home area, so we want to do everything in order to bring the geneva talks. we also talked about libya,

because syria is going to be to support of the unity government. this is an entanglement on the one hand of stability and the progress that we have with this new unity government to stabilize the situation, but also when we look at syria for example, there are enormous migratory flows across the that are triggered by a hundred abutments are very grateful that the united states of america are supporting the nato mission. also a many ways is effort,ropean-american a transatlantic mission. we can say that all of our security issues on the doorstep of europe can only be tackled by

enduring transatlantic relationship. only in this way can our common security be insured. means that a european agreement as necessary, a german agreement is necessary in many of these issues, and i think your many has demonstrated that we are willing to make this effort to go the extra mile. to be in around fighting , via for example in the way that we have become engaged in thmali. we talked about afghanistan and afghanistan to needs to be kept on a track which is promising people.afghani we are ready and willing to be voluntarily engaged and continue to be militarily engaged. i think the message that the

taliban needs to be the international community will not leave afghanistan and this predicament. issue thatk about an is thealso interested in crisis in ukraine. we have the greatest importance to this agreement being implemented as soon as possible. we will put a lot of effort into making this possible in our talks with ukraine, but also in our talks with russia. to bring the political process forward. issues willnomicussed loom large on the agenda. from a european perspective, let me say this clearly, it is very

helpful in order to allow our economy to grow. it is important for the german economy, it is important for the whole of the european economy. the progress that we had made all the tpp, i think we in continuingst to support these negotiations. thank you very much. again for this visit. i'm very much looking forward to the other things that are lining up for today and tomorrow. i would like to welcome you on behalf of the german citizens. president obama: let me see thank you for chancellor merkel for your welcome. it is wonderful to be back in germany. firsteve i'm the

president to visit in some time here in hanover. always a great pleasure to be back with my friend and partner oangela. i have value chancellor merkel's thinking and perspective on a whole range of global issues throughout our presidency. you have been a trusted partner. throughout my entire presidency. longer than any world leader and i value your judgment, i thank you for your commitment to our alliance, and the values to which we stand. i am here for the trade show. and i will join the opening ceremonies this evening and visit some exhibitions tomorrow. it is a reminder that the united states and germany are each other's -- among each other's largest trading partners.

it is a relationship we have to keep building and nurturing. so that we are crating more jobs and more prosperity for our people and keeping our country's competitive in the global economy. regard,angela and i agree that the united states and the european union need to continue to move forward with the transatlantic partnership. in our bilateral meeting, we discussed the importance of boosting economic growth in the euro zone, which is critical for the global economy, including the u.s. economy. it is actually important giving the array of pressing challenges weatherby security, defense, migration, or refugees. way thatadd by the given the urgency of climate change, and the economic and maternity of clean energy -- economic opportunities of clean anrgy, we have signed

agreement and we believe it needs to be implemented quickly. of course most of our discussion as chancellor merkel indicated focused on security jobs. germany is a vital member of the coalition to destroy isil. german aircraft support in the german assistance is helping iraq stabilize areas it liberates from isa. il. the coalition continues to make progress. germany is obviously a strong partner in international efforts to provide humanitarian relief to the people of syria and iraq. we remain deeply concerned about the upsurge in fighting in syria over the last several days and

we continue to believe that the only real durable solution is a political solution that move syria towards an inclusive government that represents all syrians. horrific attacks that we have seen around the world, including paris, brussels, and onl, san bernardino, a much more frequent basis attacks and horrific violence that is taking place in the middle east. we discussed the importance of maintaining our strong security cooperation. afghanistan will continue to afghan forces as they push back against al qaeda, the taliban, and isil. we will continue to support the libyan people. we are committed to using all the tools at our disposal to prevent terrorists from traveling and plotting attacks. improvedudes proved --

information sharing between our countries and within europe. do so always, we will while upholding our values and civil liberties including the privacy of citizens here and in the united states. i want to want again commend on angela for her leadership as germany response to migrants were desperate from fleeing conflicts in the region. onceps because she lived behind a wall herself, she understands the aspirations of those who have been denied their a betternd to seek life. i know the politics around this issue can be difficult in all of our countries. we did discuss the eu's recent angement with turkey, and la and i agree that we can respond to the situation in a way that is both humane and ensures that security.

augment on ao rotational basis nato forces in eastern europe including the baltic states. as i have said from the very beginning of my presidency, we have a treaty obligation to defend every nato ally and we will. weond the alliance, welcome the formation of a new government in ukraine which we encouraged to take its political, economic, and energy reforms that could deliver progress to the ukrainian people. and theor merkel ukrainian president have been solutionin seeking a in ukraine. sanctions in russia can and should only be lifted should russia comply. tomorrow just a merkel were host their meetings with prime eron as weam

discussed the full range of challenges we faced together. just a merkel. merkel.ellor >> the first question will come from roberto renton with reuters. president obama, you have stated the case many times that tpp with hr modern trade agreements that deal with problems, but that message does not seem to have resonated. the deals are very unpopular at home and there are huge protest here yesterday over.

plan toyour realistically advance the deals? is it realistic to say you want to get it done by the end of the year? tpp at this point will have to wait for congressional approval? merkel, you said yesterday in turkey that you favor the creation of a type of saison in syria. president obama had said in the past that he opposes these types of zones because while they are well-intentioned they would require military force to protect the safety of the people. i'm wondering whether you are going to try to convince president obama to rethink his safeion on these types of zones and how you would see them working in terms of safety

on the ground? thank you. tosident obama: with respect trade, i think what you are seeing around the world is people are unsettled by globalization. and although trade has brought enormous benefits to many of our countries that have been engage in trade, although typically jobs are produced from exports have higher wages and better notfits then those that are involved with the export market, people visibly see a plan moving and jobs lost and the narrative develops that this is weakening rather than strengthening the position of ordinary people and ordinary workers. and it is forcing them to compete with low-wage labor. drives aink is what lot of suspicion, understandably

of these trade deals. arebenefits often times diffused, whereas our particular plant or business feels they have been hurt by outside competition. but if you look at the benefits to the united states or to germany of free-trade around the world, it is indisputable that it has made our economy stronger. it has made sure that our businesses are the most competitive in the world. and as you see other markets like china beginning to develop, and asia beginning to develop, and africa grown fast, we have to make sure that our businesses can compete there. in the unitedst states 95% of the world's markets are outside of our borders. present, wet there are going to have problems. betweenrelationship europe and the united states is

already one of the most robust trading relationships in the isld, but what we discovered that while strengthening labor provisions and strengthening environmental provisions, we can also eliminate a lot of regulatory and bureaucratic irritants and blockages to trade that would allow us to engage in even more trade. now with respect to the politics of it, recent surveys in the united states for example, showed that the majority of people still favor trade. that itll recognizable is a good idea. during presidential elections, it is always thought. when we are in the heat of campaigns, people naturally are going to worry more about what is lost and what is gained with

respect to trade agreements. but i am confident that we are going to be a this done. keep in mind people didn't think with the transpacific partnership that we would be able to get the authority to move it forward. and we got it done. people didn't think we would be able to negotiate with 11 countries and have a deal that in fact the strengthen labor, and the strengthen environment of provisions, and yet we got it done. i think the same is going to be true here. i don't anticipate that we will be able to have complete ratification of a deal by the end of the year, but i do anticipate that we can have completed the agreement. and then it will be presented to legislatures, our various parliaments, but at that point we will have the negotiations completed and people be able to see exactly what this would be good for our

two countries. ,nd with respect to congress and transpacific partnership, i think after the primary season is over, the politics settle down a little bit in congress and will be in a position to start moving forward. because i know that we have had of members in the past who were in favor of this deal. otherwise you would not have gotten the authority for me to go ahead and fast-track this agreement. i think we all know that elections can sometimes make things a little more challenging. and people take positions in part two protect themselves from attacks during the course of election season. one thing i do want to say with carect to syria, we all deeply about the tragic humanitarian crisis inside of syria.

i have lived -- i live with this every day, i read about this every day, we talked to people who are experiencing suffering or are witnessing the suffering going on there. we are in constant communications with turkey, our whichlly in finding ways we can resolve the situation. as you know, i spoke to utin early last week to try to make sure that we that thenstate political process is not online. having said al-- online. having said all that, the issues zone, is not afe matter of an ideological objection on my part, it is not a matter of me not wishing i could help and protect a whole bunch of people. it is a very practical issue about how do you do it, and who

is going to put a bunch of ground troops inside of syria, and how do you let people in, and who you let in, and who do let out. and how is it monitored. is, that of the matter when i go through with my defense department and we have done it multiple times, how a proposal like that might work as a practical matter, sadly it is very difficult to see how it of usoperate short essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country. that requires a big military commitment and i think that one of the biggest challenges that angela and i both face is that we often see great wrongs going on around the world and we do everything we can to try to write them, but one of the

things i have learned is that we have to make sure that whatever it is that we say we are going to do, we can deliver. and creating a situation in which we could actually protect all of the people inside of syria, the best bet for doing that is to get this political aocess on track, h was transition on track, so that all the parties can safely let down their arms. i think that if you follow closely my remarks yesterday in turkey, you will be able to understand that this is something that i think it's to come out of this geneva process. it is not something that can be in a a safezone

traditional way. but only talk about a cease-fire influencingot about from the outside. we have tens of thousands of refugees along the turkish and syrian border. we hope to send a message to them. regionse other also were some might think that the cease-fire as a whole needs to be put in place, but these are areas where there are a particular obligation upon the different parties. the geneva part of process and not something that comes out of the blue. madame chancellor, mr.

president, this could be your last joined visit or appearance in germany. what were your best experiences and what were your worst? and madame chancellor, the united states actually once germany to do more in regard to military presence within nato. are you ready to increase for example soldiers and the ?ontingent in order t and should the united states not help more by observing for example more than 10,000 refugees from syria this year? chancellor merkel: we have the

impression that we are actually quite busy with the conflict that we are about to solve in the world today. we have new chats all the time, drawm not in position to stock now. what you see is testimony to and friendshipip based on mutual trust. i'm very grateful for this, because it helps us to solve international issues. germany in many instances has been, more active partner in this relationship because we are also certain our very own cannot be ensured on our own. we have to do this in alliance. on some areas, we have shouldered a long-term mission that we're going to continue like in afghanistan for example. in a way we have had a change of paradigm that we have now seen of isis asgeof

something that is acute. ande need to suffer again war, we should have other opportunities to meet the president and i. let me say for me, the future with the president is much more important that may pass right now. obviously have to make additional efforts as regards to possibilities to defend ourselves, we have to put in more equipment, more personnel, we know the target set nato has submitted to us. we think that the whole positioning of our federal

respectfully dissents that we need to shoulder of this international responsibility. i think that helps. tohelps us to challenge -- master our challenges and the cooperation with the united states is indispensable. looking at the larger neighborhood of europe, transatlantic cooperation within nato, but also in our their is absolutely essential for maintaining our own security and safety. president obama: very briefly i want to go back to roberta's point. as chancellor merkel mentioned, the parties of the conflict would carve out areas, but because the opposition is a

signatory, the regime agrees not to attack those areas. and she is exactly right. here there isbetween us. that if we can get the political transition to separate out areas where a moderate opposition at thatable controls it, should be a safe area. that is not a safe area. that is the concept that we have been trying to build. it has been framed in part because the syrian regime has been cheating. in part because there are areas where moderate opposition forces both reside and it has been difficult to separate them geographically. but that concept of ultimately bringing some safety and

security within the country is entirely consistent with what we are trying to do in our negotiations. to the u.s.-german relationship and i relationship a chancellor merkel, i've said ,his before, i will repeat this is as important of a relationship i have had during the course of my presidency. chancellor merkel has been consistent, she is been steady, she has astworthy, really good sense of humor that she doesn't show all the time at press conferences. in is much more serious front of all of you. and which probably serves her well. that is why she has been such a long-lasting leader, because she watches what she says. but if you think about the first time i came here, we were in the

midst of a potential collapse of the global economy. and i believe that it was in large part because of our joint leadership, because of europe and the united states and other partners around the world coming together and having a clear vision that we were able to stabilize the global financial system. and our two countries now have been able to grow steadily and reduce unemployment. , and recovered much better than a number of other countries around the world. when you think about the courts, that does not happen unless there is strong u.s. german cooperation. and making sure that we are resting the pace of climate change is as important as any issue we will face in the decades to come. making sure that we are able to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon without resort to war, that occurred because of

the partnership. angela leadership that and others have shown. in afghanistan, german troops have been vital interest assisting afghans to defend their country. in ukraine, the normandy process worksk, it is fair to say in part because the united states stand shoulder to draw a very firm line about the basic principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty. so there is not an issue in which we have worked together been hugely not agela's studyf leadership and trustworthiness.

and as she noted, although it is true that i will be saying goodbye from his current position in around nine months, a lot happens in that month. everybody kept on saying to me originally that somehow things downlowdown -- would slow in the second half of my last term, and it has not happened yet. i seem to be pretty busy and i look forward in addressing many of the challenges that we face, including those that we will discuss at nato, those that we will discuss at the g7, those that we will discuss at the g20, to know that i have a strong angela merkel.th i think it is true that chancellor merkel's leadership, germany has been more forward leaning on a whole variety of areas.

i do continue to maintain and i will say this leading up to the beyond thatnce and given the pressures both from the south and the aggressive spendingnd enormous that we are seeing out of russia, it is important for all of our nato members to try to hit the target that we set in spending so defense that everyone is able to maintain the kind of defense part to prevent wars, not the seller to initiate them, but to be in a position where we can send a strong signal that we can meet our alliance obligations and deal with these new and rapidly thating challenges confront europe as well as the world. north korea launched a

ballistic missile from a submarine on saturday. later north korea's foreign they willaid that help a nuclear test at the u.s. suspends its military exercises with south korea. do you view that as a serious overture and at this point how do you assess north korea's nuclear capability? merkel, youellor both have spoken about the strong working relationship that as you of you have, look ahead to the end of president obama's term, how do you view the possibility of working with a new u.s. president who has called your refugee policy insane? president obama: with respect to north korea, we are still

analyzing and assessing with theision the activities north koreans engaged in over the last several days. i will let the pentagon and our intelligence community debrief everyone once we have precise information. it is clear that north korea continues to engage in continuous provocative behavior. that they have been actively anduing a nuclear program an ability to launch nuclear weapons, and although more often than not they fail, and many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time they engage in these tests. and we take it very seriously. and so does the entire world.

it is for this reason why we have continually mobilized the international community to uplate north korea, to crank the sanctions that impose a cost , and why we have cultivated crop or a with the to put pressure on north korea. although it is not where we would completely like it to be, i will say that we have seen the chinese be more alarmed and take more seriously what north korea is doing and they had been willing to be more forward leaning in exacting a price on north korea's destructive behavior. in terms of overtures, we don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time

they decide to do a test. what we have said consistently, is that if north indeedhows seriousness nuclear rising the korean peninsula, then we will be withred to enter interests serious conversations with them about reducing pensions -- tensions and our approach to protecting our allies in the region. that is not something that happens based on a press release. in the wake of a series of provocative behaviors. they are going to have to do better than that. until they do, we will continue to emphasize our work with the republic of korea and japan and to missile-defense systems make sure we are keeping the american people safe and we are keeping our allies say. -- safe.

chancellor merkel: let me make two remarks. first, i concentrate on the task ahead for 2016, i'm quite busy with that. and i'm looking with great interest that the american election campaign. madame chancellor, the president a few days ago said it was a great mistake not to have had a plan after the intervention in libya. you feel confined by the fact that you abstain for that, and do you feel that you are sufficiently supported after

?his in your policies and with the president in germany there is resistance to settlement schemes, are you going to accommodate the germans? and are you actually envious of the chancellor that her time of ended ins actually terms of the colleg -- constitution compared to yours? if you take akel: decision that is different from that decision that one of your friends is taking it is never easy, but it we still remain friends and it still remains are joint goal.

we need to build up a sanctioning state in libya which is anything but easy. that is why we are working so hard and trying to cooperate internationally in order to bring about this goal. so basically, let's look ahead at what we want to achieve. let's try and stabilize this country. it is not easy, not at all, because they have a tribal structure in libya. they have a very -- a history very much their own. they have never had a national army, never had a functioning state. so all of these things coming -- come into the equation we have to think about when we are trying to stabilize the country