place harmful automatic cuts that make. we can revisit the history of how that happened, i have some grim memories of this. but the notion was that even as we bring down the deficit we would come up with a sustainable, start, long-term approach to investing in the things that we need. that did not happen. so now these cuts that have been maintained have been keeping our economy from growing faster, it's time to undo them, if we don't, then we'll have to fund our economic and national security priorities in 2016 at the same levels we did in 2006.

understand our economy has grown by 12%, our population as grown by 8%. we can't fun our country the way we did 10 years ago because we have greater demands with an aging population, with kids who need schools, with roads that need to be fixed, with a military on which we're placing extraordinary demands. and we can't cut our way to prosperity. other countries have tried, it does not work. we have grown faster than they have. because we did not pursue the blind, unthinking cuts to necessary investments for our growth. because we have grown faster than them, we have brought our deficits down faster than they have. i want to repeat this, the public never believes it.

since i took office we cut our deficit by 2/3, the deficit has not been going up, it has been coming down, we cut our deficits by 2/3, they are below the average deficits over the past 40 years. so the bottom line circumstance congress has to do its -- the bottom line is congress has to do its job, it should pass a budget. if they do, and get rid of some of the mindless cuts even as we're prudent about maintaining the spending that we need, but not spend we don't need, and it's not working, their own no nonpartisan office. we can put half a million more people back to work if we have a more sensible budget. and in these negotiations, nobody is going to get

everything they want. we have to work together even if we disagree, in order to do the people's business, at some point we have to want to govern and not just play politic or play to various political basis. at some point, we need to pass bills so we can rebuild the roads and keep our kids learning and keep our military strong, and help people repair for and recover from disasters. that is congress' most basic job, that is what our government does. serve the american people. so with that, lets me take some questions, i'll start with julie pace of ap, hang in there kids. >> it will be over soon. there have been several developments in syria to ask you about, starting with russia's involvement. you met with president putin this week, and i wonder if you think he was honest with you about his intentions in syria.

if russia is targeting groups beyond the -- does u.s. military have an obligation to protect them. in more broadly there are failures in u.s. train and exquip program, do you believe that program can be fixed. or are other other options, would you consider a no-fly zone? >> well, first, let's understand what is happening in syria, and how we got here. what started off as peaceful protests against assad, the president, evolved into a civil war because assad met those protests with unimaginable peru brutality. and so this is not a conflict between the united states and any party in syria, this is a

condition like between the syrian people and a brutal dictate or. point 2, is that the reason assad is still in power is because russia and iran have supported him throughout this process. in that sense what russia is doing now is not particularly different from about what they had been doing in the past, they are just more everth about it -- overt about it. they are propping up a regime, he has been willing to drop barrel bombs on children and villages, and has been more concerned about claiming power. in my discussions with putin i was clear, that the only way to

solve the problem in syria is to have a political transition, inclusive, that keeps the state in tact, the military in tact, and that maintains cooing h coht is inclusive, the only way to accomplish that is for mr. assad to transition, you cannot rehabilitate him in the eyes of syrians. this not a judgment that i am making issue this is a judgment that overwhelming majority of syrians make. i said to mr. putin, i would be prepared to work with him, if he is willing to broker with his partners, mr. assad, and iran, a political transition, we with bridge thbridge bring the rest d community to a brokered solution, but a military solution alone to prop up assad

and try to pacify the population, is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire. and it will not work. they will be there for a while. if they don't take a different course. i also said to him, it is true that the united states and russia and the world have a common interest in destroying isil. but what was clear, and regardless of what mr. putin said, he does not distinguish between isil and a moderate sunni opposition that wants to see mr. acad go. from their perspective they are all terrorists, that is a recipe for disaster, that is one they reject. so, with we are now is that we're having technical conversations about

deconfliction so that we're not seeing u.s. and american firefighter in the air. but beyond that, we're clear in sticking to our belief and our policy that the problem here is assad and the brutality that he has inflicted on syrian people, and that it has to stop. in order for it to stop, we're prepared to work with all of the parties concerns but we're not going to cooperate with a russian campaign to simply try to destroy anybody who is disgusted and fed up with mr. assad's behavior. keep in mind issue also from a practical perspective, the moderate opposition in syria is one that if we're ever going to

have a political transition we need and rub erro russian polics driving throw folks underground or create a situation where they are decapacitied and it is strengthening isil, that is not good for anyone. in terms our support, of opposition groups in syria. i made clear early on, that the united states could not impose a military solution on syria either. but that it was in our interest to make sure we were engaged with moderate opposition in syria because eventually syria will fall. the assad regime will fall, we have to have someone we're working with that we can help pick up the pieces and stitch back together a cohesive country.

and so we will continue to support them. the training and equip program was a specific initiative by the defense department to see if we could get some of that moderate opposition to focus attention to isil in the eastern portion of the country. and i'm the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed to, i think that department of defense would say the same thing, part of the reason, frankly is because when we tried to get them to just focus on isil, the response we get back circumstance how can we focus on isil when every single day we're having barrel bombs and attacks from the regime? and so it has been hard to get them to reprioritize looking east, when they have bombs coming at them from the west. so what we're doing with the

train and equip is looking at where we've had success, for example working with some of the kurdish community in the east that push isil out, see figure we can build on that but what we're also going to continue to do is to have contacts with and work with opposition that rightly believes in the absence of some change in government, inside of syria, that we're continue to see civil war, that is going to turbo charge isil recruitment and jihadist recruitment and we'll continue to have problem. last point i want to make about this because sometimes the conversation on the beltway differs from the international concerconversation. mr. putin had to go to syria,

not out of strength but out of weakness. because his client mr. assad was crumbling, it was insufficient for him to send them arms and money, now he has to put in his own planes and his own pilots. and the notion that he put forward a plan and that somehow the international community sees it as viable because there is a vacuum there. i don't see after he made that speech in united nations, suddenly 60 nation coalition we had, started lining up behind him. iran and assad make up mr. putin's coalition at the moment. the rest of the world makes up ours. so i don't think that people are fooled by the current strategy. it does not mean that we could

not see mr. putin begin to recognize that it is in their interest to broker a political settlement. and as i said, in new york, we're prepared to work with the russians and the iranians and our partners who are part of the anti-isil coalition to come up with a political transition, nobody pretendeds it is going to be easy. i think it still possible. we'll maintain lines of communication, but we're not going to be able to get those negotiations going if there is not a recognition that there has to be a change in government, we're not going back to the status quo ante, and the kinds of airstrike against moderate opposition that russia is engaging in will be counter productive, moving us father

away rather than toward the solution we should be looking for. julie, throughout this process, i think people have looked for a easy, low-cost answer. whether it is we should have sent more rifles in early, somehow then it would have been okay. or if i had taken that shot even after assad offered to give up his chemical weapon, then immediately things would have folded, or the assad regime would have folded and we would have suddenly seen a peaceful syria.

this is a hugely difficult, complex problem. i would have hoped we learned that from afghanistan and iraq. where we devoted time, forth and resources with the best people, and have given the afghan people and the iraq people an opportunity for democracy, but it is still hard. as we saw this week in afghanistan. that is not by virtue of a lack of effort on our part or lack of commitment. we still have 10,000 folks in afghanistan be we're still spending billions of dollars supporting that government, it is still tough. when i make a decision about the level of military involvement we're prepared to engage in, in syria, i have to make a judgment based on once we start something, we have t to finish ,

and do it well. and do we have the resources, and the capacity to make a serious impact understanding that we've still got to go after isil in iraq, we have to support the training of an iraqi military that is weaker than any of us persevered we have business to do, in afghanistan. so pushed and have over last 4 or 5 years, sought out a wide range of opinions about steps he could take potentially to move syria in a better direction. i am under no illusion about what a incredible humanitarian catastrophy this is, and the hardships that we're seeing and refugees that are traveling in

very dangerous circumstances. now creating real political problems among our allies in europe. and heard breaking images of children drowned, trying to escape a war. and the potential impact of such a destabilized country on our allies in the region. but what we have learned over last 10, 12, 13 years, unless we can get the parties on the ground to agree to live together in some fashion, then no amount of u.s. military engagement will solve the problem. and we'll find ourselves either doing just a little bit and not making a difference. and losing credibility that way. or drawing -- finding ourselves drawn in deeper and deeper in a situation that we can't sustain.

so when i hear people offering up half baked ideas, as if they are solutions, or trying to downplay the challenges involved in this situation, what i would like to see people ask circumstance specifically, precisely, what exactly would you do, and how would you fund it how would you sustain it? and typically, what you get is, a bunch of mumbo jumbo. so. these are hard challenges, they are ones that we're going to continue to pursue. the top line message that i want everyone to understand, we're continue to go after isil. we're going to continue to reach out to a moderate opposition.

we reject russia's theory that everybody opposed to assad a terrorist. we think that is self-defeating it will get them in a quagmire, and be used as a further recruitment tool for foreign fighters. we will work with the international community and our coalition to relieve the humanitarian pressure on refugees, we're working with turks and others to see what we can do on the border to make things safer for people. but we'll have to find a way for political transition if we're going to solve syria, okay. >> jonathon karl. >> thank you, mr. president. >> in july you said that gun issue has been most frustrating of your presidency be we heard that last night. if the last 15 months of your presidency, do you intend to to

anything differently to get congress to actor to do something 'this down violent problem. i have to get you something to respond to jeb bush said, to be fair to governor bush, asked about the drive to take action in light of what happened in oregon. he said, look, stuff happens, there is always a crisis, and the impulse is always to to something, it is not rally ways the right thing to do -- not always the right thing to do, how would you react? >> i don't think i have to react to that one. ti think that the american people should hear that, and make their own judgments based on fact that every couple of months we have a mass shooting. and in terms of, making a side whether they consider that stuff

happening. in terms of what i can do, i have asked my team as i have in the past, to scrub what kinds of authorities to we have to ep force the laws that we have, and place more to keep guns out of the hands in criminals, are there additional actions that we could take that might prevent a handful of these tragic deaths from taking place. but as i said last night, this will not change until the politics changes, and the behavior of elected officials changes. and so the main thing i will do and i will talk about this. on a regular basis. and i will politicize it, because our inaction is a political decision that we're making. the reason that congress does

not support even the modest gun safety laws that we proposed after sandy hook is not because the majority of the american people don't support it, normally politicians are responsive to the views of the election -- electorate. you have majority of american people think that it is rights thing to do, background checks, other common sense steps that would maybe same some lives, could not even get a full vote. and why is that? because of politics. because interest groups, fund campaigns, feed people fear, and in fairness it is not just in the republican party, although

the republican party is just uniformly opposed to all gun safety laws. and unless we change that mittal dynamic -- that political dynamic we're not going to be able to make a big dent in to problem. you hear people talk about the problem is not guns, it is mental illness. if you talk to people who study this problem, it is true that the majority of the mass shootsers are angry young men, but there are hundreds of millions of angry young men in the world. tens of million, most of them don't shoot. it does not help us just to identify and majority of people who have mental illnesses are not shooters, so, we can't sort through and identify ahead of time who might take alike this. only thing we can do is make sure they can't have an entire arsenal when something snaps in

them. and if we're going to do something about that, politics has to change. the politics has to change. and the people who are trouble by this have to be as intense, and as organized, and as adamant about this issue as folks on the other side, who are absolutists and think that any gun safety measures are somehow an assault on freedom or communistic or a plot by me to you know -- takeover. and stay in power forever or something. i mean, there are all crack pot conspiracy, that float around, some are ratified by elected officials in the other party on occasion. so. we have to change the politics of this. and that requires people to feel

not just feel deeply. i get a lot of letters, after this happens, do something. well, okay here is what you need to do. you have to make sure that anybody who you are voting for is on the right side of this issue. if they are not even if they are great on other stuff for a couple of election cycles, you have to vote again them, and let them know why you are voting against them. you just have to for a while be a single issue voter, because that is what is happening on the other side. that is going to take some time. i mean, the nra had a good start, you know. they have been at this a long time, they perfected what they do. you have to give them credit, they are very effective, they don't represent the majority of the american people. but they know how to stir up fear, and stir up their base, and raise money, and scare politicians.

they know how to organize campaigns. and the american people will have to match them in their sense of urgency, they have to stop this. which not to say stopping all violence, we'll not stop all violence, violence exists in the world sadly. part of original sin but, our homicide rates are just a well the higher than other places. by the way have the same levels of violence, just you can't kill as many people when you don't have easy access to these kinds of weapons. and i am deeply saddened about what happened yesterday, but afternoony is going to chicago -this is happening of day.

in forgotten neighborhoods in the nation, every day. kids are just running for their lives trying to get to school. we were in new orleans sitting with a group of young men when we were talking about katrina, i have got two young men next to me, both of them had been shot multiple times. they were barely 20. so, we have to make a decision, if we think that is normal, then we have to own it. i don't think it's normal, main thing i'm going to do is talk about it. and hope i am changing enough

minds with other leaders that we see action. i don't think it will happen overnight. sheryl. >> thank you, mr. president, to go to our opening remarks, you said you won't sign a short-term cr . but as you know, yesterday secretary lou announced that government's borrowing authority would run out around november 5. would you recommend negotiating an increase in debt ceiling as part of budget negotiations on spending cuts -- cap, does the speaker race complicate these. >> i sure that speaker race complicate z these negotiations, that was a rhetorical question. it will complicate the negotiations but, when it comes to debt ceiling, we're not going back there. maybe it has been a while.

raising the debt ceiling does not authorize us to spend more it authorities us to pay the bills that we have already incurred. it is the way for the united states to maintain its good credit rating. the full faith and credit of the united states historically, we do not mess with it. if it gets messed work it would have implications for the global economy, and could put our financial system in the kind of tailspin we saw back in 2007, and 2008, this is a bad thing to do. we're not going to negotiate on that, it has to get done in the next 5 weeks, the continues resolution to keep the government open lasted for 10 weeks be we have to get the debt ceiling raised in 5.

you have a shorter time table to get that done. but here is the bottom line, mitch mcconnell, john boehner, myself, nancy pelosi, harry reid, we have all spoken. into talked about trying to negotiate a budget agreement. and yes, >> i do think there is a path for us to come up with a reasonable agreement that raises the spending caps above sequester to make sure we can properly finance both our defense and nondefense needs that maintains a prudent, you know, control of our deficits and that we can do that in short order. it's not that complicated.

there's -- the math is the math, and what i've encouraged is that we get started on that work immediately, and we push through over the next several weeks and try to leave out extraneous issues that may prevent us from getting a budget agreement. i know for example that there are many republicans who are exercised about planned parenthood, and i deeply disagree with them on that issue, and i think that it's mischaracterized what planned parenthood does, but i understand that they feel strongly about it, and i respect that, but you can't have an issue like that potentially wreck the entire u.s. economy, any more than i

should hold the entire budget hostage to my desire to do something about gun violence. i feel just as strongly about that, and i think i've got better evidence for it. but the notion they would threaten the republicans that unless they passed gun safety measures that would stop mass shootings, i'm going shut down the government and not sign an increase in the debt ceiling would be irresponsible of me, and the american people rightly would reject that well. same true for them, there are some fights that we fight individually, they want to defund planned parenthood, there's a way to do it. pass a law, override my veto. that's true across a whole bunch of issues they disagree with me on. that's how democracy works, i

got no problem with that. but you have to govern, and i'm hoping that the next speaker understands that the problem speaker boehner had or mitch mcconnell had in not dismantling obamacare or not eliminating the department of education, or not deporting every immigrant in this country was not because speaker boehner or mitch mcconnell didn't care about conservative principles. it had to do with the fact that they can't do it in our system of government, which requires compromise. just like i can't do everything i want in passing an immigration bill or passing a gun safety bill, and that doesn't mean they throw a tantrum and try to wreck the economy and put hard working

americans who are just now able to dig themselves out of a massive recession put them in harm's way. wrong thing to do. peter alexander? >> reporter: thank you, mr. president. you addressed i want to follow up on john's questions about the issue that's deeply personal and moving to you, that is the gun issue. apart from congress' inaction, apart from the desire from new laws and beyond that apart from the gun lobby, as you noted the pattern is that these perpetrators are angry, aggrieved oftentimes mentally ill young men, is there something you can do with the bully pulpit, with your moral authority, with your remaining time in office to help reach theseds have that believe that gun violence is the way out? >> no. i think i can continue to speak to the american people as a

whole and hopefully model for them basic social norms about rejecting violence and cooperation and caring for other people, but there are a lot of young men out there, and having been one myself once, i can tell you that us being able to identify or pinpoint who might have problems is extraordinarily difficult. so i think we as a culture should continuously think about how we can nurture our kids, protect our kids, talk to them about conflict resolution, discourage violence. i think there are poor communities where rather than

mass shootings, you're seeing just normal interactions that used to be settled by fistfights, settled with guns where maybe intervention programs and mentorship and things like that can work. that's the thing we're trying to encourage through my brother's keeper. but when it comes to reaching every disaffected young man, 99% of -- or 99.9% of whom will hopefully grow out of it, i don't think that there's a silver bullet there. the way we are going to solve this problem is that when they act out. when they are disturbed. when that particular individual has a problem, that they can't easily access weapons that can perpetrate mass violence on a lot of people, because that's what other countries do. i want to emphasize this. there's no showing that somehow

we are inherently more violent than any other advanced nation, or that young men are inherently more violent in our nation than they are in other nations. i will say young men inherently are more violent than the rest of the population, but there's no sense that somehow this is something in the american character that is creating this. levels of violence are on par between the united states and other advanced countries, what is different is homicide rates and gun violence rates and mass shooting rates, so it's not that the behavior or the impulses are necessarily different as much as it is that they have access to more powerful weapons. julie edwards?

>> reporter: thank you, mr. president. you just said you reject president putin's approach to syria and his attacks on moderate opposition forces. you said it was a recipe for disaster. but what are you willing to do to stop president putin and protect moderate opposition fighters would? you consider imposing sanctions against russia? would you go so far to equip moderate rebels to protect them from russian air attacks and how do you respond to critics that say putin is outsmarting you, that he took a measure against you in ukraine -- >> i've heard it all before. [ laughter ] >> i've got to say i'm always struck by the degree to which not just critics but i think people buy this narrative. let's think about. this so when i came into office 7 1/2 years ago, america had precipitated the worst financial crisis in history, dragged the entire world into a

massive recession. we were involved in two wars with almost no coalition support. u.s. world opinion about the united states was at a nator, we were just barely above russia at that time and i think slightly below chinas, and we were shedding 800,000 jobs a month and so on and so forth, and today we're the strongest large advanced economy in the world. probably one of the few bright spots in the world economy. our approval ratings have gone up. we are more active on more international issues and forage international responses to everything from ebola to you

know countering isil. meanwhile mr. putin comes into office at a time when the economy had been growing and they were trying to pivot to a more diversified economy, and as a consequence of these brilliant moves, their economy is contracting 4% this year, they are isolated in the world community subject to sanctions that are not just applied by us, but by what used to be some of their closest trading partners. their main allies in the middle east were libya and syria. mr. gadhafi and mr. assad, and those countries are falling apart and he's now just had to send in troops and aircraft in order to prop up this regime at

the risk of alienating the entire sunni world. so -- what was the question again? [ laughter ] >> no, no, but i think it's really interesting to understand. russia's not stronger as a consequence of what they've been doing. they get attention. the sanctions against ukraine are still in place, and what i've consistently offered from a position of strength because the united states is not subject to sanctions and we're not contracting 4% a year, what i've offered is a pathway where by they can get back onto a path of growth and do right by

their people. so mr. putin's actions have been successful only insofar as it's boosted his poll ratings inside of russia, which may be why the beltway is so impressed because that tends to be the measure of success. of course, it's easier to do when you have a state controlled media, but this is not a smart strategic move on russia's part, and what russia's now done is not only committed its own troops into a situation in which the overwhelming majority of the syrian population see it now as an enemy, but the sunni population throughout the middle east is going to see it as a supporter, an endorser of

those barrel bombs landing on kids. at a time when russia has a significant muslim population inside of its own borders that it needs to worry about. so i want russia to be successful. this is not a contest between the united states and russia. it is in our interests for russia to be a responsible, effective, actor on the international stage that can share burdens with us along with china, along with europe, along with japan, along with other countries, because the problems we have are big. so i'm hopeful that mr. putin, having made this doubling down of the support he's provided for mr. assad, recognizes this is not going to be a good long-term strategy, and that he

works instead to bring about a political settlement. just as i hoped that they can resolve the issues with ukraine in a way that recognizes russian equities but upholds the basic principle of sovereignty and independence that the ukrainian people should enjoy like everybody else. but until that time we're going to continue to have tensions and we're going to continue to have differences. but we're not going to make syria into a proxy war between the united states and russia. that would be bad strategy on our part. this is a battle between russia, iran and assad against the overwhelming majority of the syrian people. our battle is with isil and our battle is with the entire international community to resolve the conflict in a way that can end the bloodshed end

and the refugee crisis and allow people to be at home, work, grow food, shelter their children, send those kids to school. that's the side we're on. this is not some superpower chess board contest. and anybody who frames it in that way isn't paying very close attention to what's been happening on the chess board. all right, last question, major garrett? >> reporter: mr. president, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> reporter: and for the children, there i promise i won't take too long. you have been very patient. >> i've been boring them to death. i guarantee you. but there's been times i've snagged rebounds for ryan when he's shooting three-pointers. he's got to put up with this. >> reporter: understood, i wonder if you can tell the country to which degree you were changed or moved by your visit with pope francis and for

democrats who might already be wondering s it too late for joe biden to decide whether to run for president? and lastly, just to clarify, to what degree did hillary clinton's endorsement yesterday of a no-fly zone put her in a category of embracing a half-baked answer in syria that borders on mumbo jumbo? >> on the latter issue, on the last question that you asked, hillary clinton is not half-baked in terms of her approach to these problems. she was obviously my secretary of state. but i also think that there's a difference between running for president and being president, and the decisions that are being made and the discussions that i'm having with the joint chiefs become much more specific, and require i think a different kind of judgment, and

that's what i'll continue to apply, as long as i'm here, and if and when she's president, then she'll make those judgments and she's been there enough that she knows that these are tough calls, but that. reporter: [ inaudible ] no, that's not what i said. that's perhaps what you said. what i'm saying is that we all want to try to relieve the suffering in syria, but my job is to make sure that whatever we do we are doing in a way that serves the national security interests of the american people, that doesn't lead to us getting into things that we can't get out of or that we cannot do effectively and as much as possible that we're working with international partners. and we're going to continue to

explore things that we can do to protect people and to deal with the humanitarian situation there and to provide a space in which we can bring about the kind of, you know, political transition that's going to be required to solve the problem. and i think hillary clinton would be the first to say that when you're sitting in the seat that i'm sitting in, in the situation room, things look a little different. because she's been right there next to me. i like joe biden, he's got his own decisions to make, and i'll leave it at that. in the meantime, he's doing a great job as vice president and has been really helpful on a whole bunch of issues. pope francis, i love. he is a good man, with a warm

heart, and a big moral imagination, and i think he had such an impact in his visit here as he's had around the world because he cares so deeply about the least of these, and in that sense expresses what i consider to be as a christian the essence of christianity, and he's got a good sense of humor. well, i can't share all his jokes. they were all clean. [ laughter ] >> and as i said in the introduction in the south lawn when he appeared here at the white house, i think it's really useful that he makes us

uncomfortable in his gentle way, that he's constantly prodding people's consciences, and asking everybody across the political spectrum what more you can do to be kind and to be helpful and to love and to sacrifice and to serve? and in that sense, i don't think he's somebody where we should be applying you know the typical american political measures of liberal and conservative and left and right. i think he is speaking to all of our consciences, and we all have to then search ourselves to see if there are ways that we can, we can do better.

>> did that happen to you? >> you know, it did. i think that when i spend time with somebody like the pontiff, and there are other individuals, some of whom are famous, some of whom are not, but who are good people and deeply moral, then it makes me want to be better, makes me want to do better, and those people are great gifts to the world, and sometime they're just a teacher in a classroom, and sometimes they're your neighbor, and sometime they're your mom or your wife. sometime they're your kids, but they can encourage you to be better. that's what we're all trying to do. i think -- and that's part of the wonderful thing about pope

francis is the humility that he brings to this. his rejection of the absolutism that says i'm 100% right and you're 100% wrong but rather we are all sinners and we are all children of god. that's a pretty good starting point for being better. all right? thank you, guys, for your patience. you can now go home. [ laughter ] >> president barack obama on a day which started out with a horrible jobs report. also real conflict in syria where the russians and iranians are interfering with our own anti-isis program and, of course, the day after that horrendous school shooting. the president had a lot to talk about, a lot to chew on, here

john lonski and jack hough, depassistant to vice president and jeff smith former missouri state senator and mr. smith goes to prison author. thank you very much, gentlemen. james, start with the economy, we're coming up to sensitive budget time, the house and the senate about to pass a budget, a continuing resolution we should say. the president saying he's going to veto it if it comes down the line. the president also blaming the republicans for a growing deficit and then saying immediately afterwards we should be spending more and not adhering to the sequestration. how do you lower the deficit by spending more, james? >> yeah, that's tough to do. when he says let me be clear, that's the signal you're going to get a long-winded, muddled answer, he seemed to be saying the economy stinks because i have a disagreement with

republicans on spending levels and politicians would like to shut down the government in december. >> you know, i want to go to john lonski, this is an economic issue, we talked about the budget fight in the sense you've got the republicans that want to defund planned parenthood and the democrats or the president said he would like to see stricter gun control laws but neither issue in his opinion was worth shutting down the government. what message does that send to the gop right now? >> important that the grandstanding stop as quickly as possible, get the budget passed and if you want to have massive change in the budget, win the presidency in 2016, cut out the nonsense. i think the american people are getting tired of this and they want a lasting solution. >> steven yates, let's move to the middle east quickly. he talked about half-baked ideas coming from certain corridors how to deal with the situation rapidly growing out of control in terms of the russians and iranians taking

over policy there. he did admit after blaming other people for half baked ideas that one of his ideas training anti-isis force to the tune of half a billion dollars just ended up with nine, count them, nine isis fighters. if that's not a half-baked idea, what is? >> we have a lot of examples of things in syria in recent years that clearly have not worked. like the most disturbing thing to me was the notion the president declares vladimir putin weak and russia weak and they've taken authority in the ukraine. they've gotten more than $100 billion in sanctions lifted for iran and all working together to solidify territory in syria for assad. all the while the middle east is purging moderate muslims, christians and other people to consolidate a caliphate. so the only part they see as weakness is any response that we've had. we have the responsibility or

we don't. >> but jack, the president was asked directly, and didn't answer, it what are you going do with regard to putin? and all i heard him say in a long-winded answer is we're going to keep open discussions with our partners, our allies, who else is supposed to help us with the serious situation in the british? no one seems to be stepping up to aid us in dealing with isis or assad. >> in the broader middle east, we run into a problem, it was this way in the first gulf war. it was this way every other time. a lot of people live with the consequences of these things and unless they have the confidence that they're going to go big and get it done, they don't want any part of half measures. you see hesitancy because of lack of confidence it is hard to make a difference. it is hard, we know that, after several years everything he's tried has not made a difference for the better. >> jeff smith, we had this horrendous shooting yesterday and the president stepped in the middle of it yesterday,

perhaps his duty as president to address the bully pulpit suggesting the problem was gun control, there wasn't enough of it, mentioning a couple places that have a lot of gun control like chicago, where the murder rate is skyrocketing. rudy giuliani, who knows how to cut down on the homicide rate in the country, it was 2000 when he took over, the year dropped down to 500 by the time he left because of policies he put into place. he spoke to that point about the president's views on gun control earlier on fbn. i think we can play that sound bite, let me get you to respond. okay, let me read to what you rudy giuliani said, he said gun control does not reduce crime. you know why? because the people who comply with gun control are all legal people. bad guys, none of the guys i put in jail got licenses for guns. that's the problem with the president's hypothesis. >> you pointed out the statistics in new york, but you

can look at statistics in australia where they enacted strict gun control. >> let's keep it in this country, if you don't mind. >> let's look at chicago, what you talked about in chicago you're right, they have strict gun control laws but have very high murder rates. of course, municipalities and counties around chicago and other states where guns can travel into chicago don't have laws that are near as strict as that city. because guns travel across porous borders in this country, it means that isolated municipalities that have strict gun control laws don't often have the impact that gun safety proponents would like them to have. the president's right, if you look at other countries, i know you wanted to keep it in this country. other countries don't see the epidemic. >> other countries don't have the second amendment. that's part of the problem, pretty president's perspective, he's not willing to address. let's move on. >> want to give jack hough the

last word. he didn't talk about how great the u.s. economy was, i'm not sure how great we're going to be considering the nasty jobs report, jack, final word. >> i agree with one thing, the pope's a nice guy. [ laughter ] >> it's get on nothing to do with what republican are doing. oil profits are cratering, profess growth is slowing, margins are coming down, sales coming down and i don't see a lot of improvement for the rest of the year until we cycle through this. >> i've got to ask jack, the bounceback today, it was the biggest swing that we've had in years, what caused that? >> oil. >> negative almost 300 to positive 200. >> oil. corporate america suffered from a big comedown in profits and almost entirely because of oil so if you've got an oil price rising, it's hoped these guys will get relief on the bottom line and maybe that will help

stock market valuations. >> guys, have a wonderful weekend, thank you for staying with us, >> >>. deirdre: president obama i just finished speaking on numerous subjects taking questions from reporters that the white house. welcome to rescue a reward. my colleague is listening with me and millions of other people. i made a short list talking about the budget and raising the stakes with congressional republicans over the budget to syria and gun-control, the pope divided, hillary rodham clinton, of what was covered