ground working shoulder to shoulder with florida health authorities. there's a very aggressive effort under way to control mosquitos there, and pregnant women have been urged to stay away from the particular neighborhood that we're focused on. we'll keep working as one team, federal, state, and local to try and limit the spread of the virus. i want to be very clear, though, our public health experts do not expect to see the widespread outbreaks of zika here that we've seen in brazil or in puerto rico. the kind of mosquitos that are most likely to carry zika are limited to certain regions of our country. but we cannot be complacent, because we expect to see more zika cases. even though the symptoms for most people are mild, many may never even know that they have it, we've seen that the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe. so i again want to encourage every american to learn what they can do to help stop zika by

going to cdc.gov. in addition, congress needs to do its job. fighting zika costs money. research into new vaccines, and by the way, nih just announced the first clinical trials in humans. that costs money. that's why my administration proposed an urgent request for more funding back in february. not only did the republican-led congress not pass our request, they worked to cut it. and then they left for summer recess without passing any new funds for the fight against zika. our experts at the cdc and nih, the folks on the front lines, have been doing their best by moving funds from other areas. but now the money we need to fight zika is rapidly running out. without sufficient funding, nih clinical trials and the possibilities of a vaccine, which is well within reach, could be delayed.

so this is not the time for politics. more than 40 u.s. service members have now contracted zika overseas. in 50 u.s. states, we know of more than 1800 cases of zika connected to travel to infected areas. that includes nearly 500 pregnant women. zika is now present in almost every part of puerto rico, and now we have the first local transmission in florida and there will be certainly more. and meanwhile, congress is on a summer recess. a lot of folks talk about protecting americans from threats. well, zika is a serious threat to americans, especially babies, right now. so once again, i want to urge the american people to call their members of congress and tell them to do their job. deal with this threat, help protect the american people from zika. with that, i am going to take some questions. i'm going to start with someone

who just assumed the second most powerful office in the land, jeff mason, the new correspondent for the association president, also from reuters. >> happy birthday. >> thank you very much. >> as islamic state loses territory, you and other officials have said that it's becoming a more traditional terrorist group. are you satisfied that the united states and its allies have shifted strategy sufficiently to address that change? secondly, given your comments this week about donald trump's volatility and lack of fitness to be president, are you concerned that he will be receiving security briefings about isis and other sensitive national security issues? >> i'm never satisfied with our response, because if you're satisfied, that means the problem is solved and it's not. so we just spent a couple hours meeting with my top national security folks to look at what

more can be done. ' it is absolutely necessary for us to defeat isil in iraq and syria. it is not sufficient, but it is necessary. because so long as they have those bases, they can use their propaganda to suggest that somehow there's still some caliphate being born. and that can insinuate itself then in the minds of folks who may be willing to travel there or carry out terrorist attacks. it's also destabilizing for countries in the region at a time when the region is already unstable. so i am pleased with the progress that we've made on the ground in iraq and syria. we're far from freeing mosul and raqqah. but what we've shown is that when it comes to conventional

fights, isil can be beaten with partners on the ground, so long as they have support from coalition forces that we've been providing. in the meantime, though, you're seeing isil carry out external terrorist acts, and they've learned something, they've adapted from al qaeda, which at a much more centralized operation and tried to plan very elaborate attacks. what isil has figured out is if they can convince a handful of people or even one person to carry out an attack on a subway or at a parade or some other public venue, and kill scores of people opposed to thousands of people, it still creates the kinds of fear and concern that elevates their profile.

so in some ways, rooting out these networks for smaller, less complicated attacks is tougher, because it doesn't require as many resources on their part or preparation, but it does mean that we've got to do even more to generate the intelligence and to work with our partners in order to degrade those networks. and the fact is, those networks will probably sustain themselves even after isil is defeated in raqqah and mosul. but what we've learned from our efforts to defeat al qaeda is that if we stay on it, our intelligence gets better. and we adapt, as well. and eventually, we will

dismantle these networks also. this is part of the reason why, however, it is so important for us to keep our eye on the ball and not panic, not succumb to fear, because isil can't defeat the united states of america or our nato partners. we can defeat ourselves, though, if we make bad decisions. and we have to understand that, as painful and as tragic as these attacks are, that we are going to keep on grinding away, preventing them wherever we can, using a whole government effort to knock down their propaganda, to disrupt their networks, to take their key operatives off the battlefield, and that eventually we will -- we will win.

but if we -- if we start making bad decisions, indiscriminately killing civilians, for example in some of these areas, instituting offensive religious tests on who can enter the country, you know, those kinds of strategies can end up backfiring, because in order for us to ultimately win this fight, we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations between the west and islam. that plays exactly into the hands of isil and the perversions -- perverse interpretations of islam they're putting forward. as far as mr. trump, we are going to go by the law, which is that both tradition and the law, that if somebody is a nominee

for president, they need to get security briefings so that if they were to win, they are not starting from scratch in terms of being prepared for this office. i'm not going to go into details of the nature of the security briefings that both candidates receive. what i will say is that they have been told, these are classified briefings and if they want to be president, they got to start acting like president. and that means being able to receive these briefings and not spread them around. i think i've said enough on that. mary bruce. >> thank you, mr. president. what is your response to critics who say the $400 million in cash you sent to iran was a ransom

payment? was it a fair coincidence that a sum of a payment that was held up for four decades was sent at the exact same time that the american prisoners were released? can you assure the american people that none of that money went to support terrorism? >> the -- it's been interesting to watch this story surface. some of you may recall, we announced these payments in january. many months ago. it wasn't a secret. we announced them, to all of you. josh did a briefing on them. this wasn't some nefarious deal. and at the time, we explained that iran had pressed a claim before an international tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had frozen, that,

as a consequence of it working its way through the international tribunal, it was the assessment of our lawyers that we were at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars. it was their advice and suggestion that we settle. and that's what these payments represent. and it wasn't a secret. we were completely open with everybody about it, and it's interesting to me how suddenly this became a story again. that's point number one. point number two, we do not pay ransom for hostages. we've got a number of americans being held all around the world. around i meet with their families. and it is heartbreaking. and we have stood up and entire section of interagency experts who devote all their time working with these families to

get these americans out. but those families know that we have a policy that we don't pay ransom. and the notion that we would somehow start now, in this high profile way and announce it to the world, even as we're looking into the faces of other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage, and say to them that we don't pay ransom defies logic. so that's point number two. we do not pay ransom. we didn't here and we won't in the future. precisely because if we did, we would start encouraging americans to be targeted. much in the same way countries that do pay ransom, have more of their citizens being taken by various groups. point number three is that the

timing of this was, in fact, dictated by the fact that, as a consequence of us negotiating around the nuclear deal, we actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with iran for the first time in several decades. so the issue is not so much that it was a coincidence as it is that we were able to have a direct discussion. john kerry could meet with the foreign minister which meant that our ability to clear kth accounts on a number of different issues converged. it was important to take advantage of that opportunity both to teal with this litigation risk that had been raised. it was important for us to make sure that we finished the job on the iran nuclear deal. and since we were in a conversation with them, it was important for us to be able to push that hard in getting these americans out.

let me make a final point on this. it's now been well over a year since the agreement with iran to stop its nuclear program was signed. and by all accounts, it has worked exactly the way we said it was going to work. you will recall that there were all these horror stories about how iran was going to cheat and this wasn't going to work and iran was going to get $150 billion to finance terrorism and all these kinds of scenarios. and none of them have come to pass. and it's not just the assessment of our intelligence community, it's the assessment of the israeli military and intelligence community, the country that was most opposed to this deal that acknowledges this has been a game changer and that

iran has abided by the deal and that they no longer have the sort of short-term breakout capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons. so what i'm interested in, if there's some news to be made, why not have some of these folks who were predicting disaster say, you know what? this thing actually worked. that would be a shock. that would be impressive. if some of these folks who had said the sky is falling, suddenly said, you know what? we were wrong and we are glad iran no longer has the capacity to break out in short term and develop a nuclear weapon. but of course, that wasn't going to happen. instead, what we have is, the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in january. and the object bit of news that is relevant on this is the fact

that we paid cash, which brings me to my last point. the reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with iran, that we couldn't send them a check. and we could not wire the money. and it is not at all clear to me why it is that cash, opposed to a check or a wire transfer, has made this into a new story. maybe it's because it kind of feels like some spy novel, you know, some crime novel, because cash was exchanged. the reason cash was exchanged is because we don't have a banking relationship with iran, which is

precisely part of the pressure that we were able to apply to them so that they would ship a whole bunch of nuclear material out and close down a bunch of facilities that, as i remember two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, was people's top fear and priority, that we make sure iran doesn't have breakout nuclear capacity. they don't. this worked. josh. >> thank you, mr. president. repeatedly donald trump has said this election will be rigged against him, challenging the core foundation of our democratic system. do you promise the american people will election will be conducted in a fair way? and are you worried that comments like his could erode the public's faith in the outcome of the election? and if he does win, given that you declared that he's unfit,

what will you say to the american people? >> well, at the end of the day, it's the american people's decision. i have one vote. i have the same vote you do. i have the same vote that all the voters who are eligible all across the country have. i've offered my opinion, but ultimately, it's the american people's decision to make collectively. and if somebody wins the election, and they are president, then my constitutional responsibility is to peacefully transfer pow tore that individual and do everything i can to help them succeed. it is -- i don't know where to start on answering this question. of course the elections will not be rigged. what does that mean? the federal government doesn't run the election process. states and cities and

communities all across the country, they're the ones who set up the voting systems and the voting booths and if mr. trump is suggesting that there is a conspiracy theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places like texas, where typically it's not democrats who are in charge of voting booths, that's ridiculous. that doesn't make any sense, and i don't think anybody would take that seriously. now, we do take seriously, as we always do, our responsibilities to monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process if we see signs that a voting machine or system is vulnerable to hacking, then we inform those local authorities running the

elections that they need to be careful. if we see jurisdictions that are violating federal laws in terms of equal access and aren't providing grants for disabled voters or are discriminating in some fashion or otherwise violating civil rights laws, then the justice department will come in and take care of that. but this will be an election like every other election. and i think all of us, at some points in our lives have played sports or maybe just played in a schoolyard or sandbox and sometimes folks if they lose complain they got cheated. but i've never heard somebody complaining about being cheated before the game was over. or before the score is even tallied.

so my suggestion would be, you know, go out there and try to win the election. if mr. trump is up 10 or 15 points on election day and ends up losing, then maybe he can raise some questions. that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. barbara starr. >> thank you, mr. president. on the question of expansion that you've been talking about, because you see them expanding around the world, because you see them trying to inspire attacks, what is your current level of concern about the homeland? you talked about the protection measures, but what is your assessment about the possibility, your own intelligence advisers suggest it's possible, about the direct isis threat to americans? and if i may follow up along the same lines, what is your

assessment today, as you stand here, about whether donald trump can be trusted with america's nuclear weapons. >> um, you know, on your second question, and i'll sort of address this to any additional trump questions, i would ask all of you to just make your own judgment. i've made this point already multiple times. just listen to what mr. trump has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad. >> but your comments suggest you're not confident. >> as i recall, i just answered a question about this a couple days ago and i don't want to keep on repeating it or a variation on it. i obviously have a very strong

opinion about the two candidates who are running here. one is very positive, and one is not so much. and i think you will just hear any further questions that are directed to this subject, i think you'll hear variations on the same thing. what i can say, this is serious business. and the person who is in the oval office and who are secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff, outstanding men and women in uniform report to. you know, they are counting on somebody who has the temperament and good judgment to be able to make decisions to keep america safe. and that should be very much on the minds of voters when they go

into the voting booth in november. in terms of the threat that isil poses to the homeland, i think sit serious and we take it seriously. and as i said earlier, precisely because they are less concerned about big, spectacular 9/11-style attacks, because they've seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles or in the case of nice, france, a truck, the possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real. and that's why our intelligence and law enforcement and military

officials are working around the clock to try to anticipate potential attacks, to obtain the threads of people who might be vulnerable to brainwashing by isil. but we are constrained here in the united states to carry out this work in a way that's consistent with our laws, and presumptions of innocence. and the fact that we prevent a lot of these attacks as effectively as we do, without a lot of fanfare and abiding by our law, is a testament to the incredible work these folks are doing. but it is always a risk.

some of you may have read the article in "the new york times" today. i guess it came out last night online, about this individual in germany who had confessed and given himself up and then explained his -- his knowledge of how isil's networks worked. there was a paragraph this there that some may have caught which, according to this reporting, the individual indicated that isil recognizes it's harder to get its operatives into the united states. but the fact that we have what he referred to as open gun laws meant that anybody, as long as they didn't have a criminal record that barred them from purchase, could go in and buy

weapons, that made homegrown extremist strategy more attractive to them. those are the hardest to stop, because by definition, if somebody doesn't have a record, if it's not triggering something, it means that anticipating their actions becomes that much more difficult. and this is why the military strategy that we have in syria and iraq is necessary, but it is not sufficient. we have to do a better job of disrupting networks. and those networks are more active in europe than they are here. but we don't know what we don't know. so it's conceivable that there are some networks here that could be activated. but we also have to get to the messaging that can reach a troubled individual over the internet, and do a better job of

disrupting that. and what i've told my team is that, although we've been working on this now for five, six, seven years, we've got to put more resources into it. this is something we have to really focus on. this is also why -- how we work with the muslim-american community, the values that we affirm about their patriotism and their sacrifice and our -- one of the reasons we don't have networks and cells as active here as they are in certain parts of europe is because the muslim-american community in this country is extraordinarily patriotic and largely successful. and fights in our military and

serving as our doctors and nurses. you know, they are communities in which they are raising their kids with love of country and rejection of violence. that has to be affirmed consistently, and if we screw that up, then we're going to have bigger problems. >> yesterday, you commuted the sentences of 214 federal inmates. it was the largest single day grant of commutations in the history of the american presidency. i wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your clemency thought process. what is -- you talk about this as low-level drug offenders who got mandatory minimum sentences. but about a quarter of the commutations also had firearms offenses. given your overall policy on firearms, can you reconcile that for us? and given that previously in

your presidency, you sent a memo saying there was sort of a predisposition against firearms on your clemency. why did you change your mind on that? you've granted more commutations than calvin coolage and granted fewer pardons since john adams. why is that? these are -- you talk about second chances. a full pardon would give people a better chance at that second chance. and finally, many of your predecessors in the final days of their presidency have reserved that for their more politically sensitive pardons. can we expect you to do that? >> i appreciate the question, as i haven't had a chance to talk about this much. this is an effort i'm really proud of. it is my view shared by

democrats and republicans alike, in many corridors, that as successful as we've been in reducing crime in this country, the extraordinary rate of incarceration of non-violent offenders has created its own set of problems that are devastating. entire communities have been ravaged where largely men, but some women, are taken out of those communities, kids are now growing up without parents. it perpetuates a cycle of poverty and disorder in their lives. it is disproportionally young men of color that are being arrested at higher rates, charged and convicted at higher rates and imprisoned for longer sentences.

and so ultimately, the fix on this is criminal justice reform. and i still hold out hope that the bipartisan effort that's taken place in effort can finish the job and we can have a criminal justice system, at least at the federal level, that is both smart on crime, effective on crime, but recognizes the need for proportionality in sentencing and the need to rehabilitate those who commit crimes. but even as that flow process of criminal justice goes forward, i wanted to see if we could invigorate the pardon and commutation process that had become stalled over the course of several years. partly because it's politically

risky. you commute somebody and they commit a crime and the politics of it are tough. and everybody remembers the willie horton ad. so the bias, i think, of my predecessors and frankly a number of my advisers early in my presidency is be careful about that. but i thought it was very important for us to send a clear message that we believe in the principles behind criminal justice reform, even if we ultimately need legislation. so we have focused more on commutations than we have on pardons. i would argue by the time i leave office, the number ofpard roughly in line with what other presidents have done. but standing up this commutations process has required a lot of effort and energy, and it's not like we got

a new slug of money to do it. so you've got limited resources. the primary job of the justice department is to prevent crime, and to convict those who have committed crimes and to keep the american people safe. that means that you've had this extraordinary effort by a lot of people inside the justice department to go above and beyond what they're doing, but also review these petitions that have been taking place. we've been able to get organizations around the country to participate, to kind of screen and help people apply. and what we've -- the main criteria that i've tried to set is, if under today's laws, because there have been changes in how we charge non-violent drug offenses, if under today's

charges their sentences would be substantially lower than the charges that they've received. if they got a life sentence but a u.s. attorney or justice department indicates that today they would be likely to get 20 years and they already served 25, then what we try to do is to screen through and find those individuals who have paid their debt to society, that had behaved themselves and tried to reform themselves while incarcerated and we think have a good chance of being able to use that second chance well. on the firearms issue, what i've done is to try to screení"

he's now 48 or 38, 20 years later, and has an unblemished prison record, has gone back to school, gotten his g.e.d., has gone through drug treatment, has the support of the original judge that presided, the support of the u.s. attorney that charged him, support of the warden, has a family that loves him and this that situation, the fact that he had 20 years earlier an enhancement because he had a firearm is different than a situation where somebody is engaged in armed robbery and

shot somebody. in those cases, that is still something that i'm concerned about. our focus really has been on people who we think were overcharged and people who we do not believe had a propensity towards violence. and in terms of your last question, about sort of last-minute pardons that are granted, the process that i've put in place is not going to vary depending on how close i get to the election. so it's going to be reviewed by department attorneys, it will be reviewed by my white house council, and i'm going to, as best as i can, make these decisions based on the merits as

opposed to political considerations. okay. and finally, jim is retiring after 30 years at nbc. he's done an outstanding job, mostly covering the department of defense. this may be my last press conference here, so i just wanted to thank jim for the extraordinary career that he's had and the great job that he's done. and he gets the last question. >> thank you very much, mr. president. >> you bet. >> first, back to isis and iraq and syria. your very own national counterterrorism operation has found that despite all of the decisive defeats that the u.s. and coalition have dealt isis on the battlefield, that they've expanded their threat worldwide to include as many as 18 operational bases. in the six years you've been

dealing, do you feel any disappointment that there hasn't been more progress? and any discussions with the milt tear and intelligence agencies, have you come up with any new ideas how to deal with or defeat isis? >> every time there's a terrorist attack, i feel disappointment because i would like to prevent all of them. and that's true not just when the attacks are in europe or the united states. when you read stories about attacks in lebanon or iraq or afghanistan, or distant parts of the world that don't get as much attention, they get my attention. because that's somebody's kid and that's somebody's mom. and that's somebody who was just going about his business.

and mindlessly, senselessly this person was murdered. so you haven't gotten numb to it. it bugs me whenever it happens, and wherever it happens. and we are constantly pushing ourselves to see are there additional ideas that we can deploy to defeat this threat. now, it is important that we recognize terrorism as a tactic has been around for a long time. and if you look at the '70s or the '80s or the '90s, there was some terrorist activity somewhere in the world that was brutal. and as much as i would like to say that during my eight-year

presidency we could have eliminated terrorism completely, it's not surprising that that hasn't happened and i don't expect that will happen under the watch of my successors. i do think because of our extraordinary efforts, the homeland is significantly safer than it otherwise would be. in some ways, there's an argument to the counterfactuals. but the attacks we prevent, i take great satisfaction in, and i am grateful for the extraordinary work that our teams do. i don't think there's any doubt that had we not destroyed al qaeda in the fatah, that more americans would have been killed. and we might have seen more attacks like we saw on 9/11.

and we have maintained vigilance, recognizing that those threats still remain, those aspirations in the minds of these folks still remain. but it is much harder for them to carry out large-scale attacks like that, than it used to be. what we have seen is that these lower level attacks carried out by fewer operatives or an individual with less sophisticated and less expensive weapons can do real damage. and that, i think, points to the need for us to not just have a military strategy, not just have a traditional counterterrorism strategy that's designed to bust up networks and catch folks before they carry out their attacks, although those still are necessary and we have to be more and more sophisticated

about how we carry those out. it still requires us to have much greater cooperation with our partners around the world. but it points to the fact that we're going to have to do a better job in draining the ideology that is behind these attacks. that right now is emanating largely out of the middle east and a very small fraction of the muslim world, a perversion of islam that has taken root and has been turbo charged over the internet. and that is appealing to even folks who don't necessarily know anything about islam and aren't even practicing islam in a serious way, but have all kinds of psychosis and latch onto this

as some way of being important and magnifying themselves. and that's tougher, because that involves both changes in geopolitics in places like syria. it requires cultural changes in regions like the middle east and north africa, that are going through generational changes and shifts as the old order collapses. it requires psychology and thinking about how do these messages of hate reach individuals and are there ways that we can intervene ahead of time? and all that work is being done and we've got the very best poem at it. and each day, they're making a difference in saving lives. not just here but around the world.

but it's a challenge precisely because if you're successful 99% of the time, that 1% can still mean heartbreak for families. and it's difficult because in a country let's say of 300 million people here in the united states, if 99.9% of people are immune from this hateful ideology but 1/10th of 1% are susceptible to it, that's a lot of dangerous people running around. we can't always anticipate them ahead of time, because they may not have criminal records. so this is going to be a challenge. i just want to end on the point i made earlier. how we react to this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy isil, prevent these

networks from penetrating. you can't separate those two things out. the reason it's called terrorism opposed to just a standard war is that these are weak enemies that can't match us in conventional power, but what they can do is make us scared. and when societies get scared, they can react in ways that undermine the fabric of our society. it makes us weaker, and makes us more vulnerable and creates politics that divide us in ways that hurt us over the long-term. and so if we remain steady and steadfast and vigilant, but also

take the long view and maintain perspective and remind ourselves of who we are and what we care about most deeply and what we cherish and what's good about this country and what's good about the international order and civilization that was built, in part, because of the sacrifices of our men and women after a 20th century full of world war. if we remember that, then we're going to be okay. but we're still going to see episodically, these tragedies and we'll have to work on until we make things better. >> one more, mr. president. >> you may, because you're retiring. but i hope it's not too long, because i'm going to be away from my birthday dinner. >> you alluded earlier with the

negotiations between the u.s. and russia with some military cooperation against syria and the militant forces there, presumably in exchange for whatever russian influence could be imposed on the assad regime for a variety of reasons. i'm sure you're not surprised that some in the military are not supportive of that deal. some european allies think it would be a deal with the devil. what makes you so confident that you can trust the russians and vladamir putin? >> i'm not confident that we can trust the russians and vladamir putin, which is why we have to test whether or not we can get an actual cessation of hostilities that includes an end to the kinds of aerial bombing and civilian death and destruction that we've seen carried out by the assad regime. and russia may not be able to get there because they don't want to or because they don't have sufficient influence over

assad. and that's what we're going to test. so we go into this without any blinders on. we're very clear that russia has been willing to support a murderous regime in an individual in assad who has destroyed his country just to cling onto power. what started with peaceful protests has led to a shattering of an entire, pretty advanced society. and so when you're trying to broker any kind of deal with individuals like that or a country like that, you've got to go in there with some skepticism. on the other hand, if we are able to get a genuine cessation

of hostilities that prevents indiscriminate bombing, that protects civilians, that allows humanitarian access and creates some sort of pathway to begin the hard work of political negotiations inside of syria, then we have to try, because the alternative is a perpetuation of civil war. i've been wrestling with this thing now for a lot of years. i am pretty confident that a big chunk of my gray hair comes out of my syria meetings. there's not a meeting that i don't end by saying, is there something else we could be doing that we haven't thought of? is there a plan f, g, h that we

think would lead to a resolution of this issue so that the syrian people can put their lives back together again and we can bring peace and relieve the refugee crisis that's taking place. and the options are limited when you have a civil war like this. when you have a ruler who doesn't care about his people, when you've got terrorist organizations that are brutal and would impose their own kind of dictatorship on people. and you have a moderate opposition and ordinary civilians who are often outgunned and outmanned. and that's a very

situation to deal with. but we've got to give it a chance. there are going to be some bottom lines that we expect for us to cooperate with russia beyond the sort of deconfliction that we're doing, and that means restraint on the part of the regime that so far has not been forthcoming. early on in the cessation of ho hostilities, we saw some saving of lives, but the violations have grown to the point where it just barely exists, particularly up in the northwestern part of the country. so we're going to test and see if we can get something that sticks. and if not, then russia will have shown itself very clearly to be an irresponsible actor on the world stage that is

supporting a murderous regime and will have to be -- will have to answer to that on the international stage. all right. thank you very much, everybody. 'perino. welcome to "the five," the last five minutes of it. president obama has just wrapped up his briefing. he was questioned about a number of topics. he fielded multiple questions on his counterterrorism strategy with a slew on donald trump and more. lots to discuss, only a couple of minutes. we have guests here today. kennedy, your quick thoughts? >> i thought the whole thing was flat, boring, and uninspired. he talked about not having a banking relationship with iran and that's why they had to give cash in an unmarked plane.

the timing is so curious, and not coincidental that it is in fact ransom. >> tom? >> i wish we could have shown the roasting that president obama got from "the five" here during the priest conference. obama used his silly americans tone throughout the press conference. you know, the -- >> can you do that in imitation? >> it wasn't a secret, it was that kind of indignant tone. could hillary do one of these press conferences? i wouldn't mind a boring one if it was hillary. >> eric, your thoughts? >> 64 minutes. the first five questions, one, three, five were about donald trump. then president obama said no more, stop asking me about donald trump. then it ended up being 37%. one question on the $400 million transfer to iran. >> but the answer lasted 14

minutes. >> i have some good news. o'reilly tonight, i have jake solomon who broke that story and we're going to bdigging deep ino that. >> juan, your thoughts? >> the president is at the pentagon, i think the point of it was to say to the american people as he goes away on vacation, he's paying attention to the terrorist threat. this is very interesting to me, because i think there are lots of people who argue that, in fact, given the spread of isis and isis ideology, there are now 18 places that they say they have operatives. so what does the president say, is he winning or losing? someone asked are you frustrated and he said he was. i thought that was a serious answer. he said obviously that the united states and allies are defeating isis on the battlefield, but you have to deal with the poisonous ideology turbo charged now across the west. >> we'll be right back with some final thoughts before we finish the show out. let's feed him to the sharks!

squuuuack, let's feed him to the sharks! yay! and take all of his gold! and take all of his gold! ya! and hide it from the crew! ya...? squuuuack, they're all morons anyway! i never said that. they all smell bad too. no! you all smell wonderful! i smell bad! if you're a parrot, you repeat things. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. squuuuack, it's what you do.

for four years. you named it brad.

you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends, three jobs... you're like nothing can replace brad. then liberty mutual calls... and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement™, we'll pay for a car that's a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. john kerry said the sum of this will end up with terrorists, the money. >> i want to ask you, has the administration put the lives of average americans at risk? >> he's at a 52% approval rating, that is actually pretty remarkable in modern times. but he's reminding everybody that after eight years, americans are ready for somebody new. so we have a general election that is going to kick off right about now.

so you have new polling coming out tonight. stick around for "special report" to see that. eric boling is hosting o'reilly tonight and i am on it and i will be amazing. >> that's it for us. "special report" is next. this is a fox news alert. i'm bret baier in washington. president obama says the uproar over a $400 million cash payment to iran as american hostages were being freed is "manufacturing outrage on an old story." the president says the only new element is that the u.s. paid in cash. he's also expressing satis satisfaction with the war against isis. the president chaired a national security council meeting today at the pentagon. kevin corke is at the white house with highlights. >> reporter: good evening, bret. it wasn't a