ore effectively to improve our intelligence capacity and interdiction capacity so that fewer of those arms shipments are getting through the net. but the legal authorities we'll still possess. and obviously, we've got our own unilateral prohibition and sanctions in place around non-nuclear issues like support for hezbollah, and those remain in place. now, in terms of the larger issues of the middle east obviously, that's a longer discussion. i think the longer goal when i turn over the keyes to the next president, is that we are on track to defeat isil that they are much more contained, and we're moving in the right

direction there. that we have jump-started a process to resolve the civil war in syria, which is like an open core in the region and is giving refuge to terrorist organizations who are taking advantage of that chaos, to make sure that in iraq not only have we pushed back isil but we've also created an environment in which sunni, shia and kurd are starting to operate more functionally together. and to be in a conversation with all of our partners in the region about how we have strengthened our security partnerships so that they feel they can address any potential threats that it may come including threats from iran.

and that includes it providing additional security assurances and cooperation to israel building on the unprecedented cooperation that we have already put in place, and support we've already put in place. includes the work we've done with the gcc up in camp david, making sure we execute that. if we've done those thing, then the problems in the middle east will not be solved. and ultimately it's not the job of the president of the united states to solve every problem in the middle east. the people of the middle east are going have to solve some of these problems themselves. but i think we can provide that next it president at least a foundation for continued progress in these various areas. the last thing i would say, and this is a longer term issue, is we have to address the youth in

the region with jobs and opportunity, and a better vision for the future. so that they are not tempted by the violent deadend that organizations like isil offer. is again, we can't do that entirely by ourselves but we can partner with well-intentioned organizations, state, ngos. religious leaders in the region. we have to do a better job of that than we've been soing so far. all right. michael michael? >> reporter: thank you. you alluded to iran's role in syria to focus on that for a

moment. many analysts and some form of your administration believe the political settlement that you say is necessary in syria will require directly working with iran and giving iran a pore morn role. is that what you will be seeking and what about the fight against isis. what cooperation is there between the u.s. and iran? >> i do agree that we're not going to solve the problems from syria syria, unless there's buy-in from the russians iranian, the turk our gulf partners. there's too many factions too much money and too many arms flooding into the zone. it's gotten caught up in both sectarian conflict and geopolitical jockeying. and in order for us to resolve it there's going to have to be agreement among the major powers

that are interested in syria, that

>> they are reporting to, under the chain of command of the iraqi government and the iraqi security forces. to we don't have confidence that ultimately he is directing the soldiers, then, it is tough for us to have any kind of direct relationship. >> major?

>> thank you mr. president. as you know there are four americans anywhere ran, three held on trumped up charges and according do your administration, one whereabouts unknown. can you tell the country where you are content with all of of the fanfare to leave the strength of this nation unaccounted for and last week the chairman of joint chiefs of staff in terms of policemen or conventional weapons it is perceived that was a last minute capitulation in the negotiations. many in the pentagon feel you left the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff held out to dry. can you comment. >> i give you credit for how you craft those questions, major the notion that i am "content," as i celebrate with american citizens languishing in iranian jails?

major...that is nonsense. you should know better. i have met with the families of some of those folks. no one is "con contra contont." >> if the question is why we did not tie the negotiations to their release, think about the logic that creates. suddenly iran realizes maybe we can get additional concessions out of the americans by holding these individuals. it makes it more difficult for us to walk away if iran some house thinks that a nuclear deal was dependent in some fashion the nuclear deal and, by, way, if we walked away from the nuclear deal we would still be pushing them just as hard to get

the folks out. that is why those issues are not connected. but we are working every day to try to get them out and we will not stop until they are out and rejoined with their families. with respect to the chairman's testimony to some degree i answered this. we are not taking the pressure off of iran with respect to arms and with respect to policemens. -- ballistic missiles. as i sprained not only do we keep in place for five years the arms cargo under this particular u.n. resolution and not only do we maintain the eight years on the ballistic missiles under this particular u.n. resolution but we have a host of multilateral and unilateral authorities that allow us to take action where we see iran engaged in those activities whether it is six years from now

or 10 years from now. we have not lost those legal authorities. in fact, part of my pitch to the gcc countries, as well as to prime minister netanyahu we should do a better job making sure that iran is not engaged in sending arms to organizations like hezbollah. as i just indicated that means improving our intelligence capacity and our interdiction capacity with our partners. april ryan? >> thank you, mr. president. i want to change the subject a bit. early this year on the flight to selma you said as president your job is to close remaining problems in state and federal government and what gaps remain for you in the end of your presidency? also, what does it mean to

travel to kenya, your father's homeland in the next couple of weeks as president of the sentence lastly, would you revoke the medal of freedom for bill cosby? >> you stuffed a lot in there, april. you know what, who did you learn from? john that? is that what you said? >> on criminal justice reform obviously, i gave a lengthy speech yesterday. this time i have been thinking about it a lot and working with eric holder and now with loretta lynch about -- we have been working on...along with other prosecutors of the united states attorney's office. it is an outgrowth of 9 task force we put together post-ferguson and the gaper -- garner case in new york.

i don't think that the criminal justice system is obviously the sole source of racial tension in the country or the key institution to resolving the opportunity gap. it is part of the broader set of challenges we face in creating a more perfect union. the good news is that this is an issue where we have some republican and democratic interests as well as federal, state and local interests in solving the problem. i think people recognize that there are violent criminals out there and they have to be locked out. we have to have tough prosecutors. we have to support our law enforcement officials. police are in a tough job.

they are helping to keep us safe. we are grateful and thankful to them. what we also know is this huge spike in incarcerations is also driven by nonviolent drug offenses. the sentencing is completely out of proportion with the crime. that cost taxpayers enormous amounts of money. it is debilitating communities who are seeing huge proportions of the young men if their communities with a criminal record rendering them oftentimes unemployable. it compounds the problems the communities already have. i am very appreciative of folks like dick durbin and cory booker

and alongside mike lee and rand paul and other folks in the house of representatives who are working together to see if we can both reduce some of these mandatory minimums around nonviolent drug offenses. again i tend not to have a lot of sympathy when it comes to violent crime. en with it comes to nonviolent drug offenses the work we can do to reduce mandatory minimums create more diversion programs like drug courts then can we do a better job on the rehabilitation side inside of prisons so we are preparing these folks who are going to be released to re-enter the workforce. on the back end are we doing more to limp them up with re-entry programs that are more effective? this could be an area where we could have some significant

bipartisan legislation that doesn't eliminate all of the other challenges we have. the most important goal is keeping folks from getting into the criminal justice system in the first place which means early childhood education and good jobs and making sure we are not segregating folks in impoverished communities that have no contact with opportunity. this can make a difference. i met these poor ex-offenders yesterday. what is remarkable how they turned their lives around and these are folks who have been tough criminals one serving 10 years, another was a repeat offender that served a lot of time. in each instance somebody intervened at some point in their lives wednesday they had been in the criminal justice system and gotten in trouble and

said you know what, you can live a different way and i am willing to help you. that one person -- an art teacher; a g.e.d. teacher interest somebody willing to offer a guy a job -- i give a shout out to five guys. one was an ex-felon and five guys gave him a job and he became a manager at store and was able to town his life away. the point is somebody reached out to that person and gave him a chance. part of our question should be, how about someone reaching out to these guys when they are 10 or 11 or 12 or eight opposed to waiting necessity they have gone through the federal justice program which is why we are doing my brother's keeper. this is an area where i feel modestly optimistic.

in the meantime we have to stay on top of keeping the crime rate down because part of the reason there is a conversation taking place is you have element crime has significantly dropped. last year we saw both incarcerations and the crime rate dropped this can always turn if we start seeing renewed problems in terms of violent crime. there are parts of the country where vie hadn't crime is still a real problem. including my hometown of chicago. and in baltimore. part of what i asked the attorney general lynch is to figure out how we can refocus attention if we do a package of criminal justice reforms part of it would be having a greater police presence and more law enforcement in the communities that are getting hit hard and have not seep the drops in violent crime we have seen in places like manhattan, for example. with respect to the visit to

kenya it obviously i looking forward to it. visiting concern why as a private citizen is probably probably...more meaningful to me than visiting as president because i can get outside of a he tell program or conference center. just logistics of visiting a place are always tough as president but it obviously is symbolically important and my hope is we can deliver a message that the unis a strong pan not just for kenya but for subsharon africa in general and build on progress made in issues of health and education and focus on counterterrorism issues that are important in east calf what because of the tragedies that have happened inside of kenya. and continued to encourage democracy and the reduction of corruption inside that country that sometimes is held back just

incredibly gifted and blessed country. with respect to the medal of freedom. there is no precedent for revoking a medal. we don't have that mechanism. as you know i tend to make it a policy not to comment on the responded of cases are in could be

. all right, have we exhausted our questions? i think a helicopter is coming, but, really i am enjoying this iran debate. topics that may not have been touched upon criticisms you have heard that i did not answer i just -- go ahead. go ahead. josh is getting a little stressed here but -- i want to make sure we are not leaving any stone unturned. >> i will be briefed. the argument is iran has a cash wind fall, billions to spend, your people seem confident they will spend it at home. why are you confident they are not going to respond it on army

-- arming hezbollah, et cetera? >> that is a great question. i am glad you property it up. it is a mistake to characterize our belief they will just spend it on daycare centers and roads and paying down debt. we think they have to do some of that because he was el legged on the premise of improving the economic situation inside of iran and that economy has tanked since we imposed sanctions. the notion that they are accountly going to town over $100 million to these other forces, i think, runs contrary to all the intelligence we have seen and the commitments the iranian government has made. do we think that with the

sanctions coming down that iran will have some additional resources for its military and for some of the activities in the region that are a let to us and a net to our allies? i think that is a likelihood they have some additional resources. do i think it is a game changer for them? no. they are currently supporting his. and there is a ceiling a pace, which they could support hezbollah more in the case office taking place in syria. can though potentially try to get more assistance there? yes. should we put more resources into blocking them?

yes. is the increment am additional money they have to try to destabilize the we john is that more important than preventing iran from getting nuclear weapons? no. again, this is a matter of us making a determination of what is our priority? the other problem with the argument folks have been making about well, this is a wind fall and suddenly iran is flush with cash and they will take over the worm, i say that not tongue-in-cheek because if you look at the statements by our credit is you would think iran is going to take over the world as a consequence of this deal which i think would be news to the iranians. that argument is premised in the

next that if there is no deal and congress votes down the deal we are able to keep sanctions in place. with the same visioner and effectiveness as we have now. that i promise is not true. that is absolutely not true. i repeat: we are not writing iran a check. this is iran's money we are able to block from them having access to. that required the cooperation of countries all around the world many of whom want to purchase oil from iran. the imposition of sanctions their cooperation with us has cost them billions of dollars and made it harder for them. they have been willing to do that because they believe we were sincere about trying to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully and they consider that a high enough priority they are willing to cooperate with us

on sanctions. if they saw us walking away or more specifically if they saw the united states congress effectively vetoing the judgment of 99 percent of the world community that this is a deal that resolves the iranian weapons program, knack weapons program, in an equitable way, the sanctions system unravels. we could still maintain some of our unilateral sanctions but it would be less effective as it was before we were able to put together these multilateral sanctions. so maybe they don't get $100 billion. maybe they get $

60 billion or $70 billion instead. the price we pay is iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, we have no weapon the ground and we don't know what is going on. they are getting some cash win fall and we lost credibility in the eye of the world. we will have uniteddive ran and divided ourselves from our allies. that is a terrible position to be in. okay. i an just going -- i made some notes about the other arguments i have heard here. >> that is a good one. yes, the notion -- right. [ inaudible ] >> let's address this issue because that is the other big argument that has been made. let's assume that the deal holds for ten areas and iran don't cheat. now at the end of 10 years some

of the restrictions have been lifted although, remember others have stayed if place for 15 years. for example they still have to keep the stockpiles at a minimal level for 15 years. the inspections do not go away. those are still in place. 15 20 years from now. their commitment under the nonproliferation treaty does not go away that is in place. the additional protocol they have to sign up for, under this deal, which requires a more extensive inspection and verification, that stays in place. there is no scenario in which a united states president is not in a stronger position 12 or 13

or 15 years from now if, in fact, iran decided they wanted to get a nuclear weapon. we will have maintained a one area break out time. we will have rolled back their program. frozen their facilities. kept them under severe restrictions. had observers. they will have made international commitments supported by countries around the world. hold on. and if at that point they finally decided you know what we will cheat or not even cheat if at that point they decide openly, we are now pursuing a nuclear weapon, they are still in violation of this deal and the commitments they have made internationally. we are still in a position to mobilize the world community to say, no. you cannot have a nuclear weapon. they are not in a stronger

position to get a nuclear weapon, they are in a weaker position. we have not given away our military capabilities. we are not in a weaker position to respond. even if everything the critics were saying is true that at the end of 10 years or 12 years or 15 years iran now is? a position to decide it wants a nuclear weapon, they are at a break out point, they will not be in a break out point that is more dangerous than the break out point they are in right now. they will not be in a break out point that is shorter than the one that exists