captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> the united states of america has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. >> i don't think president obama gets the credit he deserves for digging us out of the ditch that the republicans dropped us into. >> you have other countries basically sucking away our money, sucking away our jobs. >> anyone in this country who works 40 hours a week, should not live in poverty. >> if you want a job in elkhart county, you can find a job. >> it's a good place for people that need a job that are not college educated. >> people tend to live paycheck to paycheck. >> the food stamps we get is not enough to feed a family. >> most of our society thinks they deserve something.

>> the governments tend to give too much to people that don't want to work. >> i think we're more divided than we've ever been, and the people running for office now, who in the world are you going to vote for? now from the lerner theater in elkhart, indiana, pbs newshour coanchor gwen ifill. >> ifill: good evening, and welcome to elkhart, indiana, as we sit down can president obama and the residents of this community to discuss their concerns, look back on his time in office, and assess the feverish campaign to succeed him. this marks the president's fifth visit to the once and again r.v. capital of the world, a small city where the unemployment rate hit 19.6% his first year in office, and now has dropped to

about 4%. but this white house isn't get anything credit for that turnaround. residents here voted for ted cruz in this year's primaries, and mitt romney by two to one in 2012. even when president obama won indiana in 2008, just as the economy was crashing, elkhart went with john mccain. so what gives? we've asked some of the people who live here to join us on the stage of the beautiful lerner theater here in downtown for an intimate conversation. but first, the president of the united states, barack obama. ( applause ). >> thank you, thank you. hi. how are you? >> ifill: hi, mr. president. >> nice to see you. >> ifill: thank you. >> thank you, thank you, guys. ( applause ) >> ifill: our residents have been waiting faithfully, patiently, and eagerly to see you today. >> well, i'm eager to see them. and this is a beautiful theater.

>> ifill: it is beautiful. >> which got converted, and congratulations on a wonderful venue. >> ifill: some of them voted for you, some of them didn't. >> that's what we expect. >> ifill: but i first want to ask why talking to you a little bit about this campaign. what do you think it means when you hear the words "let's make america great again?" >> i think america's pretty great. and, you know, it's interesting. i do a lot of commencement speeches this time of year. in fact, tomorrow i'm going to be going to the air force academy to deliver a commencement for the second time there. and i always remind young people that despite all the challenges that we face right now, if you had the choice to be born in any one period of time in our history, and you didn't know ahead of time whether you were going to be rich or poor, black or white, male or female, you just had to guess on what moment

do you have a best chance of succeeding, it actually would be now, that america is the strongest country on earth. its economy is the most durable on earth. we are a country that has incredible diversity. people are striving, working hard, creating businesses. we've got the best universities in the world, the best scientists. you know, so we've got-- we've got some challenges. and we've gist come through a very rough stretch as a consequence of the financial crisis, but overall, not only are we recovered from the crisis that we had, but we're well positioned to do extraordinarily well going forward, as long as we make some good decisions. >> ifill: and, yet, many people-- including probably some folks in this room-- think the

deficits have gone up and the jobless rate has gone up. and in fact that their lives have not improved. how-- in fact, we have the nominee for-- presumptive nominee for the republican party saying-- donald trump-- saying america is a third world nation. how do you persuade-- or i suppose how does your likely democratic successor, possible, persuade anybody that's not true? >> well, it's important you said "my successor" because mechelle would be very upset if she thought i was running again. look, you just look at the evidence here in elkhart, as you mentioned in the introduction. when i took office, this is the first city i came to. and unemployment about a month after i took office, a month and a half after i took office, was almost 20%. one out of 10 people were behind on their mortgage or in foreclosure. today, the unemployment rate is

around 4%. it's only about one in 30 people who are behind on their mortgage. the r.v. industry, which is central to elkhart, is on track to break records in terms of sales. and so that doesn't mean that folks aren't struggling in some circumstances. and one of the things that i've emphasized is that there are some long-term trends in the economy that we have to tackle in terms of wages not going up as a matter of fact they used to. some big costs like college costs or health care costs that are still a challenge. people still worrying about retirement. and so we're going to have to make sure that we make some good decisions going forward, but the notion that somehow america is in decline is just not borne out by the facts. >> ifill: but it resonates.

resonates. a lot of aggrieved people who are voting in big numbers for donald trump. >> well, look, i think that what has always been true in american politics is that when we've gone through a tough time-- and we went through the worst financial crise of our lifetime. i'm looking around, and i think it's safe to say that it's been the worst in the lifetimes or memories of most people here. then you feel nervous. people lost homes. people lost savings. people were worried about whether or not they could make ends meet. and so even though we've recovered, people feel like the ground under their feet isn't quite as solid. and in those circumstances, a lot of times it's easy for somebody to come up and say, ", you know, what? if we deport all the immigrants and build a wall, or if we cut

off trade with china or if we do "x" or "y" or "z," that there's some simple answer, and suddenly everything's going to feel secure." >> ifill: why don't you mention donald trump by name? >> you know, he seems to do a good job mentioning his own name. so ( laughter ) i figured you know, i'll let him do his advertising for him. >> ifill: do you consider at all that any of the support for him is backlash against you personally? >> well, here's one thing i would say-- and i just spoke about this at the local high school. i think trump is a more colorful character than some of the other republican elected officials. but a lot of the story that he's telling is entirely consistent with what folks have been saying about me or the general story they've been telling about the economy for the last 7 and a half, the last 10, the last 20,

the last 30 years. and you can actually describe the story fairly concisely. the basic story they tell is that the problems, the middle class, working families are experiencing has to do with a big, bloated government, that taxes the heck out of people, and then gives that money to undeserving folks-- welfare cheats, or the 47% who are takers, or, you know, whatever phrase they use-- that businesses are being strangled by over-regulation; that, you know, obamacare has killed jobs. and the fact of the matter is when you look at it, the government as a proportion of our overall economy is actually smaller now under my presidency than it was under ronald regan.

>> ifill: let me read you something bill clinton said, though. >> but let me finish. >> ifill: okay. >> we have fewer federal employees today. the health care costs since i signed obamacare have actually gone up slower than they were before i signed it. 20 million more people have health insurance. so, so the arguments they're making just are not borne out by the facts. but what is true is that if people are feeling secure, feeling insecure and they're offered a simple reason for how they can feel more secure, people are going to be tempted by it, particularly if they're hearing that same story over and over again. >> ifill: perception. bill clinton said, "millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of america he painted--" which you just described "and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives." >> the pretty picture that-- >> ifill: the pretty picture of all the things that have gone

well. why is there a disconnect between what he's describing here? >> here's what has changed in the economy over-the-last 20 to 30 years. right after world war ii, america was ascendant. it was dominant around the world because europe was blown up, japan was digging itself out of the rubble. china was still a backwater. you know, eastern europe was behind the iron curtain. there wasn't much competition. we were the only folks who were seriously making cars and trucks and appliances and you name it. we had strong unionization, which meant that workers had leverage so that they could get a good share of a growing pie, and people saw each year and each generation, their standards of living going up pretty

rapidly. and what started happening is you started seeing foreign competition. unions started getting busted so workers had less leverage, which meant their waejs didn't go up quite as fast. you started seeing end of defined benefit pension plans. in terms of health care programs, if you had health care on your job, suddenly you were paying a lot of deductible and premiums. college costs started going up because the public university system, which used to be generously funded by state governments so that tuition was low, suddenly state governments were spending more money on prisons than they were on universities, which meant tuition went up. you add all those things together, and people then start feeling more stressed. now, the answer to that is how do we get wages up? how do we make sure that you can save for retirement? how you can make sure that your kids kidcan afford to get a higher education to compete for

the jobs of the future? and the question then is what is actually going to get that done? to me, if we raise the minimum wage, if we make it easier not harder for people to unionize, if we negotiate trade deals that raise labor standards and environmental standards in other countries instead of letting them sell here and we can't sell there. if we make sure that we're rebuilding our roads and our bridges and infrastructure to put a bunch of folks in hard hats back to work. if we make social security stronger rather than cutting it. if we do those things, then we are going to see wages go up, labor markets tighten, and we will relieve a lot of the stress that people feel. but if you look at the arguments that are being made by the republicans and the actions that have been taken by those members of congress, it's hard to see how cutting taxes for the wealthiest americans, deregulating wall street again

is somehow going to benefit middle-class families. >> ifill: well, let's turn to the audience and see what they think. we're going to open this conversation up. i have a lot more questions, but they do, too. and we're going to be right back in just a moment with that. glft party's just getting started.

>> this pbs newshour special, "questions for president obama," continues. from the lerner theatre in elkhart, indiana, once again, pbs newshour coanchor gwen ifill. >> ifill: so, mr. president, we are back with a few questions for you from our invited audience here. they are anxious to get started and so am i. you are a small businessman here in elkhart. >> yes, i am. >> ifill: what's your name? >> bill kercher. >> ifill: what's your question. >> i am a fifth generation fruit and vegetable grower here in elkhart county and over the past six years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of regulations from the food safety modernization act from obamacare and many others. large farms are able to comply with these regulations more

easily, and small family farms we've seen actually exiting the industry. at what point are we over-regulated, if not no? and how can we encourage younger growers to either stay or enter an industry where the barriers to entry are higher than ever? thank you. >> well, it's a great question, and first of all, my administration's policy has been to encourage family farming, rather than big agra business, because not only is that sort of a model of farming that built this country, but as mechelle will tell you, it actually produces food that's better fur, as she reminds me constantly. so, you know, we want you to succeed. now, if you look at the trend lines in terms of small family farms, the problem generally has been actually family farms getting bought up by larger

agricultural operations. it's been you guys not always getting good prices for the products that you put together. i don't doubt that some elements of the regulations i put in place have probably put a burden on you. so let's take health care, for example. it may be that previously you weren't-- you didn't think you were able to provide health insurance for your employees. the problem is is that if they're not getting health insurance through you, then that means that they're relying on the emergency room, and they're relying on, you know, taxpayers like everybody else to cover those costs if they get in an accident or if they get sick. and so it has always been our view that if we can put something together where people can buy health insurance through a pool, it's subsidized, if they're not making enough money

popay for their own health insurance, that that overall is going to be a more efficient way to do it. and in fact health care inflation, the rate at which health care costs have gone up, for small businesses as well as large businesses, has been significantly slower since i passed the law, than it was beforehand. now, what i would say is that there are a bunch of regulations that have been put in place in the past that may have been well intentioned but didn't work. sometimes they're outdated. and so what i've told my administration to do is to go back and look at all the regulations that are there. if there's not a good reason for them, or if they're outdated or if we can redesign them to put less of a burden on businessesy we should do so. i'm not interested in regulating just for the sake of regulating. but there are some things like make sure have clean air and clean water, making sure folks have health insurance, making sure worker safety is a priority that i do think is part of our

overalall obligation as not a third world country but as an advanced nation to make sure that, you know, we-- you know, we're doing the right thing. and i would hope that as a consequence of the overall economy doing better, you have also been doing better as well. and, you know, anybody who is running a business would rather not have any regulations. just as a general rule. and certainly, you don't want a situation where you feel like you're being regulated and your competitor's not. but what we tried to do is be very fair in terms of looking at what regulations make a difference. if you're a really small business of 25 people or less, typically you are exempted from those-- a the loof the federal regulations. if you get to a certain size, then it's part of the cost of doing business. but what it also does is it makes sure we as a society are looking out for workers, we're

protecting our families and people are getting decent wages and they've got health care so they're not going to the emergency room when they get sick. >> ifill: thank you, mr. president. thank you, mr. kercher. as i may have noticed following this election, donald trump came to indiana and talked a lot about what happened with the carrier corporation shipping their jobs out of state. here's someone who worked for carrier and he has a question for you. >> how you doing, mr. president. >> how are you. >> aye name is eric cottonham, and i'm representing the steel workers union, local 99, and i'm trying to find out what do we have left as far as all of our jobs are leaving. and i see here you're doing a lot of things, but in indianapolis there's nothing there for us. what's next? what can we look forward to in the future for jobs employment, whatever, because all of our jobses have left our are in the process of leaving, sir? >> well, in fact, we've seen more manufacturing jobs created since i've been president than any time since the 1990s.

that's a fact. and, you know, if you look at just the auto industry as an example, they've had record sales and they've hired back more people over the last pief years than they had for a very long, long time. we actually make more stuff, have a bigger manufacturing base today, than we've had in most of our history. the problems have been-- part of the problems have had to do with jobs going overseas, and this is one of the reasons why i have been trying to negotiate trade deals to raise wages and environmental standards in other countries so that they're not undercutting us. but, frankly, part of it has had to do with automation. you go into an auto factory today, that used to have 10,000

people, and now they've got 1,000 people making the same number of cars or more. and so what that means is even though we're making the same amount of stuff in our manufacturing sector, we're employing fewer people. now, the good news is that there are entire new industries that are starting to pop up, and you're actually seeing some manufacturers coming back to the united states because they're starting to realize, you know, what? energy prices are lower here. workers are better here. this is our biggest market. and so even though we offshored and went someplace else before, now it turns out we're better off going ahead and manufacturing here. but for those folks who have lost their job right now because a plant went down to mexico, you know, that isn't going to make you feel better. and so what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained

for the jobs that are coming in now because some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back. and when somebody says, like the person you just mentioned who i'm not going to advertise for, that he's going to bring all those jobs back. well, how exactly are you going to do that? what are you going to do? there's no answer to it. he just says, "i'm going to negotiate a better deal." well, how-- how exactly are you going to negotiate that? what magic wand do you have? and usually the answer is he doesn't have an answer. so what i've tried to do, what my administration has tried to do is let's grow those manufacturing sectors, like clean energy, like some of these new technologies that are coming up, let's focus on those. we've set up for example

manufacturing hubs where we work with universities, local businesses, local governments, to create research labs that can take something like 3 "d" printing or, you know, nanotechnology or all kinds of stuff that i can't really explain because scientists and really smart people know all about it, and said let's invest in this so that when the new jobs come, they're coming here. but i gotta tell you that, the days when you just being able to-- you just being willing to work hard and you can walk into a plant and suddenly there's going to be a job for you for 30 years, 40 years, that's just not going to be there for our kids, because more and more that stuff is going to be automated. if you go into a factory, that kid is going to need to know computers or is going to need to know some science and some math. because they're not even going to be picking anything up. they're just going to be work on

a keyboard. and that's why we put so much emphasis on job training, community colleges. that's why i've proposed making the first two years of community college free so that we know that every young person, they're going to be able-- if they're not going for a full four-year degree, at least they're going to be getting the technical training they need for those jobs of the future. but you cannot look backwards. and that doesn't make folks feel good sometimes, especially if it's a town that was reliant on a couple of big manufacturers. but they're going to have to retrain for the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past. >> ifill: you mentioned education. you touched on education, and we have a question here about that. what's your name? >> vanessa corredera. hi, mr. president. >> how are you, vanessa. >> fine, thank you. you have addressed the crushing student debt, especially for higher education. and you cited initiatives with community colleges, the stem disciplines and technology as potential responses. many of my friends and especially my students are still

struggling with this issue. so my question for you is how do you continue to address this issue your final months in office? and how do you do see in a way that perhaps includes the humanities and liberal arts education as a whole when those are in fact very much under attack. >> what do you teach? >> i teach english at andrews university in michigan. >> i thought you were a student. i'm getting old, i'm telling you. all the teachers look like students now. well, first of all, let me just say that i am-- i have been emphasizing stem education-- that's science, technology, engineering and math-- not because i think the humants are unimportant. but because we generally have not been producing as many engineers and as many scientists and people with those kinds of

technological skills as compared to china, for example. we send a lot of people into banking and folks like me, who become lawyers, but the truth of the matter is that we have to make sure that we continue to have a strong base in the sciences and engineering, if we're going to remain the most innovative economy in the world. but as somebody who studied humanities himself, you know, i think it's extremely important as well. the broader issue of financing education,aise mentioned, the reason that college is so much more expensive for this generation as it was for my generation, and even better for the previous generation, really had to do with government spending. it used to be that most state universities were heavily sibzidized by the state. so they kept tuition really,

really low. what happened around the 80s, 90s, was state legislators started saying, "we've got to build more prisons." in fairness to them they also started feeling more pressure because of medicaid spending because health care costes were going up. so they started cutting higher education budgets. and they made up for it with higher tuition. and that's why, at least at public colleges and universities, the costs have gone up a lot. now here's what we've done. the first thing diwhen i came into office was we reformed the student loan program because what was happening was on federally subsidized student loans, it was all run through the banks, and the banks were getting billions of dollars of profits forking inning these loans to students even though the loans were guaranteed by the federal government so, they weren't take anything risk. and we said let's cut the middle

man out. let's lobe directly to students. that saved us tens of billions of dollars and allowed to us expand the pell grant program and lower or cap interest on student loans. but just because we give more loans or more grants, that doesn't always help with the rising costs. and that's why i've proposed this two-year free community college because what that does is that allows a young person who is strapped for cash and whose parents are doing everything they can, but can only do so much, to say, "i'll get my first two years for free. i'll transfer those credits to a four-year public college or university, and i've now just potentially cut the amount of loans that i've got in half." and for some people who decide they don't need a four-year college education. they want to be a graphic designer. they want to go into a trade. now they can get the training

they need without incurring any debt. so, you know, these are all proposals that we know work. there are some states and cities that are already doing this free community college proposal. and it's working. and it's really helping to reduce costs. and the last thing we're also trying to work with the universities just to figure out ways that they can reduce costs using, for example, online learning, putting out reports to the parents and students are better consumers so that they know, well, let me not sign up for that four-year college where the graduation rates are low and it's got great dorms and great gyms and nice food, but i'm going to be $50,000 worth of debt and i may not get a job. >> ifill: thank you, mr. president. sir, your name. >> arvis dawson. >> ifill: and your question. >> first of all, i want to thank you, mr. president, if the service to our country, and despite polls there's a lot of love for you here in elkhart. >> i appreciatet.