out to constituencies that didn't vote for him, i think it's important for us to let him make his decisions and i think the american people will judge over the course of the next couple of years whether they like what they see and whether these are the kinds of policies and this is the direction that they want to see in. and my role is to make sure that when i hand off this white house, that it is in the best possible shape and that i've been as helpful as i can to him in going forward and building on the progress that we've made.

the president elect when we had our discussions, was that campaigning is different from governing. i think he recognizes that. i think he's sincere in wanting to be a successful president and moving this country forward and i don't think any president ever comes in saying to himself i want to figure out how to make people angry or alienate half best he can to make sure that he delivers, not only for the people who voted for him, but for the people at large. and the good thing is that there's going to be elections coming up so there is a built in incentive for him to try to do that. you know, it's only been six days and i think it will be important for him to -- to have

out what his priorities are, to be able to distinguish between what he was campaigning on and what is practical, what he can actually achieve. you know, there are certain things that make for good sound bites but don't always translate into good policy and that's something that he and his team, i think, will wrestle with in the same way that every president wrestles with. i did say to publicly, that because of the nature of the campaigns and the bitterness and voracity of the campaigns that it's really important to try to send some signals of unity and to reach out to minority groups or women

about the tenor of the campaign. and i think that's something that he will -- he will want to do, but this is all happening real fast. he's got commitments to supporters that helped to get him here and he's going to have to balance those and over the coming years my hope is that those impulses ultimately went out, but it's a little too early to start making judgments on that. >> you use that qualification, does that change the meeting with him? >> i think that he successfully mobilized a big chunk of the country to vote for him and he is going to win -- he has won.

president. and regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office, this office has a way of waking you up and those -- those aspects of his positions or predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself. and some of his gifts that obviously allowed him to execute one of the biggest political upsets in history, those are ones that hopefully he will put to good use on behalf of all the

scott. >> thank you, mr. president. >> you're watching president obama's news conference. we want to pause just for a moment for some station toss leave our coverage and return to regular programming. >> what choice do you think the american people made last week and is there still a chance for what you call a course correction before europeans make some of their choices? >> i think the american people recognize that the world has shrunk, that it's interconnected, that you're not going to put that genie back in the bottle. the american people recognize that their careers or their kids' careers are going to have to be more dynamic, that they might not be working at a single plant for 30 years, but they might have to change careers,

education, they might have to retool or retrain, and i think the american people are game for that. they want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair and what that means is that if you look at surveys around the majority of the american people still support trade, but they are concerned about whether or not trade is fair and whether we've got the same access to other countries' markets as they have with us. is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages and so forth. now, i made an argument thus far unsuccessfully that the trade deal we had organized, tpp, did

rights and environmental rights, leveled the playing field and as a consequence would be good for american workers and american businesses. but that's a complex argument to make when people remember plants closing and jobs being off-shored. so part of what i think this election reflected was people wanting that course correction that you described message around stopping surges of immigration, not creating new trade deals that may be unfair. i think those were themes that paid a prominent role in the campaign. as we now shift to government,

orderly lawful immigration process, but that if it is orderly and lawful, immigration is good for our economy. it keeps this country young, it keeps it dynamic, we have entrepreneurs and strivers who come here and are willing to take risks and that's part of the reason why america historically has been successful, it's part of the reason why our economy is stro a competitors is because we've got a younger population that's more dynamic. when it comes to trade i think when you're governing it will become increasingly apparent that if you were to just eliminate trade deals with mexico, for example, well, you've got a global supply

allowing auto plants that were about to shut down to now employ double shifts is because they're bringing in some of those parts to assemble out of mexico. so it's not as simple as it might have seemed. and the key for us when i say us i mean americans but i think particularly for progressives, is to say real, your anxieties are real, here is how we fix them. higher minimum wage, stronger worker protection so workers have more leverage to get a bigger piece of the pie, stronger financial regulations not weaker ones. yes to trade, but trade that ensures that these other countries that trade with us

for example. being attentive to inequality and not tone deaf to it, but offering prescriptions that are actually going to help folks in communities that feel forgotten. that's going to be our most important strategy and i think we can successfully do that. people will still be looking to the united states. our example will s great weight. and it continues to be my strong belief that the way we are going to make sure that everybody feels a part of this global economy is not by shutting ourselves off from each other even if we could, but rather by working together more effectively than we have in the past. martha raddatz. >> thank you, mr. president.

about mr. trump, calling him temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief, did anything surprise you about president-elect trump when you met with him in your office? and also i want to know does anything concern you about a trump presidency? >> well, we had a very cordial conversation and that didn't surprise me to some degree because obviously a gregarious person, he's somebody who i think likes to mix it up and to have a vigorous debate and, you know, what's clear is that he was able to tap into, yes, the anxieties

voters in a way that was impressive. and i said so to him because i think that to the extent that there were a lot of folks who missed the trump phenomenon, i think that connection that he was able to make with his supporters, that was another candidate. that's powerful stuff. i also think that he is coming to this office with fewer set hard and past policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents might be arriving with. i don't think he is ideological. i think ultimately he's

can serve him well, as long as he's got good people around him and he has a clear sense of direction. do i have concerns? absolutely. of course i've got concerns. you know, he and i differ on a whole bunch of issues. but, you know, the federal government and not a speed boat, it's an ocean liner, as i discovered when i came into office. it took a lot of really hard work for us to make significant policy changes, even in our first two years when we had larger majorities than mr. trump will enjoy when he comes into office. and, you know, one of the things i advised him to do was to make

certain courses of action he is really dug in and thought through how various issues play themselves out. i will use an obvious example where we have a difference, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming year and that's the affordable care act. so obviously this has been the holy grail for republicans over the last we've got to kill obamacare. now, that has been taken as an article of faith, that this is terrible, it doesn't work and we have to undo it, but now that republicans are in charge they've got to take a look and say, let's see, we've got 20 million people who have health insurance who didn't have it before, healthcare costs

significantly slower rate since obamacare was passed than they did before, which has saved the federal treasury hundreds of billions of dollars, people who have health insurance are benefitting in all sorts of ways that they may not be aware of, everything from no longer having lifetime limits on the claims that they can make to seniors discounts under medicare to free mammograms. now, it's one thing to characterize this thing as not working when it's just an abstraction. now suddenly you are in charge and you are going to repeal it. okay. well, what happens to those 20 million people who have health insurance? are you going to just kick them off and suddenly they don't have

are you going to repeal the provision that ensures that if you do have health insurance on your job and you lose your job or you change jobs or you start a small business that you're not discriminated against because you have a preexisting condition? that's really popular. how are you going to replace it? are you going to change the policy that kids can stay on their parents' health insurance plan until how are you going to approach all these issues? now, my view is that if they can come up with something better that actually works and a year or two after they've replaced the affordable care act with their own plan that 25 million people have health insurance and it's cheaper and better and

first one to say that's great. congratulations. if, on the other hand, whatever they are proposing results in millions of people losing coverage and results in people who already have health insurance losing protections that were contained in the legislation, then we're going to have a problem. and i think that's not going to be unique to american people will respond that way. so i think on a lot of issues what you're going to see is now comes the hard part. now is governance. we are going to be able to present to the incoming administration a country that is stronger, a federal government that is working better and more

apparatus that is both more effective and truer to our values, energy policies that are resulting in not just less pollution, but also more jobs and i think the president elect rightly would expect that he is judged on whether we improve from that baseline and o metrics or things get worse. and if things get worse, then the american people will figure that out pretty quick. and if things get better, then more power to him, and i will be the first to congratulate. >> mr. president, you had talked specifically about his temperament. do you still have any concern about his temperament? >> as i said because athena

bring to this office, this office has a habit of magnifying and pointing out, and hopefully then you correct for it. this may seem like a silly example but i know myself well enough to know i can't keep track of paper. i am not well organized in that way. and so pretty quickly after i'm coming in every night i say to myself i've got to figure out a system because i have bad filing, sorting and organizing habits, and i've got to find some people who can help me keep track of this stuff. now, that seems trivial but actually it ends up being a pretty big piece of business. i think what will happen with

his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them because when you are a candidate and you say something that is inaccurate or controversial it has less impact than it does when you are president of the united states. everybody around the world is paying attention. markets national security issues require a level of precision in order to make sure that you don't make mistakes. and i think he recognizes that this is different. and so do the american people. all right. i'm going to take just a couple more questions and then i will get out of here. nadia.

president-elect trump threatened to unravel the iran nuclear deal which your administration worked very hard on. what is your concern if he alters part of it and what would you advise me considering that he says that he's open to advice? and on syria, sir, the syrian regime is threatening aleppo with massive [ inaudible ]. you fought passionately two years ago about benghazi and warned against civilians there. [ inaudible ]. h [ inaudible question ] >> iran is a good example of the gap i think between some of the rhetoric in this town, not

i think there was a really robust debate about the merits of the iran deal before it was completed. and i actually was pretty proud of how our democracy processed that. it was a serious debate, i think people of good will were on both sides of the issue. ultimately we were able to persuade members of congress and the public at least enough of at the time the main argument against it was iran wouldn't abide by the deal. that they would cheat. we now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement. that's not just my opinion, it's not just people in my administration, that's the

intelligence officers who are part of a government that vehemently opposed the deal. so my suspicion is that when the president elect comes in and he is consulting with his republican colleagues on the hill that they will look at the facts because to unravel a deal that's working and preventing iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon would be hard to pl were to have them freed from any obligations and go ahead and pursue a weapon. and keep in mind this is not just an international agreement between us and the iranians, this is between the p5+1 other countries, some of our closest allies. and, you know, for us to pull out would then require us to

countries in europe or china or russia that were still abiding by the deal because from their perspective iran had done what it was supposed to do. so it becomes more difficult, i think, to undo something that's working than undo something that isn't working and when you're not responsible for it i think you can call i when you are responsible for the deal and preventing iran from getting a nuclear weapon you are more likely to look at the facts. that is going to be true in other circumstances. for example, the paris agreement. there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of undoing this international agreement.

thing and the good news is that what we've been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that it's possible to grow the economy really fast and possible to bring down carbon emissions as well. it's not just a bunch of rules that we've set up. you've putting in solar panels and creating jobs, you've got the big three auto makers who have seen record sales and are overachieving on the fuel efficiency standards that we've set. turns out that people like not having to fill up as often and save money at the pump, even if it's good for the environment.

forward on a clean energy agenda separate and apart from any federal regulations that have been put forward. in fact, 40% of the country already lives under -- in states that are actively pursuing what's embodied in the paris agreement and the clean power plant rule. and even states like texas that politically tend to oppose me, you've seen huge increases in wind power and solar power and you've got some of the countries biggest companies like google and walmart all pursuing energy efficiency because it's good for their bottom line. so what we've been able to do is embed a lot of these practices into how our economy works and it's made our economy more efficient, it's helped the

cleaned up the environment. what the paris agreement now does is say to china and india and other countries that are potentially polluting, come on board, let's work together so you guys do the same thing. and the biggest threat when it comes to climate change and pollution isn't going to come from us because we only have 300 million people, it's going to come from china with over a billion people and india with over a billion people. kinds of strategies that we did before we became more aware of the environment, then our kids will be choked off. and so, again, do i think that the new administration will make some changes? absolutely. but these international agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations,

examine them it turns out that they are doing good for us and binding other countries into behavior that will help us. all right. last question. justin. i'm sorry. okay. you're right. you are right about that. with respect to syria, in benghazi we had an international mandate, we had a u.n. security resolution, we had a coalition and we were able to carry out a support mission that achieved the initial goal of preventing benghazi from being slaughtered fairly quickly. it's no secret you know this region well that syria is a much more messy situation with proxies coming from every

immediately. we have made every effort to try to bring about a political resolution to this challenge. john kerry has spent an inn if i know -- inn if i know that the amount of time to negotiate with russias and gulf states and other parties to try actions in seer that that we did in libya, the situation is off yourly different. we don't have that option easily available to us. so we're going to have to continue to try to pursue as best we can a political solution and in the interim put as much pressure as we can on the parties to arrive at

the suffering that is on the ground. i recognize that has not worked and it is something that i continue to think about every day and we continue to try to find some formula that would allow us to see that suffering end, but i surprising to you because you study this deeply that if you have a syrian military that is committed to killing its people indiscriminantly as necessary and it is supported by russia that now has substantial military assets on the ground