Obama holds first newser since election
Posted: Friday, November 07, 2008 3:38 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones
CHICAGO -- In his first press conference as president-elect, Obama talked about the enormity of dealing with the financial crisis facing the country and the importance of a bipartisan approach to it, repeated his call for passage of an economic stimulus package and said he would be careful in choosing the members of his Cabinet.
Notably, he did not respond directly to a question about whether he would still seek the tax increases for the wealthiest Americans that he proposed on the campaign trail and whether they would go into effect in 2009.
The roughly 20-minute press conference began with a prepared statement about the new jobs numbers. Obama noted that 240,000 jobs had been lost in October, marking the 10th consecutive month of job losses that have left 10 million Americans unemployed.
Obama -- who was flanked by his Transition Economic Advisory Board and who spoke at a podium to which was affixed a sign with a small presidential seal and the words “The Office of the President Elect” -- said the government must work quickly to deal with economic crisis, but he emphasized, as he has throughout the campaign, that there is one president at a time.
“Immediately after I become President, I’m gonna confront this economic crisis head-on by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families, and restore growth and prosperity,” he said.
“I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead. We have taken some major action to date, and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months,” he continued, adding as he did many times on the stump in the final weeks of the campaign and in his victory speech Tuesday night that solving the crisis would not be easy or quick. “But America is a strong and resilient country and I know we will succeed, if we put aside partisanship and politics and work together as one nation. That's what I intend to do.”
The press conference followed a meeting with Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and the Transition Economic Advisory Board, which included former Rep. David Bonior, former SEC Commissioner Roel Campos, former Commerce Sec. William Daley; former SEC chairman William Donaldson, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Roger Ferguson, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Xerox Chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, his campaign’s finance Chairwoman Penny Pritzker, former Labor Sec. Robert Reich former Treasury Secs. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former National Economic Council Chairman Laura Tyson, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway participated by speakerphone.
In his opening remarks, Obama laid out some of the same points he has been making on the trial, including the need for an economic stimulus package, extension of unemployment benefits, help for homeowners, small businesses and state and local governments and for the auto industry. On the matter of a second economic stimulus package, he said it was long overdue.
“The one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after inauguration,” he said. “want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later. If it does not get done in the lame-duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.”
In response to questions about how quickly he would fill key Cabinet positions like Treasury secretary and Secretary of State, OBama said he would proceed carefully.
“There is no doubt that I think people want to know who's going to make up our team and I want to move with all deliberate haste, but I want to emphasize "deliberate" as well as "haste,” he said. “I'm proud of the choice I made of vice president, partly because we did it right. I'm proud of the choice of chief of staff, because we thought it through and I think it's very important, in all these key positions, both in the economic team and the national security team, to -- to get it right and not to be so rushed that you end up making mistakes. I'm confident that we're going to have an outstanding team, and we will be rolling that out in subsequent weeks.”
When it came to ending the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans, Obama’s answer was indirect. First he focused on the small businesses and the 95 percent of Americans that would receive a tax cut under his plan, which he said was designed for job growth, but he seemed to leave the door open to a review of other aspects of the proposal, including ending the tax cuts for those making over $250,000.
“My priority is going to be, how do we grow the economy? How do we create more jobs?,” he said. “I think that the plan that we've put forward is the right one, but, obviously, over the next several weeks and months, we're going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole. But, understand, the goal of my plan is to provide tax relief to families that are struggling, but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up.”
Obama said he had spoken to all living former presidents and had re-read some of Abraham Lincoln’s writings, would need to get a hypoallergenic dog for his two daughters and said his wife Michelle was scouting schools for the girls in Washington.
When asked how he would respond to the letter of congratulations sent by Iran’s President Mahmood Ahmadinejad, Obama said he would be reviewing the letter and would respond appropriately and repeated earlier statements that allowing Iran to develop a nuclear would be unacceptable and that the country must be dealt with carefully, before reiterating that there was only one president at a time.
The first post-election meeting with journalists included a bit of humor. Obama expressed surprise when reporters stood as he entered the room, at one point he joked about his mixed heritage, calling himself a “mutt,” and he responded to a French reporter’s cries to be allowed to ask a question with a simple “Bon jour.” When asked about his preparations for taking office, he joked that he had only spoken to living former presidents because “I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.”
*** UPDATE *** NBC's Tom Winter points out that when Obama left the podium following the presser the market was up 136 points, to 8,828. It had been up 250 points when the press conference began.
