IN A SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW TO AIR MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2 ON NBC NEWS’ TODAY, OBAMA ALSO TELLS GUTHRIE THE U.S. IS WORKING WITH ITS ALLIES TO IDENTIFY THE LOCATION OF THE AMERICAN FEMALE HOSTAGE HELD CAPTIVE BY ISIS SINCE AUGUST 2013
HE ALSO SAID HE HOPES FOR ECONOMIC SUCCESS FROM “THE MIDDLE CLASS OUT” IN LIVE INTERVIEW DURING NBC’S SUPER BOWL PRE-GAME SHOW
NEW YORK – February 1, 2015 – – In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie today, President Barack Obama discussed his hopes for the nation’s continued economic growth in the fourth quarter of his presidency: “If we can make sure that growth is coming from the middle class out, everybody is benefiting from the hard work they’re putting in.” The president also weighed in on the recent deflate-gate controversy: “The Patriots were going to beat the Colts regardless of what the footballs looked like.” The interview aired live from the White House during NBC’s Super Bowl Pre-Game Show. A transcript of Guthrie’s live interview with the president is below and the video is online here: http://on.today.com/1yMoZV3.
Following the live interview, Guthrie conducted an extended sit-down interview which will air tomorrow, February 2, on NBC News’ TODAY. In that conversation, Obama talked about the American female prisoner being held captive by ISIS, watching the ISIS hostage videos and the importance of childhood vaccinations, telling Guthrie: “I just want people to know the facts and the science and the information. And the fact is that, a major success of our civilization has the ability to prevent diseases that in the past have devastated folks. And measles is preventable. And I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations. The science is, you know, pretty indisputable.”
Excerpts are below; full transcript and video will be available on TODAY.com tomorrow after the interview airs.
Excerpts of the extended interview may be used with mandatory credit to NBC News with air-date of Monday, February 2. Broadcast entities may use up to two minutes from each interview with verbal credit to NBC News. In addition, the NBC News bug must remain on screen and unobstructed. Embedded web video must stream from the TODAY.com media player with the unobstructed credit as described above.
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MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC NEWS
FULL TRANSCRIPT: SAVANNAH GUTHRIE’S LIVE INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA
Aired Sunday, February 1 on NBC’s Super Bowl Pre-Game
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: We are here in the White House kitchen where, among other things, you brew beer.
BARACK OBAMA: We make beer; first President since George Washington to make some booze in the White House.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: We’re going to try that in a minute but I’ve got to ask you – I know most people in America are thinking about one thing today, the game – do you have a prediction? I know your Bears aren’t in it.
BARACK OBAMA: Since my bears are not in it, I think it’s always wise for me not to choose a team because then I just alienate one big city. But I will say that it’s going to be close. And the question I have is whether Seattle’s secondary is healthy enough. You know that’s the heart and soul of their team and they’ve got three guys back there that are hurt. I don’t know how that’s going to affect the game.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: I don’t know if this makes it into your presidential briefing books, but have you been following DeflateGate, and do you have an opinion on whether the Patriots cheated?
BARACK OBAMA: Well, here’s what I know. The Patriots were going to beat the Colts regardless of what the footballs looked like. The one thing I did not realize, and I bet most fans didn’t, was that each team prepares its own footballs and brings them to the game. I don’t think there’s any other sport like that. So I’m assuming one of the things the NFL is going to be doing, just to avoid any of these controversies, is figuring out how the officials are in charge of the footballs form start to finish.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: But if it happened, do you think it’s cheating?
BARACK OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that if you break the rules then you break the rules.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: There’s no real segue here so I’ll just go right into politics for a moment. You gave your State of the Union a couple of weeks ago; people noticed you had a pep in your step. You were confident, your critics say maybe a little cocky. I guess the question is, you know, your party lost in November, but you went in there with such swagger. Should you have been more conciliatory? Is it, to borrow a football metaphor, is it kind of like you’re the quarterback doing the end zone dance when it was the other team that got the touch down?
BARACK OBAMA: Well actually nobody was doing the end zone dance. What we were talking about was the success that America’s had in digging itself out of a really tough recession. And that’s a celebration of the American people. That’s not about politics. I was speaking about the fact that we’ve seen a faster drop in unemployment in the past year as we’ve seen in 30 years. We’ve seen that wages are actually starting to tick up again. We’ve seen housing recover, auto industry recover, energy production up, gas prices down. All those things are good for the American people, and that is worth us celebrating. Now we’ve got to build on it by moving forward and making sure that middle-class economics, one where it works for everybody, that that ends up being something that hopefully both parties find impressive.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: The economy is doing better but you laid out a bunch of proposals that you know cannot get through this Congress that is run by Republicans now. Isn’t that kind of counter productive?
BARACK OBAMA: No I disagree with that. I think Republicans that believe that we should be building our infrastructure. The question is how to we pay for it? That’s a negotiation that we should have. I assume-
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: But you’re offering tax hikes for the wealthy. That’s something they couldn’t even get through Congress when it was run by Democrats.
BARACK OBAMA: Savannah, my job is to present the right ideas and if the Republicans think they have better ideas, then they should present them. But my job is not to turn my sails and not tell the American people what we should be doing. Pretending somehow that we don’t need better roads or we don’t need more affordable college. You know one of the things that I’ve learned over the last six years is that when I tell the American people very clearly what direction I think the country should go in sometimes people change their minds. Even Republicans occasionally start agreeing with me, although sometimes a little bit later than I would like.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: If this were your fourth quarter, I guess it kind of is, how do you want to close this presidency?
BARACK OBAMA: Well, what I’d like to see is not only that the economy continues to grow, but I also want to make sure that everybody’s benefitting. And when you travel around the country and see incredibly hard working folks who are doing the right thing — they’re looking after their families, but they haven’t seen as much wage and income growth as they should have given how high the stock markets gone, how well corporate profits are doing. So if we can make sure growth is coming from the middle class up, everybody’s benefiting from the hard work they are putting in-
SAVANNAG GUTHRIE: And you’ve had six years to do that. You’ve only got two more.
BARACK OBAMA: And you know we’ve made progress coming off the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes. We’re now back in a really strong position. And I just want to make sure that in two years when we look back we’ll say not only that we recovered from that crisis but actually that we built the kind of foundation that ensures America does well for the generations to come.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Alright are we going to try this beer or what?
BARACK OBAMA: Let’s test this out. This is the honey ale, made from honey from Michelle’s garden. That’s how this originally came about. Somebody in the Navy Mess figured out you could make beer using honey. So let’s taste it. It’s been well reviewed.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Has it?
BARACK OBAMA: Absolutely. Let’s see what you think.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: I’m going to take a tiny sip.
Quick game of “either/or” while we’re having this beer. Football or basketball?
BARACK OBAMA: I’m still a basketball guy but I love football.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Offense or defense?
BARACK OBAMA: Always offense.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE Wings or chips and guac?
BARACK OBAMA: Now that’s tough, you know I’m going to go chips and guac. I’m a fanatic about guac.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden?
BARACK OBAMA: Love them both.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: I had to try. Thank you Mr. President.
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PREVIEW: GUTHRIE INTERVIEWS OBAMA FOR NBC NEWS’ “TODAY”
Air Date: Monday, February 2
ON AMERICAN FEMALE ISIS PRISONER:
SG: Can you tell us anything to the status of the female American prisoner being held by ISIS? And what’s being done to help her?
BO: Well, what we can say is that, as has been true of all the hostages, that we are deploying all the assets that we can working with all the coalition allies that we can to identify her location. And we are in very close contact with the family trying to keep them updated. Obviously this is something that is heart-breaking for the family and we want to make sure we do anything we can to make sure that any American citizen is rescued form this situation.
ON ISIS HOSTAGE VIDEOS:
SG: Have you ever personally watched one of those videos of hostages being beheaded?
BO: I think it’s fair to say that, anything related to these terrorist actions, I take a look at. Every morning I get a presidential daily briefing and it gives me a pretty clear sense of the terrible stuff that’s happening. And it’s part of the reason why we have to be so vigilant and so aggressive in going after a vicious organization like ISL.
SG: I hear you saying that you have.
BO: I have.
SG: It must affect you deeply to see something like that.
BO: Oh, I think it would affect anybody who has an ounce of humanity. And it’s part of the reason why I think we’ve been so successful in organizing such a broad-based coalition. But what’s also important, though, Savannah, is for us to maintain some perspective about these issues.
ON MEASLES WARNING:
SG: Do you feel there should be a requirement that parents get their kids vaccinated? There are parents who aren’t getting their kids vaccinated endangering others?
BO: Well, I just want people to know the facts and the science and the information. And the fact is that, a major success of our civilization has the ability to prevent diseases that in the past have devastated folks. And measles is preventable. And I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations. The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not.
SG: Are you telling parents you should get your kids vaccinated?
BO: You should get your kids vaccinated. It’s good for them and the challenge you have is if you have a certain group of kids who don’t get vaccinated, and if it grows large enough that a percentage of the population doesn’t get vaccinated and they’re the folks who can’t get vaccinated, small infants, for example, or people with certain vulnerabilities that can’t vaccinated, they suddenly become much more vulnerable.
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NBC’s TODAY is the news program that informs, entertains, inspires and sets the agenda each morning for Americans. Airing live from 7 am to 11 am ET, TODAY reaches more than 5 million people every day through its broadcast, and millions more through TODAY.com, the TODAY app, and social media platforms. Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, Willie Geist, Tamron Hall, Carson Daly, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb are the anchors and hosts, and Don Nash is the executive producer.
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