Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–January 12, 2015 – 1:30 P.M. EST
MR. EARNEST: Good afternoon, everybody. We’ve got a full house today. Let me just do a quick statement at the top and then we’ll move to your questions.
Obviously, a lot has happened since we all convened in this room six days ago, most importantly the terrible terror attacks that we saw in Paris last week. And I expect that we’ll have ample opportunity to talk about that over the course of this briefing today.
However, before we do, let me also note something else important that happened, which is that House Republicans put forward Department of Homeland Security funding legislation through the end of fiscal year 2015. Unfortunately, Republicans have also unveiled plans to muck around with that legislation. This is legislation that funds our efforts to protect our ports and our borders. It provides aviation security. It bolsters our cybersecurity. It coordinates with state and local authorities to improve our counterterrorism resilience in communities across the country. And, yes, it enforces our immigration laws.
There’s never a good time for Republicans to do something like this, but right now it seems like a particularly bad time for them to do so. Republicans have said they’re doing this because they have a political or ideological objection to the President’s executive action on immigration. So let me repeat what you’ve heard me say before: The President’s plan would bring some badly needed accountability to our immigration system by requiring undocumented workers — I’m sorry, undocumented immigrants who have been in this country for more than five years to come out of the shadows, get right with the law, submit to a background check, and pay taxes.
The Republican plan would undo all of that and send the country back in the direction of doing nothing, which is something that no less an authority than Marco Rubio has said is amnesty. So I guess that means there’s probably a lot of reasons to think that what Republicans are planning on the DHS funding bill is a bad idea.
So with that, Jim, do you want to get us started with questions today?
Q Thanks, Josh. Just to follow up on that — so the President would veto this legislation that the House has assembled?
MR. EARNEST: Well, we’ve made clear, dating back to last fall, that the President would oppose any legislative effort to undermine the executive actions that he took to add greater accountability to our immigration system.
Q Can you tell us anything about this hacking of CENTCOM, how disruptive was it? Do you have any information on it?
MR. EARNEST: Jim, I don’t have a lot of information on this. It just occurred within the last hour or so. I can tell you this is something that we’re obviously looking into and something that we take seriously. However, just a note of caution to folks as they’re covering this story, there’s a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account. So we’re still examining and investigating the extent of this incident, but I don’t have any information beyond that for you.
Q On the topic du jour, why did neither President Obama or Vice President Biden or Eric Holder attend the Paris solidarity march this Sunday?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, I can tell you that what was on the television screens of people across this country and I think even across the globe was a remarkable display of unity by the French people in the face of these terrible terror attacks. And the way that that country has come together I do think struck a chord and inspired people all across the world and throughout this country. It was a remarkable display.
There were also a number of other world leaders who were there to participate and show their support as well. And some have asked whether or not the United States should have sent someone with a higher profile than the ambassador to France, and I think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there.
That said, there is no doubt that the American people and this administration stand foursquare behind our allies in France as they face down this threat. And that was evident throughout last week, when you saw that the President’s top counterterrorism advisor here at the White House was in touch with her French counterpart minutes after the reports of this terror attack first emerged. You saw later in the day that the President of the United States telephoned President Hollande to not just express his condolences on behalf of the American people to the people of France but also to pledge any needed cooperation and assistance to conduct the investigation and to bring to justice those who are responsible for those terror attacks.
I can tell you that that kind of coordination that is the backbone of the strong relationship between the United States and France continues. It continued throughout the weekend, and it continues today. In fact, I can tell you that the French ambassador to the United States will be here at the White House later today to meet with Lisa Monaco, who is, as I mentioned earlier, is the President’s top counterterrorism advisor.
Q How much higher a profile do you think should have — or does the President think should have been there? Eric Holder was in the city and did television talk show shows that morning. Should he have been the person representing the U.S.? Or at what level would the President have been satisfied with that presence?
MR. EARNEST: Well, I can tell you, Jim, that had the circumstances been a little bit different, I think the President himself would have liked to have had the opportunity to be there.
Q Why not —
MR. EARNEST: Well, the fact is, that is this is obviously a march that the planning for which only began on Friday night and 36 hours later it had begun. What’s also clear is that the security requirements around a presidential-level visit or even a vice presidential-level visit are onerous and significant. And in a situation like this, they typically have a pretty significant impact on the other citizens who are trying to participate in a large public event like this. We talk about this a lot when it comes to the President attending a basketball game, but the fact of the matter is there were not just thousands of people at the event — there were millions. It wasn’t just an arena that needed to be secured, but a large outdoor area that poses significant security challenges.
I’m confident that the professionals at the Secret Service could overcome those challenges, but it would have been very difficult to do so without significantly impacting the ability of common citizens to participate in this march. And after all, what I think was so impressive about this display is it demonstrated the unity of the French people. And that is something that we are always mindful of in situations like this, of interfering with those who are trying to attend an event, particularly when the purpose of the event is to demonstrate the unity of spirit and purpose of the people who are coming together.
Q This consideration of perhaps having had a more prominent presence there, is that something that just has been considered at the White House today, or was it something you considered doing on Friday when you first knew that this was going to happen?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, I’m not going to sort of unpack all of the planning and discussions that went into this. But I think suffice it to say there should not be, and there is not any doubt in the minds of the people in France or people around the world, and certainly not among our enemies, about how committed to a strong relationship that the United States is with France, and committed to the same kinds of values that they are.
I think in some ways, most importantly, the people who understand this best of all are the French people themselves. And I did note that the French ambassador was on television earlier today in which he described the French people as overwhelmed by the expression of solidarity and grief from all corners of the American people, including from the highest levels of the administration.
Steve.
Q Josh, just to follow up on this, did you consider having the President go, or was it something that was just developing too late to actually pull together in time?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Steve, as I mentioned to Jim, I’m just not going to be in a position to sort of unpack the scheduling planning discussions that we have here. But what I can tell you is that there are some who have suggested that the U.S. presence at the march should have been represented by somebody with a higher profile than the ambassador to France. And I guess what I’m saying is that we here at the White House agree that somebody with a higher profile should have also included —
Q And did the French ask you to come?
MR. EARNEST: Steve, I’m not aware of all the conversations that may have occurred between French officials and American officials here.
Q There’s been plenty of criticism about this. Is this criticism fair?
MR. EARNEST: Well, criticism from whom?
Q A wide variety of — everybody from —
MR. EARNEST: But nobody that comes to mind?
Q I can give you —
MR. EARNEST: Go ahead, Steve. It’s your turn to ask the question, so you can —
Q Ted Cruz —
MR. EARNEST: Ted Cruz.
Q Jake Tapper.
MR. EARNEST: Jake Tapper did have some criticism. I saw that too.
Q Marco Rubio.
Q — throw out some names.
Q There are other Republicans too.
MR. EARNEST: So, Steve, you’re asking?
Q Is this criticism fair?
MR. EARNEST: It is certainly a free country, and people have the opportunity to subject their elected officials to criticism and make it clear when they disagree with a decision or an action that’s been taken by the administration, and I certainly wouldn’t quibble with their right to do so. And to the extent that there are those who are out there saying that the administration should have sent someone with a higher profile to participate in the march, I guess what I’m saying is that we agree that we should have sent someone with a higher profile — again, in addition to the ambassador to France.
Q Let me just ask one last thing, sort of related to this. President Hollande has called the Paris attacks an “act of war.” How does this change your strategy toward going after Islamic State? Are the French now going to be stronger partners? Or how do you interpret this?
MR. EARNEST: Well, there’s an important leap that’s made in the construct of the question there, which is there still is an investigation that’s ongoing to determine exactly what the links were between these individuals who were responsible for these terror attacks in France and their communications and support from extremists in other locations around the globe.
There’s some reporting — public reporting — that I’m referring to that indicates that these individuals may have had links to or even traveled to Yemen. I know that there is a video that’s emerged today that we’re still reviewing here in which one of the terrorists indicate some sympathy and support from ISIL.
So we’re reviewing all of this and trying to assist the French as they take the lead on the investigation, as they should, about who is responsible, what kind of support they had, and what links that has to other extremist groups around the world.
Move around just a little bit. Laura.
Q Thank you. Merci. How did the President follow the demonstration yesterday? And what was his personal feeling when he was looking at all those American channels airing the demonstration for hours?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Laura, I don’t know how much of the march the President watched on television, but I can tell you that the comments that I have reiterated today about the rather impressive display of unity and solidarity from the French people is something that the President made note of as well. And these are messages that were most importantly sent by the citizens of France, but they were echoed by people all across the globe. And there were many ways people could demonstrate those expressions of support — everything from an op-ed to a tweet to a speech at the Golden Globes Awards last night.
And I think that is indicative of the kind of solidarity that the American people feel with our allies in France — not just because of the terrible tragedy that they’ve endured, but also because of the kinds of values that they fight for. These are the same kinds of values that we hold dear in this country. And I think that’s why the bond between the United States and France is so strong today.
Q When the demonstration began at one o’clock in the afternoon in Paris, the White House sent a message at seven o’clock in the morning here, by email, the U.S. saying that there will be a summit to fight violent extremism. What is your point there? What do you expect from this summit?
MR. EARNEST: Well, let me say a couple of things about that. This effort to counter violent extremism is something that we’ve talked about quite a bit over the years. This has long been a focal point of our planning when it comes to our counterterrorism strategy.
The other thing that I would anticipate that we would expect to discuss in the context of the summit is to invite leaders from the private sector and technology community to discuss how extremists are using social media platforms to try to inspire acts of violence and inspire extremism — expressions of extremism by other people. And we want to talk about strategies that we can employ to better promote pluralism, inclusion and resilience in communities all across the country.
One of the other things that we would expect that we would talk about in a summit like this would be to highlight the experience of some pilot programs that have operating in cities like Boston, Los Angeles, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where local officials have really employed some pioneering techniques to try to work very closely in their communities to, again, root out efforts to inspire and recruit extremists, or to propagate extremist ideology in a way that’s not good for the country and certainly not good for the communities where that may be occurring.
So there are some very interesting, innovative techniques that are being employed, and we want to share those best practices with other local officials who’d participate in this summit.
Q And will you speak about the battle against Islamist extremism?
MR. EARNEST: Well, all forms of violent extremism would certainly be discussed in the context of this summit. But obviously the threat that we see from violent extremism in which individuals invoke the name of Islam, an otherwise peaceful religion, as they carry out these attacks would certainly be obviously a priority in the discussion here.
Ed.
Q Josh, why wouldn’t you use the phrase right there, that we are going to take on Islamist extremism? You said all forms of violent extremism.
MR. EARNEST: She asked me what the summit would discuss, and all forms of violent extremism would be discussed, and obviously the most potent and certainly the most graphic display that we’ve seen in recent days is, again, motivated by those individuals that seek to invoke the name of Islam to carry out these violent attacks. And that’s certainly something that we want to work very hard to counter and mitigate, and we’ve got a strategy that we’ve been discussing for some time to exactly do that.
Q So if it’s the most potent form, according to you, of extremism, why isn’t the summit on countering Islamic extremism?
MR. EARNEST: Because violent extremism is something that we want to be focused on, and it’s not just Islamic violent extremism that we want to counter; there are other forms of —
Q The recent cases in Paris, Australia, Canada — isn’t the thread through them that it’s Islamic extremism?
MR. EARNEST: Well, certainly the examples that you cite are examples of individuals who have cited Islam as they’ve carried out acts of violence. There’s no arguing that.
Q You said several times we should have sent someone higher than the ambassador.
MR. EARNEST: With a higher profile than the ambassador, that’s correct.
Q Question: Why didn’t you?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Ed, I’ve sort of tried to describe to you exactly the situation here, that we’re talking about a march that came together with essentially 36 hours’ notice and a march that occurred outdoors with an obviously very large number of people that participated. We are mindful any time the President goes to a public place, or the Vice President for that matter, that we don’t want — or at least we want to try to mitigate the impact that the security precautions would have on those who are participating in this public event. And there’s no doubt that had the President or Vice President on this very short timeframe gone to participate in this event that took place outdoors with more than a million people in attendance, that it would have significantly impacted the ability of those who were attending the march to participate in the way that they did yesterday.
Q Everyone acknowledges the President’s safety is of utmost. It’s not an issue at all. Of course his security is important and you don’t want to detract from the event. How do you explain then that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he made it there? He’s a huge target obviously, unfortunately.
MR. EARNEST: Well, I will allow the Israelis to discuss what security precautions they had in place.
Q There were dozens of leaders — dozens of leaders from countries that are very important. They’re not America, but very important. How did they make it there?
MR. EARNEST: I’m not suggesting that they aren’t at all.
Q How did they make it there?
MR. EARNEST: Ed, you should talk to them about the security precautions they have in place. You’ve been to enough — look, you have been to enough events where the President is attending a conference or a summit with other world leaders, and I think that you have seen firsthand that the security precautions that are in place for the President of the United States — this has been true of previous Presidents, too — are sometimes more onerous than the precautions that are put in place for other world leaders.
Q Sure. In the Mandela funeral there were dozens of dozens of leaders. The American security might be more, but it comes up in short notice. Unfortunately, Mandela dies, and you wanted to be there. You made it. How did that come together then?
MR. EARNEST: The difference with President Mandela is that there had been discussions that had been ongoing for, frankly, a number of years about the ceremony that would take place in the event of his death. And so there was a much clearer —
Q But you guys didn’t know what day.
MR. EARNEST: That’s right. But there was a much clearer plan that was already in place that could be followed for executing that event on a short timeframe. There obviously was nothing in place because I don’t think anybody contemplated the kind of attack that we saw in Paris.
Q You said the President personally wishes — he would have liked to have gone. Why didn’t he? What was he doing on Sunday? We haven’t gotten an accounting of what the President did Sunday.
MR. EARNEST: I haven’t spoken to the President about what he did yesterday.
Q Why not? I mean, you obviously prepared for this and you’ve said many times — the most transparent administration — what was the President doing?
MR. EARNEST: Ed, I guess I prepared for a lot of questions today, but I did not prepare for a question based on what the President was actually doing yesterday.
Q You didn’t — okay. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, and they put out a statement — his office — saying that he had very important meetings. No one would counter that the counterterror meetings were very important. One would assume that the French officials who attended those meetings — some of them, anyway — probably went to this rally. And the Attorney General’s office says that he had to get back to Washington on Sunday afternoon; that was one reason why he couldn’t make the rally. Why couldn’t the Attorney General? He was in that city. So there’s no issue of — security was already in place. How could he not attend?
MR. EARNEST: Ed, I am not aware of the details of the Attorney General’s schedule for yesterday. But if you are asking whether or not somebody like the Attorney General should have attended or should have been asked by the White House to attend, what I am telling you is that, yes, we believe somebody with a higher profile should have been asked to attend.
Q What about this rally in D.C.? There was a rally, I believe it was a march from the Newseum to the French Embassy. We should note the President did go to the French Embassy last week, obviously. He signed a condolence book, he expressed his solidarity with the French people. But I understand the President is probably not going to go marching through the streets of D.C., but the White House Chief of Staff, the Vice President, a Cabinet secretary somewhere — how come you didn’t have someone in D.C. at a rally?
MR. EARNEST: Well, Ed, I know that there were a number of administration officials that did participate in that rally. I think a lot of them — or in that march — and I think a lot of them participated — would have done so even if they weren’t members of the administration.
But I can tell you, Ed, that for all of this talk, there is no doubt, and there should be no doubt, about this commitment of the administration and the commitment of the American people to standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies in France as they deal with the aftermath of these terrible terrorist attacks and as they continue the fight for the kinds of values that we hold so dear on both sides of the Atlantic.
Justin.
Q I want to talk about cyber, but I had a question on the anti-extremism summit. It had been originally scheduled for October, or it was supposed to be in October and then it seemed like it was delayed a couple times. Could you just talk about why that was delayed, why it didn’t happen back in October?
MR. EARNEST: Well, there have been a number of discussions about how exactly — about how this was going to come together. And trying to schedule among state and local leaders, leaders in the private sector, community leaders from other places across the country is difficult. But I guess I can say that — what I would say is that this is something that we’ve been focused on for quite some time; that this notion of countering violent extremism has been a central focal point of our counterterrorism strategy for a long time, dating back to February of 2010, when then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and current CIA Director John Brennan gave a speech at NYU’s Islamic Center and the Islamic Law Students Association at NYU where they discussed the need to counter efforts to recruit people in the name of violent extremism, and the efforts — and the need to work closely with local law enforcement and with community leaders to try to counter that message.
Q So was the scheduling incidental, like you were just able to corral everybody? Or was Paris kind of an impetus that enabled you to bring people in for this meeting next month?
MR. EARNEST: Well, I guess what I would say is that this — certainly, that the tragic events that we saw in Paris last week are a reminder of how important it is for us to be vigilant about this specific issue.
And this summit, as I have described earlier, will be an important opportunity for us to talk about some of the strategies that we have in place, to mitigate the messages that are emanating in social media to try recruit people in the name of violent extremism. And we certainly also look forward to the opportunity to hearing from local officials and leaders of communities all across the country about how they’ve worked together in a way to mitigate those messages and to counter them. And it should be an opportunity for those kinds of best practices to be shared with local officials from all across the country that will participate in this event.
Q All right. And then on cyber, the President said today that he’s going to announce legislation tomorrow to encourage collaboration between companies and the government on cybersecurity practices and information. But it sounds a lot like CISPA, which is the legislation that’s been kind of languishing on Capitol Hill for a couple of years, you guys had voiced concerns about that before. So I’m wondering, has that changed? Or are we going to hear a different version of that legislation tomorrow?
MR. EARNEST: Well, we’ll save tomorrow’s news for tomorrow. But you have heard me say on a number of occasions that we’ve been pretty disappointed that Congress has not fulfilled their responsibility that they have to deal with this critically important issue. And that’s why you heard the President talk a little bit today about some legislative proposals that he’s going to send up in the name of strengthening consumer protections and making sure that consumers and students get the kind of protection and assurances that they deserve when it comes to their privacy.
We would hope that that would not be something that would get bogged down in partisan debates. This is something we should all be able to agree on. We’ll see. I think the same thing — same description could apply to the kinds of cybersecurity legislation that the President looks forward to talking about tomorrow. But for the details of that, we’ll have more on that for you.
Q Well, Senator Thune issued a statement today saying that the President had gone kind of absent on the cybersecurity measures. I think I asked you a couple of weeks ago if you guys were bringing people in for briefings or pushing this type of thing. One of the proposals the President unveiled today actually is kind of a recast of this 2011 proposal; now it’s 30 days instead of 60 days to trigger a data breach notification. So why is it going to be different? And what are you guys going to do differently this time to kind of encourage it to move on the Hill?
MR. EARNEST: Well, I do think that certainly in the aftermath of some of the more recent cyber-attacks that we’ve seen that have been carried out against a number of private companies — including most recently Sony — hopefully that got the attention of people on Capitol Hill, that they actually need to fulfill their responsibilities to actually make progress on this issue. And the proposal that we have sent up, or will send up, is one that does have the strong support of consumer groups because they recognize how important it is for companies to fulfill their obligations to communicate clearly with their consumers and their customers to make sure those customers can take appropriate steps to protect their privacy and protect against identity theft.
At the same time, this is also welcome news to industry, because this clarity associated with one specific national standard would make it clear to them what sort of obligations they need to fulfill to their customers.
Right now there’s a little bit of a hodge-podge of requirements that vary by state. And by putting in place a tough national standard, it will add some clarity to businesses and make them more effective in their response and more effective in communicating with their customers in a timeline that’s appropriate and will ensure that customers can keep their privacy safe.
Jon.
Q Josh, will the United States take part in any retaliation once it’s established who was responsible behind? If AQAP was determined to have been behind this attack in Paris, or ISIS proves to have been behind it, will there be a response that will include the United States?
MR. EARNEST: Jon, a possible response is not something that I’m in a position to talk about at this point. The two organizations that you cite are obviously under intense pressure from the United States and our allies already. And I would anticipate that that pressure will continue. But that would have been the case even if we had not seen these terrible terror attacks carried out last week.
But we’re going to work closely with the French as they investigate exactly what happened. I know that there is some information about two of the individuals that the United States has been aware of and shared with our French counterparts, including some information about their travel history. But at this point I’m not in a position to speculate about what sort of response the French may decide is appropriate and what sort of role the United States would play in that response.
Q Are we losing ground in the war on terror? We obviously have this terrible attack in Paris. I asked you last week about what has happened with Boko Haram in Nigeria; they’ve gained incredible territory, they’ve taken over a military base. Obviously, we have the ongoing efforts in Syria and in Iraq. It looks a lot messier out there than it did when the President was talking just a year ago about decimating core al Qaeda and just the JV team being out there. Are we — give me like a status report on the war on terror.
MR. EARNEST: Well, there certainly are experts who are better positioned to do that than I. But let me give you —
Q But what’s the White House view on this?
MR. EARNEST: Let me take a run at this. Our counterterrorism officials say that the biggest challenge, one of the most difficult things to detect and disrupt are attacks that are carried out by lone offenders or by foreign fighters. There are certainly a wide range of steps that we can take and are taking. I talked about some of them earlier in terms of trying to counter the extremist ideology that’s propagated on social media. There certainly are steps that this administration takes to monitor the movements of individuals that have recently traveled to areas like Syria where it’s possible they may have sought training with militants in that region of the world.
The President, as you will recall, last fall convened a United Nations Security Council meeting where he discussed with other world leaders the need to coordinate activities as we counter the threat from foreign fighters. These are individuals with Western passports that travel to Syria or Iraq. They do pose a threat when they return from that region that they may carry out acts of violence in their home countries, and that’s something that we’re very aware of. And it requires a very high level of coordination to monitor the movements of those individuals. And we’re going to continue to be engaged in a very high level of coordination with the French not just as they investigate this specific attack, but also as we assess the threat from other individuals and other entities that may be operating and may aspire to carry out acts of violence against Westerners or against American interests.
Q But I’m asking if you look at developments over the past year, you look at the lone wolf attacks in Ottawa and in Australia, you look at this attack in Paris by terrorists that may well be tied to both al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS, you have what Boko Haram has done in Nigeria, and you have our inability to push ISIS out of Iraq — I mean, isn’t it a fair assessment to say it looks like we are losing ground or the terrorists are beginning to get an upper hand? Not to mention the latest development today with a terrorist group apparently, or at least they’re sympathizers with a terrorist group, taking over CENTCOM’s Twitter account, its YouTube channel. I mean, it seems like some lost momentum, doesn’t it?
MR. EARNEST: No, I don’t share that assessment at all, Jon. On the military side, we can run through some statistics here. Over the skies of Iraq there are now seven countries that are flying combat missions alongside U.S. forces. In Syria —
Q ISIS still controls Mosul.
MR. EARNEST: In Syria, there are four nations that are flying with the United States. And to date, that coalition has conducted over 1,700 airstrikes against ISIL terrorists, more than 960 of them in Iraq and close to 790 of them in Syria. That means that regularly our coalition is taking out ISIL fighters, their commanders, hundreds of vehicles and tanks, nearly 260 oil and gas facilities. This is the infrastructure that affects — that funds their acts of terror.
They’ve also taken out more than 1,000 fighting positions, checkpoints, buildings, barracks in and around — in Iraq and in Syria. That’s the reason that ISIL’s momentum has been blunted in Iraq, and it is why their leaders are feeling more pressure than they ever have before. And all of that is a testament to the success that this President has had in building an international coalition to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.
What’s also true is that the threat that we face now is very dispersed, and that does pose a set of unique challenges. But there is, as tragic as the events were in France last week, a difference between the ability of core al Qaeda to spend years on a conspiracy involving dozens of individuals in the United States to carry out horrific attacks, like they did on September 11th, 2001, and the terribly violent actions of one or two or three individuals. It’s a different kind of threat and it is one that poses its own unique set of challenges. And it is why we can talk about the success that we have had in truly decimating core al Qaeda that used to exist and operate with impunity in the region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the kind of threat that we face now from individuals who in many cases are being radicalized through social media and carrying out either lone wolf attacks or are individuals who have traveled to the region and gotten some expertise and returned to the fight.
