Q On the “professional left,” there are some people out there who believe you’re smarter than you’re admitting, and that this actually was a calculated -- (laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: One of those is my mom. (Laughter.)
Q This actually was a calculated, premeditated effort to send a message to the so-called “professional left.” Did you misstep? Did you put your foot in your mouth, or did you say something that you meant? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: I think I have both my feet planted firmly on the floor, and nothing in my mouth to speak of.
Q Your esteemed substitute yesterday that you answered -- said that you answered honestly. Was this an honest, correct answer that you have to those questions when you --
MR. GIBBS: I would not contradict my able substitute.
Q So this was an honest answer? You’re not backing away from it?
MR. GIBBS: I don't think that -- I think many of you all have heard frustration voiced in here and around, sure. I don't -- I doubt I said anything that you haven’t already heard.
Q This wasn’t a mistake? It was not something you said in error?
MR. GIBBS: It was borne out of frustration, but I don't think it was -- again, I think it was borne out of frustration.
Q But you stand by it? It’s private frustration that you expressed publicly and accurately?
MR. GIBBS: Well, public frustration that was written down publicly.
Q Do you want to name any names?
MR. GIBBS: I left my membership list back in the office.
Q Of the professional left?
Q Well, who wants to eliminate the Pentagon?
MR. GIBBS: I think that was -- wasn’t that a proposal during the presidential campaign? Didn't Dennis Kucinich -- or maybe it was adding the Department of Peace.
Q The Department of Peace --
Q There’s a big difference between adding a Department of Peace and eliminating the Pentagon.
Some people today are trying to step back from this, some of the liberal bloggers and such, and say, okay, the White House does deserve some credit for things, but part of the problem is that when they don't go as far as we’d like them to go, they don't reach out to us; they don't pat us on the back and say, hey, we tried, there’s no communication. Do you think there is a lack of communication with what you call the professional left’s --
MR. GIBBS: I have not seen --
Q -- lack of outreach from this White House?
MR. GIBBS: I have not seen that criticism today. I think obviously there are a number of people in the White House in public engagement and political affairs and other places that spend a lot of time communicating. I don't doubt -- I doubt that there’s a time in which everybody feels completely satisfied at the level of communication and we would always strive to do better.
I would say this. I think it’s important -- let’s put some of what the Democratic Party is doing into some real context. I think yesterday’s vote in Colorado was a pretty good example of the type of coalition that the President put together in 2008 and that the President helped -- through his endorsements and appearances -- helped a candidate in Michael Bennet, that he believes is the best voice to represent Colorado in the Senate -- somebody with a long track record on education reform, a long track record -- or a track record in the Senate of pushing for needed congressional and ethics reforms.
And 60 percent of -- these are figures as of midday yesterday -- 60 percent of the electorate in the Democratic primary had either not voted in or voted in only one past Democratic primary. That’s an important obviously part of the coalition that the President put together in 2008 to get new voters that wanted to see change to the polls.
Q You told Dan that you haven’t reached out to anybody on the -- in the so-called “professional left,” so you don’t believe you owe anybody an apology?
MR. GIBBS: I have not talked to anybody outside of the building other than normal friends that I talk to each and every day.
Q Have you talked to the President about it?
MR. GIBBS: We haven’t talked about this, no.
Yes, sir.
Q Do you have any comments about Keith Olbermann’s “special comment” last night?
MR. GIBBS: I got to tell you I was watching my BlackBerry for primary returns and watching the Braves game on the Internet.
Q Speaking of your ’08 coalition, Dennis Kucinich says you’ve forgotten the role that progressives played in that and his own personal role, he says, in passing health care reform. Are you not giving liberals, the left side of the party, enough credit?
MR. GIBBS: How so?
Q For being a significant part of the coalition.
MR. GIBBS: I don’t think I’m -- I don’t remember having any comment on that at all.
Q The measure the House passed yesterday to help teachers retain their jobs calls for an eventual cut in food stamps. What’s likely to be the impact of that? And that’s brought on some criticism from progressives as well.
MR. GIBBS: I think it’s important to understand that is not -- that is -- the Recovery Act changed food stamps through 2018. The redirection of that money only accounts for years 2014 through 2017. So the measures that were passed as a part of the Recovery Act for the foreseeable future are left intact for those that need help.
Q So it’s thinking that the help won’t be needed by --
MR. GIBBS: I think also that help -- rather than money programmed for 2017, given the fact that here we sit in early August with 160,000-plus teachers facing a layoff, that redirecting that money made more sense.
Q You just talked a minute ago about how the early part of the campaign was a lot about the war in Iraq, and the President was pretty critical of the surge. Does the President now think the surge worked and was a good idea?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I would give you the answer that I think the President gave standing both in and near Iraq in 2008, that the surge was intended to do two things -- it was intended to augment the security environment so that we could change the political environment. There’s no doubt that the bravery and heroism of our troops and those additions added to impacting that security environment. What we wanted to see more of is a change in the political environment. And we are making progress toward establishing -- we’ve had another election -- establishing a new government and enabling us to change our mission in Iraq.
Q So was that improved security environment provided --
MR. GIBBS: As the President said it would when it happened, yes, the adding X number -- X thousand number of troops is likely to improve the security environment. But again, the security environment alone wasn’t going to change our mission in Iraq. We can’t -- we have a stability in a political system now and making progress toward a new government that does allow us to meet the President’s commitment of transitioning our combat role. That was tremendously important.
Q So I guess just bottom line, do you think he does think it worked in the sense that perhaps under his own tenure, because the security environment was improved, he was able to bring about these changes?
MR. GIBBS: Again, the security improved as we all believed that it would. It has taken longer to see the correlating political gains, but we’re far enough along now in some of those political gains that we can transition that role. I think the role that Vice President Biden and others have played in changing that political environment has been tremendously important to the overall cause.
And I will say this. Lest we not forget that it was Iraqi leaders in 2008 that said -- they also not just in the SOFA, but there was discussion obviously by Prime Minister Maliki about a timetable for transition that was enormously similar to that proposed by then-candidate Obama.
Q It just seems like you guys are pointing to Iraq and this drawdown and this date as a success, and I wondered if you give any credit to former President Bush and the surge as contributing to what you guys regard as a success.
MR. GIBBS: Again, I think that there’s no doubt that, as Democrats and Republicans said, we would have security gains -- that as we talked about throughout the campaign and I think were criticized for, a military role alone was not going to change our mission in Iraq, because if you have security gains but not the responsibility of a functioning government to take the responsibility of both providing the security and executing its civilian duties, it would be hard to transition.
Laura.
Q Is the White House concerned at all that you will not get proper credit, if you will, for what’s happening in Iraq, given the situation in Afghanistan?
MR. GIBBS: No, I think -- I will say -- look, we’ll leave -- I’m sure many people will either decide to or decide not to give different entities credit. I think, again, I look back at a lot of time that I spent in 2007 and 2008 in a fairly vociferous debate about our role there. I think it is safe to say that even as the President pledged during that campaign, at the beginning of this administration, and even on the day that he traveled to North Carolina to give that speech, there were a lot of people that said it was not -- the date that we’d outlined, the end of August of 2010, was simply not doable. It not only is doable, we’re on track to do it. In 20 or so days, that mission transitions.
I think if you look at the sheer number of troops that are deployed between right now and when the President took office, even with the additional troops in Afghanistan, I think by a little more than 30,000 -- by a number of a little more than 30,000, there are fewer troops deployed overseas.
Q Do you think the American people understand and appreciate that accomplishment, what you just described?
MR. GIBBS: I do think that, because we do know so many years later the amount of sacrifice that was made on behalf of our men and women in the military, some paying the ultimate price. I harken back to -- remember when I forget who the advisor was who said it might cost $150 billion in Iraq. I’m pretty sure we’re multitudes beyond $150 billion. We have a -- we’re ending a commitment that -- we’re ending a combat commitment there and transitioning our role in a way that will help our military and will help our treasure.
Mark.
Q Robert, is there a contingency that if conditions in Iraq turn sour that the U.S. role, military role, could resume a combat role there after August 31st?
MR. GIBBS: I will say, Mark, that I think it is always safe to say that the military has plans drawn up for a 1,001 different scenarios. Again, the report that the President got, though, was clear in the progress that was being made. The level of violence at a rate over the course of the past two weeks, as General Odierno said, which was among the lowest that had been recorded since they had kept records on this may all of -- has made the transition possible.
Q On August 31st, do we end up with 50,000 U.S. troops? Is that what the number is?
MR. GIBBS: I think that's the approximate number, yes. I think that's the approximate number.
Q On another issue, have you heard the President offer a view on the exceedingly bad press the First Lady got about her trip to Spain?
MR. GIBBS: I have not.
Roger.
Q Robert, I'd like to go back to the economy again. The markets are down between 2 and 3 percent worldwide today -- I’m sure you know that -- largely brought on by the Fed’s action yesterday. We’re out with a survey of 67 economists saying the GDP for the U.S. for the last -- for the six months of this year, the last half of this year, it’s going to be only 2.55 percent, which is really an economy sort of treading water. Is there any -- number one, do you have any comment on that? And second, has the President asked Mr. Summers or Ms. Romer to take a look at is there anything else we can do?
MR. GIBBS: Well, Roger, I want to not get into commenting on Fed actions, obviously. The President met with and talked through some scenarios today with Dr. Summers on what we were seeing worldwide -- in the Oval Office. And I think he will continue to talk to the team about any efforts that they think are necessary to ensure that we continue positive job growth, that we see positive economic growth.
Again, it wasn’t long ago where the debate was the depth of that job loss, the depth of that economic retraction. I know that a great number of meetings and discussions were held on the legislation that the House passed and the President signed late yesterday. If you think about both the short-term economic impacts of 160,000 teachers losing their job, the long-term impacts of 160,000 classrooms without a teacher, the impact that that has on educating a workforce that we need for the jobs of tomorrow, it’s why the President wanted and why he appreciates the actions of the House and the Senate so much in making it happen.
Obviously, I mentioned earlier, the President wants to see progress on a small business bill, on cutting taxes and on increasing credit. And certainly they’ll continue to talk about whatever steps those in the White House or others deem might be necessary.
Q But if these economists are right and the economy only grows 2.6 percent in the last half of this year, that's not good as it compares with the 3.1 percent in the Mid-Session Review that was just out last month.
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, as I said earlier, I don't think there’s any doubt that the trajectory of where we were in April is somewhat different than we are today. Our goal is to continue that positive action.
I will say this -- I’ve said this a bunch -- I don’t have my favorite graph, but nobody here believed that the depths of what we were entering into was going to be easy to get out of, because you didn’t have just one problem, you didn’t just have a collapse in the financial industry, you didn’t just have -- which led to tightening of credit. You didn’t just have a huge housing crisis. You didn’t just have 8 million jobs lost. You had all that at one time. It’s going to take quite a bit of time to move out of that.
Again, we are at a point where instead of discussing where we are on the downward trend of that hole, where we are on an upswing -- not satisfied, the President and the team not satisfied with all of what they see. Obviously different sectors are going to do better than others and we have to keep working at whatever is necessary to continue to get the economy growing again.