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Press Briefing by Press Secretary Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary November 12, 2008

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Dana Perino James S. Brady Press Briefing
Room

˙ /news/releases/2008/11/20081112-1.wm.v.html ˙˙Press Briefings
˙˙Audio


12:08 P.M. EST

MS. PERINO: Okay, hello. Before I begin, I would like to welcome two people
to the briefing room. One, we're happy to welcome back Helen Thomas. We're
glad to have you here. We missed you a great deal, and we'll let the
sparring begin here in just an instant. (Laughter.)

And we are also honored to have Zina Bhaia with us today. Where is she?
There she is. Hi. Zina is a 2002 graduate from Baghdad University. She came
to the United States in December of 2007 to continue her education, and is
currently pursuing a graduate degree in broadcast journalism at the
University of Illinois, which happens to be my alma mater where I got my
graduate degree, as well. So, welcome to you. We're glad you're here.

A couple of things today. One thing the President and Mrs. Bush did this
morning that you might be interested in is they taped an interview with
StoryCorps, which some of you may have heard -- their programs air on NPR
quite regularly. This is an oral history project, and the President and
Mrs. Bush decided to participate. StoryCorps will be launching what they're
going to call a "National Day of Listening" campaign. So the President and
Mrs. Bush will launch that. The interview was conducted by the President's
sister, Doro. And it's expected that the audio from this morning's
interview will be made available also to visitors to the President's
library when that's up and running in a few years from now.

This afternoon, at 1:40 p.m., the President will make remarks to the 2008
NCAA sports champions. Nine men and women's teams will be in attendance.
Also, this evening, the President will make remarks at the 2008 Bishop John
T. Walker Memorial Dinner and receive the 2008 Bishop John T. Walker
Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award. Mrs. Bush will also attend the
event. The Africare Bishop John T. Walker Memorial Dinner is one of the
largest annual events for Africa in the United States, and the proceeds
from the event support Africare's mission to improve the quality of life in
Africa. The President will be presented with the award, which recognizes
outstanding dedication to improving the quality of life for the people of
Africa.

One final note. This afternoon, the White House Transition Coordinating
Council will have its third meeting. They will continue to talk about the
administration's activities to ensure a smooth transition of power. Just a
reminder that we established the council in October, and we've been
obviously talking about that a lot lately, and we've been working the
President-elect's team on a range of issues. So I'm sure that we might have
a little bit of update for you after that. But they're going to be meeting
regularly, and we'll try to get you in at some point for some b-roll that
you've asked about.

Questions. Jennifer.

Q I want to talk about automakers.

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q We keep asking you either questions in the weeds of what will you or not
do for the automakers, and also the broader question of will the
administration let any one of the automakers fail, And I want to go to the
broader question, which is, will you allow one of the automakers to fail,
or will you step in? You keep saying they're important to the economy, but
they have problems with their business model. But what is the bottom line
position?

MS. PERINO: We want these companies to succeed. We want all companies in
America to succeed. There are questions regarding some of the automakers
right now in regards to their earnings. You have seen them, and they've
been transparent. We have said for a while that we've been talking with the
automakers. You've known that the President has been meeting with them.

The President also championed through CAFE increases, which the companies
were trying to deal with. One of the ways to help deal with that was a law
that was passed in December of 2007 through the energy bill that would
allow for those companies to apply for loans. It would help them retool
their companies. That was authorized in December of 2007, but no money was
appropriated for it by the Congress until August of 2008. As soon as that
money was appropriated, we started working on the legislation -- I'm sorry,
on the regulation that would govern how we would appropriate the money. We
set a land speed record to try to get that done. It was done last week and
they've started taking applications.

It won't necessarily be an immediate fix. And what we've said we would do
is we would look to Congress and ask them if they are willing to amend that
legislation or figure out some way to accelerate those funds so that there
would be a loan to a company.

Now, one thing that's very important, in that authorization language
Congress very wisely said that the companies would need to be viable in
order to receive taxpayer dollars. I think everyone can agree that you
wouldn't want taxpayer dollars going to something that would not be a
longtime concern or something that could actually succeed in the future. I
know that those companies are working hard on that.

And we are going to work with Congress. We're open to their ideas. We've
seen -- we have a letter from Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid asking us to
look at the feasibility and whether or not we would be able to use TARP
funding for that. We don't think that that was Congress's intent. So we
feel that we have done what we could with the statutes that have been
authorized. But we are studying that letter, and Secretary Paulson -- I
don't think he's responded yet.

Q So does that mean, bottom line, that what you would like to see is that
either the tools that have been passed already or maybe something that
Congress might do in the next week, that that could work? But what if it
doesn't? Are you -- is the administration willing to be more aggressive, to
ask Congress for more, to do more on its own and not allow one of the
automakers to go under?

MS. PERINO: What I know and what I can tell you is that we're working with
what we have. And we've done that to the extent that we are able to under
the authorization provided by Congress. If they are going to amend or
accelerate those funds, we will certainly listen to their ideas and work
with them. But I'm just not able to say hypothetically what will happen.
Hopefully the companies will be able to figure out a way to survive and it
won't ever come to that. But it's just too early to say, and I shouldn't
speculate on it.

Jon.

Q What does Congress need to do to accelerate the loan program under the
DOE --

MS. PERINO: I don't know. It would be up to people who write legislation
and think about how it would work out. I'd have to refer you to Speaker
Pelosi's office and Leader Reid's office. And hopefully they're talking to
their Republican counterparts about if they do want to move forward, how
they would do that.

Q Do you think it would be helpful if they removed the language referring
to the viability, to the need for viability --

MS. PERINO: We think the Congress was very wise in setting some limits on
these loans because a viable company is something that you think that you
would want to be able to help; a non-viable company is probably not
something that you would want to help, because in the long run the
taxpayers wouldn't get their money's worth.

Q You say that you don't think it was Congress's intention to use TARP
funding for this, and yet, the administration has interpreted the use of
the TARP funds in a very different way than the original stated purpose. If
you're concerned about the auto industry, why not allow some creative
thinking to make additional room for them?

MS. PERINO: I disagree with that just a little bit, because while we were
discussing the rescue package, the TARP funds, that was very much solely
focused on financial institutions and making sure that we did not allow our
financial system to collapse. And the actions that we've taken so far are
working. So that's one side of it.

At the same time, Congress was talking about the 136 loans, as they're
called, from the Department of Energy, and they asked us to accelerate
those and we did that. While the Secretary of the Treasury has a range of
tools under this umbrella called TARP, of which he just spent about an hour
talking about, there are a lot of different things that fall under that
umbrella. But helping specific companies or specific industries outside of
the financial sector were not -- was not included in that discussion.

Q Dana, are you saying that the automakers are a bad investment?

MS. PERINO: I didn't say that. I said that that determination about getting
a loan from the Department of Energy through that program means that the
company has to be viable. And I'm not the judge of what is a viable company
or not. That would be made -- that would be a determination made by the
Department of Energy and the Treasury.

Q Dana, can I follow up on Jennifer's question and phrase it in a different
way? When the government stepped in with Fannie and Freddie and AIG, the
definition of the bottom line was that they were deemed too big to fail.
Does that not apply to the auto industry, specifically to the Big Three?
Does the administration believe they do not fit that criteria that they're
too big to fail?

MS. PERINO: I'm not saying that. What I will focus on is the systemic
problems that we felt we had with Fannie and Freddie and AIG and others
because of the way that they're interconnected through the whole system,
and that our capitalistic system is fueled by money moving through the
system and it had ground to a halt. And we've got those credit markets open
again so that money is starting to flow. And that's how our system works.
And so that -- those discussions and those efforts were focused on
financial firms. It wasn't focused specifically on any one industry or any
one company.

Matt.

Q The administration, the President in particular, did allow some airlines,
major airlines to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after 9/11. Is
there any reason to believe that there's been a red line established that
would not allow automakers to go in that direction?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to rule anything in or out. It's just -- that's
not appropriate for me to do. You know the facts. Certainly there are --
Chapter 11 exists, and some companies choose to go that route. But I'm not
here to speak for the automakers as to what they may or may not do.

Q Dana, what do you say to some lawmakers -- Senator Levin did an interview
over the weekend with CNN and he said, "These problems have been blossoming
under the Bush administration. If the domestic auto industry falls apart,
it's going to be part of his legacy, so he has not only a responsibility,
but a necessity to act." Is there anything -- again, if what you're
suggesting, that Congress could do -- if that doesn't happen, is there
anything unilaterally the President can do? And is he concerned that this
could become the capstone of his legacy -- companies like GM failing?

MS. PERINO: People can blame the President of the United States for a lot
of things, a lot of things land on his desk. But the state of the
automakers right now is not the President of the United States' fault. And
so I would encourage the media to go back and look at the history of these
companies, decisions they've made over time that got them to where we are
today.

Now, what they've had to deal with are a lot of changing consumer
preferences. That's one of the reasons that we accelerated the rulemaking
after the Congress passed the appropriations to allow us to provide for
loans so that they could retool their companies and their factories so that
they could produce more energy-efficient cars, which is what consumers have
been wanting. We believe that American manufacturers can compete on a
global level and they can produce some of the best products in the world.
That's one of the reasons we're such a great country today, because of the
manufacturing sector.

But the state of these companies is not the fault of the President of the
United States. We are trying to help them in a variety of ways. I have told
you that the Secretary of the Treasury, the Department of Energy, and
others -- Department of Commerce -- have been trying to work with those
companies, in regular contact with them, to make sure that we are doing all
that we could given what Congress has allowed us to do.

And one thing that you should go back and look at are some of the
restrictions that they have tried to place on companies over the years
there in Congress. So I think that a little bit of self reflection is
needed here and not finger-pointing at the administration, when we have
been trying to help them.

I'm going to go over here. Mark, did you have one?

Q I did. I was wondering if your remarks reflect the President's view that
industrial companies ought to survive or fail on their own, without
government intervention?

MS. PERINO: Well, one of the things that the President has said when he --
when we started down this road of government intervention was that that was
not his natural instinct. He has always been a free market guy. But when
you have -- when you're the President of the United States and you have
your top advisors telling you that if we don't take this action, and that
they thought that was the best course of action, that we could conceivably
be facing something worse than the Great Depression, then you have an
obligation to act. And he trusted his advisors. It was the right thing to
do, because now we've got those credit markets moving again.

That doesn't necessarily mean that every individual company or every
individual industry is going to be helped with taxpayer dollars. What we
tried to do was prevent the complete and total financial collapse of our
system. And that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to implement that.
Secretary Paulson just spent an hour discussing how they're moving forward.
They're trying to be very transparent with the taxpayers' money, and
they're trying to make the best investments, because we want to make sure
the taxpayers either are made whole or that they can actually make some
money on this deal over time. But it's going to take us a while to get
through this. Secretary Paulson said that we're still in a very fragile
situation. It's going to take some more strengthening.

One of the things that we'll do this weekend, when the 20 leaders are here
for the summit, is talk about what we can do to help prevent this from
happening, or happening in the future, to such a severe degree. And I
should have mentioned, at 3:00 p.m. today, Dave McCormick and Dan Price
will be here and they'll provide a briefing for you to give you an update
on that meeting.

Q Dana, same topic. Will the administration then accept an amendment from
Congress to modify the part to include automakers?

MS. PERINO: I would really want to see what they would put forward and how
they would design it and how they would think about moving forward. A lot
of information -- or a lot of deal-making in Washington is made, but you
can't really make any deals until you see what the other side is proposing.
And so far, we don't even know if they're actually coming back for a
lame-duck session. So I would refer you to the Speaker's office for more
information about that.

Q Same topic. Does it enter into the President's thinking that the
President-elect would be more amenable, apparently, to opening up the TARP?
And in light of the President's thoughts that there should be sort of a
smooth, seamless transition, does what the next President would do on this
same subject enter into his thinking in terms of --

MS. PERINO: Well, we're certainly talking to them, and as we said, we want
to see what the Democrats would put forward. And I would assume that Pelosi
and Reid are talking to Senator -- I'm sorry, the President-elect's team. I
could only assume that; we certainly are. And we are mindful of the fact
that they're going to have to keep this baton and keep running with it, and
they're going to have to implement programs. But we also know that we're
not going to move forward with something that Congress hasn't authorized us
to do. And so we're looking to see if Congress is going to make any
changes.

April.

Q Dana, on this issue but somewhat in another angle. As this whole industry
issue is being worked out, is it a simple -- is the situation just a simple
-- for words to come from this house to say for the American public to buy
domestic cars? Even with the bad economy and people not buying cars right
now as they were months ago, is one of the situations, one of the
solutions, to just say, look, let's start buying more American cars?

MS. PERINO: President Bush doesn't dictate what people should buy. They can
make their own decisions. And one of the things that we talked about
yesterday and will continue to talk about is that we believe that we can
compete on a global scale. There are three free trade agreements currently
in front of Congress that they could take up and they could pass easily.
It's the best way to open up markets and create jobs here in America.

We have big manufacturers, like Caterpillar, that try to sell into
Colombia. They do so, and their products are taxed. When Colombian imports
come into our country, they're not taxed. We simply want to level the
playing field. That's something that if they do decide to come back for a
lame-duck session next week that we would strongly encourage them to do,
because if you're serious about opening new markets and creating jobs, we
have the best way to do that right here in front of us, which are the free
trade agreements.

Another point, though, is that the President thinks that consumers should
be able to buy anything that they want to buy. I mean, that's one of the
reasons we're trying to improve the economy, get us back on a path to
prosperity so that you have all the choice in the world. The President of
the United States has chosen down at his ranch a domestic vehicle, but that
doesn't mean that he would dictate to anybody else what they should buy.

Q Choice is also some of the reason why the auto industry -- you're seeing
stock prices way down, three, four and five dollars for many of these auto
-- domestic auto companies. And also you're seeing more foreign cars being
sold in America, and that is some of the reason why we're in this -- we're
seeing this auto industry problem.

MS. PERINO: Well, we need to be a country that is open to foreign
investment and that is open to trade. And that's one of the President's key
messages that you'll hear from him tomorrow in his speech in New York and
then at the summit this weekend, that we are a country that should be open
for investment and that he encourages it. We went through this on a whole
-- another topic in February of 2006, when we talked about Dubai Ports, and
you know what the President's position has been. We should be open for
trade, we should be open for investment, and we should have the confidence
to believe that we can compete on a global scale, because we can.

Connie.

Q Does the President believe any of the foreign policy situations we've had
in the past few years -- Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth -- had anything to
do with this economic crisis?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of, no.

Sam.

Q On a different topic, the President-elect just announced that former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Congressman Jim Leach will
serve as his representatives to the G20. Has there been discussion about
what role they might play?

MS. PERINO: I just saw the report myself, although I don't know if, in the
discussions with the President-elect's team, there had been some
discussion. We think that that's a -- it's a good idea to make sure that
there's good, fluid communication between his team and leaders who want to
establish relationships with the new President and his representatives. So
we welcome it.

Go ahead, Les.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. Since you are the President's chief media
officer, you are no doubt aware of the news that the Ombudsman of The
Washington Post admitted in print that that newspaper showed extensive
favoritism towards candidate Obama. And my question: Have you wondered why
she waited until after the election to admit this, while blaming no one at
the Post by name for this biased reporting and editing?

MS. PERINO: I won't comment on it, except to say that I read the Ombudsman
column every weekend.

Q Okay. The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Francis
Cardinal George of Chicago, which is Obama's hometown -- (laughter) --
noted, in his express opposition to Roe v. Wade: "If the Supreme Court's
Dred Scott decision were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would
not be President." And my question: Does the President agree or disagree
with Cardinal George?

MS. PERINO: All I would say is that the President has said that he thinks
it was a wonderful and inspiring moment when President-Elect Obama won on
Tuesday night, a week ago.

Paula.

Q Earlier in the administration, the President opposed stricter CAFE
standards on lighter fuel -- lighter vehicles --

MS. PERINO: Oh, really? When?

Q It was I believe about four or five years ago.

MS. PERINO: I believe not, because I was here, I worked as the
communications director for the Council on Environmental Quality, and he
has long championed -- and he was the first to increase CAFE standards for
SUVs and light trucks for the first time in a decade.

Q Well, wasn't the basis on less, smaller fuel-efficient cars weren't as
safe as SUVs and --

MS. PERINO: There was a National Academy of Sciences report that said that,
yes. And when you are working on CAFE standards, one of the things that you
take into account is the safety of the vehicles. And I don't think anybody
in this room would suggest that we shouldn't do that.

Goyal.

Q Two questions. One, according to The Washington Post, tomorrow Saudi
Arabia had religious tolerance conference at the United Nations. But Saudi
Arabia doesn't tolerate other religions, and also rights of the woman and
human rights. And President and Dr. Rice also are going to be attending
this conference.

MS. PERINO: Yes. Tomorrow in New York City, the President will make remarks
at the U.N. High Level Debate on Interfaith Dialogue. This will be an
opportunity for him to reaffirm his commitment to religious freedom and
tolerance, and the importance of people of all faiths coming together. He
welcomes the opportunity to have this event and he believes that the King
of Saudi Arabia has recognized that they have a long way to go and that he
is trying to take some steps to get there. But this -- and this dialogue is
a good way to bring people of all religions together. And you'll hear more
from the President tomorrow.

Q And second, in Pakistan, U.S. consulate was hit. Do you think this is a
warning for this administration and the coming new administration?

MS. PERINO: I've seen the reports, Goyal. I'm going to decline to comment
now because I don't have further information. Let me just take a last one
from Mark.

Q Is the Federal Hall speech -- is it just trade, or is it a broader
message to Wall Street?

MS. PERINO: It's focused on the summit. And what I'm going to try to do
later today if I can -- and we'll try to release those remarks for you. I
don't know if we'll be able to accomplish that, but we'll get it for you as
soon as we can.

Q I think Helen had a question.

MS. PERINO: Helen has a question.

Q Yes, I do. You say the President is not at fault for the auto industry
problem. Do you think he's responsible for a solution?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that he --

Q And also, is there a quid pro quo on the Colombia trade agreement?

MS. PERINO: There is absolutely no quid pro quo for that. And I was able to
clarify that yesterday, and I was pleased that the President-elect's team
clarified that as well. But I think that the President of the United States
believes that companies are responsible for finding solutions. However,
this is an industry, as I've said before, that's very important to the
American people. And there are a lot of regulations that the government has
tried to place on these companies over the years. And so Congress and the
administration and the companies have an obligation to put their best minds
towards trying to find out -- figure out what we can do to the greatest
extent possible to try to keep these companies viable. And if we can do
that, we certainly will.

Q Is he aware that Michigan has 9 percent unemployment?

MS. PERINO: Very well aware of it. And he's been very concerned about it.
It's one of the reasons that he agreed to the UI extension from --
unemployment insurance extension that we provided in August. And we'll see
what the Congress puts forward on that if they come back for a lame duck.

Q Is he aware that Detroit won World War II by retooling in a matter of
days to a wartime condition?

MS. PERINO: He know how important Detroit is, how -- its history, the
industry, and how many people it supports, not just in Detroit, but all
across our country, and the people all around the world who work for those
corporations. He's very mindful of it.

Q Dana, can I follow? At the risk of -- you said we'll see what Congress
puts forward on an unemployment extension if they come back. It seems to me
in the past, you opposed that, saying that it encourages people to stay out
of work longer.

MS. PERINO: What we have said is that -- well, if you just look at the
statistics, the historical data, that as soon as that last week comes
about, that's -- it's like a hockey stick and people's employment goes up.
But it doesn't mean that we're not mindful of the fact that -- how
distressed some people are because we realize how high unemployment is, how
tough the economy is, and how it's taken a while to get people back to
work. And so, we'll just see if Congress comes back with anything.

Q Thank you.

END 12:31 P.M. EST
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