PUBLIC
President Obama argues in a new interview it is
“liberating” that his administration’s accomplishments have started to “bear
fruit.”
In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, a confident Obama said
he’s looking forward to his final two years in office, when he believes he’ll
be able to work with congressional Republicans.
While
he rejected the idea that the midterm election losses liberated him, he
repeatedly voiced confidence in the trajectory of the economy and of his
presidency, arguing at one point that naysayers in Washington who believed his
polices seeking to corral Russia weren’t working are now being proved wrong.
Obama tells NPR that he always saw 2014 as a
breakthrough year, and that while it was a bumpy path, he believes the
breakthrough is now at hand.
At the end of 2014, Obama said he could “look
back and say we are as well-positioned today as we have been in quite some time
economically, that American leadership is more needed around the world than
ever before — and that is liberating in the sense that a lot of the work that
we've done is now beginning to bear fruit.”
“And it gives me an opportunity then to start
focusing on some of the other hard challenges that I didn't always have the
time or the capacity to get to earlier in my presidency,” he said.
Obama finished the year with a flurry of
executive actions, including moves to give 4.5 million illegal immigrants legal
status and open relations with Cuba. Along with a climate change agreement with
China and a deal with congressional Republicans that will keep the government
funded through September, the jolt of work pushed back at any sense he’s
entering the lame-duck, powerless portion of his presidency that seemed
ordained after brutal midterm election losses for his party.
Asked if he was shifting from things “you had to
do” to things you “want to do,” Obama replied, “I think that’s fair.”
“Think about how much energy was required for us
to yank ourselves out of the economic circumstances we were in when I came into
office,” he added. “That was a big lift, and it took up a lot of time.”
Obama held back on the immigration executive
action this summer, after Senate Democrats worried it would hurt them in the
midterms asked him to wait. And the president expressed frustration with
Democrats’ message in the campaign, and in the results, which saw the party
lose nine Senate seats.
“I'm obviously frustrated with the results of
the midterm election,” Obama said. “I think we had a great record for members
of Congress to run on, and I don't think we — myself and the Democratic Party —
made as good of a case as we should have.
“And, you know, as a consequence, we had really
low voter turnout, and the results were bad,” he said.
Obama faulted the media for focusing too much on
the short-term, particularly with Russia.
“I think one of the things I’ve learned over six
years, and it doesn’t always suit the news cycle, is having some strategic
patience.
He said that months ago, everyone in Washington
was convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a genius and had
outmaneuvered the United States in Ukraine.
Obama said his administration stuck with its
policy of working with European partners to raise pressure on Moscow and that
the policy is now working.
Asked if he was just lucky that a drop in global
oil prices crushed Russia’s economy, Obama said Moscow’s economy was “already
contracting and capital was fleeing.”
Part of his rationale, Obama said, was that
steady pressure on Russia would have an effect if oil prices inevitably
dropped, since the Russian economy is so reliant on oil.
Obama also made sure to tick off what he views
as the successes of his signature domestic achievement, the new healthcare law
that he said had expanded health coverage and lowered the growth of health
costs.
He insisted it was not the midterm elections
that liberated him.
“I don't think it's been liberating. Keep in
mind that all these issues are ones that we've been working on for some time,”
he said, mentioning Cuba and immigration specifically.
Obama argues that he is freed up by his own
earlier accomplishments, like shepherding through health reform and taking
measures to halt the slide of the economy, rather than a nothing-left-to-lose
attitude stemming from the Republican takeover of the Senate in November.
“Healthcare, I believed, was profoundly
important for the future of the country — a big lift with significant political
cost — but we're now seeing that it's paid off,” the president said, citing
enrollment numbers and a decline in the growth of healthcare costs.
Obama said he can now focus on other issues,
including income quality.
“Now I have the ability to focus on some
long-term projects, including making sure that everybody is benefiting from
this growth and not just some,” he said.
Noting the December deal on the $1.1 trillion
spending bill that kept the government open, the president argued there is
evidence he and congressional Republicans, who are taking over the Senate next
week, will be able to work together.
He also said the fact that he won’t have to face
voters again could help.
“I want to get things done. I don't have another
election to run,” he said.
But Obama predicted he’ll also make more use of
his veto pen.
“Now I suspect there are going to be some times
where I've got to pull that pen out,” he said. “And I'm going to defend gains
that we've made in healthcare; I'm going to defend gains that we've made on
environment and clean air and clean water.”
But Obama also sent a signal that he wants to
work with congressional Republicans.
In the next two years, “my intention is going to
be to make sure that I build on the great work that we've done over the last
six years,” he said. “And I hope that I can bring the country together to do
it.” (By. Peter Sullivan)
