Last night, President Obama sat down with PBS’s Charlie Rose in what is being considered a rare hour of candor. NSA tracking, China, and the armament of the Syrian rebels were among the topics discussed in the near hour-long interview.
The President, who has been under the eye of a particularly critical country in the wake of the IRS scandal, the leak of the NSA’s ?Prism? surveillance program, as well as the White House’s decision to send arms to the Syrian Rebels, largely defended his decisions to Rose.
Below are excerpts of the interview taken from the transcript:
On How ?PRISM? Works:
?They?ll say ? when you start looking at metadata, even if you don’t know the names, you can match it up ? and you can yield all this information. All of that is true, except for the fact that for the government, under the program right now, to do that it would be illegal. We would not be allowed to do that.
On Criticisms of NSA Surveillance:
But I think it’s fair to say that there?re going to be folks on the left [criticizing me]. And what amuses me is now folks on the right who are fine when there’s a Republican president, but now, Obama’s coming in with the black helicopters.
On Arming The Syrian Rebels:
And one of the challenges that we have is that some of the most effective fighters within the opposition have been those who frankly are not particularly [friendly] towards the United States of America, and arming them willy-nilly is not a good recipe for meeting American interests over the long term.
On Resolving The Civil War in Syria:
?This argument that somehow we had gone in earlier or heavier in some fashion, that the tragedy and chaos taking place in Syria wouldn’t be taking place, I think is wrong. ? The fact of the matter is, the way these situations get resolved is politically. And the people who are being suppressed inside of Syria who develop into a military opposition ? these folks are carpenters and blacksmiths and dentists. These aren’t professional fighters. The notion that there was some professional military inside of Syria for us to immediately support a year ago or two years ago [is wrong].
On The President’s Recent Meeting With Chinese President Xi Jinping Regarding Cyber-Security:
We had a very blunt conversation about cybersecurity. ??You know, when you’re having a conversation like this, I don’t think you ever expect a Chinese leader to say, you know what, ?You’re right. You’ve caught us red-handed.?
You can watch the complete interview here.
Edited/Published by: SB
