Watch Biden's First Full Press Conference | NBC News

here is lester holt good day everyone president biden is about to hold his first formal news conference since taking office just over two months ago and there's a lot to ask him about including the immigration crisis at the border the recent mass shootings in this country the fight over voting rights north korea's missile launch and of course the pandemic the president will enter the east room of the white house momentarily to meet with reporters as we said a formal news conference as we wait let's turn to chief white house correspondent peter alexander peter we understand the president is set to announce a new goal for vaccinations what do we know so far yeah lester that's exactly right i'm told by senior white house officials that in his opening remarks ahead of this news conference the president will announce that new vaccination goal of 200 million shots in american arms within his first 100 days they hit the 100 million mark that had been his initial goal last friday on day 59. it seems like an ambitious goal but frankly with two and a half million shots a day it is attainable one we're on pace to hit at this time and leicester as you consider all the news events that have happened over the course of the last nine days since the white house announced this news conference those two mass shootings in atlanta and in boulder missile uh missile uh firings from north korea as well as the illegal border crossings increasing along the u.s mexico border there are a lot of questions that will be raised over the course of this news conference i'm told the president has prepped extensively for it and as you see in the room the reporters are socially distanced 30 reporters and plus photographers inside that room today lester all right peter again waiting for the president let me see if we can quickly get in nbc news political director and moderator to meet the press uh chuck todd chuck there's been some concern that we haven't seen the president in a formal news conference yet up to this point that's true and he was very hard to get to take questions during the campaign so it raised the stakes for now good afternoon before i take questions president i want to give you a progress report to the nation on uh on where we stand 65 days into office here on vaccinations and a few other top priorities for the american people first on vaccinations on december 8th i indicated that i hoped to get 100 million shots in people's arms in my first 100 days we met that goal last week by day 58 42 days ahead of schedule now today i'm setting the second goal and that is we will by my 100th day in office have administered 200 million shots in people's arms that's right 200 million shots in 100 days i know it's ambitious twice our original goal but no other country in the world has even come close not even close to what we are doing i believe we can do it and today we made a historic investment in reaching the hardest hit and the most vulnerable communities the highest risk communities as a consequence of the virus by investing an additional 10 billion dollars in being able to reach them i also set a goal before i took office of getting a majority of schools in k through 8 fully open in the first 100 days now thanks to the enormous amount of work done by our administration educators parents local state education officials and leaders recent department of education survey shows that nearly half of the k-8 schools are open now full-time five days a week for in-person learning not yet a majority but we're really close and i believe in the 35 days left to go we'll meet that goal as well as of yesterday more than 100 million payments of one thousand four hundred dollars have gone into people's bank accounts that's real money in people's pockets bringing relief instantly almost and millions more will be getting their money very soon one final note since we passed the american rescue plan we're starting to see new signs of hope in our economy since it was passed a majority a majority of economic forecasters have significantly increased their projections on the economic growth that's going to take place this year they're now projecting it will exceed six percent a six percent growth in gdp and just this morning we learned the number of people filing for weekly unemployment insurance fell by nearly 100 000 persons it's the first time in a year the number has fallen below the pre-pandemic high so there are still too many americans out of work too many families hurting and they still have a lot of work to do but i can say to you the american people help is here and hope is on the way now i'll be happy to take your questions zeke associated press president you mentioned your progress on covenanting i'd like to ask you about some of the other issues uh facing your presidency one of the defining challenges you face in the coming months is how to deliver under promise to americans on issues like immigration reform gun control voting rights climate change all of those right now are facing stiff united opposition from republicans on capitol hill how far are you willing to go to achieve those promises that you made to the american people well i'm good look when uh when i took office i decided that it was a fairly basic simple proposition and that is i got elected to solve problems and the most urgent problem facing the american people i stated from the outset was covet 19. and the economic dislocation for millions and millions of americans and so that's why i put all my focus in the beginning for a lot of problems but all my focus on dealing with those particular problems and the other problems we're talking about from immigration to guns and the other things you mentioned are long-term problems they've been around a long time and what we're going to be able to do god willing is now begin one at a time to focus on those as well and whether it's immigration or guns or a number of other problems that face the country but the fundamental problem is getting people some peace of mind so they can go to bed at night and not stare at the ceiling wondering whether they lost their health insurance whether they're going to lose some family member whether they're going to be in a position where they're not going to be they're going to lose their home because they can't pay their mortgage or the millions of people are going to get thrown out of their homes because of the inability to to pay the rent so we're we're going to move on these one at a time try to do as many simultaneous as we can but that's the reason why i focused as i have and here's the deal i think my republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we want to work together or they're decide that the way in which they want to proceed is to is to just decide to divide the country continue the politics of division but i'm not going to do that i'm just going to move forward and take these things as they come follow up mr president can your presidency be a success if you can't make progress on those four challenges climate change immigration reform gun control voting rights well i plan on making progress on all of them but that's going to be for the american people to decide i think you know i i doubt whether maybe you did maybe others did i i i thought many of you thought there was no possibility of my getting the plan i got passed passed without any republican votes pretty big deal got passed growing the economy people's lives are changing so let's see what happens all i know i've been hired to solve problems to solve problems not create division uh okay uh how about yamiche thanks so much mr president um you've said over and over again that immigrants shouldn't come to this country right now this isn't the time to come that message is not being received instead the perception of you that got you elected as a moral decent man is the reason why a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and entrusting you with unaccompanied minors how do you resolve that tension and how are you choosing which families can stay and which can can go given the fact that even though with title 42 there are some families that are staying and is there a timeline for when we won't be seeing these overcrowded facilities with run by cpb when it comes to unaccompanied minors well look i guess i should be flattered people are coming because i'm the nice guy that's the reason why it's happening that i'm a decent man or whoever's phrased that you know that's why they're coming because no biden's a good guy truth of the matter is nothing has changed as many people came 28 increase in children to the border in my administration 31 in the last year of in 2019 before the pandemic in the trump administration it happens every single solitary year there is a significant increase the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of january february march that happens every year in addition to that there is a and nobody and by the way does anybody suggest that there was a 31 percent increase under trump because he was a nice guy and he was doing good things at the border that's not the reason they're coming the reason they're coming is that it's the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert number one number two they're coming because of the circumstances in country in country the way to deal with this problem and i started to deal with it back when i was the united states senator i mean vice president for putting together a bipartisan plan of over 700 million dollars to do the root causes of why people are leaving what did trump do he eliminated that funding he didn't use it he didn't do it in addition to that what he did he dismantle all the elements that exist to deal with what had been a problem and what and has been continued to be a problem for a long time he in fact shut down the the number of beds available he did not fund hhs to get people to get the children out of those those border patrol facilities where they should not be and not supposed to be more than a few days a little while but he dismantled all of that and so what we're doing now is attempting to rebuild rebuild the system that can accommodate the the what is happening today and i'd like to think it's because i'm a nice guy but it's not it's because of what's happened every year let me say one other thing on this if you take a look at the number of people are coming the vast majority the overwhelming majority of people coming to the border crossing are being sent back are being sent back thousands tens of thousands of people who are who are over 18 years of age and single people one at a time coming have been sent back sent home we're sending back the vast majority of the families that are coming we're trying to work out now with mexico their willingness to take more of those families back but we that that's what's happening they're not getting across the border and those who are coming across the border who are unaccompanied children were moving rapidly to try to put in place what was dismantled as i said for example of all the children are coming across the border over 70 percent are either 16 or 17 years old we're not talking about people ripping babies from mother's arms or little three-year-olds standing on the border less than i think it's one and a half percent fall in the category of the very young so what we're doing is we're providing for the space again to be able to get these kids out of the border patrol facilities which no child no one should be in any longer than 72 hours and today i went to for example i used all the resources available to me went to the defense department and and the secretary of defense has just made available fort bliss 5 000 beds be immediately available 5 000 beds in the texas border so we're building back up the capacity that should have been maintained and built upon that trump dismantled it's going to take time and the other thing we're doing i might add am i giving you too long an answer because if you don't want the detail no no but i mean i i don't know how much detail you want about immigration maybe i'll stop there in new my follow-up question is um one if you could talk a little bit about which families why they're being allowed to say what the families that are being allowed to stay why they're being allowed to say in addition to that when it comes to the filibuster which is what zeke was asking about there's immigration is a big issue of course when it related to the filibuster but there's also republicans who are passing bill after bill trying to restrict voting rights chuck schumer is calling it an existential threat to democracy why not back a filibuster rule that at least gets around issues including voting rights or immigration jim clyburn someone of course who you know very well has backed the idea of a filibuster rule when it comes to civil rights and voting rights well look i'm going to deal with all those problems the question is the priorities as they come and land on my plate let's go to the first question you asked the first of the second questions you had and that is what about dealing with families why are not some not going back because mexico is refusing to take them back they're saying they won't take them back not all of them we're in negotiations with the president of mexico i think we're going to see that change they should all be going back all be going back the only people were not going to let sitting there on the other side of the rio grande by themselves with no help our children and what we're doing there and it's important point to understand i know you understand it i don't mean to say it that way important point to focus on the vast majority of people under the age of 18 come to the united states come with a telephone number on the on a wristband or come with a telephone number in their pocket in the united states a mother a father a close relative a grandmom or grandpa what's happening before is this taking literally weeks and weeks and maybe even months before anybody pick up the phone and call to see if there really was someone there well we've set up a system now where within 24 hours there's a phone call made as that person that child crosses the border and then a verification system being put in places as of today to determine quickly whether or not that is a trafficker being called or that is actually a mom a dad and or a close relative they're establishing that right off the bat if it in fact is mom or dad dad says to take the extreme case i got a birth certificate then guess what we're getting that kid directly to that parent immediately and so that's going to reduce significantly there's two ways to reduce child populations in circumstances that are not acceptable like being held at a border patrol station one is to get them to the place where they have a relative and set a date as to when a hearing can be held the second way to do it is put them in a health and human services facility that we're occupying now both licensed beds around the country that exist as well as for example federal resources like fort bliss to get them safely in a place where they can be taken care of while their fate is determined filibuster fulfilled filibuster um you know with regard to the filibuster i believe we should go back to a position in the filibuster that existed just when i came to the united states senate 120 years ago and that is that it used to be required for the filibuster and i i had a card on this i was going to give you the statistics but you probably know them uh that it used to be that uh the that from between 1917 and 1971 the filibuster existed there were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time last year alone there were five times that many so it's being abused in a gigantic way and for example it used to be you had to stand there and talk and talk and talk and talk until you collapsed and guess what people got tired of talking and tired of collapsing filibusters broke down and were able to break the filibuster get a quorm and vote so i strongly support moving in that direction in addition to having an open mind about dealing with certain things that are are just elemental to the functioning of our democracy like the right to vote like the basic right to vote we've amended the filibuster in the past but here's the deal as you observe i'm a fairly practical guy i want to get things done i want to get them done consistent with what we promised the american people and in order to do that in a 50-50 senate we've got to get to the place where i get 50 votes so that the vice president united states can break the tie or i get 51 votes without her and so i'm going to say something outrageous i have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the united states senate so the best way to get something done if you if it holds near and dear to you that you like to be able to anyway i'm we're we're going to get a lot done and if we have to if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster then we'll have to go beyond what i'm talking about okay um hang on uh sorry oh miss kim thank you mr president um to follow up on the filibuster so do you believe it should take 60 votes to end a filibuster on legislation or 51. if we could end it with 51 we would have no problem you're going to have to the existing rule it's going to be hard to get a parliamentary ruling that allows 50 votes to end the filibuster the the existence of a filibuster um but um it's not my expertise and what the parliamentary rules on how to get there are but our preoccupation with the filibuster is totally legitimate but in the meantime we got a lot we can do while we're talking about what we're going to do about the filibuster um let me get here okay uh um cecilia vega i'd like to circle back to immigration please uh you just listed the reasons that people are coming uh talking about in-country problems saying that it happens every year you blame the last administration sir i just got back last night from a reporting trip to the border where i met nine-year-old jose who walked here from honduras by himself along with another little boy he had that phone number on him and we were able to call his family his mother says that she sent her son to this country because she believes that you are not deporting unaccompanied minors like her son that's why she sent him a loan from honduras so sir you blame the last administration but is your messaging in saying that these children are and will be allowed to stay in this country and work their way through this process encouraging families like joe says to come well look the idea that i'm going to say which i would never do if an unaccompanied child ends up at the border we're just going to let them starve to death and stay on the other side no previous administration is dead either except trump i'm not going to do it i'm not going to do it that's why i've asked the vice president united states yesterday to be the lead person on dealing with focusing on the fundamental reasons why people leave honduras guatemala el salvador in the first place it's because of earthquakes floods it's because of lack of food it's because of gang violence it's because of a whole range of things that when i was vice president had the same obligation to deal with unaccompanied children i was able to get it slowed up significantly by working with the heads of state of those communities to do things like in one of the major cities reason people were leaving as they couldn't walk the street because they were getting their kids were getting beat up or shot or gang violence well what i was able to do is not give money to the head of state because so many are corrupt but i was able to say okay you need lighting in the streets to change things i'll put the lighting in we got a contractor we got the type of lighting we paid directly to the contractor did not go through the government and violent crime significantly was reduced in that city fewer people sought to leave when this hurricane occurred the two hurricanes instead of us going down and helping in a major way so that people would not have a reason to want to leave in the first place because they didn't have housing or water or sustenance we did nothing we're going to do a lot in our administration we're going to be spending that 700 plus million dollars a year to change the life and circumstances of why people leave in the first place that mother did not sit around with on the kitchen table and say you know i got a great idea why i'm going to make sure my son get taken care of is i'm going to put him how old was he or she he's nine i also met a ten-year-old a a a nine-year-old i'm going to send him on a thousand mile journey across the desert and up to the united states because i know joe biden's a nice guy and he'll take care of him what a desperate act to have to take the circumstances must be horrible so we can do something about that that's what the vice president is going to be doing what i did when president obama asked me to come and deal i was in i was in turkey at the time he said you got to come home and take care of this so we put together a plan and it had an impact and so the question here is whether how we go ahead and do this what we do there's no easy answer quick follow if i may do you want to see these unaccompanied minors staying in this ch this country or should they be deported eventually well the judgment has to be made whether or not and in this young man's case he has a mom at home there's a overwhelming reason why he'd be putting a plane and flown back to his mom follow sir you mentioned circumstances that must be horrific the customs and border protection facility in donna texas i was there is that 1556 capacity right now with mostly unaccompanied minors there are kids that are sleeping on floors they are packed into these pods i've spoken to lawyers who say that they some of these children have not seen the sun in days what's your reaction what is your reaction to these images that have come out from that particular facility is what's happening inside acceptable to you and when is this going to be fixed i is that's a serious question right is it acceptable to me come on that's why we're going to be moving a thousand of those kids out quickly that's why i got fort bliss opened up that's why i've been working from the moment this started to happen to try to find additional access for children to be able to safely not just children but particularly children to be able to safely be housed while we follow through on the rest of what's happening that is totally unacceptable um ken thank you mr president i want to ask you about afghanistan you face a may first deadline for the withdrawal of u.s troops from that country as a candidate in foreign affairs you wrote that it is past time to end these forever wars can you commit to the american people that by may 2nd the u.s will no longer have forces in afghanistan the answer is that it's going to be hard to meet the may one deadline just in terms of tactical reasons hard to get those troops out so what we've been doing what i've been doing and what secretary blinken has been doing has been we've been meeting with our allies those other nations that have nato allies who have troops in afghanistan as well and uh and if we leave we're going to do so in a safe and orderly way we're in consultation i say with our allies and partners and how to proceed and secretary blinken is meeting in brussels this week with our nato allies particularly those who have forces there and general austin is just met with kyani and i'm waiting for the briefing on that he is the the the leader in afghanistan and kabul and uh there's a un-led process that's beginning uh shortly on how to mechanically get people how to end this war but it is not my intention to stay there for a long time but the question is how and on what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by president trump to leave under a deal that looks like it's not being able to be worked out to begin with how how's that done but we are not staying a long time do you think it's possible that we will leave the question is when we leave sorry do you believe though it's possible we could have troops there next year i i can't picture that being the case okay uh kristen thank you very much mr president given the conditions that were just laid out at the migrant facilities at the u.s border will you commit to allowing journalists to have access to the facilities that are overcrowded moving forward i will commit when my plan very shortly is underway to let you have access to not just them but other facilities as well be able to have access to the facilities we've obviously been allowed to be inside one but we haven't seen the facilities in which children are packed together to really give the american people a chance to see that will you commit to transparency on this issue i will commit to transparency and as soon as i am in a position to be able to implement what we're doing right now and one of the reasons i haven't gone down i've all my my chief folks have gone down is i don't want to become the issue i don't want to be you know bringing all the secret service and everybody with me to get in the way so this is being set up and you'll have full access to everything once we get this thing moving okay just to be clear how soon will that be mr president i don't know to be clear responsibility for everything that's happening at the border now i hear you talking a lot about the past administration you decided to roll back some of those policies did you move too quickly to roll back what i'm sorry policies did you move too quickly to roll back some of the executive orders of your predecessor first of all all the policies are underway were not helping at all did not slow up the amount of immigration and there's many people coming and rolling back the policies of separating children from their from their mothers i make no apology for that rolling back the policies of remain in mexico sitting on the edge of the rio grande and the muddy circumstance with not enough to eat i make no apologies for that i make no apologies for ending programs that did not exist before trump became president that have an incredibly negative impact on the law international law as well as on human dignity and so i make no apologies for that i want to ask you about foreign policy mr president overnight we learned that north korea tested two ballistic missiles what if any actions will you take and what is your red line on north korea let me say that number one u.n resolution 1718 was violated by those particular missiles that were tested number one we're consulting with our allies and partners and there will be responses if they choose to escalate we will respond accordingly but i'm also prepared for some form of diplomacy but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization so what we're doing right now consulting with our allies just very quickly you only got another hour now okay diplomacy can you define what you mean and former president obama warned the incoming president trump that north korea was the top foreign policy issue that he was washing is that how you assess the crisis in north korea yes okay hang on a second here kristen uh nancy cbs thank you very much mr president i want to go back to voting rights and as yamiche mentioned republican legislatures across the country are working to pass bills that would restrict voting particularly democrats fear impacting minority voters and young voters the very people who helped to get you elected in november are you worried that if you don't manage to pass voting rights legislation that your party is going to lose seats and possibly lose control of the house and the senate in 2022. what i'm worried about is how unamerican this whole initiative is it's sick it's sick deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line waiting to vote deciding that you're going to end voting at five o'clock when working people are just getting off work deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances it's all designed and i'm going to spend my time doing three things one trying to figure out how to pass the legislation passed by the house number one number two educating the american public the republican voters i know find this despicable republican voters the folks out in the outside this white house i'm not talking about the the elected officials i'm talking about voters voters and so i'm convinced that we'll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing this makes jim crow look like jim eagle i mean this is gigantic what they're trying to do and it cannot be sustained and do everything on my power along with my friends in the house and the senate to keep that from from becoming the law is there anything else you can do about it besides passing legislation the answer is yes but i'm not going to lay out a strategy in front of the whole world and you now and then on a related note have you decided whether you are going to run for re-election in 2024 you haven't set up a re-election campaign yet as your predecessor had by this time my friend said i need to needed to my predecessor oh god i miss him have you have you oh an answer is yes my plan is to run for reelection that's my expectation and then on on on one other note on bipartisanship your old friend mitch mcconnell says you have only spoken to each other once since you took office and that you have moved far left since taking office do you see it the same way he does have you rejected bipartisanship no i haven't at all been meeting when's the last time a president invited the opposite party down at least a half a dozen times to talk about issues everything from how we work i'm we're working with a group with 20 members of the senate right now in-house on how we re-establish our ability to make computer chips and how we get ahead of the game how we can work together we're working together on a bunch of things but look i know mitch well mitch knows me well i would expect mitch to say exactly what he said but this is a matter of making sure that i would like republican elected republican support but what i know i have now is i have electoral support from republican voters republican voters agree with what i'm doing and so unless mitch says the last thing i did this last piece of legislation is so far left well then he ought to take a look at his party over 50 percent of them must be over that edge as well because they support what i did uh okay um where am i here let me see caitlyn thank you very much mr president i have a question for you but first i'd like to follow up on a question from yamiche and that's on the phone that counts as a question but go ahead okay i'll make it quick uh regarding the filibuster at john lewis's funeral president barack obama said he believed the filibuster was a relic of the jim crow era do you agree yes if not why not abolish it if it's a relic of the jim crow era successful electoral politics is the art of the possible let's figure out how we can get this done and move in the direction of significantly changing the abuse of even the filibuster rule first it's been abused from the time it came into being by an extreme way in the last 20 years let's deal with the abuse first you're moving closer to eliminating the filibuster is that correct i answered your question you also just made some news by saying that you are going to run for re-election i said that is my expectation so is that a yes that you are running for re-election look i'm i don't know where you guys come from man i've never been able to travel i'm a great respecter of fate i've never been able to plan four and a half three and a half years ahead for certain and if you do if you do run will vice president harris be on your ticket i would fully expect that to be the case she's doing a great job she's a great partner she's a great partner and do you believe you'll be running against former president trump oh come on i don't even think about i don't i have no idea i have no idea it'll be a republican party do you i know you don't have to answer my question but i mean you know do you i mean look this is the way i view things i become a great respecter of fate in my life i set a goal of this that's in front of me to get things done for the people i care most about which are hard-working decent american people of getting really having it stuck to them i want to change the paradigm i want to change the paradigm we start to reward work not just wealth i want to change the paradigm if you notice didn't you find it kind of interesting that my republican friends were worried about that the cost and the taxes that had to be had if there is any tax to be had as they talk about it and dealing with the the act that we just passed which puts money in people's pockets ordinary people do you hear them complain when they pass close to two trillion dollar trump tax cut 83 percent going to the top one percent do you hear them talk about that at all i love the fact that they found this whole idea of concern about the federal budget it's kind of amazing when the federal budget is saving people's lives they don't think it's such a good idea when the federal budget is feathering the nest of the wealthiest americans 90 of the fortune 500 companies making billions of dollars not paying a cent in taxes reducing taxes to a point that people who are making you know if you're a husband and wife school teacher and a cop you're paying at a higher rate than the average person making a billion dollars a year is something's wrong their newfound concern i'm concerned look i meant what i said when i ran and a lot of you still think i'm wrong and i respect that so i'm running for three reasons to restore the soul dignity honor honesty transparency to the american political system two to rebuild the backbone of this country the middle class hard-working people and people struggling in the middle class they built america and unions built them the third reason i said i was running was to unite the country and generically speaking all of you said no you can't do that well i've not been able to unite the congress but i've been uniting the country based on the polling data we have to come together we have to so from my perspective you know it's uh to me it's about just you know getting out there putting one foot in front of the other and just trying to make things better for people just hard working people people get up every morning and just want to figure out how to put food in the table for their kids to be able to have a little bit of breathing room being able to have make sure that they go to bed not staring to the ceiling because my dad didn't wonder whether since he didn't have health insurance what happens if mom got sick or he got sick these are basic things basic things and i'm of the view that the vast majority of people including registered republicans by and large share that that that same that same view that same sense of what is uh you know what's appropriate justin justin sink bloomberg thanks mr president i wanted to ask about your relationship with china and now that you've been on office for a couple months there's obviously the meeting in alaska that was a little theatrical and there's the continued human rights abuses so today i'm wondering are you more likely than you were when you came into office to maintain tariffs on china are you considering banning imports of forced labor products and would you consider cutting off u.s investment or chinese access to international payment systems [Music] they're each specifically legitimate questions but the only touch a smidgen of what the relationship with china really is about i've known xi jinping for a long time allegedly by the time i left office as vice president i had spent more time with xi jinping than any world leader had because president obama and the chinese president who decided we should get to know one another since it was inappropriate for the president united states to spend time with the vice president of another country but it was obvious he was going to become the new leader of china so i spent hours upon hours with him alone with an interpreter my interpreter and his going into great detail is very very straightforward doesn't have a democratic with a small d bone in his body but he's a smart smart guy he's one of the guys like putin who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future democracy can't function in an ever com an ever complex world so when i was elected and he called to congratulate me i think to the surprise of the china experts who were his people on the call as well as mine listening we had a two-hour conversation for two hours and we made several things clear to one another i made it clear to him again what i've told them in person on several occasions that we're not looking for confrontation although we know there will be steep steep competition two that will have strong competition but will insist that china play by the international rules fair competition fair practices fair trade thirdly in order to compete effectively i indicated that we're going to deal with china effectively and we're going to need three things to do that i'm telling our people first we're going to invest in american workers in american science i said that all through the campaign i say it again and we're i'm setting up my administration to be able to do that which is that you know back in the 60s we used to invest a little over two percent of our entire entire gdp in pure research and investment in science today it's point seven percent i'm going to change that we're going to change that the future lies in who can in fact own the future as it relates to technology quantum computing a whole range of things including the medical fields and so what i'm going to do is make sure we invest closer to two percent one of the reasons why i've set up the the p ab the president's board with scientists and like again is we're going to invest in medical research cancer alzheimer's diabetes the things industries of the future artificial intelligence quantum computing biotech and we're going to make real investments china is out investing us by a long shot because their plan is to own that future the third the second thing we're going to do is we're going to reestablish our alliances and i've been very clear with them it's not anti-chinese and we've talked about it i want to make sure that for example later today after this and matter of fact shortly after this um which is fine we've been going close to an hour i'm happy i go go longer but one of the things that i'm going to be doing i'm going to be speaking with 27 heads of state in europe and very shortly i think in the next hour so i don't know the exact time and earlier this month and apparently it got the chinese attention that's not why i did it i met with our allies and how we're going to hold china accountable in the region australia india japan the united states the so-called quad because we have to have democracies working together before too long i'm going to have i'm going to invite an alliance of democracies to come here to discuss the future and so we're going to make it clear that in order to deal with these things we are going to hold china accountable to follow the rules follow the rules whether it relates to the south china sea or the north china sea or the agreement made on taiwan or a whole range of other things and the third thing and the thing that i i admire about dealing with she is he understands he makes no no pretense about not understanding what i'm saying anymore i knew him i pointed out to him no leader can be sustained in his position or her position unless they represent the values of the country and i said as and mr president as i've told you before americans value the notion of freedom america values human rights we don't always live up to our expectations but it's a value system we are founded on that principle and as long as you and your country continues to so blatantly violate human rights we are going to continue in an unrelenting way to call to the attention of the world and make it clear make it clear what's happening and he understood that i made it clear that no american president at least one did but no american president ever backed down from speaking out on what's happening to the uyghurs what's happening in hong kong what's happening in in in country that's who we are the moment a president walks away from that as the last one did is the moment we began to lose our legitimacy around the world it's who we are so i see stiff competition with china china has an overall goal and i don't criticize them for the goal but they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world that's not going to happen on my watch because united states is going to continue to grow and expand sorry just to follow up on the meeting of democracies is that where you expect in a multilateral way to make these decisions about uh sanctions or no that's not going to make the decision that's where i make sure we're all on the same page on the same page look i predict to you your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on issue of who succeeded autocracy or democracy because that is what is at stake not just with china look around the world we're in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence will there be middle class how will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology the environment how will they do that and our democracy is equipped because all the people get to speak to compete it is clear absolutely clear and most of the scholars i dealt with at penn agree with me around the country that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies if you notice you don't have russia talking about communism anymore it's about an autocracy demand decisions made by a leader of a country that's what's at stake here we've got to prove democracy works mr president sorry i know you have another chance to address the tragedies in georgia and colorado you had said to stay tuned for actions that you might take on gun control wondering if you've made a decision either about sending the manufacturer liability bill that you promised on day one to capitol hill or executive actions like going after ghost guns or giving money to cities and states to battle gun control all the above it's a matter of timing as you've all observed successful presidents better than me have been successful in large part because they know how to time what they're doing order it deciding priorities what needs to be done the next major initiative is and i'll be announcing it friday in pittsburgh in detail is to rebuild the infrastructure both physical and technological infrastructure this country so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good paying jobs really good paying jobs and some of you have been around long enough to know that used to be a great republican goal initiative i still think the majority of the american people don't like the fact that we are now ranked what 85th in the world in infrastructure i mean look the future rests on whether or not we have the best airports that can accommodate air travel ports that you can get out of quickly so businesses decide some of you when you're if you're ever local reporters and you found your governor or mayor trying to attract business to your community what's the first thing the business asked what's the closest access access to an interstate highway how far am i from freight rail is the water is the water available there's enough water available for me to conduct my business all the things that relate to infrastructure we have somewhere i i asked the staff to write it down for me and they did not for this but for a longer discussion we have somewhere in terms of infrastructure we have we rank 13th globally in infrastructure china is investing three times more in infrastructure than the united states is bridges more than one-third of our bridges 231 thousand of them need repairs some are physical safety risks or preservation work one in five miles of our highways and major roads are in poor condition that's 186 000 miles of highway aviation 20 of all flights 20 of all flights weren't on time resulting in 1.5 million hours lost in production 6 to 10 million homes in america still have lead pipes servicing their water lines we have over a hundred thousand wellheads that are not capped leaky methane what are we doing and by the way we can put as many pipe fritters and miners on us to work capping those wells at the same price that they were charged to dig those wells so i i just find it [Music] frustrating frustrating talk about last point i'll make in the infrastructure and i apologize for spending more time on it but is that if you think about it um it's the place where we will be able to significantly increase american productivity at the same time providing really good jobs for people but we can't build back to what they used to be we have to build the environments are global warming's already done significant damage the roads that used to be above the water level didn't have to worry about where the drainage ditch was now you got to rebuild them three feet higher because it's not going to go back to what it was before only get worse unless we stop it there's so much we can do look at all the schools in america most of you live in the washington area now but in your hometowns i don't know where you're all from how many schools where the kids can't drink the water out of the fountain how many schools are still in a position where there's asbestos how many schools in america we're sending our kids to don't have adequate ventilation how many homes buildings office complexes are wasting billions of barrels of oil over time because they can't hold in the heat or the air conditioning because this leaks through the windows that are so porous and the connections it's amazing so there's so much we can do that's good stuff makes people healthier and creates good jobs and uh i think that i got one more question here and janet uh from univision thank you mr president we too have been reporting at the border and just like cecilia we ran into a pair of siblings who came in on monday were detained by cbp had the phone number for their mother who lives in the u.s we have contacted the mother that's the only way they know her kids are here because cbp today thursday has not contacted that mother so when can we expect your promise of things getting better with contacting and experiencing well they're already getting better but they're going to get real they're going to a whole hell of a lot better real quick and we're going to hear some people leaving okay we can get this done we're going to get it done i had a long meeting with the entire team and several cabinet level officers the other night we're going to be moving within the next within the next week over a hundred thousand i mean a thousand people out of the border patrol into safe secure beds and facilities we're going to significantly ramp up we're already out there contacting everyone from getting some of the employees at hhs there's a lot of them doing other things and move them into making those calls we're in the process of rearranging and providing for the personnel needed to get that done but i admire the fact that you were down there you're making the calls yourself it's real the next thing that has to happen though as you well know has to happen there have to be some certitude that this is the actually mom dad or whomever and there's ways to do that there's ways to do that a little bit like determining whether or not you got the right code for your credit card uh you know what what was your dog's name kind of thing i'm being a bit facetious but not really and also seeking harder data from dna to to birth certificates which takes longer so i want to do this as as quickly as humanly possible and as safely as possible well no treating the root cause causes in latin america doesn't change things overnight how do you realistically and physically keep these families from coming to the us when things will not get better in their countries right away well i i can't guarantee that but i know you know that old thing the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step you know as well as i do you cover it you have seri it's not like somebody's sitting on a hand you table in guatemala i mean in somewhere in mexico or in guadalupe saying i got a great idea let's sell everything we have give it to a coyote have them take our kids across the border into the desert where they don't speak the language won't that be fun let's go that's not how it happens people don't want to leave when my great-grandfather got in a coffin ship in the irish sea the expectation was was he was going to live long enough on that ship to get to the united states of america but they left because what the brits had been doing they were in real real trouble they didn't want to leave but they had no choice so you've got we can't i can't guarantee we're going to solve everything but i can guarantee we can make everything better we can make it better we can change the lives of so many people and the other thing i want to point out to you and i hope you point out i realize it's much more heart-wrenching and it is to deal with a five and six and seven year old but you went down there and you saw the vast majority of these children seventy percent are sixteen years old seventeen years old mostly males don't make it doesn't make it good bad or different but the idea that we have tens of thousands of kids in these god-awful facilities that are really little babies crying all night there's some that's true that's why we gotta act and yesterday i asked my team both the director of the two agencies as well as others i asked them what would they in fact and i asked their opinion because they're the experts but i said focus on the most vulnerable immediately but there's no reason why in the next month as people cross the border that phone call can't be made in the first 48 hours and began i may ask one last question have you had any talks with senate republicans who are threatening this administration with not considering the immigration legislation that was passed in the house until the situation at the border has been resolved no because i know they have to posture for a while they sort of got to get out of their system um this is a uh um but i i'm ready to work with any republican who wants to help solve the problem and make make the situation better but folks i'm going thank you very very much i appreciate it thank you president biden completing his first formal news conference of his presidency ending on the topic that really dominated a rather wide-ranging news conference and that is the crisis the border the immigration crisis the president suggesting some of what we're seeing in terms of a surge is seasonal that it has happened before also talking about rebuilding the capacity to house unaccompanied migrant children who he notes he would not turn back and not send them back across the desert he answered questions about whether that was sending a misinterpreted signal to uh families on the other side of the border he also talked about covid he's doubling down on the expectation of how many americans or how many shots can be administered now to 200 million in his first 100 days in office this is day 65. let's go to chief white house correspondent peter alexander peter what else stood out to you in that news conference yeah lester i think for the white house the headline they will take away from this is him saying that he was hired to solve problems not to create division but certainly there is one issue that divides a lot of americans right now and that is the topic of immigration that he was pressed on extensively over the course of this and one of the fundamental contradictions that i'm not sure today resolves is this white house and the biden administration saying that the border is closed but today president biden himself saying that they are not going to turn away any unaccompanied minor at the border right now in fact announcing another 5 000 beds at force fort bliss which is in texas near el paso the president committing to transparency on the issue of allowing the public journalists to get inside some of those border patrol facilities to see the overwhelmed sites that exist there and the conditions that are there but he wouldn't provide any date when that would be allowed to occur saying it would only happen after his plan was in place however he did say that he did not apologize for overturning some of the trump-era more hard-line policies as it relates to immigration another topic that'll make some headlines from this conversation the topic of 2024 it's a long way away but the president did make some news on that saying it is his expectation that he would run again what was perhaps striking to me is that in the course of this conversation absent his own vaccination goal of 200 million shots in the first hundred million days there was no other conversation about the coronavirus which has been the defining issue for the course of the last year for all americans and frankly for the entire planet the president's stronger in some moments than in others no questions to him on the issue of his health as well whether he'll be transparent in providing access to his medical results in any specific time period as well lester all right peter alexander thank you and on that topic of immigration let's go to gabe gutierrez he's on the mexico border right now near carrizo springs texas the president made a number of statements about what we're seeing down there and one was the suggestion that it's seasonal this is the time of year when you would typically see a surge because of these uh the danger of traveling across the desert in in summer weather is that what you have gleaned from being on the ground as well uh hey there lester well in some ways that is correct but the reality is actually much more complex if you take a look at the numbers here is a fact check between january and february of this year according to cbp numbers there has been a 28 increase in border apprehensions compare that lester to 2019 during the trump administration during that same period there was a 31 increase but right now the number of total apprehensions the overall number is higher about a hundred thousand in february compare that to much less in 2019 76 000. the bind administration will tell you that that's partly because the cova pandemic delayed some of these migrants from making the trip but lester it's not just a question of numbers here it's also a question of bed space the facility that i'm in front of right now is run by the department of health and human services that's where the migrants after they're picked up they go to border patrol facilities then they come to facilities like this one and right now there is not enough bed space overall with hhs facilities and that is contributing to the backlog at the border i toured this facility here the migrant children teenage males are treated well from what i can understand they were calm they appear to be in good spirits but we're also learning now more now about the conditions in the border patrol facilities where there have been more reports of overcrowding in those facilities according to biden administration officials just today we learned that kids in those facilities are not being tested for coveted 19. in this facility which i toured yesterday 108 children have tested positive for covet there are questions about whether more could be done more could be done to prevent that from happening you heard peter mentioned the question about access to these facilities and you heard the president say that while camera a camera our camera was allowed into this hhs facility reporters have not yet had access to those more crowded customs and border protection facilities and the president would not give a timetable an exact timetable from when that would happen lester all right some important perspective from the border gabe gutierrez thank you let me go to nbc news political director and moderator of meet the press chuck todd uh chuck uh what did we not hear that stood out to you well look at a presidential press conference the way they're planned is presidents go in there there's intentional news they want to make and the reporters are there to try to see if they can get unintentional news to be made and i think in those two categories when you look at it it was clear that there was only one piece of news apparently the president intended to make and that was to double the vaccination goal he did that in his opening statement every other question whether it was about immigration whether it was about the filibuster whether it was about china whether it was about uh uh voting rights it was i need time and he gave very similar answers as he's given before um he's uh some of his answers are longer he's not as pugilistic clearly as his predecessor and there was one other thing that came across to me last year i thought that i think contributed to sort of the to some stiltedness in the kind he doesn't know that press corps um and normally after a campaign a president is very familiar with their press corps because they've been traveling the country together and there's been that familiar back and forth there was none of that due to covid and i think that that adds to the almost there was at times it's surprising to me how unfamiliar he is with some of these reporters and i say that and i think it's simply because he's unfamiliar with them because there hasn't been many interactions between him whether when he was both candidate and as president but look i think overall um to me the big takeaway is the fact that it goes back to kovitt it's the only piece of news he intended to make and he made it there wasn't a single question on it which tells you what other thing lester there's clearly not any negative questions to ask a press corps asks you about challenges they don't necessarily ask you about things that are going well kova is going well right now for him interesting observation all right chuck todd thank you also with us as well chief washington correspondent andrea mitchell andrew let me ask you about a couple of international items foreign relations items he talked extensively about his conversations with president xi in china he also seemed to acknowledge that getting troops out of afghanistan is not going to happen overnight yeah that was a headline as we've been seeing signals that they're not going to meet that may first deadline that president former president trump had put down he said that that is not realistic for tactical reasons pointed out as we've been reporting that the secretary of state has been meeting with allies at nato who have twice as many troops there as we do and every indication is that they're going to stretch it out they're working on the exact details but interestingly he said he does not expect there to be american troops in afghanistan next year so that we're talking about something in the november december time frame possibly or probably and that's still to be worked out on china he said that in that two-hour conversation with president xi and he was very specific about it that he said we want competition not confrontation but to get that competition we need to build up because china is really outspending and investing in all kinds of technology and investment in around the world as well up spending and investing the way we are not and that is connected to what he's going to announce on in pittsburgh the next big spending bill which is infrastructure and could be something like three trillion dollars also on north korea overnight two short-range ballistic missiles he unlike former president trump said that that was in violation of u.n resolutions they are sanctioned they are banned uh there were frequent tests like this under former president trump but he never called them out so they are in a very uh very moderate way calling out what what happened overnight saying that they're going to consult with the allies we know that the south koreans and the japanese national security advisors are coming to meet with national security adviser jake sullivan here next week and that they will discuss an allied response and he said if the north koreans escalate meaning escalate any further that would mean a long-range test that we will respond so he established a red line when christian walker our colleague asked what is the red line that would be the red line as well as a nuclear test of course which hasn't happened since 2018 but he said that they're interested in diplomacy so again overtures to north korea but no response back from north korea except a very nasty comment by kim jong-un's sister they're trying to take this bit at a time they don't want a confrontation with north korea as he reviews the policy lester all right andrea mitchell thank you i'll be back with a complete wrap up tonight on nbc nightly news for now i'm lester holt nbc news los angeles good day everyone you

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Id: W3cGU4-zwMM

Length: 75min 0sec (4500 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021