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8:17 AM PT: One last point on the first question, towards the end of the question, President Obama said that he believes if Congress does not act, our economic problems will become even more severe. He specifically cited the payroll tax cut, which will expire, effectively raising taxes on all taxpayers if Congress doesn't act.
8:21 AM PT: Chuck Todd is curious about whether President Obama believes he's persuasive enough to convince the American public that they can actually get Congress to change its ways. I'm loosely paraphrasing the question, which seemed sort of silly. I mean, shouldn't the question actually be to Republicans about why they refuse to listen to what the public wants? Obama's answer is, loosely translated is: Until Republicans Congress stops acting like a bunch of obstructionist assholes, people are going to be cynical about the ability of Washington, D.C. to get anything done. Of course, he says it much more diplomatically, but that's basically the meaning of what he said.
8:25 AM PT: Jackie Calmes of NYT asks Obama about Occupy Wall Street, saying that OWS protesters think both he and the G.O.P. are part of the problem. She wants to know if he's heard of the movement and what he thinks. Obama has heard of it saying "the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works." Obama says we need a strong financial sector to grow, and without directly mentioning the bailouts, effectively defends them. However, he also says that part of the bargain inherent in having saved the banks is that the banks need to clean up their act, and that, he says, it was Dodd-Frank was designed to do. He highlights the consumer watch dog provision of the legislation. "What we've seen over the last year, is not only did the financial sector, with the Republican party in Congress, fight us every step of the way, but now you've got all these same folks saying we should roll back all these reforms" to where they were before the crisis.
8:27 AM PT: Continuing on the financial sector discussion, Obama slams Republicans for threatening to block Richard Corday, his nominee for the consumer protection bureau, not because they don't like Cordray, but because they don't think the office should exist in the first place. "I'm going to be fighting every inch of the way here in Washington to make sure that we have a consumer watchdog" to prevent abuses from financial institutions.
8:29 AM PT: Follow-up: Does Obama think OWS can be a "tea party movement." Answer: "Americans think not everybody is following the rules, and that Wall Street is a part of that [...] a lot of folks who are doing the wrong thing are being reward, and a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren't being rewarded." You'll have to check out the transcript later, but this is probably the most populist-ish tone Obama has taken on financial issues.