President Obama will hold a White House press conference before leaving for vacation in Hawaii. It's scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM ET and we'll post updates throughout. Watch it live in the video at the top of this post and join in the comments below the fold.
11:02 AM PT: As you can no doubt tell, the president hasn't yet begun. Usually these things start late—but this one would seem to be the kind that wouldn't be too seriously delayed, because of the holidays.
11:11 AM PT: So how many questions about Daffy Duck Dynasty do you expect?
11:13 AM PT: Here's what Obama will see when he reaches the podium (via jan4insight).
11:15 AM PT: Still not sure when this will begin, but one thing is clear: If it does not take place within the next 11 days, it will no longer be a year-end press conference.
11:19 AM PT: And here we go. The president is approaching the podium.
11:21 AM PT: First, the economy. Points to 8 million new jobs over past 45 months. Fastest growth in two years. Lowest unemployment in five years. Deficits down by more than 50 percent. Domestic oil production up. And health care reform taking effect—says more than half-million new enrollments in December alone and more than one million since October 1.
11:23 AM PT: "I firmly believe that 2014 can be a breakthrough year for America." But, he says, "we all know there's a lot more we're going to need to do to restore opportunity in America." Salutes the budget deal for starting to unwind the sequester cuts and avoiding another shutdown crisis.
11:24 AM PT: The president says Congress should restore emergency unemployment benefits as soon as they return, and singles out Republicans by saying they shouldn't have blocked the extension before leaving. "When Congress comes back to work, their first order of business should be making this right."
11:27 AM PT: President Obama wraps up his opening comments by saluting and thanking troops serving and defending the country.
11:32 AM PT: First question: Because of your lower approval ratings and lack of legislative progress ... "has this been the worst year of your presidency?" Obama says that he's not focused on his numbers, and while he would like to see more progress on legislation (immigration, for example), says he's focused on delivering results, citing things like health care reform, bringing internet to more schools, expanding manufacturing, and moving towards energy independence. "If you're measuring this by polls, my polls have gone up and down a lot [...] I took this job to deliver results for the American people." Obama says that as frustrated as he was by the problems with HealthCare.gov, he's very happy that by January 1, more than two million people will have insurance under Obamacare.
11:38 AM PT: Next up: NSA and Snowden revelations. "What we're doing now is evaluating all the recommendations that have been made. Over the next several weeks I'm going to assess, based not just on recommendations form the intelligence community but also from" those outside the intelligence community. Obama says he will announce his specific plan early next year, and says he believes the phone metadata program doesn't constitute domestic surveillance, but says he believes it might be important to "refine the program" to give people "more confidence" that spying is not taking place.