Obama on Gitmo: ‘Key Magnet’ for Terrorist Recruitment, Plus ‘It’s Really Expensive’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

"David, as I've said, and I think you've seen me on a bunch of issues like immigration, I'm not going to be forward leaning on what I can do without Congress before I tested what I can do with Congress. Every once in a while they'll surprise you. And this may be one of those places. Because I think we can make a strong argument, Guantanamo continues to be one of the key magnets for gee haw Dee recruitment. To Roberta's question earlier about how do they prop began dies and convince somebody here in the United States who may not have a criminal record or a history of terrorist activity to start shooting, this is part of what they feed this notion of a gross injustice. That America is not living up to its professed ideals. We know that. We see the Internet traffic. We see how Guantanamo has been used to create this mythology that America is at war with Islam. And you know, for us to close it is part of our counterterrorism strategy. That is supported by our military and our diplomatic and intelligence teams. So when you combine that with the fact that it's really expensive and that we are essentially at this point detaining a handful of people and each person is costing several million dollars to detain when there are more efficient ways of doing it, you know, I think we can make a strong argument. I'm -- but I'll take your point that it will be an uphill battle. Every battle I've had with Congress over the last five years has been uphill and -- but we keep on surprising you by actually getting some stuff done. Sometimes that may prove necessary but we try not to get ourselves on that."