Obama: My Executive Actions ‘Are Reversible By a Future President’

‘We have used executive actions because Congress has been dysfunctional’

THRUSH: “Have you thought about that, about sort of using the — because, you know, in the last quarter you’ve changed your — not changed your view, but you’ve intensified use of executive power.”
OBAMA: “Yeah.”
THRUSH: “Podesta came in here and talked with you about that a bit.”
OBAMA: “Right.”
THRUSH: “Do you feel some regret about not, kind of, using the full bully pulpit of the presidency? Because you were skeptical of it. You didn’t like the pageantry, right?”
OBAMA: “Well, those are two different things, though.”
THRUSH: “Yeah.”
OBAMA: “I mean, the executive actions have always, in my view, been important to use once the legislative process has exhausted itself. You know, even if the Supreme Court upholds my authority on the immigration changes that we’ve made, they’re reversible by a future president in a way that a legislative fix is not. And so I’ve always held out for trying to solve things through Congress, and, you know, we have used executive actions because Congress has been dysfunctional. In terms of using the bully pulpit, I cut myself some slack in the first couple of years because people tend to forget we were really busy.”
THRUSH: “It was scary.”
OBAMA: “There was a lot of work.”
THRUSH: “Right.”
OBAMA: “And I didn’t oftentimes have the luxury of a six-month run-up and then a two-month or three-month victory lap because, you know, “You saved the auto industry? All right. What’s the next thing?” You know, “We’re doing OK with bin Laden, well, we’ve still got to come up with a plan for how we’re stabilizing Afghanistan.” So, it was just — the pace of it was remarkable. What is true is that I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the need to tailor a communications strategy to a new era in which people are not just watching three network news shows. And I think we’ve gotten much better at it than we were, and I wish that I had adapted the White House communications operation and my own ways of presenting things to reach people more effectively sooner.”

 

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