Press Briefing by Dana Perino

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:36 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: All right. Let me give you one update. The President
called Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt today. He wished him a
happy Swedish National Day, and also thanked him for hosting a
successful International Compact of Iraq meeting in Stockholm.

The President has been recording his weekly radio address. In it
he will urge Congress to pass a responsible funding bill that gives
our men and women in uniform the resources they need and the support
that they have earned. There are troops in harm's way over in Iraq and
Afghanistan. This bill would give them the resources they need to
defeat the terrorists. It's been up there in front of Congress for
over 16 months, and it's now time for Congress to get to work on that.
And that's what he'll talk about in his radio address.

Q Is there any approach that the administration can take to deal
with Zimbabwe, what's going on in Zimbabwe, other than condemnation?

MS. PERINO: I would -- make sure that you have a chance to look at
the briefing today by Ambassador James McGee, who is our Ambassador to
Zimbabwe. He did an on-the-record briefing earlier today and said that
they're going to look at the full suite of diplomatic tools that they
have available to them. But there's no doubt that the situation in
Zimbabwe is worsening, and it was already a terrible situation.

So let me refer you to them to look -- we already have some U.N.
sanctions on that regime, on Mugabe's regime. But the Ambassador said
today they'll be looking at what other options they have available to
them.

Q Will the President make this part of his discussions in Europe
next week?

MS. PERINO: I'm sure that, given the fact that one of the things
that we'll be talking with the Europeans about is this new -- not new,
but this effort that we have been undertaking with Europe on a range
of issues on a global reach -- so, for example, on HIV/AIDS or on
malaria, where we are working with the Europeans. Obviously people in
Europe have a great interest in what's going on not just around the
world but certainly in Africa, a particular interest in Africa. So I
would assume that the situation in Zimbabwe will come up. Remember,
this week at the World Food Conference that was held in Rome, attended
by people around the world, but all the Europeans that were there were
-- at least I saw several of them quoted being very dismayed at what's
going on in Zimbabwe and worried about the human condition on the
ground.

Matt.

Q Dana, an Israeli cabinet member who is very close to Prime
Minister Olmert has said today that an Israeli attack on Iranian
nuclear sites would be unavoidable unless Tehran stopped uranium
enrichment. Does the U.S. see that as being an unavoidable
consequence?

MS. PERINO: Well, I -- look, I don't know who -- I saw the reports
about the cabinet minister. I'd refer you to the Israelis for anything
more on that. What we have tried to do across the board is to try to
solve this diplomatically and working multilaterally with many
different countries to try to pressure Iran to halt its enrichment of
uranium so that we can make sure that their claims that they are not
pursuing a nuclear weapon -- we just want to make -- the international
community deserves to have the verification that that is true.

And sure, I understand that Israel is very concerned about their
future and their safety when they have a neighbor in the region, Iran,
who says they want to wipe them off the face of the map. I think
that's probably a strong concern of theirs.

I also would point out that Israel has a strong concern about
Hamas, who daily is attacking its citizens, innocent civilians, with
rocket attacks and injuring many of them on a daily basis. And I think
that's more their immediate concern.

Q But the U.S. has not ruled out military options as a last
resort, nor has it --

MS. PERINO: On?

Q -- asked Israel to do so, has it?

MS. PERINO: Well, while the President has always said that he, as
Commander-in-Chief, would never take any options off the table, I
wouldn't read anything into that. We are trying to solve this
diplomatically.

Q Dana, I just want to ask you about Gitmo. We've got 9/11
defendants talking about martyrdom, kind of lashing out at the
President with some outlandish statements and calling him a crusader,
among other things. Is the President following that situation at all?
Does he have any reaction, being briefed about it? And what's your
general reaction to what's happening there?

MS. PERINO: Well, given that it is now in a trial phase, and that
these people are now being given the chance to have their case said in
court. It's inappropriate for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to
make any comments about it because of concerns about command
influence. So I can assure you he's being kept up to speed, and of
course he checks out the newspapers, so he knows what's going on. But
I couldn't comment on what he feels about it.

Mark.

Q Dana, the climate change bill and the action in the Senate. What
do you say to those who say that by threatening to veto this cap and
trade system and with a Republican filibuster, that basically, let's
just kick the can down the road for another year and postpone action
on this issue?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think it would be, one, important for people
to look at the fact of what really happened on this bill. This was a
-- they tried to have a vote on the Boxer substitute, which is Senator
Boxer's bill, that had not been fully analyzed, had not been given any
economic analysis, had not been given any environmental impact
analysis, and the Republicans had a beef with how the Democrat
Majority Leader was treating them when it came to an agreement that
they felt they had on judges. So there are parliamentary maneuvers
that can be taken on both sides.

But I would also point you to many people who are concerned about
the high price of gasoline today and worried about the impacts that
this bill would have. And not only that, Republicans were not going to
be allowed to have any chance to amend it.

So here you have Democrats in Congress saying that this is the
most important bill to face this Congress, and they weren't even going
to spend enough time to allow people to have any chance of talking
about it or amending it. And this is a bill that would have a huge
impact on the economy, and a huge impact on people, working people, in
America, and probably not have a lot of impact overseas.

I think that the other thing that this debate shows us is that
solving the climate change problem is not easy. And by working on new
technologies and working to make sure that China and India are at a --
are at the table, that's the way to try to tackle this problem. And
President Bush will certainly talk about this when he's in Europe next
week.

Q What about the -- the backers of the bill said that they think
they really have the strength to pass it. And they're citing this
letter that both Senator Obama and Senator McCain signed, saying they
would have voted for it had they been there.

MS. PERINO: I don't know if that's a clever way to try to get me
to talk about '08 politics, but let's just say we did not support the
bill. The President supports tackling the problem of climate change in
a way that will be effective, meaning that it would actually reduce
greenhouse gas emissions around the world, and in a way that would not
harm our economy. If we harm the economy that's already currently in a
slowdown, if we harm it any further, no one is going to have any extra
money to pay for the new technologies that we're going to need to be
able to solve this problem. So they got themselves into a catch-22.
And I think it was a worthwhile debate to try to have.

But I do think there are many Democrats on Capitol Hill from
places -- districts around the country who weren't excited about the
bill and were very concerned about the impacts it would have on their
constituents.

Q Dana, can you describe for us the President's reaction to the
latest economic numbers? And does he believe that the stimulus package
will be a difference-maker in terms of making this downturn
short-lived?

MS. PERINO: Well, you'll hear from the President pretty soon,
because at the swearing in for Steve Preston over at the Department of
Housing and Urban Development I believe the President will address the
housing number today.

We're obviously not happy with the unemployment number that had
gone up. We do think it was in line with the expectations for the
current economy, and we do also believe that it's important to look at
a couple of things. One, the number in large part was increased by new
job applicants, and it usually takes new job applicants a little while
longer to find work. So while it's a concern that the unemployment
rate jumped to 5.5 percent, that is still historically low, and lower
than the averages of the '70s, '80s and '90s.

The most important thing we can do now is, first of all, make sure
Congress does no harm. And secondly, we would ask the Democrat
leadership in Congress to really take a look at their time-management
issues. They just spent an entire week lobbying for -- or arguing
about a bill that they knew was not going to become law. They didn't
spend even just an hour on the Colombia free trade agreement -- that's
all that's needed, really, to have a vote on an agreement that we
already had with them, and that would open up the market for our
businesses to sell into the Colombian market and just level the
playing field.

They could have spent that time talking about housing legislation,
how to make sure that we modernize the Federal Housing Agency, how to
make sure that we address the GSE problem. They could have spent time
on a lot of other things when it comes to the economy, and instead
they chose to talk about a bill that would increase gas prices by
another 53 cents a gallon.

And so we just question their priorities and we would hope that
next week when they get back to work, they could actually take up the
war supplemental and some of these other issues that I just mentioned,
because we do think that that would have a positive impact on the
economy.

And a last point about the economic stimulus package. We are only
one month into the economic stimulus package, and we have always said
that we think that there will be about 500,000 more jobs added, but
not until the second half of the year. So we're at the beginning of
June. So while it's a concern, we do believe we have the policies in
place to start to increase the job growth in the future.

Roger.

Q I conclude from that that the administration is not thinking
about any other new steps or anything like that?

MS. PERINO: That's not necessarily true. We have a robust economic
team in Secretary Paulson, Keith Hennessey, Eddie Lazear. And the
President has a great interest in what's going on in the economy --
very concerned about the high energy prices. We believe that the
policies we've put in place to help deal with housing are starting to
have an impact, and we're helping lots of people. I think the HOPE NOW
organization has helped over 1.6 million people to be able to stay in
their homes.

So there are things that we've done that are good. There are other
things that we need to think about, such as figuring out a way that we
could increase the amount of domestic oil production and exploration
that could be done in environmentally sensitive ways because of new
technologies that we've developed over the years. So there are a range
of things that we continue to look at, but at the moment we would ask
Congress to act on the things we think would have an impact -- not
necessarily an immediate impact, but an impact, nonetheless, so that
the future of our economy can continue to grow.

Q What about an extension of unemployment benefits? The Democrats
on the Hill have been suggesting that for months.

MS. PERINO: They have.

Q Does that get any currency down here?

MS. PERINO: Remember, the -- this administration has followed
precedent of previous administrations. No administration has increased
-- or extended unemployment benefits when unemployment was this low,
at 5.5 percent. Now while we've seen an increase, it's still at
historically low levels.

And so we will continue to work with Congress on the other things
that we're trying to do. And at the moment the most important thing
they could do is to try to -- for example, on the Colombia free trade
agreement -- if they were able to move forward on that, then these
companies that want to sell into Colombia, such as these big
heavy-duty equipment -- if you just think of the event a week or two
ago out on the South Lawn -- how many jobs that that could create. Or
if we wanted to increase domestic or -- domestic production or
exploration when it comes to oil and gas, how that could increase the
number of jobs that are out there.

There are a number of ways that the American entrepreneur could
take advantage of some of these things if they were just given the
chance. And on the Colombia free trade agreement, it's a great example
where Congress could act but has chosen not to.

John.

Q Those are things that you've talked about repeatedly in the
past. Are there additional policy steps that you're considering?

MS. PERINO: Well, I would say that our policy team has always
taken a look at what we could possibly do, but I wouldn't lead you to
believe that there's anything imminent in terms of an announcement.

Go ahead, Laurent.

Q We've just gotten news that the United States intends to walk
away from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Are you aware of
those reports? Can you confirm them?

MS. PERINO: I wasn't aware of it, but I'll refer you to the State
Department for more. I think they're briefing now.

Paula.

Q On unemployment extension, is there a rate of unemployment in
which the administration would consider extending?

MS. PERINO: I think this is a question that you asked earlier, and
there's really been no change in the last three hours. So I think that
we'll take a look at the numbers, we'll continue to assess them. And
obviously we're concerned about anybody who wants to have a job and
can't find one. The President wants anyone who wants to find a job in
America to be able to find a job in America, and the best way that we
can do that is to encourage pro-growth economic policies. And so he'll
continue to do that. We'll take -- we'll keep a look -- keep a sharp
eye on the economic numbers and unemployment numbers. The best thing
that we can do is try to open up these new markets.

Q Thank you.

END 12:49 P.M. EDT

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