Interview With Jorge Ramos of Fusion and Univision News in Nashville, Tennessee

Jorge Ramos. Mr. President, thanks so much for talking to us again.

The President. Great to see you again.

Jorge Ramos. So let me start with a report today. In an interview you said "America doesn't torture," however, the Senate report clearly confirms that we did torture many detainees after 9/11 during the Bush Administration: Rectal feedings, broken legs, near drownings, dying of hypothermia. Are we in danger right now of an attack either at home or abroad because of this report?

The President. Well, let me unpack that question. First of all, I didn't say we didn't torture. What I said was —

Jorge Ramos. You said, "America doesn't torture."

The President. Well, what I said was once I banned these enhanced interrogation techniques, which I had said were torture, that's not something we're going to be doing moving forward after I had issued that edict. But unfortunately, as the Senate report shows, we engaged in some brutal activity after 9/11, and, you know, this is an accounting of some of the problems that the CIA program engaged in. I recognize that there's controversies in terms of some of the details, but what's not controversial is the fact that we did some things that violated who we are as a people. And I know that there have been concerns about the release of this report and the potential dangers it poses. We've taken precautionary measures in our embassies and around the world. There's never a perfect time to release a report like this, but it was important for us, I think, to recognize that part of what sets us apart is when we do something wrong, we acknowledge it.

Jorge Ramos. The CIA cannot act alone. Is this the responsibility of President Bush? Did he betray American values?

The President. Well, as I've said before, after 9/11, I don't think that you can know what it feels like to know that America's gone through the worst attack on the continental United States in its history. And you're uncertain as to what's coming next. So there were a lot of people who did a lot of things right and worked very hard to keep us safe, but I think that any fair-minded person looking at this would say that some terrible mistakes were made in allowing these kinds of practices to take place. In part because, I think, study after study has shown that when people get tortured, when people are beaten, when people are put in a position of severe stress and pain, oftentimes they're willing to say anything to alleviate that stress and pain. So the information we get isn't necessary better than doing things the right way, and my goal is to make sure, having banned this practice as one of the first things I did when I came into office, that we don't make that mistake again. But we have to recognize that when we are under threat and we're afraid and the public is clamoring to do something, that's when we have to be most on guard, because, you know, there are times where we can slip into the kinds of activities that I don't think we want to see repeated.

Jorge Ramos. Can you categorically say that your Government hasn't tortured anyone, including those detainees in Guantanamo?

The President. I can categorically say that anybody who engaged in any behavior like this would be directly violating my executive orders and my policies as President of the United States, and would be held into account and would be breaking the law.

Jorge Ramos. On another issue, the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, clearly shows that we don't live in a post-racial society as many expected when you were elected.

The President. Well, I didn't expect that. You probably didn't either, but —

Jorge Ramos. But many people expected you probably to do more on race relations, dealing with white privilege. Do you get angry with this?

The President. Well, you know, I —

Jorge Ramos. Is it your responsibility?

The President. I think that if you look at the history of race in America, it's usually not a single moment when suddenly everything gets solved. It's a process. I think that because of our policies there's more equality than when I came in, with respect to healthcare, with respect to access to college, with respect to opportunity. I think because of the work that Eric Holder has done under my direction. The criminal...

Jorge Ramos. So we're doing better on race?

The President. I think the Criminal Justice System is improved. I think that if you talk to younger people, your daughter, my daughters, their attitudes absolutely are better when it comes to race.

Jorge Ramos. Eric Garner, and they see Trayvon Martin, and they say —

The President. Yeah.

Jorge Ramos. — there's not really a lot of improvement.

The President. Well, but, you know, the folks who say there's not a lot improvement I don't think were living in the '50s and remember what it was like to be black or Hispanic and interacting with the police then. They don't even remember what it was like 20 years ago. There has been improvement. The question is what more do we need to do, and what's clear, when you look at some of the reports that have occurred around the country, is that not only is there still a lot of suspicion and mistrust between police officers and communities of color. But what's also true is that there are still instances in which a young black boy or brown boy is not being evaluated, in terms of risk, precisely in the same way as a white young person might be by the police. Now, that can be solved through better training, better accountability, better transparency, and so the task force we've put together is designed to do precisely this. But I think it is important to realize that even as we push to get on top of these issues around the country, and nobody's going to be pushing harder than me because I've been subjected to these kinds of misperceptions in the past, that —

Jorge Ramos. You've been discriminated?

The President. Of course, you know, I think it'd be pretty hard to grow up in the United States of America without having any experiences of discrimination, but what I do know is in my life things have improved, and they're going to continue to improve. And so we have to recognize that issues of racial prejudice and discrimination, they're embedded deeply in society, and they don't transform overnight, but each successive generation, what we've seen in America is we've seen improvement. And I'm confident that if we are focused on it and are willing to talk about these honestly, ten years from now things will be better and twenty years from now even better than that.

Jorge Ramos. Mr. President, let me ask you about immigration. Seventeen governors filed a lawsuit against you trying to block your executive decision —

The President. Yeah.

Jorge Ramos. — on immigration. They say, and I'll quote, that you are "abdicating your responsibility to faithfully enforce the laws and that you are violating your Constitutional duty." Are you concerned about being impeached?

The President. No, because what we've done is not only lawful, based on the evaluations of the Office of Legal Counsel, but is of the same type of action that was taken by every Democratic and Republican president over the last 20, 30 years.

Jorge Ramos. I understand that. But many times you said that you didn't have the legal authority to go ahead — you said, "I'm not the king. I'm not the emperor of the United States."

The President. Yeah.

Jorge Ramos. Even on March 2011 on a Univision town hall meeting you told us, and I quote, "With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case." That's exactly what you did.

The President. No, no, no.

Jorge Ramos. Why did you change your mind?

The President. No, because, Jorge, at the time, and I can run back the tape on your questions and some of the questions of that town hall, the notion was that we could just stop deportations period, and we can't do that. What I've said very clearly, consistently is that we have to enforce our immigration laws, but that we have prosecutorial discretion given the limited resources, and we can't deport 11 million people.

Jorge Ramos. So it's not that you changed your mind on this?

The President. What was —

Jorge Ramos. Or that you were convinced otherwise?

The President. — what was clear was that we could reprioritize how we deploy the limited resources we have to focus on the borders, to focus on criminals. We began that process as soon as I came into office. We amplified that approach through the DACA program that we instituted, and then we continued to see what else we could do. And Jay Johnson, I think, has done a terrific job in saying, here are our priorities. We're not going to separate families. We're going to focus on criminals. We're going to focus on borders. We're going to focus on new arrivals. Because one of the things that I think is important to understand is that although we are reprioritizing to make sure that we're not in the business of separating families, we are still sending a message to people who have not yet come here, we're going to be enforcing those immigration laws so that newcomers, people who just arrived, you are likely to be sent back. And we're going to still be focused on making sure that, not just from Mexico but anywhere around the world, that we can actually enforce better the laws that we have. In the meantime, the people who have lived here, let's make sure that they're treated as the members of our community that they truly are.

Jorge Ramos. But if you — as you were saying, you always had the legal authority to stop deportations, then why did you deport two million people?

The President. Jorge, we're not going to —

Jorge Ramos. For six years you did it.

The President. No. Listen, Jorge —

Jorge Ramos. You destroyed many families. They called you deporter-in-chief.

The President. You called me deporter-in-chief.

Jorge Ramos. It was Janet Murguia from La Raza.

The President. Yeah, but let me say this, Jorge —

Jorge Ramos. Well, you could have stopped deportations.

The President. No, no, no.

Jorge Ramos. That's the whole idea.

The President. That is not true. Listen, here's the fact of the matter.

Jorge Ramos. You could have stopped them.

The President. Jorge, here's the fact of the matter. As President of the United States I'm always responsible for problems that aren't solved right away. I regret millions of people who didn't get health insurance before I passed health insurance and before I implemented it. I regret the fact that there are kids who should've been going to college during my presidency, but because we didn't get to them fast enough, they gave up on college. The question is, are we doing the right thing, and have we consistently tried to move this country in a better direction. And those, like you sometimes, Jorge, who suggests that there are simple quick answers to these problems, I think —

Jorge Ramos. I never said that though.

The President. Yes, you do, because that's how you present it, and I think when you — when you present it—

Jorge Ramos. But you had the authority —

The President. — when you present it in that way, it does a disservice, because it makes the assumption that the political process is one that can easily be moved around, depending on the will of one person and that's now how things work.

Jorge Ramos. What I'm just saying —

The President. We spent that entire time trying to get a comprehensive immigration reform bill done that would solve the problem for all the people. So right now, by the actions that I've taken, I still have five million people who do not have the ability to get registered and be confident that they're not deported. In fact, what's going to happen, sometime over the next two days, week, month is that that they're going to be some folks who are still caught up in the system because we have to go and train ICE workers so that they are responding in a different way. And so the question I have for you, Jorge, because you're going to have a big voice, is are you going to do a good job in, now that we've taken these actions, making sure that people understand what their opportunities are, how we can take advantage of it, and how we can build to make sure that going forward, not only as many people register as possible, if you've been here for five years, if you have a child who's an American citizen or a legal permanent resident, that you are likely to end up signing up — so that we build up that capacity, and we lay the groundwork for passing comprehensive immigration reform. Because if we don't do that, then it is true that there are going to be a whole bunch of folks who try to push back, and this is necessarily a temporary measure designed to help as many people as we can right now, but we've still got a big fight that we're going to have to take in the future.

Jorge Ramos. I could continued on immigration, but —

The President. You could —

Jorge Ramos. Yeah.

The President. — and I'd be happy to do it, but you're probably running out of time.

Jorge Ramos. We are, right, yeah, so I have like two or three minutes.

The President. Go ahead.

Jorge Ramos. So let me just go with another issue. On Cuba, the fifth anniversary of the

arrest of Alan Gross in Cuba, are you making efforts towards his release? Is there going to be a prisoner swap with the three Cuban spies being held in Miami?

The President. You know we've been in conversations about how we can get Alan Gross home for quite some time.

Jorge Ramos. With the Cuban government?

The President. We have been working through a whole variety of channels. We continue to be concerned about him. We think that he shouldn't have been held in the first place. With respect to Cuba, generally, I've made very clear that the policies that we have in making remittances easier for Cuban families and making it easier for families to travel, have been helpful to people inside of Cuba, but the Cuban government still needs to make significant changes. Beyond that, I don't have any announcements.

Jorge Ramos. All right. Bill Cosby has been lately in the news because of rape accusations. What's the best way to deal with something like this right now?

The President. Well, I think that it's important to not focus on one case, but to focus on the broader concerns that I have about how women, and sometimes men, are subjected to sexual assaults. And that's been true in our military, that's true in our colleges and universities. We're focused at the White House on making sure that we're raising awareness. Part of it is passing laws, but part of it is also changing minds and culture. Not only to make it safe for those who've been assaulted to come forward, but also to change the mindset of men, particularly our young men who are coming up, so that they understand that no means no, that respect for women and individuals is what makes you strong. That's an ongoing process, sort of like the process we talked about with respect to race. Politics can change policy. It can change laws. It can change law enforcement. And it then combines with changes in culture and perceptions and over time we make progress.

You know, Dr. King said once that, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." And, you know, I'm a big believer in the notion that even though sometimes history moves backwards, sometimes it moves sideways, that if people of goodwill keep pushing, eventually we have a more just society. And that's, you know, hopefully, part of my role as President of the United States and that'll be part of your role as a journalist.

Jorge Ramos. I hope so.

The President. Okay.

Jorge Ramos. Mr. President, thanks so much.

The President. Enjoyed it. Thank you.

Jorge Ramos. Thank you.