Interview with Obama: Still Confident

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Your advisors pressed you pretty hard last fall to go negative on Hillary Clinton and it was a move that you resisted. Do you still think that you can win this without going negative?
Sure. I mean, look, understand what I'm saying. We have drawn contrasts with Senator Clinton on policy. And I mean we have some tough hands on NAFTA for example. So I've never said we can't draw contrasts. What I have said, and I will continue to say is that this should be a campaign about different policies, different visions for the future. Where we want to take the country. This is what this campaign should be about. Over the last several weeks, what Senator Clinton has tried to make this campaign about is about me and planting doubts in the minds of voters on my veracity, on my ethics, saying that I'm not who people think I am. On how I would respond in a crisis. When this photograph of me with a Somali outfit came out, they didn't deny that it came out of their camp. She was questioned by Steve Kroft on 60 minutes about these vicious, scurrilous emails that have been going around and following us throughout the campaign. You know, when she questioned my faith, she said, well, I have no reason to doubt him. So, cumulatively, what has happened over the past several weeks, she has very directly questioned me. Not my policies, not my positions. I think what we are going to have to do is that if that is the basis on what she thinks she should win the nomination, then the Democratic party, voters, superdelegates are able to weigh these various attributes. And I think people will come away thinking, you know what, Barack is who he says he is and has been consistent on his positions. But I think we're going to do it in a way that is appropriate to the way we've run our campaign throughout this year.

So to further clarify that point, as she questions you, are you going to question her?
My hope is that is if she is choosing to make this, not just about me, but about my character, that the press will do its job and ask, ok...

No, are you going to question her character?
What I'm going to do is I'm going to make clear, that, if this isn't an issue about ethics, for example, and real estate and the character of our supporters then we will raise those same questions in respect to her that she is raising about me.

Will you rule out, right now, a ticket with Hillary Clinton, no matter who's on it which way...
I'm not going to speculate on that.

You called her desperate the other day. Why?
Well, for the reasons we just outlined. I think they were very clear about 'we will throw a bunch of stuff at Barack and see what sticks.'

Let's talk about Tony Rezko for a minute. You talked about how boneheaded it was. What was the nature of your discussions with Rezko prior to purchasing your Kenwood home.
Well, as I said before, he was a real estate developer in the area. This was the biggest purchase Michelle and I had ever made. It was a very expensive house relative to our previous condominium. And so I asked him to take a look at the house and to give me his opinion in terms of whether he thought it was worth it. so I was essentially seeking a professional opinion from him in terms of whether or not it was a good buy.

Did you generally or expressively state a need for help in buying both or either of the tracts?
No. I didn't need help.

Did you see [your] purchase of the strip of the Rezko plot, which was right next door to you, the strip of the plot that you purchased, as a way to reimburse him for his cash outlay of the down payment?
No.

Just briefly now on NAFTA. The question of NAFTA...
[Austan] Goolsbee [Obama's economic advisor]...

It's been a tough couple days. Your campaign did not acknowledge that the economic advisor had originally met with the Canadian consulate. Was that wholly truthful?
It was truthful based on what we knew at the time. Frankly, none of us were aware that Austan had gone to the Canadian consulate but what was entirely true was our characterization that no discussions — which [it] somehow was... a wink and a nod to the Canadian government — took place. It turns out yes, Goolsbee was invited over and someone naively didn't understand that what he thought were casual conversations might end up in the memo to the Prime Minister of Canada. But, what he said turns out to be entirely consistent [with] what I've been saying on the campaign trail, which is I wasn't interested in repealing NAFTA but I was interested in strengthening the labor and environmental provisions.