The governments tend to give too much to people that dont want to work. I think were more divided than weve ever been, and the people running for office now, who in the world are you going to vote for . Now from the lerner theater in elkhart, indiana, pbs newshour coanchor gwen ifill. Ifill good evening, and welcome to elkhart, indiana, as we sit down can president obama and the residents of this community to discuss their concerns, look back on his time in office, and assess the feverish campaign to succeed him. This marks the president s fifth visit to the once and again r. V. Capital of the world, a small city where the Unemployment Rate hit 19. 6 his first year in office, and now has dropped to about 4 . But this white house isnt get anything credit for that turnaround. Residents here voted for ted cruz in this years primaries, and mitt romney by two to one in 2012. Even when president obama won indiana in 2008, just as the economy was crashing, elkhart went with john mccain. So what gives . Weve asked some of the people who live here to join us on the stage of the beautiful lerner theater here in downtown for an intimate conversation. But first, the president of the United States, barack obama. applause . Thank you, thank you. Hi. How are you . Ifill hi, mr. President. Nice to see you. Ifill thank you. Thank you, thank you, guys. applause ifill our residents have been waiting faithfully, patiently, and eagerly to see you today. Well, im eager to see them. And this is a beautiful theater. Ifill it is beautiful. Which got converted, and congratulations on a wonderful venue. Ifill some of them voted for you, some of them didnt. Thats what we expect. Ifill but i first want to ask why talking to you a little bit about this campaign. What do you think it means when you hear the words lets make America Great again . I think americas pretty great. And, you know, its interesting. I do a lot of commencement speeches this time of year. In fact, tomorrow im going to be going to the air force academy to deliver a commencement for the second time there. And i always remind young people that despite all the challenges that we face right now, if you had the choice to be born in any one period of time in our history, and you didnt know ahead of time whether you were going to be rich or poor, black or white, male or female, you just had to guess on what moment do you have a best chance of succeeding, it actually would be now, that america is the strongest country on earth. Its economy is the most durable on earth. We are a country that has incredible diversity. People are striving, working hard, creating businesses. Weve got the best universities in the world, the best scientists. You know, so weve got weve got some challenges. And weve gist come through a very rough stretch as a consequence of the financial crisis, but overall, not only are we recovered from the crisis that we had, but were well positioned to do extraordinarily well going forward, as long as we make some good decisions. Ifill and, yet, many people including probably some folks in this room think the deficits have gone up and the jobless rate has gone up. And in fact that their lives have not improved. How in fact, we have the nominee for presumptive nominee for the Republican Party saying donald trump saying america is a third world nation. How do you persuade or i suppose how does your likely democratic successor, possible, persuade anybody thats not true . Well, its important you said my successor because mechelle would be very upset if she thought i was running again. Look, you just look at the evidence here in elkhart, as you mentioned in the introduction. When i took office, this is the first city i came to. And unemployment about a month after i took office, a month and a half after i took office, was almost 20 . One out of 10 people were behind on their mortgage or in foreclosure. Today, the Unemployment Rate is around 4 . Its only about one in 30 people who are behind on their mortgage. The r. V. Industry, which is central to elkhart, is on track to break records in terms of sales. And so that doesnt mean that folks arent struggling in some circumstances. And one of the things that ive emphasized is that there are some longterm trends in the economy that we have to tackle in terms of wages not going up as a matter of fact they used to. Some big costs like College Costs or Health Care Costs that are still a challenge. People still worrying about retirement. And so were going to have to make sure that we make some good decisions going forward, but the notion that somehow america is in decline is just not borne out by the facts. Ifill but it resonates. Resonates. A lot of aggrieved people who are voting in big numbers for donald trump. Well, look, i think that what has always been true in american politics is that when weve gone through a tough time and we went through the worst financial crise of our lifetime. Im looking around, and i think its safe to say that its been the worst in the lifetimes or memories of most people here. Then you feel nervous. People lost homes. People lost savings. People were worried about whether or not they could make ends meet. And so even though weve recovered, people feel like the ground under their feet isnt quite as solid. And in those circumstances, a lot of times its easy for somebody to come up and say, you know, what . If we deport all the immigrants and build a wall, or if we cut off trade with china or if we do x or y or z, that theres some simple answer, and suddenly everythings going to feel secure. Ifill why dont you mention donald trump by name . You know, he seems to do a good job mentioning his own name. So laughter i figured you know, ill let him do his advertising for him. Ifill do you consider at all that any of the support for him is backlash against you personally . Well, heres one thing i would say and i just spoke about this at the local high school. I think trump is a more colorful character than some of the other republican elected officials. But a lot of the story that hes telling is entirely consistent with what folks have been saying about me or the general story theyve been telling about the economy for the last 7 and a half, the last 10, the last 20, the last 30 years. And you can actually describe the story fairly concisely. The basic story they tell is that the problems, the middle class, working families are experiencing has to do with a big, bloated government, that taxes the heck out of people, and then gives that money to undeserving folks welfare cheats, or the 47 who are takers, or, you know, whatever phrase they use that businesses are being strangled by overregulation; that, you know, obamacare has killed jobs. And the fact of the matter is when you look at it, the government as a proportion of our overall economy is actually smaller now under my presidency than it was under ronald regan. Ifill let me read you something bill clinton said, though. But let me finish. Ifill okay. We have fewer federal employees today. The Health Care Costs since i signed obamacare have actually gone up slower than they were before i signed it. 20 million more people have Health Insurance. So, so the arguments theyre making just are not borne out by the facts. But what is true is that if people are feeling secure, feeling insecure and theyre offered a simple reason for how they can feel more secure, people are going to be tempted by it, particularly if theyre hearing that same story over and over again. Ifill perception. Bill clinton said, millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of america he painted which you just described and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives. The pretty picture that ifill the pretty picture of all the things that have gone well. Why is there a disconnect between what hes describing here . Heres what has changed in the economy overthelast 20 to 30 years. Right after world war ii, america was ascendant. It was dominant around the world because europe was blown up, japan was digging itself out of the rubble. China was still a backwater. You know, Eastern Europe was behind the iron curtain. There wasnt much competition. We were the only folks who were seriously making cars and trucks and appliances and you name it. We had strong unionization, which meant that workers had leverage so that they could get a good share of a growing pie, and people saw each year and each generation, their standards of living going up pretty rapidly. And what started happening is you started seeing foreign competition. Unions started getting busted so workers had less leverage, which meant their waejs didnt go up quite as fast. You started seeing end of defined benefit pension plans. In terms of health care programs, if you had health care on your job, suddenly you were paying a lot of deductible and premiums. College costs started going up because the Public University system, which used to be generously funded by state governments so that tuition was low, suddenly state governments were spending more money on prisons than they were on universities, which meant tuition went up. You add all those things together, and people then start feeling more stressed. Now, the answer to that is how do we get wages up . How do we make sure that you can save for retirement . How you can make sure that your kids kidcan afford to get a Higher Education to compete for the jobs of the future . And the question then is what is actually going to get that done . To me, if we raise the minimum wage, if we make it easier not harder for people to unionize, if we negotiate trade deals that raise labor standards and Environmental Standards in other countries instead of letting them sell here and we cant sell there. If we make sure that were rebuilding our roads and our bridges and infrastructure to put a bunch of folks in hard hats back to work. If we make Social Security stronger rather than cutting it. If we do those things, then we are going to see wages go up, labor markets tighten, and we will relieve a lot of the stress that people feel. But if you look at the arguments that are being made by the republicans and the actions that have been taken by those members of congress, its hard to see how cutting taxes for the wealthiest americans, deregulating wall street again is somehow going to benefit middleclass families. Ifill well, lets turn to the audience and see what they think. Were going to open this conversation up. I have a lot more questions, but they do, too. And were going to be right back in just a moment with that. Glft partys just getting started. This pbs newshour special, questions for president obama, continues. From the lerner theatre in elkhart, indiana, once again, pbs newshour coanchor gwen ifill. Ifill so, mr. President , we are back with a few questions for you from our invited audience here. They are anxious to get started and so am i. You are a Small Businessman here in elkhart. Yes, i am. Ifill whats your name . Bill kercher. Ifill whats your question. I am a fifth generation fruit and vegetable grower here in Elkhart County and over the past six years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of regulations from the food safety modernization act from obamacare and many others. Large farms are able to comply with these regulations more easily, and small family farms weve seen actually exiting the industry. At what point are we overregulated, if not no . And how can we encourage younger growers to either stay or enter an industry where the barriers to entry are higher than ever . Thank you. Well, its a great question, and first of all, my administrations policy has been to encourage family farming, rather than big agra business, because not only is that sort of a model of farming that built this country, but as mechelle will tell you, it actually produces food thats better fur, as she reminds me constantly. So, you know, we want you to succeed. Now, if you look at the trend lines in terms of small family farms, the problem generally has been actually family farms getting bought up by larger agricultural operations. Its been you guys not always getting good prices for the products that you put together. I dont doubt that some elements of the regulations i put in place have probably put a burden on you. So lets take health care, for example. It may be that previously you werent you didnt think you were able to provide Health Insurance for your employees. The problem is is that if theyre not getting Health Insurance through you, then that means that theyre relying on the emergency room, and theyre relying on, you know, taxpayers like everybody else to cover those costs if they get in an accident or if they get sick. And so it has always been our view that if we can put something together where people can buy Health Insurance through a pool, its subsidized, if theyre not making enough money popay for their own Health Insurance, that that overall is going to be a more efficient way to do it. And in fact health care inflation, the rate at which Health Care Costs have gone up, for Small Businesses as well as large businesses, has been significantly slower since i passed the law, than it was beforehand. Now, what i would say is that there are a bunch of regulations that have been put in place in the past that may have been well intentioned but didnt work. Sometimes theyre outdated. And so what ive told my administration to do is to go back and look at all the regulations that are there. If theres not a good reason for them, or if theyre outdated or if we can redesign them to put less of a burden on businessesy we should do so. Im not interested in regulating just for the sake of regulating. But there are some things like make sure have clean air and clean water, making sure folks have Health Insurance, making sure worker safety is a priority that i do think is part of our overalall obligation as not a third world country but as an advanced nation to make sure that, you know, we you know, were doing the right thing. And i would hope that as a consequence of the overall economy doing better, you have also been doing better as well. And, you know, anybody who is running a business would rather not have any regulations. Just as a general rule. And certainly, you dont want a situation where you feel like youre being regulated and your competitors not. But what we tried to do is be very fair in terms of looking at what regulations make a difference. If youre a really Small Business of 25 people or less, typically you are exempted from those a the loof the federal regulations. If you get to a certain size, then its part of the cost of doing business. But what it also does is it makes sure we as a society are looking out for workers, were protecting our families and people are getting decent wages and theyve got health care so theyre not going to the emergency room when they get sick. Ifill thank you, mr. President. Thank you, mr. Kercher. As i may have noticed following this election, donald trump came to indiana and talked a lot about what happened with the Carrier Corporation shipping their jobs out of state. Heres someone who worked for carrier and he has a question for you. How you doing, mr. President. How are you. Aye name is eric cottonham, and im representing the Steel Workers union, local 99, and im trying to find out what do we have left as far as all of our jobs are leaving. And i see here youre doing a lot of things, but in indianapolis theres nothing there for us. Whats next . What can we look forward to in the future for jobs employment, whatever, because all of our jobses have left our are in the process of leaving, sir . Well, in fact, weve seen more manufacturing jobs created since ive been president than any time since the 1990s. Thats a fact. And, you know, if you look at just the Auto Industry as an example, theyve had record sales and theyve hired back more people over the last pief years than they had for a very long, long time. We actually make more stuff, have a bigger Manufacturing Base today, than weve had in most of our history. The problems have been part of the problems have had to do with jobs going overseas, and this is one of the reasons why i have been trying to negotiate trade deals to raise wages and Environmental Standards in other countries so that theyre not undercutting us. But, frankly, part of it has had to do with automation. You go into an auto factory today, that used to have 10,000 people, and now theyve got 1,000 people making the same number of cars or more. And so what that means is even though were making the same amount of stuff in our manufacturing sector, were employing fewer people. Now, the good news is that there are entire new industries that are starting to pop up, and youre actually seeing some manufacturers coming back to the United States because theyre starting to realize, you know, what . Energy prices are lower here. Workers are better here. This is our biggest market. And so even though we offshored and went someplace else before, now it turns out were better off going ahead and manufacturing here. But for those folks who have lost their job right now because a plant went down to mexico, you know, that isnt going to make you feel better. And so what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are coming in now because some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back. And when somebody says, like the person you just mentioned who im not going to advertise for, that hes going to bring all those jobs back. Well, how exactly are you going to do that . What are you going to do . Theres no answer to it. He just says, im going to negotiate a better deal. Well, how how exactly are you going to negotiate that . What magic wand do you have . And usually the answer is he doesnt have an answer. So what ive tried to do, what my administration has tried to do is lets grow those manufacturing sectors, like clean energy, like some of these new technologies that are coming up, lets focus on those. Weve set up for example manufacturing hubs where we work with universities, local businesses, local governments, to create Research Labs that can take Something Like 3 d printing or, you know, nanotechnology or all kinds of stuff that i cant really explain because scientists and really smart people know all about it, and said lets invest in this so that when the new jobs come, theyre coming here. But i gotta tell you that, the days when you just being able to you just being willing to work hard and you can walk into a plant and suddenly theres going to be a job for you for 30 years, 40 years, thats just not going to be there for our kids, because more and more that stuff is going to be automated. If you go into a factory, that kid is going to need to know computers or is going to need to know some science and some math. Because theyre not even going to be picking anything up. Theyre just going to be work on a keyboard. And thats why we put so much emphasis on job training, Community Colleges. Thats why ive proposed making the first two years of Community College free so that we know that every young person, theyre going to be able if theyre not going for a full fouryear degree, at least theyre going to be getting the Technical Training they need for those jobs of the future. But you cannot look backwards. And that doesnt make folks feel good sometimes, especially if its a town that was reliant on a couple of big manufacturers. But theyre going to have to retrain for the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past. Ifill you mentioned education. You touched on education, and we have a question here about that. Whats your name . Vanessa corredera. Hi, mr. President. How are you, vanessa. Fine, thank you. You have addressed the crushing student debt, especially for Higher Education. And you cited initiatives with Community Colleges, the stem disciplines and technology as potential responses. Many of my friends and especially my students are still struggling with this issue. So my question for you is how do you continue to address this issue your final months in office . And how do you do see in a way that perhaps includes the humanities and liberal Arts Education as a whole when those are in fact very much under attack. What do you teach . I teach english at Andrews University in michigan. I thought you were a student. Im getting old, im telling you. All the teachers look like students now. Well, first of all, let me just say that i am i have been emphasizing Stem Education thats science, technology, engineering and math not because i think the humants are unimportant. But because we generally have not been producing as many engineers and as many scientists and people with those kinds of technological skills as compared to china, for example. We send a lot of people into banking and folks like me, who become lawyers, but the truth of the matter is that we have to make sure that we continue to have a strong base in the sciences and engineering, if were going to remain the most innovative economy in the world. But as somebody who studied humanities himself, you know, i think its extremely important as well. The broader issue of financing education,aise mentioned, the reason that college is so much more expensive for this generation as it was for my generation, and even better for the previous generation, really had to do with government spending. It used to be that most state universities were heavily sibzidized by the state. So they kept tuition really, really low. What happened around the 80s, 90s, was state legislators started saying, weve got to build more prisons. In fairness to them they also started feeling more pressure because of medicaid spending because health care costes were going up. So they started cutting Higher Education budgets. And they made up for it with higher tuition. And thats why, at least at Public Colleges and universities, the costs have gone up a lot. Now heres what weve done. The first thing diwhen i came into office was we reformed the Student Loan Program because what was happening was on federally subsidized student loans, it was all run through the banks, and the banks were getting billions of dollars of profits forking inning these loans to students even though the loans were guaranteed by the federal government so, they werent take anything risk. And we said lets cut the middle man out. Lets lobe directly to students. That saved us tens of billions of dollars and allowed to us expand the Pell Grant Program and lower or cap interest on student loans. But just because we give more loans or more grants, that doesnt always help with the rising costs. And thats why ive proposed this twoyear free Community College because what that does is that allows a young person who is strapped for cash and whose parents are doing everything they can, but can only do so much, to say, ill get my first two years for free. Ill transfer those credits to a fouryear Public College or university, and ive now just potentially cut the amount of loans that ive got in half. And for some people who decide they dont need a Fouryear College education. They want to be a graphic designer. They want to go into a trade. Now they can get the training they need without incurring any debt. So, you know, these are all proposals that we know work. There are some states and cities that are already doing this free Community College proposal. And its working. And its really helping to reduce costs. And the last thing were also trying to work with the universities just to figure out ways that they can reduce costs using, for example, online learning, putting out reports to the parents and students are better consumers so that they know, well, let me not sign up for that Fouryear College where the Graduation Rates are low and its got great dorms and great gyms and nice food, but im going to be 50,000 worth of debt and i may not get a job. Ifill thank you, mr. President. Sir, your name. Arvis dawson. Ifill and your question. First of all, i want to thank you, mr. President , if the service to our country, and despite polls theres a lot of love for you here in elkhart. I appreciatet