immigration. i hope that i mean beyond just one problem of immigration. you can mention the word comprehensive or you don t have to use it. a lot of politicians don t like the word comprehensive immigration reform. but i think we have an opportunity to do the whole immigration picture, and that s what i m looking to do ultimately. but we want to fix this problem. does anybody else david, do you want to say something? mr. president, the last year and a half has shown an absolute turn around in this economy. we were faced with eight years of 1.9% economic growth. we focused on regulation, energy, taxes. this year we put a dodd frank bill, and what this administration has done is freed up $6 trillion to go back into this economy. this is real job. 3.5 million new jobs. this economy is moving. the rest of the world is paying attention.
the understanding the administration was not going to help them out. that appears to have shifted. there was no clear legislative pathway going forward on the hill. you had republicans, senior senate republicans calling for a freeze in the zero tolerance policy. i ve been told by several republican lawmakers and aides there offices have been inundated with phone calls of people outraged with the policy. now we see it appears the white house will provide the answer, at least to some degree, john. phil, stay with us. we re about to hear from the president. we ll play the tape of his meeting with reporters. among the reporters there was abby phillip. abby, a major retreat from the president. reporter: the president kept talking about democrats, but also acknowledged that the images were having an effect. he talked about the dilemma he faced, that s his word, saying that he could either be tough and look like he had no heart,
or he could be weak and look like he had compassion for these families. but he did confirm that he s going to be signing some kind of executive order that would keep families together. the implication in the room was that this would mean the families would be held in some kind of form of detention near the border, while their immigration status is being adjudicated. but we don t have any details. the president made it clear that he s still waiting for congress to act on this, and he also had a lot to say about past administrations. he said he felt like there was a double standard being applied to him, that in the past administrations abby, i need to interrupt you. let s listen to the president of the united states. two stops, one a very big one, and it will be a lot of fun. we re meeting right now on immigration, and we are very strong at the word border and v
legislation, which stops this policy for good. this legislation. but last night it was sweeping legislation. this morning, we re told we re going to get an executive action. we ll hear from the president momentarily. republican senators also at the white house. number two, word is there will be some stand alone legislation. again, something this president of the united states, a man whose trademark is stubbornness, is caving again. yes. and look, last night was i was up on capitol hill. i think it was pretty much a bust, and we can talk about that later, since we have this breaking news. but i think the question is whether it really is even possible for congress to pass a stop gap measure, to pass legislation that just deals with this issue of separating children, because even if the president deals with the flores issue, the court issue through executive action, there still is going to be an outcry to do it