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Posts Tagged ‘briefing
24
Jun
17
Transparency
08
Oct
16
Hurricane Matthew Briefing
President Barack Obama talks on the phone with FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate to receive an update on Hurricane Matthew, Oct. 8, 2016. The President spoke from his home in Chicago, Ill. Photo by Pete Souza
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President Barack Obama holds a press conference at the end of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China
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President Barack Obama holds a meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin
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President Barack Obama holds a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
President Barack Obama arrives at Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Laos; becoming the first sitting US President to visit the country
resident Barack Obama tours Midway Atoll in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Pacific Ocean
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All Times Eastern
4:40PM: President Obama departs Honolulu, Hawaii en route Hangzhou, China
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President Barack Obama greets workers after landing aboard Air Force One at Henderson Field to visit the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Midway Atoll, U.S
President Barack Obama looks out at Turtle Beach
President Barack Obama pays his respects at a memorial to the Battle of Midway monument
U.S. Marine National Monuments Superintendent Matt Brown gives President Barack Obama a tour of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument
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President Barack Obama chats with 6 year old Jacolson Kelley as he toured a flood affected area in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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President Barack Obama and Governor John Bel Edwards tour Castle Place, a flood-damaged area of Baton Rouge
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President Barack Obama records a birthday greeting for the daughter of a flood-affected homeowner
15
Jul
16
The President’s Thinking Hours
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Michael D. Shear: Obama After Dark: The Precious Hours Alone
“Are you up?” The emails arrive late, often after 1 a.m., tapped out on a secure BlackBerry from an email address known only to a few. The weary recipients know that once again, the boss has not yet gone to bed. The late-night interruptions from President Obama might be sharply worded questions about memos he has read. Sometimes they are taunts because the recipient’s sports team just lost. Last month it was a 12:30 a.m. email to Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, and Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, telling them he had finished reworking a speechwriter’s draft of presidential remarks for later that morning. Mr. Obama had spent three hours scrawling in longhand on a yellow legal pad an angry condemnation of Donald J. Trump’s response to the attack in Orlando, Fla., and told his aides they could pick up his rewrite at the White House usher’s office when they came in for work. Mr. Obama calls himself a “night guy,” and as president, he has come to consider the long, solitary hours after dark as essential as his time in the Oval Office.
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He works on speeches. He reads the stack of briefing papers delivered at 8 p.m. by the National Security Council staff secretary. He reads 10 letters from Americans chosen each day by his staff. “He is thoroughly predictable in having gone through every piece of paper that he gets,” said Tom Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser from 2010 to 2013. “You’ll come in in the morning, it will be there: questions, notes, decisions.” One night last June, Cody Keenan, the president’s chief speechwriter, had just returned home from work at 9 p.m. and ordered pizza when he heard from the president: “Can you come back tonight?” Mr. Keenan met the president in the usher’s office on the first floor of the residence, where the two worked until nearly 11 p.m. on the president’s eulogy for nine African-Americans fatally shot during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Three months earlier, Mr. Keenan had had to return to the White House when the president summoned him — at midnight — to go over changes to a speech Mr. Obama was to deliver in Selma, Ala., on the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when protesters were brutally beaten by the police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “There’s something about the night,” Mr. Keenan said, reflecting on his boss’s use of the time. “It’s smaller. It lets you think.”
More here
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21
May
14
The Commander-In-Chief Speaks
President Barack Obama speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House following his meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. The White House moved Wednesday to address the growing furor over allegations of misconduct at the Department of Veterans Affairs, summoning VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to an Oval Office meeting, hours before the House was scheduled to vote on a bill that would grant the secretary more authority to fire or demote senior executives.
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https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/469143733691498498
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NPR: Obama: People ‘Will Be Held Accountable’ For Veterans Affairs Problems
Anybody found to have manipulated or falsified Veterans Affairs records “will be held accountable,” President Obama said Wednesday. The president condemned the reported widespread problems at the VA, defending Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. Obama spoke after he and Shinseki met in the Oval Office Wednesday morning with White House deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors, who since last week has been detailed to work with the VA. Neither of those men attended the president’s news conference. Speaking about reports of long wait times — and efforts to cover up the delays — Obama said that if they’re proven true, the behavior is “dishonorable” and “disgraceful.” “I will not stand for it,” Obama said. “None of us should.”
The president said that Nabors is heading to Phoenix today to look into reports that a facility there had produced misleading statistics about veteran care. Obama mentioned accountability several times in his prepared remarks; he also noted that some employees had already been put on administrative leave. He said that his administration will continue “bringing the VA into the 21st century – which is not an easy task.” Obama also defended Shinseki, saying, “No one cares more about our veterans.” But Obama added that he told Shinseki today that he expects accountability and improvement in the full report on the VA’s problems.
More here
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President Barack Obama smiles as he prepares to answer a question during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House
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The Obama Diary 
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