Friday, November 7, 2008 3:45 PM

Obama Talks Economy In First Press Conference

By KEVIN FRIEDL



Barack Obama this afternoon held his first press conference of the transition period, detailing his plans for repairing the economy -- an issue that came to dominate the final months of the election season and will be among the incoming administration's most daunting tasks. The president-elect's remarks followed a meeting at the Chicago Hilton with his vice president, his newly appointed chief of staff and their team of economic advisers, who stood on stage behind Obama.

In his address, Obama repeated economic proposals familiar from his stump speeches, including the implementation of a "rescue plan for the middle class" featuring a second stimulus package, an extension of unemployment benefits and unspecified programs to boost job creation. Obama spoke also about the need to contain the financial crisis and carefully oversee the $700 billion rescue plan.

Although the president-elect's remarks focused exclusively on the economy, reporters in attendance directed their questions to his preparation for assuming the presidency. "There is no doubt that people want to know who's going to make up our team," Obama said when asked whether he felt time pressure to roll out his appointees. "I want to move with all deliberate haste, but I want to emphasize deliberate as well as haste."

Obama said he had spoken with every living ex-president, and was looking forward to meeting with President Bush on Monday. "Now's a good time for us to set politics aside for awhile and talk about what will actually work to move the economy forward, and it's in that spirit" that he would meet with Bush, he said. At another point, when asked about Iran, he reminded reporters, "I am not the president, and I won't be until January 20th."

Those in attendance at the meeting included Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Also present were four familiar faces from the Clinton White House: former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, former Commerce Secretary William Daley and former Treasury Secretaries Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin. Investor and Obama supporter Warren Buffett was piped in via speakerphone.

According to a release sent out to reporters on Thursday, Obama will use the rest of the day to "attend additional transition meetings, receive his daily intelligence briefing, record the Democratic Radio Address and return additional post-election political and protocol calls."

Check back shortly for video of Obama's remarks.

UPDATE: Demonstrating their commitment to detail, the Obama campaign this afternoon released a seating chart of the day's meeting:


CORRECTION: The original version of this post misstated when Obama and Bush
would be meeting.