• Behind scenes at G20, leaders pressure Merkel to pull away from austerity plan

    By Chuck Todd and Shawna Thomas, NBC News

    LOS CABOS, Mexico -- President Barack Obama expressed support for his European counterparts and their measures to manage the fiscal crisis as the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico wrapped up Tuesday, saying he believes they are "ready to do what is necessary to hold the Eurozone together."

    Behind the scenes, however, one senior administration official said the focus of the summit was to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel to pull away from an austerity plan and focus more on spending and creating jobs.

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    President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Hu Jintao chat after arriving for the family photo of the G20 summit, at the convention center in Los Cabos, Mexico.

    Another senior administration official was asked whether leaders "ganged up" on Merkel; that official replied, "I don’t think I’d describe it that way." But another official said world leaders were very blunt in their efforts to convince Merkel to sign on to the plan.

    While the official declaration out of the G20 Summit pointed to a more integrated financial system and an agreement to help Greece stay in the Eurozone, an official says the group was closer to an agreement to create a fund to loan money to troubled countries.

    There is no agreement, however, on how such an account would be funded.

    Obama said he was "confident" that over the next several weeks, "Europe will paint a picture of where we need to go," but he acknowledged that the world's economy could affect his election prospects. He used the moment to admonish Congress for not acting on the jobs plan he announced last year.

    Obama also used his time in Mexico to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China, where the primary topic of discussion was the unraveling situation in Syria.

    While Obama did say he believed both countries understood that civil war was in nobody's interest, it was clear that neither the Russian or Chinese leaders were willing to call for Syrian President Bashar al Assad to step down.

    "I wouldn't suggest that at this point, the United States and the rest of the international community are aligned with Russia and China in their positions," the president said carefully.

    The president also said he hopes there will be a formal political transition plan in place in Syria in coming weeks, but he was not sure whether Russia or China would sign on. One senior administration official said there was a glimmer of hope that Putin is now willing to consider scenarios where Assad is not in power.

  • Syria and Iran dominate talks between Obama, Putin

    By NBC's Ali Weinberg

     

    President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met on Monday for the first time since the violent uprising in Syria began to discuss possible actions to limit further bloodshed in the meeting.

    Putin, who reassumed the presidency of Russia earlier this year, met with Obama in bilateral talks that stretched for some time; both leaders were in Mexico for this week's G-20 summit.

    Both leaders said they found common ground on the conflict, but shed little light on the steps upon which they agreed were needed to mount the violence between the Syrian people and the country's rulers. Putin is an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has generally resisted imposing more sanctions on that regime.

    Putin shared just two sentences on the issue of Syria, speaking through a translator: “We also discussed international affairs, including the Syrian affair. From my perspective, we've been able to find many commonalities pertaining to all of those issues.”

    Obama said the leaders “agreed that we need to see a cessation of the violence, that a political process has to be created to prevent civil war, and the kind of horrific events that we've seen over the last several weeks, and we pledged to work with other international actors including the United Nations, [UN Special Envoy] Kofi Annan, and all the interested parties in trying to find a resolution to this problem.”

    At a press briefing after the two leaders met, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, stressed that Putin supports a political transition in which Assad loses power, even if the Russian president is not as vocal about such views as other leaders. 

    “It's true the Russians have not publicly issued the same type of call for Assad to step down,” Rhodes acknowledged.

    During the meeting, President Obama also said the two leaders discussed negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, stressing the “shared approach” among members of the P5+1, a group that includes the U.S., Britain, Russia, France and China plus Germany, in their dealings toward the Iranian regime.

    That emphasis on a shared approach highlights Russia's opposition to unilateral sanctions against Iran, such as the ones installed by the United States against countries that do business with Iranian oil companies. Just last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference in Iran that “unilateral sanctions by others will never have a positive and constructive outcome.”

    Obama also made a passing reference to an issue that has been a key factor in US-Russia relations, but over which the president recently got into domestic political hot water: missile defense.

    During a meeting in March with then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Obama was caught on a hot microphone saying he would have “more flexibility” on the missile shield issue after the November elections, to which Medvedev uttered the now-infamous response, “I will transmit this information to Vladimir.” Republicans pounced on the exchange, saying it represented American weakness on the international stage.

    But today, Putin gave little indication of just what was transmitted, as the only thing either leader said on the topic was that it was discussed among a “range of strategic issues,” according to Obama, and that they “resolved to continue to work through some of the difficult problems involved there.”

    The interaction between the two leaders, meeting for just the second time, was perceived by the press in the room as somewhat chilly. As the group of journalists was ushered out of the room, “Messrs. Obama and Putin remained seated, their interpreters had stepped away, sitting side-by-side on the other side of the room -- and they just stared straight ahead. No interacting or chit chatting,” one pool reporter wrote.

    But administration officials later urged observers not to read in to the encounter.

    “This isn’t the first Body Language-Gate that we've had with the Russians,” Rhode said, noting that relations between Obama and Medvedev, who are considered to have a more friendly relationship than that between Obama and Putin, have also been perceived as frosty.

    “That's just his style. I would encourage you not to read too much into that as part of relationship,” said U.S. ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul, also at the briefing today.

  • Romney cracks jokes, talks policy with Jay Leno

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    BURBANK, Calif. – Seated on Jay Leno's couch for the first time since announcing his second presidential bid, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney faced a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday that covered everything from policy questions on Afghanistan and healthcare to jokes about Rick Santorum and pornography.

    "Did you ever think we’d be talking about porn, with all the other things in this election?" Leno asked Romney early in the interview's first segment

    "I didn’t know we were talking about porn," Romney said.

    "We’re not; Rick Santorum is talking about porn, you and I were talking about porn backstage," Leno responded, in a quip that may have made Ann Romney, who watched her husband's appearance from backstage, blush.

    The jab at Santorum wasn't the only mention of Romney's primary competition. In his opening monologue, Leno joked about wanting to have Santorum on The Tonight Show, but that Santorum, who on Sunday cursed at a New York Times reporter, "works too dirty." 

    Romney played off Santorum's testy Sunday exchange with the reporter and battles with the press with a joke of his own. Leno would say the names of potential candidates for vice president, and Romney would reply with one word.

    When Leno said Nikki Haley, Romney replied, “energetic.” Donald Trump – “huge.” When it came to Santorum, Romney deadpanned. “Press secretary,” he said.

    Romney and Leno play vice presidential word association

    Earlier, Romney said Santorum deserved "a little bit of slack" for the outburst, explaining that as a candidate for president you are "on all the time," and seemed to suggest he might even consider his rival for a spot on the ticket - a position Santorum indicated he would consider in a recent interview - should Romney become the nominee.

    "In this case Rick Santorum is a good guy; he’s running a good campaign. We have some differences in background and differences on some issues but basically a good guy and, you know, I’m happy with him saying he’d like to be part of an administration with me, nothing wrong with that, if he’s the VP that’s better," Romney chuckled. "I’d rather be the president. Let him be the vice president."

    But the interview, which stretched across a commercial break, and for which Romney wore a full suit, was not all fun and games. After the break, Leno pressed Romney on healthcare, Afghanistan and United States relations with Russia.

    On health care, Leno pushed Romney to explain what he would offer Americans with pre-existing medical conditions so that they might retain their coverage, perhaps the most popular provision of the president's healthcare law. 

    "People with pre-existing conditions, as long as they have been insured before, they are going to be able to continue to have insurance," Romney said, describing his vision for health care if the Affordable Care Act were to be struck down or repealed.

    "Suppose they haven't been insured," Leno countered.

    "If they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it's like, ‘Hey guys. We can't play the game like that. You've got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered,’" Romney responded.

    But when Leno pushed back, telling Romney he had friends who had worked in the auto industry who had never had insurance before and now were able to get coverage, Romney seemed to soften his stance somewhat.

    "We'll look at a circumstance where someone is ill and hasn't been insured so far, but people who have the chance to be insured – if you are working in the auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure their employees, you look at the circumstances that exist – but people who have done their best to get insured are going to be able to be covered," Romney said. "But you don't want everyone saying, ‘I am going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.’ That doesn't make sense. But you get defined rules and get people in who are playing by the rules."

    Asked about Afghanistan, Romney repeated his claim that announcing a withdrawal date for U.S. forces was a "mistake." In a follow-up question about whether the case of Robert Bales, the man allegedly killed 17 Afghans, Romney suggested that America's forces were stretched too thin. He also doubled down on his call for adding 100,000 troops to the U.S. military.

    Leno also pressed Romney on his comments yesterday that Russia was the country’s greatest "geopolitical foe." He read Romney a quote from the current Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that Romney was stuck in the past. Leno asked Romney if the Russians, who have American fast food, “love cars” and “wear fancy clothes” weren’t more like Americans than “our enemies.”

    "The Russian people, certainly, are people like us, but you have Vladimir Putin and Mr. Medvedev and they're continuing to support Iran and to keep us from putting in place crippling sanctions against Iran,” Romney said. “They continue to support Assad, Bashir Assad in Syria. They continue to support people like Chavez and Castro. They basically stand up for the world's worst actors, and when America tries to put pressure on those actors with sanctions or other UN actions, Russia always stands up for what I would consider to be the world's worst leaders."