President Obama on Thursday defended his administration’s handling of two controversies that threaten to overshadow the jobs agenda he is desperately trying to sell to Congress and the American people.
In his first formal press conference in 12 weeks, Obama denied knowing anything about Operation Fast and Furious, a gun-running enterprise that allowed hundreds of guns to flow to Mexican drug lords, and he portrayed his administration’s $535 million investment in the now-bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra as a necessary risk.
“I think both [Attorney General Eric Holder] and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through [the border] that could have been prevented by the United States of America,” Obama said during the 73-minute exchange in the White House’s East Room.
Republicans claim Holder lied to a congressional committee about when he first learned about the gun sting, but Obama said his attorney general “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious — certainly I was not,” he said.
Solyndra was a different matter. Obama acknowledged that he was keenly aware of the risk involved in backing a $535 million loan to the California-based solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt in August.
“We knew from the start that the loan guarantee program was going to entail some risk,” Obama said, referring to the Department of Energy program that helps private companies obtain crucial capital. “There were going to be some companies that didn’t work out so well — Solyndra was one of the them.”
Not long after the president finished defending the loan program, however, the administration announced that the man in charge of it, Jonathan Silver, was stepping down. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Silver had notified him of his intent to leave in July.
The White House was warned of Solyndra’s financial instability even before it agreed to give the company $535 million, and yet the administration was considering backing a second loan of $469 million to the company, according to internal emails obtained by a congressional committee.
Obama swept aside allegations that his administration should given more weight to the warnings.
“I will tell you that even for those projects under the loan guarantee program that have ended up being successful, there was debate,” Obama said. “For every success there may be one that does not work out as well.”
Defending the risky loan program, the president warned that if the government doesn’t help cutting-edge companies establish themselves American innovators will flock to countries like China that heavily subsidize businesses.
Obama treated the controversies as distractions from the more important business of reviving the economy. Even though the economy continues to weaken, he said, House Republicans are refusing to take up his jobs bill. It’s not a policy disagreement, he said, but a Republican effort to thwart his re-election.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, balked at the president’s suggestion.
“Nothing has disappointed me more than what’s happened over the last five weeks, to watch the president of the United States give up on governing, give up on leading and spend full time campaigning,” Boehner told the Atlantic Ideas Forum in Washington Thursday. “We’re legislating, he’s campaigning. It’s very disappointing.”
