8 months ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is questioning the legitimacy of the disputed Iranian election that has triggered days of street protests.
In a White House news conference Tuesday, he said it is impossible to know what happened at polling places during the June 12 election because there were no international monitors in place.
But he added that there are "big questions" about the legitimacy of the results, which Iran's leaders have said are final.
The challenger to the declared winner of the election has said it was fraudulent, and Obama condemned the government's crackdown on those who have protested the vote result.
President Obama also spoke about health care, saying reform must include a public plan that he said is "an important tool to discipline insurance companies."
The president said including a public plan was necessary because health insurance premiums were doubling every seven years -- putting a heavy burden on Americans and weighing down the economy.
Obama said the public plan was "wise policy and right thing." The health system overhaul faces strong headwinds in Congress, where most Republicans oppose Obama's ideas. The health insurance industry also objects to the public plan which it fears could harm its business.
On the topic of the economy, President Obama says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is doing a fine job under difficult circumstances but he declines to say whether he will reappoint the chairman in January.
Obama said he would not make news about Bernanke at a White House press conference Tuesday. He said the Fed could have done a better job anticipating systemic risk in markets.
But he said the Fed probably performed better than most U.S. financial regulators did before the nation's economic crisis hit last year.
Obama said a newly created consumer financial protection agency will let the Fed focus on issues of broader systemic risk in the U.S. economy.
One day after signing legislation giving the government unprecedented power to regulate tobacco, President Obama also admited that he's sometimes "fallen off the wagon" in his own effort to stop smoking.
Obama told reporters Tuesday that he's "95 percent cured." But he added that "there are times where I mess up."
He said he's not a "daily" or "constant" smoker, and that he doesn't smoke in front of his kids.
But he said that just like with alcoholics, it's something you "continually struggle with."
Obama said that's why the anti-smoking legislation is so important -- because he doesn't want "kids to go down that path to begin with."
