CHUCK TODD: You talk about a choice election this fall. Are you prepared for the fact that now that means your policy is a referendum on you and your policy and that the voters may say, "You know what? We're putting the Republicans in charge." What'd that tell you?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well--
CHUCK TODD: What message does that send?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, first of all, we've got a long ways before the election, number one.
CHUCK TODD: You disagree with--
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Num-- number two--
CHUCK TODD: --in play?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Number two, we got-- number two-- this is going to be a choice between the policies that got us into this mess and my policies that are getting us out of this mess. And I think if you look at the vast majority of Americans, even those who are dissatisfied with the pace of progress, they'll say that the policies that got us into this mess we can't go back to.
They understand that because they remember that even before the financial crisis wages were flatlined. Jobs were moving overseas. And so now when they look at Holland, Michigan, and they say instead of jobs moving overseas we're seeing jobs move from South Korea here to the United States, that's something-- that gives them a sense of a future, a vision in which America's strong. It's competing. We are producing. We're not just consuming. That's the kind of future I think Americans want.
CHUCK TODD: You're prepared for November to be (UNINTEL) referendum on your policies and this presidency?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Chuck, you're not listening to me. What I'm prepared is to be held accountable for the policies that I've put in place. But they-- Americans don't have selective memory. They're gonna remember the policies that got us into this mess as well. And they sure as heck don't wanna go back to those.
