Barack Obama

I made it clear that it is both in the country's interest and, ultimately, in the financial industry's interest to have updated rules of the road to prevent abuse and excess.

We do share is a commitment to resolve these issues through dialogue and negotiations as opposed to through violence.

Ultimately, in this country, we rise and fall together, banks and small businesses, consumers and large corporations.

We want to strengthen Lebanese Armed Forces so that they can help to secure the sovereignty and territory of Lebanon.

I urged these institutions here today to go back and take a third and fourth look about how they are operating when it comes to small-business and medium-sized business lending.

I want to be clear that I emphasized to him our concerns about the extensive arms that are smuggled into Lebanon that potentially serve as a threat to Israel.

Today, the President will meet with members of the financial services industry to discuss economic recovery, small business lending, improving lending practices for homeowners and the Administration's plans for financial reform.

If they wish to fight commonsense consumer protections, that's a fight I'm more than willing to have.

We expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.

I think there is no doubt about it.

I do not make this decision lightly.

I think it is going to pass out of the Senate before Christmas.

I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street.

To all Americans, from our family to yours, merry Christmas, and God bless you.

Seven presidents have tried to reform a health-care system that everyone acknowledges is broken.

Because I think it's the right thing to do, and that's my job.

Well, look, as commander in chief, obviously I reserve the option to do what I think is going to be best for the American people at that point in time and our national security.

The answer is that, in the absence of a deadline, the message we are sending to the Afghans is, it's business as usual, this is an open-ended commitment.

What you have here between the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan is the epicenter of violent extremism directed against the West and directed against the United States.

I think that what you may be referring to is the fact that, on the one hand, I said, we're going to be sending in additional troops now.

Our fervent wish remains, this season and all seasons, let there be peace on Earth.

Yes. That's why it won't happen again.

It's why this celebration tonight benefits the Children's National Medical Center and all the children whose lives they touch and they save.

We are our brother's keeper; that we are our sister's keeper.

These are all commonsense reforms that respond to the obvious problems exposed by the financial crisis.