After a rough couple of weeks of scandal after scandal, President Obama fought back on Thursday with one of the longest and substantive speeches of his presidency, focusing on foreign policy and defense, where the president called for a clear new direction.
In the speech that lasted nearly an hour and included some impromptu heckling by a member of the audience, Obama called for a re-evaluation of the concept of “war on terror,” new regulations for unmanned drone strikes, the closing of Guantanamo and the release and/or trial of its current detainees.
It is the first major speech of his second term focusing on counterterrorism and already it is being called a significant shift in strategy.
Host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky spoke with Sam Marrero, an analyst at the National Defense University who attended the speech, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, and Gabor Rona, international legal director at Human Rights First, to discuss and analyze the speech.
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Interview with Mr. Rona:
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