Obama Pool Report on Meeting With Economic Advisers

Subject: Press Pool report

PEOTUS met with his economic advisors at the transition office this afternoon.

Participants included Rahm Emanuel, Timothy Geithner, Christina Romer, Melody Barnes, Carol Browner, Peter Orszag, Lawrence Summers, Tom Daschle and Ron Klain.

After their meeting, as the group sat clustered around a small conference table, Obama took a few questions from the press.

He started by calling for a "swift" and "bold" response to the economic crisis.

Here are some direct quotes from the Obama statement and q and a:

On the economic stimulus plan:

"We have to act and we have to act now . . . We have to act boldly and swiftly . . . We can not delay. This is an American problem."

"We will be rolling this plan out to the American people . . . The American people have a right to know what is being done."

In response to a question, he said the tax cuts in his plan are something he has talked about all along and are not a political ploy to get his plan passed.

"Some of you were following the campaign . . . The last two years I've been talking about tax cuts . . . It's been the centerpiece of my economic  plan for the past two years."

Fuller transcript to come.

Obama then headed to the Capitol, where he met with Sen Harry Reid and VP-elect Joe Biden in Reid's office. Obama told reporters that Reid is a valuable ally, but ignored questions being asked about the seating of former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris as the senator from Illinois.

He then met with a bi-partisan group of lawmakers in the LBJ room, among them Dick Durbin, John Boehner, Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.