Q5: A question about violence in Mexico

Obama reminds the audience that the fed is beefing up border surveillance of Mexico. He says the federal gov't "will continue to monitor the situation." He says the US needs to do to keep illegal guns and cash out of Mexico. Totally tripping over his words again...

Q6: Veteran's Affairs: Obama says he's not making any cuts on veteran's benefits. If anything, the VA is going to be getting more $ than they have in the past. However, Obama does want to reform the military's procurement system in order to save money. Basically, he's saying the DoD is having project management issues...

Side note: Obama has used the phrase "a whole host" about 30 times now...

Q7: Why does Andrew Cuomo seem angrier than you about AIG? Is your budget just going to be the next administation's problem?
Obama gets defensive, saying if the economic crisis were easy to solve it would done by now. He says the best way for the gov't to reduce spending is to reduce healthcare costs. I bet W. is rolling over right now happy that he didn't have to deliver on his '04 campaign platform on entitlement reform..

He tries to blow off the AIG question, but the journalist doesn't let him. Obama angrily says he didn't speak out right away because he likes to know what he's talking about before he speaks.

Q8: The global economy
Obama says every country needs to take the steps necessary to fix the global economy, and names Australia's Rudd and Britain's Brown as his ideological allies.