BOEHNER: Well, good morning, everyone.

Later today, I'll join Democrat leaders from the House and Senate, along with Republican leaders, for a meeting down at the White House with President Obama.

The meeting comes, as we all know, as we near the 100-day mark. And I think if you look at the first 100 days you can sum it up pretty simply: spending, taxing, borrowing, and ducking the hard choices.

The Democrat policies, you know, like raising taxes on everyone in the middle of a recession, is going to hurt our economy and hurt jobs in America.

Americans, I think, are fed up with this unprecedented level of spending and borrowing that'll imprison the future for our kids and their kids. And I think what we saw at the tea parties last week was a demonstration of that.

The American people want us to work together, Democrats and Republicans, to -- to deal with the issues that -- that they're confronting every day.

We believe over the last three months we've offered a lot of better solutions than what has been proposed by the administration. Unfortunately, they've decided to go it alone, on a partisan basis, over these last three months.

But they're not done yet. When you look at the final touches that are being put on this cap-and-trade policy -- or, as I like to call it, cap-and-tax -- this is going to raise costs for every consumer in America and risk millions of American jobs.

And I think that you can also see they're drawing up their plans for their massive government-run health care plan.

I just think that these are policies that Americans do not support.

And, behind closed doors, they're -- they're continuing to put their finishing touches on their budget, which has unprecedented levels of spending, borrowing and deficits, trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see.

This Sunday marks Debt Day. That's the day in which this fiscal year that the revenue for the federal government will be gone. All the revenue for the -- for the -- this fiscal year will be spent as of Sunday.

So every new program, everything that happens after Sunday, through September 30th, the balance of this fiscal year, is going to have to be borrowed from our kids and grandkids.

This is the earliest Debt Day in history.

BOEHNER: And it's some four and a half months earlier than it was last year, when it was August the 5th.

And so, as -- at some point, the American people understand that we can't continue to spend and borrow at the rate that we're going.

This week, we saw the latest example of the administration's disarray when it comes to national security. Too often, I think we're seeing decisions made on politics, as opposed to what's in the best interest of the American people.

They've decided to close the detainee base down in Cuba, without having any plan for what they're going to do with those terrorists, who are hell bent on killing Americans.

And then last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques that was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their director of national intelligence and their CIA director.

And so, the bigger question is is what is the administration's overarching plan to take on the terrorist threat and to keep America safe?

I support the president's plan for what we're doing in Iraq. I support his plan for how we're dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan. But there's a larger question of how -- what is the overarching strategy for dealing with the threat of terrorism?

I told the speaker and my colleagues in January, when I handed her the gavel, that we would not just be the party of no, that if we had to say no, that we would offer better solutions.

And you here know that we've offered better solutions on a number of occasions on the floor of the House and, frankly, directly to the president. And as we get into these next few months, you'll see us continue to work to be the party of better solutions.

Our health care solutions group is continuing to do their work.

BOEHNER: Our energy solutions group continues to do its work.

My group on the savings and retirement security, we introduced a bill yesterday that would help Americans regain their savings and their retirement security.

But you'll continue to see us try to be the party of better solutions.

So with that, I'd be happy to answer your questions.

QUESTION: In regard to the so-called torture memos, do you think that President Obama should release the entire report, as Dick Cheney has asked?

BOEHNER: I think that there's clearly -- we received an awful lot of information as a result of -- of how we dealt with certain of those detainees that helped keep American safe.

And the concern about the release of the -- of the memos -- there are a number of issues. One is that I think it provides a chilling effect on our intelligence officers all around the world. I think that is -- it's unfortunate. I don't know how that's going to help keep America safe. Secondly, I think it only presents a small piece of the bigger story that should be released.

Obviously, we're going to hear an awful lot more about this in the coming weeks. But I'm hopeful that Americans will begin to understand, there is a bigger story here about what happened, what was done to keep America safe.

And the story isn't a partisan one. All of the activities that our country was engaged in were dealt with on a bipartisan basis. And I think you'll begin to see more and more of that in the weeks to come.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that, Mr. Boehner?

You talk about receiving a lot of information. There's also -- a lot of information was given out to Democrat leaders quite some time ago. And the (inaudible) surprise by the content (ph) of all of this on Capitol Hill (inaudible). Can you talk a little bit about those who may have known more but couldn't talk about...

(CROSSTALK) BOEHNER: Well, yesterday I saw a partial list of the number of members of the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, who were briefed on these interrogation methods and not a word was raised at the time, not one word.

And I think you're going to hear more and more about the bigger picture here, that what -- the war on terror after 9/11 was done in a bipartisan basis on lots of fronts. And that bigger story will be coming out.

QUESTION: One follow-up...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: McClatchy (ph) was reporting that the Bush administration was refusing the interrogation methods (inaudible) waterboarding (inaudible) link between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein and (inaudible). And they were doing that for partisan reasons.

So how can you say that it was -- you know, it was kind of a bipartisan...

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: If you look at the effort that was undertaken by our government after 9/11 in order to make America safe and help keep America safe, it was clear -- it's clear to me that it was done in a bipartisan way.

BOEHNER: And whether you're talking about the terrorist surveillance programs, whether you're talking about interrogation techniques, whether you're talking about the Treasury program to track this money, all of this information was downloaded to congressional leaders of both parties, with no objections being raised.

And so, at the end of the day, let's go back to the -- the even overarching question today: What is the administration's plan today to keep America safe? What is their plan to go after the terrorists?

You know, the world didn't suddenly become safer in January of 2009.

QUESTION: Mr. Boehner, on the issue of the members and the speaker (inaudible) briefed, is one of those that is now calling for an investigation. What do you make of that? (inaudible) members who did get briefed, how could they explain (inaudible)?

BOEHNER: You'll have to ask them. But from everything that I understand, she and other leaders were fully briefed on all of these interrogation techniques. There should -- there's nothing here that should surprise her.

QUESTION: Mr. Leader, do you think that Janet Napolitano should resign or do you think she should (inaudible)?

BOEHNER: I think Secretary Napolitano has an awful lot of explaining to do. When you've -- when you look at this report on right-wing extremism, it includes -- you know, it includes about two- thirds of Americans, who, you know, who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities.

BOEHNER: This is -- it's bizarre.

And I'm trying to -- I and my colleagues are trying to understand who wrote this report, why wasn't it edited or -- I just don't understand how our government can -- can look at the American people and say, "You're all potential terrorist threats."

QUESTION: But this is -- this is just one of a few different incidents where she has, you know, misspoken or -- or ticked off a lot of people, you could say.

And I'm wondering, is it -- you know, you have some conservatives who are saying, "We want you to tell the president face to face she should resign." I mean, will you do that?

BOEHNER: Oh, I'm sure this subject will come up at the White House today, and we'll see what happens then.

QUESTION: Leader a 100-days question. How would you -- how would you grade and describe the overall direction of this administration's first 100 days compared to some of the previous administrations?

BOEHNER: Well, considering that they came in, in the midst of this economic crisis, they clearly had a lot on their plate. I certainly want to be fair about this.

And -- and I think it's pretty clear to most of you that I've been pretty adamantly opposed to the way they've dealt with it.

Because at the end of the day what was -- the stimulus bill was supposed to be about jobs, jobs and jobs, and it turned into spending, spending and more spending.

When you look at the omnibus appropriation bill, you know, the president said: I'm not going to sign appropriation bills that have a lot of overspending in them and a lot of wasteful earmarks.

And here's an omnibus appropriation bill that was $30 billion over budget, had 9,000 earmarks in it, and the president got off by saying: Well, that was last year's business.

That's nonsense.

And then we've got this budget. You know, he was going to deal with entitlements and we're going to take on spending. And the fact is, we've got trillion-dollar deficits in his budget proposal for as far as the eye can see.

And so the grade would not be very good.

QUESTION: On the 100 days, looking back to early in that period when you and many others went into it thinking there would be a more bipartisan effort, do you remember at what point you realized that that wasn't really going to work, maybe at some point in the stimulus -- early on in the stimulus?

BOEHNER: I think when -- when we went to the White House and presented our better solutions for the stimulus bill and had really a rather long conversation about each of the pieces of our better solution, and then in several days the bill moved with not one of our ideas implemented. That's when it became clear to me that all of this post-partisan talk and working down the middle and working together was a ruse.

QUESTION: Wasn't it clear to the White House also at that point that there wouldn't be any Republicans voting for the stimulus bill in the House? That's what they say as they took the NOL (ph) provision and other things that you all had wanted out because (inaudible) any votes for the bill.

BOEHNER: Well, now, at that point there was not a bill yet. We had not even seen the bill.

There was plenty of opportunity to incorporate some of our ideas, all of our ideas.

Listen, our package of ideas cost half as much as theirs but would have created twice as many jobs -- and they didn't even consider it.

But shortly after that it became clear to us that -- they didn't want to work with us.

Now, listen, today we've got an opportunity. We're nearing the 100-day mark. And, frankly, we continued to want to work with the administration, work with our Democrat colleagues to create bipartisan solutions for the problems that the American people face.

So maybe we can have a new beginning today.

QUESTION: Leader Boehner, I just want to come back to what you were talking about, keeping America safe. You mentioned that the release of the memos had a chilling effect on the -- on the intelligence community, perhaps sharing intelligence, et cetera.

What do you think should be the U.S. policy on interrogation in terms of what is legal and what is not legal?

And on the investigation side, do you think an investigation should going forward -- you know, setting aside how much, who knew what and when. And what -- and how far should that investigation go in terms of prosecutions and so on and so forth, given what the president has expressed?

BOEHNER: Well, the president has expressed a lot of different things on this subject. I'm quite sure we know where today he might stand on this issue.

I don't -- I don't see a lot of value in looking back. You know, the American people are struggling in a very difficult economy. They're trying to get a job or worried about keeping their job. And this is another side show here in Washington. And I think at the end of the day, what Americans want is they want to see an economy that's better, that'll help them get a job and help them hold on to their job.

When it comes to what our interrogation techniques are going to be or should be, I -- I'm not going to disclose, nor should anyone have a conversation about what those techniques ought to be. It's -- it's inappropriate. All it does is give our enemies more information about us than they need.

QUESTION: Do you think it's inappropriate to have a public conversation about the techniques we use in order to...

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: Oh, I think that conversation has occurred. The president has made decisions, and we should move forward.

QUESTION: But you think -- you just said it was inappropriate. You don't think...

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: I don't -- I don't see that we're going to learn anything that -- that clearly members in a bipartisan way, the congressional leaders, didn't already know about these techniques.

QUESTION: Shouldn't the American public know (inaudible)? Shouldn't they have an idea?

BOEHNER: Well, listen, I -- I take a deep breath here.

(LAUGHTER)

We're talking about terrorists who are hell bent on killing Americans. All right?

And -- and 3,000 of our fellow citizens died. And there were techniques that were used by Americans and our allies around the world that helped keep America safe.

I'm not going to allow our professionals and our allies around the world to get denigrated because they were working to keep our country safe.