On Monday, TRNS’s Victoria Jones asked Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest about the Senate’s cyber-security bill that the administration had supposedly been lobbying for intensely. Here’s the White House transcript of the exchange:
Q: On the cyber security bill coming up this week, which Senator McCain and some other senators watered down to some extent last week — well, quite a lot last week — there’s been some criticism in the Senate that the President hasn’t been involved enough in getting that bill moving forward. Do you accept that criticism?
MR. EARNEST: I don’t. I can tell you that while I’m not able to speak on the specifics of the piece of legislation that you’re talking about, reaching a coherent cyber security policy is something that the President believes is very important both to our economic security, but also our national security. But in terms of the details of the legislation that’s moving through Congress, I’m going to have to get some more information from my colleagues on the National Security Council. I actually would just suggest that you reach out to them directly and they can fill you in on this.
Today, the Senate rejected the measure in a 52-46 vote.
[audio:http://trns.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/20120730Earnest1.mp3|titles=20120730Earnest1]
