Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-first-interview-after-election-obama-discusses-presidents-abilities-limits Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript President-elect Barack Obama's first post-election interview Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes" offered insight on his immediate plans, long-term goals and limits to his presidential power. Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker discusses the interview's revelations. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, over 24 million Americans watched Barack Obama on "60 Minutes" last night, his first television interview since winning the presidency. The president-elect spoke to CBS about national security, the struggling economy, and energy independence.Here are three excerpts.STEVE KROFT, correspondent, "60 Minutes": What have you been concentrating on this week?BARACK OBAMA, President-elect of the United States: A couple of things. Number one, I think it's important to get a national security team in place, because transition periods are potentially times of vulnerability to a terrorist attack. We want to make sure that there is as seamless a transition on national security as possible.Obviously, the economy, talking to top economic advisers about how we're going to create jobs, how we get the economy back on track, and what do we do in terms of some long-term issues, like energy and health care, and how do we sequence those things in a way that we can actually get things through Congress? STEVE KROFT: When the price of oil was at $147 a barrel, there were a lot of spirited and profitable discussions that were held on energy independence. Now you've got the price of oil under $60. BARACK OBAMA: Right. STEVE KROFT: Does doing something about energy — is it less important now than it was? BARACK OBAMA: It's more important. It may be a little harder politically, but it's more important. STEVE KROFT: Why? BARACK OBAMA: Well, because this has been our pattern, is we go from shock to trance. You know, oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down, and suddenly we act like it's not important, and we start, you know, filling up our SUVs again.And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. That's part of the addiction, all right, that has to be broken. Now's the time to break it. STEVE KROFT: There are a number of different things that you could do early pertaining to executive orders. BARACK OBAMA: Right. STEVE KROFT: One of them is to shut down Guantanamo Bay. Another is to change interrogation methods that are used by U.S. troops. Are those things that you plan to take early action on? BARACK OBAMA: Yes. I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I've said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm going to make sure that we don't torture.Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world. STEVE KROFT: Can you give us some sense of when you might start redeployments out of Iraq? BARACK OBAMA: Well, I've said during the campaign, and I've sticked to this commitment, that, as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops, particularly in light of the problems that we're having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up those efforts. GWEN IFILL: President-elect and Mrs. Obama also talked about what he's reading, what he's thinking, and how they're preparing for life in the White House.