Barack Obama: Guantánamo inmates can't remain in legal limbo – as it happened

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill sends this analysis of the president's answer on Syria, calling it a play for time:

Obama’s long answer on Syrian chemical weapons was basically a reiteration of what he has said before, until just before the end. He said that, provided it was established that chemical weapons had been used “with some certainty”, he would have to “rethink the range of options”. And this would mean looking at military options available to him at present on the shelf, drawn up at his request by the Pentagon.

This is an incremental shift, a threat to pursue a military option. It still leaves open what kind of options he has in mind: arming the rebels, sending in special forces to secure chemical weapons caches, bombing them, or something else.

It was the bare minimum he could say in the circumstances. He has to try to avoid being seen as weak in failing to respond to Assad so far but at the same time avoid making a firm military commitment. It is playing for time.

The president leaves the briefing room.

Oh wait he's back, to answer a last-minute question about Jason Collins, the first active NBA player to come out as gay.

Obama says he spoke with Collins yesterday.

"He seems like a terrific young man," Obama says. "And I told him I couldn't be prouder of him. One of the extraordinary measures of progress we've seen.. has been the recognition that the LGBT community deserves full equality, not just partial equality...

"Given the importance of sports in our society, [for Collins to say] 'I'm still 7 foot tall and can bang with Shaq and deliver a hard foul,' for I think a lot of young people out there who are gay or lesbian, who are struggling, to see a role model like that who's unafraid, I think it's a great thing."

"We should be able to come up with an appropriate compromise" on immigration reform, the president says. "We'll have to wait and see."

As for relations with Mexico, the president says "I'm very much looking forward to taking the trip down to Mexico to see the new President Pena Nieto."

He says the conversation about US-Mexico relations focuses on security but in fact the trade partnership is significant and a top priority for the United States.

"My impression is that the new president is serious about reform. He's already made some tough decisions... that will improve the economy..."

A question on immigration reform and US relations with Mexico.

Obama says "I've been impressed by the work that was done by the Group of 8 in the Senate... I think it meets the basic criteria that I laid out from the start."

Obama loves Rubio?

Obama says non-cooperative Republican governors make it harder to implement Obamacare.

I think it's harder. There's no doubt about it. We will implement it. We have a backup federal exchange if states aren't cooperating... [but] yes it puts more of a burden on us.

Next question is on Obamacare:

The president rejects the notion that his landmark health care legislation has become mired in implementation difficulties:

For people who already had health insurance, "a huge chunk" of the new law "has been implemented," he says. This group is already experiencing most of the benefits of the ACA even if they don't realize it, Obama says. "Insurance is more secure," he says: 26-yo dependents are covered and patients now receive free preventive care.

"This thing's already happened. Their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better than it was before. Full stop."

"All the implementation issues are related to 10-15% of Americans who don't have health insurance right now or who are on the individual market and spending exorbitant amount for coverage that isn't all that great," Obama says.

Setting up online marketplaces "is still a big complicated piece of business, and when you're doing it nationwide, relatively fast, and when you've got half of Congress determined to block implementation... and more than half of governors, Republican governors, who know it's bad politics for them – when you have that kind of situation, that makes it harder."

Obama says terrorist accusees have been tried in courts and punished in the US justice system. He lists the Times Square bomber and the Detroit Christmas would-be plane bomber, as well as a Somali member of Al-Shabaab.

All of them are in prison after being tried in civilian courts, Obama says.

He says he understands why Guantanamo was opened, but "We're now over a decade out. We should be wiser."

Guantanamo Bay question: There's a growing hunger strike. Is it a surprise that these prisoners would rather die than be detained indefinitely?

"It is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in Guantanamo.... I continue to believe that we've got to close Guanatanamo."

Huh?

This sequestration answer is by far the longest and most detailed. The president came loaded for bear on that one.

Q from ABC's Jonathan Karl: You're 100 days into second term. The gun control bill failed. Sequestration has settled in. Do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through Congress?

A: "If you put it that way Jonathan... Maybe I should just pack up and go home! As Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise might be a bit exaggerated at this point."

Obama says the government is divided and the practice in the Senate of needing 60 votes to pass legislation is part of the problem. But Obama says he remains confident that immigration reform "gets on my desk."

Question: Should Americans be worried when they go to big public events?

Obama: "Everybody can take a cue from Boston. You don't get a sense that anybody's intimidated when they go to Fenway park."

Boston shows, Obama says, the danger of self-radicalized individuals. Those are in some ways more difficult to prevent.

He says he's challenged his counter-terror team to figure out what more can be done to prevent or identify self-radicalization. "All of this has to be done in the context of our laws, due process," he says. Oh, good.

Question on Boston: Was this an intelligence sharing failure? What about Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's comparison of Boston and Benghazi [apparent] intelligence lapses?

Obama: "No, Mr. Graham is not right on this issue, although I'm sure it generated some headlines. I think what we saw in Boston was... every agency rallying around a city that had been attacked, identifying the perpetrators just hours after the scene had been examined... I think that all our law enforcement officials performed in an exemplary fashion after the bombing."

What we also know is that Russian intelligence had indicated the older brother and mother may have ties to extremists, the president says. The FBI investigated and concluded there were no signs of extremist activity.

Was there something that happened that triggered radicalization? Obama asks. Are there additional things that could've been done?

He says his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, is making what he portrays as a standard review to see how the intelligence work unfolded, what was shared and what wasn't.

Question: Does "game-changer" mean "military intervention?"

"By game-changer I mean we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us. Now as I said we are already invested" in the outcome in Syria, presumably meaning the removal of Assad.

The president said he asked the Pentagon last year to prepare a list of options available to the White House.

UPDATE: Read Ewen MacAskill's analysis of the president's answer on Syria here.

The president says the White House has evidence of chemical weapons use:

"What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria."

"We don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. We don't have a chain of custody that establishes [who used them]..."

"If we end up rushing to judgment without hard effective evidence... there may be objections even among some in the region sympathetic with the opposition... it's important for us to do this in a prudent way.

The president is speaking.

I am here to answer questions in honor of Ed Henry, as he wraps up his tenure as president of the WH correspondent's association, he says.

First question is on Syria and the "red line": Do you risk US credibility if you don't take military action?

"I think it's important to understand that for several years now what we've been seeing is a slowly unfolding disaster for the Syrian people. And we have not been simply bystander..." Obama says.

The only way to bring peace is for Assad to step down, he says.

All answers he's given before. What about his August 2012 warning that the use of chemical weapons would be a red line?

Obama reiterates that "the use of chemical weapons would be a game-changer."

He doesn't comment on whether that's happened.

As you can see we've embedded the White House video feed of the briefing room up top there. Any minute now we're told.

The White House announces the press conference has been postponed 15 minutes to 10.30am ET. A transparent ploy to appease journalists who have complained about short notice. Us, we're holding out for 10.45.

To fill the time folks are guessing what Obama will say. Will he talk about his outgoing transportation secretary?

What explains the short (two-hour) notice for this morning's press conference? Did the president wake up this morning and think to himself, "You know what I'd love to do today? Speak with my friends in the media"?

Or does the White House actually tip some reporters off early while keeping others in the dark right up until showtime?

Politico's Glenn Thrush is sure it's the latter. The White House senior communications adviser insists it's not.

Whom do you believe?

Good morning and welcome to our live blog coverage of a somewhat hastily announced presidential press conference to begin shortly. The occasion for the conference has not been disclosed.

President Obama last held a news conference on 1 March, after meeting about sequestration with Congressional leaders, according to presidential tracker Mark Knoller of CBS News.

This morning Obama may respond to pressure from Congress to intervene in the Syrian war after reports of chemical weapons use there. He may return to a discussion of sequestration, the automatic budget cuts that Congress proved last week it can fix when it needs to by passing a law to end mandatory air traffic control furloughs. A new Pew poll found that 34% of respondents blamed Republicans and 32% blamed Obama for air travel delays resulting from the furloughs.

As for public opinion on Syria, a new New York Times/CBS News poll [pdf] has found that 62% of respondents say the United States "has no responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria". The poll was conducted between 24 and 28 April, after the Obama administration announced it was investigating reports of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime.

With both houses of Congress in recess this week, the president has the Capitol Hill spotlight all to himself. We'll see how he uses it.