Barack Obama postpones Australia, Indonesia visit
Updated
The U-S President Barack Obama has scrapped next week's trip to Australia and Indonesia as he wages a last ditch political battle over his health care reforms. The White House has announced the Presidential visit has been re-scheduled to June and says Barack Obama "deeply regrets" the delay. The postponement comes as no surprise, because his Presidency is hanging in the balance.
Presenter: Kim Landers
Speakers: Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman; Darrell West, Vice-President, Governance Studies, Brookings Institute
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LANDERS: The warning signs were all there. President Barack Obama had already delayed his trip to Indonesia and Australia by three days and he'd cut short the Australian leg to just 24 hours.
But he let White House spokesman Robert Gibbs deliver the bad news.
GIBBS: The President telephoned the leader of Indonesia and will call the leader of Australia later this afternoon, and tell them that he must postpone his planned visits for a later date so that he can remain in Washington for this critical vote.
LANDERS: This was going to be President Obama's first foreign trip of the year. But it's fallen victim to an intense political battle over his signature domestic policy issue: the push to overhaul America's healthcare system.
GIBBS: The President greatly regrets the delay. Our international alliances are critical to America's security and economic progress. But passage of health insurance reform is of paramount importance.
LANDERS: The US House of Representatives is now going to vote on those healthcare reforms in the early hours of Monday morning, Australian time, just hours after Air Force One was due to take off. It's not the first time a president has cancelled an overseas trip. President Bill Clinton pulled out of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Malaysia.
Darrell West is the vice president of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He says it's no surprise that President Obama's trip has been postponed.
WEST: Australia should not take it personally because it really has nothing to do with Australia or even foreign policy. It's just a simple matter of, healthcare is the most important domestic initiative for the President and if he is not able to get that legislation passed it's going to have dramatic negative consequences for the rest of his presidency.
LANDERS: The White House is confident Democrats have the votes to pass the healthcare reforms. Darrell West believes it'll go down to the wire.
WEST: But obviously if the President is staying in the United States to keep lobbying, it means they're down to needing a handful more votes.
LANDERS: The White House says the President's trip to Australia and Indonesia will go ahead in June.
