White House: Daily Show 'more substantive' than other media outlets

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday defended President Obama for having given some of his most detailed explanations of the American drone program on "The Daily Show" — a late-night comedy show — calling his interview with Jon Stewart "more substantive" than others during the campaign.

"When the president is asked a question, he answers it," Carney said when asked if "The Daily Show" was the proper platform for such a foreign policy discussion. "And I think it is worth going back to the interviews that the president gave during the campaign, and I think you would note that that interview was more substantive than many others."

In the October interview, the president pledged to “put a legal architecture in place” to “make sure that not only am I reined in, but any president is reined in” when deciding when a drone strike is allowable.

On Wednesday night, White House officials said they would turn over to Congress classified documents outlining the Justice Department's guidelines for when a drone strike against an American citizen with ties to terrorist organizations could occur.

That came two days after NBC News obtained a copy of an unclassified white paper outlining the specific circumstances under which the United States can conduct a lethal drone strike against an American citizen.

In the document, the Justice Department concludes that a lethal strike against a senior operational leader of al Qaeda — or an affiliated terrorist group — can occur if a three-part test is met: that a high-level American intelligence official has determined the individual poses an imminent threat, that capture is infeasible, and that the strike is conducted according to the laws of war governing use of force. It is the first glimpse at the official reasoning behind the legality of drone strikes against American citizens.

On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the president had told him he would also begin a more public discussion of the drone program and its ramifications.

But asked Thursday, Carney hedged, indicating that the president might not himself discuss the drone program going forward.

"As I’ve noted in recent days, because the president believes these are weighty matters and that the questions about how we move forward in our counterterrorism efforts are so important, and the need to build a legal structure that guides those efforts, that survives and -- in place beyond this administration," Carney said. "Because of his interest in this, senior administration officials — among them the Attorney General, John Brennan, counsel from the Defense Department and others — have given public remarks about this issue that have been part of the very conversation, the discussion in public that the president believes needs to be had. And that will continue. So I think that’s what Sen. Wyden was referring to."

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