{"id":514,"date":"2014-08-31T16:41:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T20:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/press.nbcnews.com\/?p=514"},"modified":"2014-08-31T16:41:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T20:41:35","slug":"meet-the-press-83114-sen-feinstein-on-isis-putin-foreign-political-panels-learn-more-about-chuck-todd-from-his-friends-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com\/nbcnews\/2014\/08\/31\/meet-the-press-83114-sen-feinstein-on-isis-putin-foreign-political-panels-learn-more-about-chuck-todd-from-his-friends-family\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMeet the Press\u201d 8\/31\/14: Sen. Feinstein on ISIS & Putin, Foreign + Political Panels + Learn More About Chuck Todd from His Friends & Family"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gen. Zinni: \u201cI wish we were not so paranoid about boots on the ground.\u201d Sen. Feinstein on ISIS\u2019 latest offensive: \u201cI believe the goal is Baghdad.\u201d Amb. McFaul: \u201cI think that a deal is ready to be made. But Putin has to want to negotiate.\u201d Savannah Guthrie on Chuck: \u201cIf you look up, “Political junkie” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Chuck Todd and his goatee.\u201d Andrea Mitchell on Chuck: \u201cHe’s relentless. He’s like a dog with a bone\u201d<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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AUGUST 31, 2014 — Today\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d featured an exclusive interview with Sen. Dianne Feinstein <\/strong>(D-CA); a foreign affairs discussion with Gen. Anthony Zinni<\/strong> (Ret.), Fmr. Commander in Chief, US Central Command, Michele Flournoy<\/strong>, Fmr. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,\u00a0Michael Leiter<\/strong>, Fmr. Director of National Counterterrorism Center and Michael McFaul<\/strong>, Fmr. US Ambassador to Russia; a political roundtable with Wes Moore<\/strong>, Afghanistan War Veteran,\u00a0Dan Henninger<\/strong>,\u00a0 Wall Street Journal Deputy Editorial Page Director, \u00a0Ruth Marcus<\/strong>, Washington Post Columnist, Doris Kearns Goodwin<\/strong>, Presidential Historian. NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel<\/strong> provided an update on the threat of ISIS and NBC News Foreign Correspondent Jim Maceda<\/strong> shared the latest on the unrest in the Ukraine. Plus, Chuck Todd\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong>friends and family reveal more about the next moderator of \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell<\/strong> served as guest moderator.<\/p>\n

Below are highlights, video, and a rush transcript of today\u2019s program. All content will be available online at MeetThePressNBC.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein calls for \u201cdirect discussions\u201d with Putin and believes that sanctions won\u2019t work in the short term.<\/strong><\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nI want to ask you about Vladimir Putin because there is a lot of talk that Putin cannot be stopped, and that he has moved with tanks, with artillery, with troops across the border.\u00a0 We’re calling it an incursion, not an invasion.\u00a0 Is there anything we can do to stop Vladimir Putin?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nI think there ought to be direct discussions with Vladimir Putin.\u00a0 I think he is the singular figure in Russia.\u00a0 Russia is a huge country.\u00a0 The Ukraine is a large country.\u00a0 The Crimea is gone.\u00a0 I think there ought to be steps taken to send people, to talk with him, to have our secretary of State talk with him personally.<\/p>\n

I think this is deeply personal with him.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 And I think he’s calling the shots himself.\u00a0 And he’s enjoying intensely high favorability in his country.\u00a0 People say, “Well, just wait till the sanctions bite and the economy slips.”\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 I think if Russians follow him, and up to date, they are following him, the Russians are very brave and very long-suffering. And they will tough out any economic difficulty.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd you don’t see sanctions working in the short term?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nI’m not sure they will work. I’m not sure that shakes the people that much.\u00a0 And it’s the people that have to be spoken to. And it’s their solitary leader, Vladimir Putin, who has to be spoken to.<\/p>\n

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Gen Anthony Zinni (Ret.) on the military plan to combat ISIS: the need for boots on the ground and a strong coalition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

ANTHONY ZINNI:
\nThe boots on the ground question’s always the toughest one.\u00a0 I wish we were not so paranoid about boots on the ground.\u00a0 We can’t even define it.\u00a0 There’s going to have to be Special Operations Forces.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to have to be people that can in and adjust air and fires and advisors to be with these units.<\/p>\n

And very simply put, if you put two brigades on the ground right now of U.S. forces, they would push ISIS back into Syria in a heartbeat.\u00a0 And probably take less time, less cost and, I think in the long run, fewer casualties overall.\u00a0 Let me say one thing.\u00a0 The important piece of this is not just the military plan.\u00a0 That’s not a strategy in and of itself.<\/p>\n

We need to rebuild the coalition in the region.\u00a0 It is fractured ever since we first went into Iraq.\u00a0 We have allies out there that no longer trust us, believe in us, and think we can get it done or have the leadership.\u00a0 We need to bring together a coalition of outsiders, Europeans and others, like we did in the first Gulf War.<\/p>\n

I don’t know why we’re waiting for a U.N. Resolution to condemn ISIS and authorize use of force, which makes this easier.\u00a0 So all the other pieces that Michele talked about that are starting, we don’t have the time for this kind of deliberation.\u00a0 There is a battle of the narrative going on, and we’re losing it.<\/p>\n

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Michele Flournoy sees the need to enhance military assistance to Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MICHELE FLOURNOY:
\nI think bolstering N.A.T.O.’s posture along the N.A.T.O. frontier is very important.\u00a0 But more significantly, I think we need to be having a serious discussion about enhancing the military assistance we provide to Ukraine.\u00a0 We cannot afford to see them be trumped on the battlefield and to see them lose even more territory in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

At the same time, turning up the sanctions– and opening a channel of dialogue with Putin, it’s very disturbing that we aren’t engaging him more fully.\u00a0 I’m not suggesting that will be immediately productive.\u00a0 But you’ve got to have some kind of dialogue to try, over time, to figure out how is he going to come out of the tree.\u00a0 How is he going to come out of this situation that he’s created for himself?<\/p>\n

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Michael McFaul on a resolution between Russia and the Ukraine: \u201cI think a deal is ready to be made.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

AMB. MICHAEL MCFAUL:
\nBut I think that a deal is ready to be made.\u00a0 But Putin has to want to negotiate.\u00a0 And so far, I think it’s very clear, that he doesn’t want to negotiate.\u00a0 He thinks he can advance his interests through military means on the ground.<\/p>\n

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Richard Engel says the rise of ISIS was \u201cincredibly predictable.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nThe build-up of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was incredibly predictable, Andrea.\u00a0 We’ve reported about it.\u00a0 Reporters risk their lives going into Syria to talk about this buildup of– extremists in the country.\u00a0 Yet, nothing seemed to have been done.\u00a0 And now we have a very serious situation.<\/p>\n

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Chuck Todd describes his frustration on the lack of participation in politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nIt is.\u00a0 And I’m frustrated by the fact that people are not participating.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nYeah.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nAnd that’s why I’m really upset.\u00a0 It’s sort of like, “Okay, you guys have really broken it.”\u00a0 I’ve had plenty of advice or critics that say, “You and the media have helped break this.”\u00a0 But, you know, that’s the part of this, I think, that is problematic is that people aren’t participating.\u00a0 So that’s one of our jobs is sort of make it big, make it important enough so people realize they have to participate.\u00a0 If you have problems with Washington, look in the mirror.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd participation, making people care, the passion that you bring to all of this, it’s all very exciting.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nLook, I do.\u00a0 It is fun.\u00a0 I’ll admit.\u00a0 Politics can be fun, too.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd you have the last word.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nAll right.\u00a0 Well, if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.\u00a0 I’ll see you next week.<\/p>\n

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VIDEO<\/p>\n

Sen. Feinstein on MTP: ‘I Believe the Goal Is Baghdad’<\/p>\n

Senate Intelligence Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein details ISIS\u2019 latest offensive in Iraq.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1wWFfbo<\/a><\/p>\n

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Feinstein: ISIS Is ‘a Major Varsity Team’<\/p>\n

Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein says ISIS is a serious threat.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/Y3vtoF<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sen. Feinstein on MTP: Not Sure Russian Sanctions Will Work<\/p>\n

Intelligence Chair says people of Russia will not break under economic sanctions, will turn to Putin.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1ph2C5A<\/a><\/p>\n

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Will U.S. Fight ISIS in Syria?<\/p>\n

Richard Engel explains the president\u2019s reluctance to take the fight against ISIS beyond Iraq\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1sT0Jjb<\/a><\/p>\n

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Michael Leiter on MTP: Al-Nusra Front Just As Dangerous As ISIS<\/p>\n

NBC News analyst says other organizations within Syria could pose a greater threat to the U.S.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/Z3s3ma<\/a><\/p>\n

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Gen. Zinni: ‘I Wish We weren\u2019t So Paranoid’ About Ground Troops<\/p>\n

Retired general says \u201cboots on the ground\u201d would push ISIS back into Syria.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1nN62gG<\/a><\/p>\n

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Putin Striving for a ‘New Russia’?<\/p>\n

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Jim Maceda reports on Russia\u2019s incursion into Ukraine and President Putin\u2019s relationship with President Obama.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1qSi6yf<\/a><\/p>\n

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Michael McFaul: Putin Escalating Conflict Off the Battlefield As Well<\/p>\n

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Fmr. Ambassador to Russia says Russia is making moves to support separatists politically in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1qgE8hY<\/a><\/p>\n

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Is Putin Testing American Leadership?<\/p>\n

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Retired General Anthony Zinni, says American leadership should be \u201cdemonstrated clearly and decisively.\u201d<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1sT0NiT<\/a><\/p>\n

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How Is President Obama Handling ISIS?<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s roundtable debates the president\u2019s handling of the crisis in Iraq.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1ovV0fg<\/a><\/p>\n

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Wes Moore: ISIS ‘Is a Global Issue’<\/p>\n

Afghanistan veteran and TV host warns caution could only help ISIS long-term.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1pwTWho<\/a><\/p>\n

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Is President Obama\u2019s Immigration Policy ‘Herky-Jerky’?<\/p>\n

Ruth Marcus and the roundtable discusses the politics behind President Obama\u2019s apparent mixed signals on immigration.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1lCQOja<\/a><\/p>\n

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Doris Kearns Goodwin: Promises Hurt Obama in Immigration Debate<\/p>\n

The presidential historian says executive orders can have major impact but Obama promised action too early.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1pYPYxp<\/a><\/p>\n

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Ruth Marcus: ‘Weight Is the New Rape’<\/p>\n

Columnist on why a women’s figure should be off the table in Congress in wake of Gillibrand allegations.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1qsxpjT<\/a><\/p>\n

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Should Men Be More Active in Sexism Conversation?<\/p>\n

Wes Moore says men have an obligation to be a part of improving work environments.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1ug1y6C<\/a><\/p>\n

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A New Chapter for Meet the Press<\/p>\n

A revealing look at Chuck Todd, the new moderator of MTP, from those who know him best.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1tQkfiL<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chuck Todd on MTP: Don\u2019t Hate Politics, Hate Bad Politicians<\/p>\n

New moderator of Meet the Press explains why politics should be everyone\u2019s passion.http:\/\/nbcnews.to\/1qgEe9h<\/a><\/p>\n

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Below is a RUSH transcript of this morning\u2019s broadcast — mandatory attribution to NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d A final transcript of the program will be available at www.MeetThePressNBC.com.<\/p>\n

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MEET THE PRESS — SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nGood morning. Huge challenges for President Obama this holiday weekend from enemies old and new. The president admits he does not yet have a strategy for defeating ISIS as Britain raises its terror threat level. I\u2019ll ask Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the threat posed to the U.S. and whether the president\u2019s recent comments show weakness.<\/p>\n

And, facing down an old adversary: Ukraine\u2019s president says his country is near full-scale war with Russia. How far will Vladimir Putin go, and can President Obama and the allies get him to back down? Plus, a new era on Meet the Press, a revealing look at Chuck Todd from those who know him best.<\/p>\n

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ANNOUNCER:
\nFrom NBC News in Washington, this is Meet the Press.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd good morning, two major military flashpoints this Sunday, both with strong consequences for the U.S. After fierce fighting, Iraqi troops have reached a town in northern Iraq that was under siege by ISIS militants. Overnight, the U.S. launched airstrikes against ISIS fighters near the town and dropped\u00a0 humanitarian aid. An estimated 15,000 people had been trapped in the siege.<\/p>\n

And in the Ukraine crisis, the European Union is now giving Russia an ultimatum: Change course in one week or face tougher sanctions. But this morning, a defiant President Putin calling for talks on statehood for eastern Ukraine and saying it is impossible to predict when the crisis will end. So how should President Obama respond to both crises? I\u2019m joined by Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nSenator Feinstein, welcome.\u00a0 Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nThank you very much.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWe’re approaching another 9\/11 anniversary and we’ve heard of this dire warning, Great Britain has raised its security level.\u00a0 How serious is the ISIS threat, the threat from ISIS and other related groups to the American homeland?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, I believe it’s potentially very serious.\u00a0 They have announced that they don’t intend to stop.\u00a0 They have announced that they will come after us if they can, that they will quote, “spill our blood.”\u00a0 They have indeed done that by beheading Mr. Foley and who knows how many others that are unknown.\u00a0 This is a vicious, vicious movement.\u00a0 And it has to be confronted.\u00a0 I think Senator McCain and Senator Graham really laid the basis in Saturday’s New York Times in an op-ed for confrontation.\u00a0 And I happen to agree with what they said.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThen is the president wrong to signal indecision by saying that we still don’t have a strategy against ISIS?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, in that same newspaper, down below the McCain op-ed is one by our secretary of State, John Kerry.\u00a0 And in that, he does in fact lay out a strategy, which begins next week at the NATO Conference, NATO Summit, talking with our NATO allies.\u00a0 The United States taking over the presidency of the Security Council in September.\u00a0 And the beginning of a strategy to put together a coalition of the willing, if you will. I mean, it’s a savage movement.
\nAnd in this case, they have money, they have direction, they have moved rapidly to cross the Syrian border, take over Mosul, and then give a sermon from the mosque in Mosul.\u00a0 They took over the Mosul dam, well, that’s changing now, but I believe the goal is Baghdad.\u00a0 And I think it’s very, very serious.\u00a0 And we have to have a strategy to deal with it in Syria and in Iraq, in this new caliphate, and to prevent that caliphate from expanding.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThe fact is, they have been on the march now for months, if not years.\u00a0 So why does the president still say we don’t have a strategy yet?\u00a0 Doesn’t that project weakness from the White House?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, I mean, I know what you want me to say.\u00a0 But I’m not going to say it in that sense.\u00a0 I think I’ve learned one thing about this president, and that is he’s very cautious.\u00a0 Maybe in this instance, too cautious.\u00a0 I do know that the military, I know that the State Department, I know that others have been putting plans together.
\nAnd so hopefully, those plans will coalesce into a strategy that can encourage that coalition from Arab nations, Jordan’s at jeopardy, Lebanon’s at jeopardy, the UAA and other countries are in jeopardy.\u00a0 So there is good reason for people to come together now and begin to approach this as a very real threat, that it in fact is.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThe president back in January told The New Yorker magazine, David Remnick, that ISIS is the JV team.\u00a0 That was clearly wrong.<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, I think it’s wrong too.\u00a0 I think it’s a major varsity team.\u00a0 And if you want to use those kinds of monikers.\u00a0 But I see nothing that compares with its viciousness.\u00a0 I’ve been on the intelligence committee now since before 9\/11, and I’ve watched this evolution of non-state actors into world terror very carefully and closely.
\nAnd this is really the first group that has the wherewithal in terms of financing, the fighting machine in terms of a structure– a heavy equipment, heave explosives, the ability to move quickly, I mean, they crossed the border into Iraq before we even knew it happened. \u00a0So this is a group of people who are extraordinarily dangerous.\u00a0 And they’ll kill with abandon.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWas that an intelligence failure, or was the White House not listening to the community?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, I think our intelligence in Syria has not been good for a number of reasons.\u00a0 But I do know that the breaking through of the borders was not known ahead of time.\u00a0 I think a lot of that hopefully has been repaired now.\u00a0 And I think the intelligence community is well aware of the need to get up and running in a major way, both in Iraq and in Syria.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd do we have to go to Syria to get at the root of ISIS?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nWell, I don’t know exactly who was where when.\u00a0 But there’s no question, but they have a home-base in Syria.\u00a0 They have expanded that base now into Iraq.\u00a0 That part of it is a fighting base.\u00a0 And it is devoted to taking over cities.\u00a0 It’s failed to hold the Mosul Dam, thank God.\u00a0 I believe it is on its way to Baghdad.\u00a0 And I believe that they will try to attack our embassy from the West, which is a Sunni area, where I believe they are infiltrating now.
\nSo I think this is extraordinarily serious and I think the president is wise in this sense.\u00a0 What I understand, he’s trying to do, is give an opportunity for this new Iraqi government, new because of a new prime minister, al-Abadi, to begin to make the moves which offer an alternative to the Sunni people in his country.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nI want to ask you about Vladimir Putin because there is a lot of talk that Putin cannot be stopped, and that he has moved with tanks, with artillery, with troops across the border.\u00a0 We’re calling it an incursion, not an invasion.\u00a0 Is there anything we can do to stop Vladimir Putin?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nI think there ought to be direct discussions with Vladimir Putin.\u00a0 I think he is the singular figure in Russia.\u00a0 Russia is a huge country.\u00a0 The Ukraine is a large country.\u00a0 The Crimea is gone.\u00a0 I think there ought to be steps taken to send people, to talk with him, to have our secretary of State talk with him personally.
\nI think this is deeply personal with him.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 And I think he’s calling the shots himself.\u00a0 And he’s enjoying intensely high favorability in his country.\u00a0 People say, “Well, just wait till the sanctions bite and the economy slips.”\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 I think if Russians follow him, and up to date, they are following him, the Russians are very brave and very long-suffering. And they will tough out any economic difficulty.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd you don’t see sanctions working in the short term?<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nI’m not sure they will work. I’m not sure that shakes the people that much.\u00a0 And it’s the people that have to be spoken to. And it’s their solitary leader, Vladimir Putin, who has to be spoken to.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nDianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nThank you.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThanks for being with us on Meet the Press.<\/p>\n

DIANNE FEINSTEIN:
\nYou’re welcome, thank you.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd for more now on the ISIS threat.\u00a0 I’m joined by our chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, who has really been studying ISIS for quite some time in the field.\u00a0 And Richard, what about the President’s reluctance to take the fight against ISIS to Syria?<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nWell, I speak to military commanders.\u00a0 I speak to former officials.\u00a0 And they are apoplectic.\u00a0 They think that this is a clear and present danger.\u00a0 They think something needs to be done.\u00a0 One official said that this was a Freudian slip, that it shows how the United States does not have a policy to deal with Syria.<\/p>\n

Even when you have ISIS, which has effectively become a terrorist army, roughly 20,000 strong, about half of them foreign fighters, and incredibly well armed after two major weapons hauls.\u00a0 The first when ISIS took over the city of Mosul and the Iraqi Army, the U.S.-trained Iraqi Army, disgraced itself by not fighting.\u00a0 And the second just last week, when ISIS took over a Syrian air base.<\/p>\n

(BEGIN TAPE)<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nLike it or not, the U.S. may now be forced to take action against ISIS, not only in Iraq, but also, in Syria.\u00a0 This, critics say, could mean helping the Assad regime, which the president said had to go.<\/p>\n

RYAN CROCKER:
\nIf we think that we are not in their sights, we are delusional.\u00a0 They have the same agenda that al-Qaeda has.<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nSo what has the U.S. done about it?\u00a0 To a large degree, the administration’s policy has been to ignore Syria, ignore it until the horrors there become too barbaric to stomach.\u00a0 (YELLING)\u00a0 A year ago, that was a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus, when Washington blamed the regime for gassing over 1,000 to death, including hundreds of children.\u00a0 The Syrian regime crossed, leapt over, in fact, the President’s red line.<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nThis menace must be confronted.\u00a0 I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nInstead, without Congressional support, the bombings against Assad never came.\u00a0 Neither did large-scale support for the Syrian opposition.\u00a0 In retrospect, the bombings probably would have been too little, too late to have made things better in Syria.\u00a0 ISIS was already on the rise.\u00a0 Weapons given to the opposition would very likely have ended up in the hands of radicals.<\/p>\n

Then, after empty threats and empty promises, the administration turned away from Syria again, for another year.\u00a0 (CROWD NOISE)\u00a0 Until ISIS shocked the world by occupying large parts of Iraq and declaring a new state, the Islamic state, the caliphate.\u00a0 The U.S. is now flying surveillance missions over Syria, looking for targets it can attack from the air.<\/p>\n

RYAN CROCKER:
\nThis is not mission creep.\u00a0 This is establishing a vital mission for American security.\u00a0 And we need to do it, we need to do it yesterday.<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nThe U.S. risk, falling into what one former official called Bashar al-Assad’s trap.\u00a0 Assad’s regime helped ISIS grow by attacking other opposition forces and rarely targeting ISIS.\u00a0 Assad waited patiently until ISIS pushed out almost all other more moderate groups, and is now telling the world that he’s fighting a just war against terrorism.\u00a0 If the U.S. starts bombing ISIS in Syria, it will be helping the Syrian regime, in effect, pulling weeds out of Assad’s garden, which he allowed to grow, but which have now become a global threat.<\/p>\n

(END TAPE)<\/p>\n

RICHARD ENGEL:
\nThe build-up of ISIS in Iraq and Syria was incredibly predictable, Andrea.\u00a0 We’ve reported about it.\u00a0 Reporters risk their lives going into Syria to talk about this buildup of– extremists in the country.\u00a0 Yet, nothing seemed to have been done.\u00a0 And now we have a very serious situation.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nIndeed.\u00a0 Thank you so much, Richard Engel.\u00a0 And for more on the military options for taking on ISIS, I’m joined by Michael Leiter, NBC national security analysts, who served as director of The National Counter-terrorism Center, Michele Flournoy, who served as under secretary of defense for policy in President Obama’s first term, and she’s now executive director at The Center for New American Security, and General Anthony Zinni, our former commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, and special envoy to the Middle East.\u00a0 His new book is Before the First Shots Are Fired:\u00a0 How America Can Win or Lost Off the Battlefield.\u00a0 Welcome all.\u00a0 Thanks so much.\u00a0 General Zinni, first to you.\u00a0 What we’ve seen is Dianne Feinstein just saying that the president is perhaps too cautious in this instance.\u00a0 Agreed?<\/p>\n

ANTHONY ZINNI:
\nI agree with Senator Feinstein.\u00a0 This ISIS has committed atrocities, potential genocide.\u00a0 That’s unacceptable.\u00a0 And I think that we shouldn’t be so cautious.\u00a0 We should blunt them before their recruiting really grows, before they gain more territory.
\nBut I would say one thing that’s key to this, a lesson we should have learned in Afghanistan, even back to Vietnam, you can’t give sanctuary to a potential enemy.\u00a0 We will have to go to Syria.\u00a0 If we sort of honor that border, unfortunately, they’ll be allowed to rebuild, much as AQY al-Qaeda in Iraq morphed into this ISIS.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nMichael Leiter, you led The Counter-terrorism Center during very, very difficult times after 9-11 in two administrations.\u00a0 Right now, the Brits have raised their threat level to the second highest threat level in Great Britain.\u00a0 The U.S. has not.\u00a0 What is the threat to the American homeland from ISIS?<\/p>\n

MICHAEL LEITER:
\nI think the threat from ISIS is growing.\u00a0 And the threat from other organizations within Syria is probably even higher than it is from ISIS.\u00a0 What the British threat level increase really means is they don’t know what’s going on in their country.\u00a0 They don’t see something specific, but they know there’ve been many people from the West traveling to Syria and Iraq, and they’re not sure where they are and what they’re doing.\u00a0 The U.S. doesn’t have that same scale of problem, but we do still have that issue.\u00a0 And it’s really got people scared.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd when you say, “Others,” you mean al-Nusra and other very militant groups.<\/p>\n

MICHAEL LEITER:
\nThat’s right.\u00a0 I mean ISIS is in the news now.\u00a0 But the al-Nusra front, which is affiliated directly with al-Qaeda, same ideology, and in some ways, more focused on attacking the West than ISIS has been in the past, but I expect ISIS is also going very much in that direction.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nMichele Flournoy, I wanted to play for you a little bit of what Chuck Hagel said a week before the president issued his caution warning.\u00a0 Let’s watch.<\/p>\n

CHUCK HAGEL:
\nThey are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else.\u00a0 This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThe president seemed to be almost speaking to his own national security cabinet.\u00a0 You’ve served in the situation room.\u00a0 You’ve been in the national security team with this president.\u00a0 He seemed to be saying to Chuck Hagel and to John Kerry and others, “Not so fast.”<\/p>\n

MICHELE FLOURNOY:
\nI think we have, in President Obama, a very deliberative decision maker.\u00a0 He wants to take his time to get it right.\u00a0 And yet, I think what you heard Secretary Hagel reflecting is that growing sense of urgency about the nature of the threat.\u00a0 But the truth is you watch what the administration’s doing, they are putting the pieces of a strategy together.
\nYou have John Kerry going to the region to consult with partners and allies, start to bring them on board to a common approach.\u00a0 The have the intelligence mission now flying over Syria to try to understand the possibilities there to set up the possibilities of strikes.\u00a0 So you have the engagement in Iraq trying to form a government that could enable the Iraqi forces to be more effective against ISIS.\u00a0 So the pieces are starting to emerge.\u00a0 But I think, again, this is a president who wants to take his time and get it right.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd the way presidents frame would matter.\u00a0 The way they frame–<\/p>\n

MICHELE FLOURNOY:
\nYes.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\n–the threat does matter, especially around the world.\u00a0 John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two frequent critics of the President’s foreign policy, were editorializing on the op-ed page in The New York Times and said, “Mr. Obama has begun to take military actions against ISIS in Iraq, but they have been tactical and reactive half measures.\u00a0 Continuing to confront ISIS in Iraq but not in Syria would be fighting with one hand tied behind our back.\u00a0 We need a military plan to defeat ISIS wherever it is.”\u00a0 General Zinni, what is the military plan, though?\u00a0 What are the pieces, as Michele Flournoy was just saying, beyond surveillance?\u00a0 Don’t you have to have boots on the ground in order to really do air strikes effectively?<\/p>\n

ANTHONY ZINNI:
\nWell, I think there are many parts to this.\u00a0 First is the intelligence piece, especially tactical intelligence and targeting.\u00a0 The second is to provide the air support and the capability that will bolster the Kurds, the Iraqi military.\u00a0 We need to revamp the security assistant program in both Iraq and with the Kurds that we’ve been reluctant to do because of Iraqi objections.\u00a0 I think the same with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and others, because they have a front in this literally.
\nThe boots on the ground question’s always the toughest one.\u00a0 I wish we were not so paranoid about boots on the ground.\u00a0 We can’t even define it.\u00a0 There’s going to have to be Special Operations Forces.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to have to be people that can in and adjust air and fires and advisors to be with these units.
\nAnd very simply put, if you put two brigades on the ground right now of U.S. forces, they would push ISIS back into Syria in a heartbeat.\u00a0 And probably take less time, less cost and, I think in the long run, fewer casualties overall.\u00a0 Let me say one thing.\u00a0 The important piece of this is not just the military plan.\u00a0 That’s not a strategy in and of itself.
\nWe need to rebuild the coalition in the region.\u00a0 It is fractured ever since we first went into Iraq.\u00a0 We have allies out there that no longer trust us, believe in us, and think we can get it done or have the leadership.\u00a0 We need to bring together a coalition of outsiders, Europeans and others, like we did in the first Gulf War.
\nI don’t know why we’re waiting for a U.N. Resolution to condemn ISIS and authorize use of force, which makes this easier.\u00a0 So all the other pieces that Michele talked about that are starting, we don’t have the time for this kind of deliberation.\u00a0 There is a battle of the narrative going on, and we’re losing it.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAs you point out, in Before the First Shots Are Fired, you have to build these coalitions.\u00a0 Has that become appreciably harder, Michael Leiter?\u00a0 You know the Gulf so well, since the president backed down, said he was going to ask for Congressional support after Assad crossed that red line last year.\u00a0 And is it now harder when Secretary Kerry goes to the region?\u00a0 Are the Saudis and others going to be more reluctant to follow us?<\/p>\n

MICHAEL LEITER:
\nI think they are.\u00a0 And the best illustration of that was what happened last week with the UAE, working with Egypt, to bomb in Libya.\u00a0 This is\u00a0 airplane where we had been deeply involved.\u00a0 These are two important allies in the region.\u00a0 And we didn’t even know they were doing it.\u00a0 That shows their view that there has been an absence of U.S. leadership in the region.
\nSo it is going to take very forceful leadership.\u00a0 I agree with Michele.\u00a0 The pieces are now starting to come together.\u00a0 The question is how quickly they can do it.\u00a0 Because we’ve been playing on defense.\u00a0 We have to get on the offense, because otherwise, with counter-terrorism, the intelligence people can’t stop all the threats.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nLet’s wait just a moment.\u00a0 We want to talk about another major foreign policy crisis.\u00a0 And then we’ll pick it up there.\u00a0 And that is Ukraine, of course.\u00a0 Our Jim Maceda looks at who is winning the showdown with Vladimir Putin, President Obama or Putin?<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nVladimir Putin, as he wants fellow Russians and the West to see him:\u00a0 in charge, projecting power by land, by air, and by sea.<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nAnd ever defiant.\u00a0 (GUNFIRE) Despite international condemnation for what N.A.T.O. calls an invasion of Eastern Ukraine like Crimea before it.\u00a0 Putin’s response?\u00a0 Sending yet more troops and tanks over the border, N.A.T.O. sources say, and opening a new front in the form of conflict that’s killed at least 2,600 people, according to U.N. figures.
\nBut some critics fear Putin’s carving out new territory.\u00a0 The Kremlin referring officially, for the first time Friday, to Novorossiya, or \u201cNew Russia.\u201d\u00a0 What’s Putin really up to?\u00a0 Theodore Lukyanov, who advises the Kremlin on defense matters, says Putin has no grand strategy to resurrect the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

THEODORE LUKIANOV:
\nBut the former Soviet states should be recognized by the West as a zone of special interest and in exclusive rights for Russia.<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nFor Putin, Ukraine is a red zone within that space, though he still denies Russia plays any role in the war there.\u00a0 Putin’s unpredictability has made relations with the U.S., already at a post-Cold War low, even more strained, with Putin resisting all efforts by Obama and the West to reign him in over Ukraine.\u00a0 In June, Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams that he and Putin spoke, quote, “Repeatedly.”<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nWe generally have businesslike relationship.\u00a0 And are very candid and blunt with each other.<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nBut according to Kremlin phone records, confirmed by the White House, the two have spoken just ten times all year.\u00a0 The last call a month ago.\u00a0 Dismissing boots on the ground in Ukraine, the president says targeted sanctions have hurt the Russian economy and Putin, even if he doesn’t admit it.<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nRussia is already more isolated than at any time since the end of the Cold War.\u00a0 (VOICES, GUNFIRE)<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nStill, Putin is undeterred, triggering calls to arm the Ukrainian forces lethally.<\/p>\n

STEVEN PIFER:
\nExcept there may be tools that we give them, for example, light anti-armor weapons, that would allow them to defend their country better.<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nBut that could risk a major escalation, with Putin, just this week, warning that Russia is a nuclear power not to be messed with.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd our thanks to Jim Maceda.\u00a0 Joining our conversation now is Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia.\u00a0 Michael Leiter, Michele Flournoy, General Zinni are still here with me.\u00a0 First to you, Ambassador McFaul.\u00a0 Let’s talk about Putin.\u00a0 What will it take to get him to back down?<\/p>\n

AMB. MICHAEL MCFAUL:
\nI’m not sure, to be honest.\u00a0 What you see today in Jim Maceda’s report is him escalating on the ground in response to the Ukrainian military winning just a few weeks ago.\u00a0 He decided he did not want his separatists, his mercenaries in eastern Ukraine to lose, so he opened up this third front.\u00a0 And until there’s a stalemate in eastern Ukraine, which I don’t see any time soon, I think it’s very unlikely that we’re going to have real negotiations.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd Michael McFaul, we also heard Putin saying today that Eastern Ukraine should be able to vote on its own statehood, which sounds like the next step, similar to what already happened with Crimea.<\/p>\n

AMB. MICHAEL MCFAUL:
\nWell, he said that, and then his press secretary rolled it back.\u00a0 So they have their communication problems, like sometimes our leaders do, too, in terms of what the phrase actually meant.\u00a0 But it was notable for the first time they did use this phrase, “noveracia,” which he hadn’t used for about four months.\u00a0 And that, inside eastern Ukraine, for the separatists, was taken as a major vote of confidence for them from Vladimir Putin, who had not really supported them for a long time.\u00a0 So it was a rhetorical escalation, as well.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nMichele Flournoy, is there a military option here as NATO begins its meetings next week in Wales?<\/p>\n

MICHELE FLOURNOY:
\nYou know, I don’t think there’s an exclusively military option that would be meaningful.\u00a0 But I do think what we do with N.A.T.O. and what we do in terms of assistance to Ukraine matters a great deal.\u00a0 This is a significant escalation.\u00a0 Putin is now watching what are we, the West, going to do.
\nI think bolstering N.A.T.O.’s posture along the N.A.T.O. frontier is very important.\u00a0 But more significantly, I think we need to be having a serious discussion about enhancing the military assistance we provide to Ukraine.\u00a0 We cannot afford to see them be trumped on the battlefield and to see them lose even more territory in eastern Ukraine.
\nAt the same time, turning up the sanctions– and opening a channel of dialogue with Putin, it’s very disturbing that we aren’t engaging him more fully.\u00a0 I’m not suggesting that will be immediately productive.\u00a0 But you’ve got to have some kind of dialogue to try, over time, to figure out how is he going to come out of the tree.\u00a0 How is he going to come out of this situation that he’s created for himself?<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWith Dianne Feinstein also was suggesting in that area, earlier this morning.\u00a0 Now, Samantha Power, the same day that President Obama was in the briefing room suggesting that we should take it a little slowly with Vladimir Putin, Samantha Power was at the U.N..\u00a0 Let me show you this contrast.<\/p>\n

SAMANTHA POWER:
\nIt has manipulated, it has obfuscated, it has outright lied.<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nI consider the actions that we’ve seen in the last week a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nTone matters.\u00a0 Anthony Zinni?<\/p>\n

ANTHONY ZINNI:
\nYes.\u00a0 It does.\u00a0 I believe Putin is doing two things.\u00a0 One, testing American leadership, particularly in Europe.\u00a0 And second, testing European will, resolve and cohesion.\u00a0 It’s very important that our leadership be demonstrated clearly and decisively, and that the Europeans, through N.A.T.O., stand.\u00a0 I agree with everything that Michele said.\u00a0 Now is the time to bolster Ukrainian military support.
\nIt’s also time to find a way to engage Putin.\u00a0 And maybe even leadership to a meeting or a summit with the president and Putin.\u00a0 But of course a lot of work done before that.\u00a0 I think one mistake we make, and it’s a point I would disagree with Senator Feinstein, sending the secretary of state out to meet with Putin probably insults him even more.\u00a0 I think you need to do the groundwork to build up to something.\u00a0 But we’re going to need a way to walk this down where there’s face-saving, or else we’re going to have a confrontation that we don’t want.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd briefly, Michael McFaul, is there a way to give Putin an exit strategy?<\/p>\n

AMB. MICHAEL MCFAUL:
\nYeah.\u00a0 I think it’s easy.\u00a0 This is not like a lot of other conflicts around the world.\u00a0 It would entail more decentralization in eastern Ukraine, the use of the Russian language, perhaps some international monitors there.\u00a0 And by the way, I think the government in Kiev would be willing to negotiate along those lines.
\nIt’s different who would sit down with them.\u00a0 Because it can’t be Putin.\u00a0 But I think that a deal is ready to be made.\u00a0 But Putin has to want to negotiate.\u00a0 And so far, I think it’s very clear, that he doesn’t want to negotiate.\u00a0 He thinks he can advance his interests through military means on the ground.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThank you all.\u00a0 Thank you Michael McFaul, thank you here at the table.\u00a0 And coming up next, is the White House playing politics with immigration?\u00a0 Why President Obama will likely now delay action until after the midterm elections.\u00a0 And why does the Congressional leader greet visitors with this little guy?\u00a0 Our roundtable will reveal all, coming up next.<\/p>\n

***Commercial Break***<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd welcome back.\u00a0 The roundtable is here with a lot to discuss.\u00a0 Daniel Henninger, columnist and the deputy editorial page editor for The Wall Street Journal.\u00a0 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, whose latest book, now out in paperback, is The Bully Pulpit:\u00a0 Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism.\u00a0 Wes Moore, Army combat veteran and host of Beyond Belief on The Oprah Winfrey Network.\u00a0 And Ruth Marcus, columnist for The Washington Post.\u00a0 Welcome all.\u00a0 Dan Henninger, first here, we’ve been talking a lot about the fallout from what the president said last week.\u00a0 What about his comments?\u00a0 Do they matter if the strategy comes together?<\/p>\n

DAN HENNINGER:
\nWell, it matters a lot.\u00a0 I mean I think what we’re seeing here, and everyone is pretty much describing, Andrea, is a political model, foreign policy model, they described earlier in the administration, which was “leading from behind,” the idea that others would sort of coalesce and take the lead.\u00a0 I think we’ve seen that does not work.
\nAnd if you try to lead from behind, you are always playing catch-up.\u00a0 And clearly we are playing catch-up in both the Middle East right now and in Ukraine.\u00a0 And the problem when you do that is that your so-called partners begin to make deals on their own.\u00a0 As Michael Leiter was just describing, the Egyptians and the UAE bombed Libya on their own.\u00a0 One might way that’s a positive development.
\nBut in the short term, if people out there start making deals that are only in their interest and not in the U.S. interest, then the United States will have a very hard time getting to the point where we can form a coherent strategy involving our partners.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nBut Doris, you’ve written historically about presidents, and having teams of rivals, if you will, or teams that give him different points of view.\u00a0 Is it a good thing that he is hearing from a Kerry, a Hagel, and deciding on his own?<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nWell, I think the most important part of the discussion that history suggests, that we haven’t talked about, is whatever the right decisions are, and we’ve been talking about possibly special ops on the ground, air support, air strikes going into Syria, if it’s going to be a long struggle, and it sounds like it might, the public has to get involved.
\nAnd that’s where the leadership challenge comes from the president at a time when we’re very war weary.\u00a0 We’ve been through Iraq, we’ve been through Afghanistan.\u00a0 You know, way, way back in 1937, FDR understood the threat that Mussolini and Hitler posed.\u00a0 And he made a quarantine the dictators, which, “We’ve got to do something.”\u00a0 And he said, “You look back, and no one is following.”\u00a0 And that’s the trouble.\u00a0 So he had to move step by step to get the country involved.
\nSo Congress better debate this.\u00a0 They’ve got to come back.\u00a0 I don’t know why they’re not here talking about this.\u00a0 This is important.\u00a0 The country has to understand it.\u00a0 They have to have simple language.\u00a0 Is it containment?\u00a0 Are we destroying?\u00a0 Is it an arsenal?\u00a0 What are we doing?\u00a0 We need to understand this before this goes much further.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd what’s more, you have military experience in Afghanistan.\u00a0 The military also wants a Congressional debate.\u00a0 They want to know what direction the leaders are taking them.<\/p>\n

WES MOORE:
\nAnd what they really also need to do for a military expression is Congress can help give the president air cover.\u00a0 Congress can help the president be able to enact the policies that need to be enacted.\u00a0 And we need to be clear about that, because we need domestic support.
\nBut we also do need international partners are on board.\u00a0 And it’s important for three main reasons.\u00a0 You know, one for the idea of capacity, and also for the idea that this is not just our war.\u00a0 You know, last week alone we had a Lebanese soldier who was decapitated, who was beheaded.\u00a0 We have 40 Turkish diplomats who are now being held captive by ISIS.\u00a0 This is not just our issue.\u00a0 This is a global issue that has potential for global and regional conflagration.
\nThe second thing is intelligence.\u00a0 If we’re so cautious and weary about putting boots on the ground, which ironically, we actually already do have boots on the ground, but if we’re cautious about adding the number of troops on the ground, the challenge of that is, in order to be effective, you have to be able to have intelligence on the ground.\u00a0 Not just air intelligence, but human, human intelligence.
\nAnd the third reason is, if we go at it alone, we’re playing right into ISIS’s hands.\u00a0 ISIS is extraordinarily complex and complicated in terms of social media strategy and how they’re going and affecting the disaffected.\u00a0 We have to be able to bring in an international coalition, not leading from behind, but an international coalition that can help justify these actions and be truly effective in what we’re trying to do.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd while we’re talking about all these foreign challenges, domestically, the president is signaling, also, a retreat on a promise that he made only earlier this summer when John Boehner basically said there was no Congressional action on immigration, Ruth Marcus.\u00a0 The president said, “I will come up with a plan, my people will come up with a plan, and I will act on it quickly.”<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nYes.\u00a0 And it’s very similar to the debate we’re having about the President’s handling of foreign policy.\u00a0 Because Senator Feinstein used the nice phrase, “too cautious.”\u00a0 I want to use a slightly less nice phrase, “Herky jerky.”\u00a0 We just see him veering in one direction and then the other.
\nSo on immigration, he told the Hispanic groups and the labor groups, which are very focused on this issue, that he was going to act, essentially, by the end of the summer.\u00a0 All of a sudden, he’s changing his mind.\u00a0 He’s now in a position where he is going to aggravate everybody.
\nIt’s not yet decided, but it’s fairly clear which way this is trending, to put this off until after the election.\u00a0 So he’s going to have Hispanic and labor groups angry with him for not acting swiftly.\u00a0 He has Senate Democrats agitated that he raised the profile of this issue and endangered them.\u00a0 And so they’re all worked up.<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nFour major states.<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nYes.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nTheir red state Democrats are trying to hang on.<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nAnd then, whatever he does, he is going to have Republicans asserting that he’s overstepping his executive authority.\u00a0 Why was this not thought through when he made the announcement on June 30th that he would be getting recommendations and acting, essentially, by the end of the summer?\u00a0 Because the border crisis did explode immediately after that.\u00a0 But it was entirely predictable that immigration would be an issue in the fall campaign.\u00a0 And–<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nAnd you know, it is predictable that they will yell at him.\u00a0 Every executive order in history there’s the cry of, “Dictator.”\u00a0 So he knew that was going to come anyway.\u00a0 And some of those executive orders have been really important, ending discrimination in housing, the executive orders that have done socially just things.
\nBut the question is he shouldn’t have promised, as you say, “I’m going to do it by a certain time.”\u00a0 He may be right to relate the timing now till after the election.\u00a0 Because he can still do it in December.\u00a0 But if he hadn’t promised, it would have been fine.<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nRight.<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nAnd then he wouldn’t have gotten the cries of “dictatorship,” but he could have said, “Yeah, but–<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\n–this is a good thing being done.”<\/p>\n

DAN HENNINGER:
\nBut Doris, they’ve got to get past November, I think, to Ruth’s point.\u00a0 The president has put his party in a very difficult spot.\u00a0 The most important metric in the midterm elections is the President’s approval rating.\u00a0 That’s what’s going on in all of these red states that the Democrats are running in.
\nHis handling of foreign policy just keeps going down.\u00a0 It’s below 40%.\u00a0 And I’m sure it’s going to drop further after the past week.\u00a0 And so I doubt that these Democrats want to come back to Washington and have a debate.\u00a0 Perhaps they should.\u00a0 But that’s the last thing they’re going to want to talk about.\u00a0 And somehow they’re out there on their own, having to defend themselves against the criticisms we’re now hearing of the president.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nBut as promised, we do have the monkey in the room, which is that Congress hasn’t come back.\u00a0 Take a look at the monkey, (CHUCKLE) we saw, the only thing we’ve seen from Congress is John Boehner putting out a video where he introduces the monkey on the table when people come into his office.\u00a0 Now, basically, Wes Moore, they are missing in action, members of both houses, who’ve had a series of foreign policy crises.\u00a0 Why haven’t they come back?<\/p>\n

WES MOORE:
\nWell, the reason I think they haven’t come back is exactly what we’re saying, is that there are certain things that they don’t want to debate before the midterm elections.\u00a0 The problem is that we don’t have time to wait until after the midterm elections.\u00a0 The problem is that the people who are in office, they’re in office to make actions and they make decisions.
\nAnd people want leadership that’s going to be driven by a sense of passion and a sense of pragmatism, and not my pollsters.\u00a0 And so these issues that people have been waiting on for years to be address have to be addressed.\u00a0 And you cannot simply wait for an election cycle to determine a timeframe.<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nAnd the public has to–<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nAnd the–<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\n–stop being so passive about it.\u00a0 Everybody is mad at Congress.\u00a0 Everybody says what’s going on in Washington is horrible, it’s dysfunctional.\u00a0 And what do we do?\u00a0 We just talk about it.\u00a0 Somehow there has to be some way to move this group of people.\u00a0 They were elected for a reason.<\/p>\n

JIM MACEDA:
\nYeah.<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nThey’re supposed to be doing the public business.<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nAnd–<\/p>\n

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
\nThey should be proud of being politicians.\u00a0 And yet, we’re looking at the monkey in the room.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd speaking of other issues that come up on Capitol Hill, coming up next:\u00a0 sexism in the Senate.\u00a0 Our roundtable discusses a Senator’s shocking revelations of boorish behavior from male colleagues.\u00a0 Stay with us.<\/p>\n

***Commercial Break***<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nEarlier you saw my interview with California Senator Dianne Feinstein about Iraq and Ukraine.\u00a0 I also asked her about the so-called C.I.A. Torture Report.\u00a0 She said that report will not be released if it is redacted, in other words, censored, too heavily. \u00a0And definitely include her committee’s main findings.\u00a0 That extended interview on MeetThePressNBC.com.\u00a0 More coming up with our roundtable.\u00a0 And one Senator’s charges of sexism in the Congressional gym.<\/p>\n

***Commercial Break***<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd welcome back.\u00a0 New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has stirred up a storm with excerpts from her upcoming new book Off the Sidelines about sexism in the Senate.\u00a0 People Magazine reports that she describes one older male lawmaker as telling her in the House gym, “Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky.”
\nShe quotes another House member as saying, “You know Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat.”\u00a0 And an older Senator once squeezed her waist and said, “Don’t lose too much weight.\u00a0 Now I like my girls chubby.”\u00a0 Our roundtable is back with us, Daniel Henninger, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ruth Marcus and Wes Moore.\u00a0 Ruth, you’ve written about this today.\u00a0 “I like my girls chubby?”\u00a0 (CHUCKLE) Squeezing her waist?\u00a0 I mean we both cover the Senate, we both covered the Clarence Thomas hearings and all of the ruckus after that.\u00a0 Have things not changed?<\/p>\n

RUTH MARCUS:
\nOh well, yes and no.\u00a0 Anybody who’s been around there, certainly any woman who’s been around there, is not exactly shocked, shocked that there are comments like this going on.\u00a0 And by the way, for politicians of both parties, might I suggest that weight is the new rape.\u00a0 It’s really a bad idea to talk about.\u00a0 (LAUGHTER) Certainly to one of your colleagues.
\nBut I do think it’s simultaneously important to note.\u00a0 And Senator Gillibrand talks, in some way, about how this a generational thing, that there is a difference between the 60, 70, 80-year-old politicians in the way they handle gender issues– not to say that it’s a gender equity paradise in Congress, it’s not– and the way some of the younger senators, younger, when I say younger, I mean middle aged, like me, in both parties handle it.\u00a0 They’re different.
\nTheir spouses work for Goldman Sachs, they work for lobbying firms.\u00a0 They’re used to dealing with working women.\u00a0 And from the conversations that I’ve had with women senators, their male colleagues of a younger age are a little bit more adept at dealing with them.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThis is generational, Wes.\u00a0 But there still is a lot of sexism on the Hill.<\/p>\n

WES MOORE:
\nA tremendous amount.\u00a0 But the thing is, we can’t just have Senator Gillibrand speaking out about it, we also need males speaking out about it, as well.\u00a0 You know, I have a dear friend who met his wife at Harvard Law School.\u00a0 And he says how, when he met his wife at Harvard Law School, there was a professor who would only call on women on Tuesdays.\u00a0 (CHUCKLE) And it was an unspoken thing that happened.\u00a0 But when women raised their hand, it was only on Tuesdays that he thought that they had something to contribute to the conversation.
\nAnd when I speak to him about it now, he talks about how embarrassing that it was.\u00a0 But he said, “But it wasn’t even embarrassing that the professor did it, because that’s who he is.”\u00a0 What was embarrassed was that none of the men said anything.\u00a0 Not a single man said a single thing.\u00a0 So it cannot just be a conversation amongst female lawmakers, male lawmakers have to be part of that conversation, as well.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWell, we’re going to have to leave it there.\u00a0 Doris, Daniel, Wes and Ruth, thank you all so very much.\u00a0 And coming up, a special shout out from President Obama this week for the new moderator of Meet the Press.<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nI’m going to start with somebody who I guess is now a big cheese.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nI’ll be joined by the big cheese himself coming up next.<\/p>\n

***Commercial Break***<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWelcome back.\u00a0 For the tenth anniversary of Meet the Press, John F. Kennedy wrote, “I know of no other radio or television program which has become such a firm and widely respected institution in American life.”\u00a0 Well, there’s no one better suited to uphold and build on that legacy than my friend, Chuck Todd.<\/p>\n

(On Tape)<\/p>\n

ANNOUNCER:<\/p>\n

This is Meet the Press with–<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nChuck Todd.\u00a0 Chuck Todd.<\/p>\n

Robert Gibbs:
\nChuck<\/p>\n

Jay Carney:
\nChuck<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nChuck Todd. Where’s Chuck?<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nI’m going to start with somebody who I guess is now a big cheese.\u00a0 I understand this is going to be his last chance to ask me a question in the press room.\u00a0 So I want to congratulate Chuck Todd and give him first dibbs.<\/p>\n

Chuck Todd:
\nI\u2019m glad you said \u201cIn the press room.\u201d<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nChuck Todd defines being a White House correspondent.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nYou began your term, your first term, big fanfare.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nHe would ask the question, he’d ask the follow-up.<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nChuck, how many you\u2019ve got?<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nHe’d ask another question.<\/p>\n

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:
\nThis is not a kosher question, but don’t hog it.\u00a0 (CHUCKLE)<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nI want to talk about my colleague over here, and the follow-up that he had, and then another question I have for you.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nHe’s relentless.\u00a0 He’s (CHUCKLE) like a dog with a bone.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nWhy do you believe the Israeli people have not embraced President Obama the same way they embraced our last two U.S. presidents?<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
\nSo you had to get a polling question in there, right?\u00a0 (LAUGHTER) Chuck, I mean you’re incorrigible.<\/p>\n

CHERI ROPER:
\nI think Chuck has an amazing brain, which he, I’m sure, inherited from his father.\u00a0 He always knew who was running for what office locally.\u00a0 He knew who was running for office in the state and nationally.<\/p>\n

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
\nIf you’ve ever seen him on election night, it’s like a tour de force of political nerd fest.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nYou didn’t let me geek out a little bit on Florida here.<\/p>\n

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
\nGo ahead, man.<\/p>\n

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
\nHang on, Chuck.\u00a0 Hang on, Chuck.<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
\nWe got some critical calls.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nYes, we do.<\/p>\n

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
\nChuck, I don’t see this often enough.\u00a0 Great work on the board tonight.<\/p>\n

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
\nIf you look up, “Political junkie” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Chuck Todd and his goatee.<\/p>\n

MALE #1:
\nThe control room would like you to shave too.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nYeah, well good luck with that.\u00a0 (CHUCKLE)<\/p>\n

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
\nThe first time he was on with Tim Russert, that was a dream come true for him.<\/p>\n

TIM RUSSERT:
\nWhat is a blog?<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nWell, blog, so the actual term itself, by the way, is short for web log.\u00a0 And you know, you drop the W and you get the blog.<\/p>\n

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
\nTim always used to say, “Meet the Press is a national treasure.”\u00a0 And I can’t think of a better custodian for that treasure than Chuck.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nThe voting rights act doesn’t pass… Are you in Congress?<\/p>\n

REP. JOHN LEWIS:
\nI wouldn’t be standing here as a member of Congress.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nAnd President Obama?<\/p>\n

REP. JOHN LEWIS:
\nPresident Obama would not be president.<\/p>\n

KRISTIAN DENNY TODD:
\nChuck Todd is my best friend.\u00a0 People think that he only wants to talk to, you know, high level folks at the White House or– not really that at all.\u00a0 He wants to hear what everybody thinks.<\/p>\n

TOM BROKAW:
\nI’ve known Chuck Todd since Tim Russert brought him to NBC News.\u00a0 And we agreed (CHUCKLE) that he was a walking encyclopedia of politics.\u00a0 He knew all the players, all the moves, all the consequences.\u00a0 And, as the director of our national polling, he also knew where the country stood on these many issues.\u00a0 So Chuck Todd is the perfect man for this job, especially in this critical year.
\nI’m here in Montana, where Chuck and I have been talking about how the Republicans hope to pick up a Senate seat.\u00a0 But there are a lot of these contests across the country.\u00a0 This is a time when American politics is not only in play, but it’s on trial, in many ways.\u00a0 And Chuck is the guy who can bring this home to the American people.\u00a0 So I want to wish you all the best, my friend.\u00a0 I also want to wish all the best to another friend, to David Gregory, for his future.<\/p>\n

BRIAN WILLIAMS:
\nSo what have we learned?\u00a0 Chuck Todd is a goatee enthusiast.\u00a0 He is a walking political briefing book.\u00a0 But most of all, he is a good guy, and he is, by the way, the only good reason to allow a camera crew on a good, beach day in the waning days of summer here at the Jersey Shore.\u00a0 Mostly for me at work, he is a friend and he’s a guy with whom I can talk football year in and year out.\u00a0 The new NFL season is about to start, so, too, begins a whole new season for my friend, Chuck Todd.<\/p>\n

(END TAPE)<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nChuck has said that politics is not a game it’s a passion, because it reflects the worst and the best of our democracy.\u00a0 And here’s here now.\u00a0 Chuck, politics, how did that become a dirty word?\u00a0 Politics is all about America.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nI’m still recovering.\u00a0 My mother in there, (CHUCKLE) my wife, saying things about me, so nice.\u00a0 Anyway it’s very–<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nYes, she did surprise me.\u00a0 (CHUCKLE) I did not see that or hear any of that stuff.\u00a0 You know, the issue of politics, and I’ve said, the art of politics is a very important part of how the world governs itself, how Americans governs themselves.\u00a0 This show today has been emblematic of, like, when Meet the Press was at its best.
\nI mean that was an amazing– when I think about that roundtable of General Zinni, Michele Flournoy, Mike Leiter, Mike McFaul, these are people who’ve been in the room making decisions, helping to translate what’s going on inside the situation room for the American public.\u00a0 And you were doing a great job asking them some of the questions the American public is asking.\u00a0 And that’s our job as political journalists.\u00a0 In many ways, we’re the go-between.
\nWhich is why people sometimes get angry at us.\u00a0 Politicians get angry at us.\u00a0 The public gets angry at us.\u00a0 Because they know that’s– they want us to be that interpreter.\u00a0 And my issue these days when people say, “I hate politics,” it’s like, “No.\u00a0 No you don’t.\u00a0 What you hate is the politicians who don’t know how to practice it.”
\nYou know, it’s like watching a game.\u00a0 You want to compare it to a game, it is like watching a game of people that don’t play the game very well.\u00a0 You’d stop watching the game because you’re like, “Those baseball players stink,” or, “Those football players, they don’t respect it.”\u00a0 If you have politicians that know how to practice the art of politics, the democracy gets stronger, the world gets safer.\u00a0 And then that’s when you realize politics is a good thing.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd it doesn’t stop at the beltway.\u00a0 Because–<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nNot at all.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nThis is–<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nIn fact, you know that sometimes (CHUCKLE) the beltway is part of the problem.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nSo we go outside and we look at the elections, the midterm election that’s coming up.\u00a0 But it all has to do with redistricting.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nRight.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nWith things that are very granular but really affect the way people live–<\/p>\n

(OVERTALK)<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nIt is.\u00a0 And I’m frustrated by the fact that people are not participating.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nYeah.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nAnd that’s why I’m really upset.\u00a0 It’s sort of like, “Okay, you guys have really broken it.”\u00a0 I’ve had plenty of advice or critics that say, “You and the media have helped break this.”\u00a0 But, you know, that’s the part of this, I think, that is problematic is that people aren’t participating.\u00a0 So that’s one of our jobs is sort of make it big, make it important enough so people realize they have to participate.\u00a0 If you have problems with Washington, look in the mirror.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd participation, making people care, the passion that you bring to all of this, it’s all very exciting.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nLook, I do.\u00a0 It is fun.\u00a0 I’ll admit.\u00a0 Politics can be fun, too.<\/p>\n

ANDREA MITCHELL:
\nAnd you have the last word.<\/p>\n

CHUCK TODD:
\nAll right.\u00a0 Well, if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.\u00a0 I’ll see you next week.<\/p>\n

* * *END OF TRANSCRIPT* * *<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Media contacts<\/h4>\n

For more information contact:
\nMaggie Steenland
\nNBC News
\n212-664-7874
\nmaggie.steenland@nbcuni.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n