>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> we begin with an assessment on ukraine. president obama will stop in

estonia ahead of the summit in wales. the ukrainian government accuses russia of invading and in a private conversation, president putin reportedly said he could take kiev in two weeks. two-monthroken a siege in northern or rock. the video tuesday shows the beheading of a u.s. journalist who was held captive for over a year. joining me now to talk about the latest developments in the u.s. role in both conflicts is richard haass, president of the council of foreign relations. steve coll of the new yorker magazine joins us later. you wrote a piece in the headline was the assad government might be evil but it is a lesser evil. >> it is a lesser evil.

it does not have a global reach unlike isis does not have a global ideology. when you look at isis, you simply cannot fight them and iraq. you have to find them in syria. otherwise they have sanctuary. we need a ground partner. we need someone there to hold the ground, take the ground from isis. ideally, it would be the syrian opposition. the problem is they are weak and divided. we are talking years before they would ever be strong enough in part because we wasted time by not doing more. jordanians and others but again, history shows it's very hard to organize because arabs are not willing to often provide the foot soldiers. what are you left with? we will not have an american intervention force. no boots on the ground. then you are left with, by process of elimination, a process of working with the

syrian government and try to cut a deal with them. you lay off the internal opposition, you lay off your own people and we will lay off of you and they can begin to retake territory. we start working gradually with opposition and it means having some kind of tacit or formal arrangement with the syrian government that we do not much like but sometimes in life you have to choose. >> is that in any way similar to what's going on in iraq where shiite militias have been the force and they have been helped by american air attacks? we have no relationship with them, but someone is coordinating what's happening in the air to what's happening on the ground and the de facto result is we are working with them.

>> the parties who are killing each other not long ago are at least now not shooting at each other and in some cases working together or through third parties working together in the other thing that is similar his country such as iran and the united states and possibly syria, russia, saudi arabia, they may have to coordinate their policies. we've been on the opposite sides of proxy wars but when an enemy emerges that is an enemy to one and all, you have to be willing to work together at least in a limited fashion. yes, there are some interesting possibilities. >> what about countries like saudi arabia, a large sunni nation, who have been supportive of the united states? will they sit back now or support this effort knowing that shia are involved? >> they're strategically opposed to iran on every account. they have real problems with the shia. they have in one way or another facilitated the rise of isis by "private donations."

the saudis have belatedly woken up to the fact that at the end of the day they are in the crosshairs of isis because they will be seen as the impure custodians of two holy places. it is in their self-preservation to get isis out of syria. what was unimaginable a few months ago that they would find ways of parking some of their differences, whether they can park some of the differences to the side and find ways of coordinating, that is now a real possibility. >> now they can deal with ukraine as well as this. tell me how you categorize, assess, measure the threat of isis to our national security, to the national security and the general security of the middle east and europe. >> quite seriously, charlie, indirectly like you i worry about these guys with american

and european passport to going home after this graduate school in terrorism. in new york, we have to take this extremely seriously. i fear this, quite honestly, down the road. these guys are not content just to destroy. they call themselves the islamist state or the caliphate, they have ambitious designs not looking just that iraq and syria but potentially jordan, potentially lebanon, other parts of the middle east. u.s. interests in this part of the middle east and beyond, this is not a self-limiting group. this is not a group with a national or territorial set of ambitions. >> far different from al qaeda. >> far greater capacity. >> in terms of money, financing, a whole range of things that give you power to go beyond where you are. >> plus they have the momentum. initially breaking the momentum

in iraq will slow down some of the recruiting and then you need to take the battle to them in syria. they have the luxury of mainly being on the offensive. we need to go after their positions inside syria. >> nothing but this kind of relationship will be able to stop them. you cannot do it by air power alone. you cannot do it without troops on the ground. >> air power is necessary but it's not sufficient. it has its limits. it cannot acquire territory. people can hide there. air power alone cannot ferret out a group. it can get them to act defensively and put them in a crouch, but ultimately you have to go after them on the ground. we're not going to do it ourselves. we need a local partner or in the case of iraq, a set of local partners. >> you're a man who reads a lot about international affairs.

i was struck about a piece today from winston churchill. after the war, this is the unnecessary war. it did not have to happen if we had done more. is there some kind of corollary there? >> just as consequential as what you do in foreign policy is what you don't do. people are often so much more rigorous about assessing the pros and cons of actions. if we do this, this will be the risk. it is rarely as rigorous when it comes to assessing the cost of inaction or the status quo. there is the hackneyed phrase, paralysis by analysis they showed every course of action was risky or costly and they ended up being paralyzed and they did not assess with the same degree of rigor the cost of not acting in syria. >> do you think they have changed now and they are on the road where they recognize the threat and are prepared to change?

>> it's happening slowly and incrementally but also quite reluctantly. what worries me is there's a lot of history to suggest that incrementalism can be a bad way to go about things. you really want to break the momentum. you really want to send the message. i worry that we are not doing that. >> what's the risk of doing it? maybe you stop isis but are there other risks and other unintended consequences that would be very bad? >> there is the pressure for escalation. the risk that you do something and you kill, as will happen, some innocent people and you alienate the population which could then reverberate against you. you may motivate more people to join the other side and that will be seen as the latest example of the west killing muslims, which is again one of the reasons that this is essential that we have local partners.

>> that's part of the reason slow, trying to assemble local partners. >> it's not enough to say that we don't have very good options. >> or a strategy. >> we could have and should have done more to develop an international partner in syria. it's been more than three years since the struggle has begun and it was never a priority to develop a serious syrian opposition. >> there is a fear we could not come in at the time. so let's assume you stop. what happens then? what do you do about syria? do you go to assad and say we have finished off isis and now we have to talk about what's going to happen in syria and he says, what do you mean? i helped to defeat isis. i'm elected. you want to defeat me? let's make a deal. >> this is not a permanent answer to the challenge of syria. assad will not be able to regain

territory over his entire country, it is beyond. >> it is 200,000 syrians that have died. >> you probably end up with a new political map inside of syria. that is again one of the reasons you want to have a diplomatic complement to whatever you do on the ground militarily and you want to have a circle of countries, friends of syria, a contact group to meet including the iranians, the saudis, the russians, and others to begin to sort out with the future political character or personality of syria will be. there has to be a special place for the allolytes. there has to be something where the sunni will have a much more secure place. you could end up with tremendous

degrees of autonomy within what is nominally syria but you could really have a dimension of syria and separately a sunni dimension. >> we will be right back. steve coll joins us. as i said, steve coll joins us, a staff writer for new yorker but dean of the columbia university school of journalism. another tough day for journalism. we learned another journalist has been beheaded. give me some sense of context on this. >> there are an extraordinary number of journalists at risk in jihadist-controlled syria and i don't think the full number have been publicized. >> being held for some cases ransom? >> in european countries held by al qaeda-related groups or others, but apparently the bad news today is that the second of two american journalists we

knew isis was holding has been executed as isis threatened it would do when they beheaded james foley about a week ago. >> richard and i were just talking about syria that we have to do something and if in fact we have to make some sort of temporary relationship with assad, then we have to do that. how do you see what has to be done with respect to isis and all of the shifting sands of alliances that are coming into play? >> isis is a grotesque organization, a very serious problem in and of itself, and it's a symptom of a deeper failure of international policy in iraq and syria. isis feasts off the suffering of sunnis as well as the grievances of sunnis in iraq.

its strength is a manifestation of desperation among tribal populations, ex military officers, other people rallying to its black flag to try to rebalance the situation. >> part of the general core. >> a lot of mid-level and low level sunni officers from the military have come over to the rebel side and ended up in isis there. tribal leaders, you have oil engineers, people who can maneuver in battle and are experienced in military organization. then you have sociopaths, teenagers, and foreign volunteers. it's a kind of eclectic organization. it may not be very stable internally, but how do you break it up and build a deeper stability in the region? isis is fighting a desperate war with assad that both sides may want, whether it is really wise for the united states to stand

back and watch more syrians suffer and die while the war plays itself out and kind of owl full because it is through that suffering the extremism has arisen. if the alternatives were easy, they would have been pursued by now. >> has the president been paralyzed by overanalysis and waiting for the right form of government, the right combination of forces to come to bear? what has happened is isis has grown in strength starting in syria and iraq? >> it's hard for the outside to understand the options charts and why they have taken the kind of restrained decisions they've taken, but from the outside, there are a couple of failures that seem evident on the ground. there has been an enormous optimism or overinvestment in the development of a national unity government in baghdad which could lead an army into battle in sunni heartlands where i just do not think there is any

evidence that the shiite-led government can control territory and address the grievances of sunnis who are defecting. first, you have to be realistic about the capacity of the iraqi state and realistic about this project. >> you cannot stop isis without going to syria. >> that is correct, but you also have to have a strategy to cross the fictional border and it includes strategy in iraq. the second thing is the hard problem of syria, where this reluctance to take the risks of arming, equipping, building out the free syrian army or moderate groups are a substantial risk. you cannot wish them away. tacit or explicit, this question of whether at this stage to tacitly or explicitly ally with assad, i would be interested in richard's views about it.

it would be deeply disturbing and cynical, even tacitly. >> the least bad of potential options that is feasible is a desirable know. you look at the range of options from doing it ourselves to organizing a force to building up a viable syrian resistance anytime soon. you may say it is too hard and a tacit division of syria where we leave assad alone and we work in the others with the sunni might be the least bad of the options now available. things deteriorated over the last three years as you know better than anybody. >> the tacit division of syria as an end state, sure, that is where stability will arise from. >> what is assad prepared to do? >> he's prepared to survive.

>> what is he willing to do in order to survive? >> he may decide his routable target is no longer syrian oppositions but is isis. we need to incentivize him to get to that point. >> do we incentivize him or make a deal with him? >> we make a deal with some of his backers to encourage them to see the wisdom in a deal that he focuses on isis, which he has not done heretofore, and he lets others essentially do what they're going to do. >> do you accept the idea that he invited the rise of isis because it feeds? >> he did not make it a strategic priority to eliminate. >> does he want to go all-out in order to recapture the original syrian state? >> that is where it gets really interesting. you have an interesting moment in the region where everyone is waking up and there's a bit of a frankenstein here. isis is really dangerous and we could ultimately be a target.

that has everybody thinking. >> you mentioned two options, the pan-arab force or building up a sunni opposition. have we really tested that proposition? >> i do not think we have tested the pan-arab force, but i'm skeptical based on history. i'm told by people who have looked at the moderate opposition force that it is very tough going. you talk about risk. you have to assume loss of equipment, assume it will be heavily infiltrated. it's tough on steroids now. >> what about iran? here we are, our great enemy to try to get them to do something about their nuclear policy and here's an opportunity where we have the same enemy. >> we've been trying to develop this grander bargain with iran for a number of years now with

nuclear programs resolution being essential to that. >> what is the grand bargain? >> we cap, freeze, or otherwise make a deal around their nuclear program in order to create a path to normalization in which the natural partnerships and shared interests that the u.s. clearly has with iran, they are very easy to list -- stability in afghanistan, drug stuff, that has always been on the agenda. al qaeda is another one. the difficulty at the moment is that iran's interests in iraq are perhaps not the same as ours. >> shiite control. >> in the region, if our partners in stabilizing the sunni areas of syria and iraq are naturally jordan, saudi arabia, the uae, turkey, they all live in dread of iran

and particularly getting at something that undermines their interest. i'm not sure how it is that we are going about trying to untie that not, but i feel the presence of that. i don't know if you would agree, in the way that we are trying to play both sides of this problem. >> it's difficult. we have to try to resolve the nuclear issue to come up with an outcome that is enough for them and not too much for us and the israelis. at the same time, we have to understand it opens up the possibility of other forms of operation. if not, we will have a crisis with iran. the question beyond that is if we can find these limited areas, like afghanistan, if they can ever sort out their elections, syria, iraq. given the internal politics here we at least talking about linkage.

can you find the spheres of cooperation? >> in ukraine, they are talking about negotiating with eastern ukraine and what happens. we have nato saying we need to find out what we can do. where are we? >> in two months, we mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the cold war. nato went through two and a half decades of an identity crisis. now they have their identity back. we have to worry about russians. the real thing is to build up some nato capability.

we want to spend intelligently. in particular strengthening the other members of nato. before you worry about ukraine, you have to worry about the countries to whom you have specific article five obligations, and nato would be hard-pressed to meet them right now. they have to close the gap between commitment and capability. >> i was listening to an interview with the estonian prime minister, of all people, this morning. he thinks the west nato capitals and north american capitals understand the seriousness of what's going on, but they are still having trouble thinking 3, 6 months ahead as to how far putin might push this if he feels that he can with a russian population in places other than eastern ukraine. each time we wait to see how far he's willing to test his expansion as proxy policy, he pushes it 10% further down the road.

building the supply lines to crimea, basically building a permanent russian-speaking de facto state, this was completely predictable because it's exactly what they pursued in georgia and other places. to start contemplating instability in places like the baltics where there are article five obligations, is nato really capable of providing the kind of deterrence in rhetoric, fact, policy to get him to back down from such conversations? >> you assume this is all a part of his calculations, that in the end they will not do anything to force them to evacuate? >> part of me assumes it's a heavy improv quality to him.

unlike the soviets where you had the heaviest instutional bureaucracies, a lot of this is putin making it up as he goes along. besides bolstering nato, we want to ratchet up sanctions and be able to keep the diplomatic out, life. there is an alternative between continuing to press on and having a total loss of face back down. >> doesn't he have to already know that? >> i don't know what he knows or seriously believes, but i think we ought to repeat that. again, with the rest of nato, this is not a symbolic or rhetorical organization. nato is a military alliance at its core. right now, the military dimension is seriously under resourced and is nowhere where they need to be. >> this is the toughest moment in the obama administration. >> it was a pretty lousy economy that he inherited but international affairs.

the administration, again, sympathetic to their outcome in general. they do look tired. the travel, the planning, there's just a sense of being a time when they were not really prepared for the degree and variety of crises they have to manage. >> is that a product of poor intelligence, poor anticipation, all of that that reflects somehow not being as savvy and paying sufficient attention? >> the president is of course right. the united states does not shape global events. it cannot control all of the goals that arrives. you may see errors.

you're still unsure as to what would have unfolded. if you cannot control the chaos, then the temptation of restraint and passivity happens. there is this rhetoric that surfaces from this administration. we cannot force the world to come to our agenda. therefore, if the world falls apart, it's not on us. >> it's a bias about worrying about the operation rather than the cost of inaction. what it essentially closed down, which was the "war on iraq." we are getting close to the point in afghanistan.

the world is not great at cooperating. the world is responding to this. there is a sense that they are less active, less reliable with problems from congress, domestic issues, to what we did not do with domestic issues and syria. what's interesting to me as you are seeing the spread of decision-making, the saudis, others. what do we want to do? we are not going to rely as much as we used to or defer to what washington wants. it's a world in which american influence in some ways is going down even more than american capability because they do not believe we are as ready to use it. >> one more time. what are the options for the president with respect to russia? >> there has to be leadership to what are the options for the continue to signal deterrents to sanctions and preparations. >> merkel and others.

>> the broad framework has been created. i don't know exactly what the next increment of sanctions should be. the signals of deterrence and preparation are not influencing his decisions in eastern ukraine sufficiently. >> when you think about this president, i remember being in line at one of those washington things early on in the administration, because you serve this administration, the person in front of me said something -- bush 41. he said, well you know, he and i totally agree on foreign policy. i've adopted his foreign-policy. that is something you have heard early on. it turns out not to be true. >> inducted the sense of limits and restraint. i don't think they adopted a

sense of international leadership or energy. >> because they did not want to lead or both? >> this administration's priorities are not to play as active of a role. it was to limit the pull on resources which would allow greater resources at home. in addition to sanctions and building up nato, also energy. we have to have a serious transatlantic energy project. the goal has got to be to reduce energy independence, oil and gas, on russia. that is their principal strategic tool. we have to begin to take that away from russia. >> richard and steve, thank you so much for coming. ♪

>> the midterm elections are just 63 days away and the republicans are expected to mena power. all eyes on a few hotly contested senate races. several compelling gubernatorial races also hang in the balance in the outcome of have

wide-ranging implications for president obama's final two years in office. mark halperin and john heilemann join me, managing editors of bloomberg politics. i'm pleased to have you at the table for the umpteenth time. >> happy fall. >> summer was great. i love vacation. great to be back. big issues we have on this show, politics and foreign policy. midterm election. give me an overview. >> one thing is key for each party. can they do enough mechanically, targeting messages to remake the electorate in these targeted states in the sum of the races where younger roaders, african-americans, hispanics, single women turn out to vote in a midterm? on the republican side they need a message. strategists will tell you they don't think they could live up to the possibility of running races in the 60 year unless they

stand for something that fails. the leg of the reagan stool, largely not in their favor. foreign policy, there's a lot going on in the world. you do not see a lot of strategists saying they will win on foreign policy. right now they are events -- against obama care, against raising the minimum wage. they need to be a party of ideas. >> you completely confused me. i thought the republicans were going to clearly when the house. it was the democrats who were on the defensive. you come here saying they don't know what they stand for. >> they will pick up maybe six house seats, but that range is pretty set. if the game is the senate, there are three double almost certainly win. go race by race today and the

next three are not obvious. >> and those three are? go ahead. >> six months ago, there was no doubt that people thought republicans were in the perfect place to gain control. the story has really changed in the last six months. we do not have an internal election that looks like the previous two. we had a big wave, unified, republican year. it was a very big democratic year before that. that's number the data shows about the selection. they thought this would be a big wave year. what has happened over the last six months as the law has become more accepted and the problems were ironed out and as democrats found a way to talk about the popular parts of the law, that issue has not totally dissipated. there are a lot of republican still driven by anti-obamacare

sentiment and they will come out to vote against that one issue. the heat has come out of that issue and now it is very much a state by state thing. you have a huge amount of popularity both parties. they are incredibly unpopular. republicans are more unpopular which has helped. the economy is doing a little better. there is no one galvanizing to find a unifying theme and democrats have then been able to engage in kind of trench warfare state-by-state against a lot of spending. they are still very much in the race. you're looking at one of the his work easily republicans could end up with 53 seats and they could also end up a few short. >> money will play a big role or not? >> and always plays a big role. it is interesting, as i

suggested a second ago, how much money has already been spent and how in the key six or seven senate races, how little has moved in orton song -- arkansas, those bases have been static and they are all within the margin of error. or has not been enough disparity of money and there is not enough one issue where suddenly you see anything appreciable moving in these hotly contested seats. >> in this sixth year of obama's term, anti-obama is not a decisive factor that somehow that game has been played out? >> to win the majority of the senate -- and that is what we're talking about here -- they have to beat some number of democratic incumbents. hard to beat incumbents who are not scandal-ridden and are focused. there are focused on keeping their jobs.

yes, a lot of republicans will turn out but to be a well-known, in most cases pretty well-liked incumbent, well-funded democratic senator you need a strong challenger. republicans have all the challenges they can hope to get. none have really present themselves -- proven themselves as incumbent giant beaters. if the democrats can change the electorate in they can convince voters they deserve another chance, another term, i keep saying to people is going to be a huge republican year and they will go race by race. you are talking about mary landrieu in louisiana, mark pryor in arkansas him a kay hagan, or the alaska race. the fourth most likely is maybe

the open seat in iowa. that's easier than beating an incumbent. the incumbents in the red states, a lot of them are legacies. mark pryor, mary landrieu, they all have parents who were involved in politics and they are well known brands. in most states, that matters. >> is the game plan jim messina put together the game plan that the democratic party needs in 2014? >> there's no way you can run a midterm election the way they run a presidential election. jim messina had the opportunity to not be challenged. they had four years basically to husband resources and pick the counties in the seven or eight states they really cared about the focus on those individual voters who question to go and talk to them over and over again and drive up the polls.

you cannot do that the same way in a congressional election but the notion of expanding the electorate, as mark just mentioned, what mussina and plouffe understood, it's always a different electorate in a presidential and nonpresidential year. african-american voters, single women, college-educated they needed them to come out and really big numbers to offset the headwinds. they need to do that on a state-by-state basis. you see targeted efforts that are being undertaken in all of these contested races. in louisiana try to get the american -- african-american vote out. that has become the science of micro-targeting and now it is no longer just a presidential level. they're trying to the extent possible take away the lessons of 2012 and apply them now. >> another page they are taking because they have no real

message, they can say implicitly we don't have that many new good ideas but we are for equal pay for women, for keeping medicare, medicaid, social security going, immigration reform. these economic issues that the middle-class cares about, they can basically say, as joe biden says, judge us in comparison to the alternatives. they can say, we are for raising minimum wage. we are for equal pay for women. that tests really well. we're for preserving social services and medicare. they do not have the ideas to counter those things so even though the economy for a lot of people does not feel better. they have the ability to say, forget everything else. look at what we are doing with the economy and your economic security. this is a page you saw from the president and vice president in

labor day. it sounded very much like what the president talked about in 2012. >> there's a reason why republicans are so unpopular at the congressional level. congressional republicans are historically unpopular. they have become associated with voters in the middle of the electorate who might be undecided, they are nothing but nihilism. that is what a lot of voters have seen. they saw that in the shutdown and it hurt republican candidates in the off year elections and then we saw it again this him or when the border crisis flared and republicans were calling for action and congress not able to do what they said they wanted to do, take action in that area. then stand up and saying they want president obama to take unilateral action even though they were suing him. for a lot of voters who do not watch politics up close, all they see is republicans saying "nein, nein, nein, nein, nein."

the german nein, not the number nine. you cannot do that if you have no affirmative measure. >> that's the way to do it, throw in a little german. [laughter] make it annual. go ahead. [laughter] >> unions. can they make a difference? >> the beauty of the president's message was not only that it helps to cleave some of them towards the democrats but it's a big base turnout in the president was remarkably, given the tenor of the time, prounion. we will see some fast food workers striking trying to get an increase in their pay and the president was very encouraging of that effort. if you go state by state, alaska, for instance, very large union presence. less so in arkansas thomas louisiana.

there is no doubt that the president -- the democrats want to replicate this notion of a center-left coalition with messages that can simultaneously inspire people on the further left, union members, as well as in the center and an advantage democrats have with union members that they did not always have in the past is with social issues off the table, union workers are facing less cost cutting pressure. a purple ray red state in the past, they would say that party is for gay marriage and it makes me uncomfortable. now it's a purely economic message and republicans and there he could have a strong economic message that they don't talk about it because they are afraid. they are more associating with dashing. the one issue that you do not hear democrats talking much about is guns. you don't hear a lot of democrats talking about gun control in the context of midterms because they want that populist middle-class working

class message to be dominant. >> what are the stakes for 2016 in 2014? >> the stakes are always high. shifting towards presidential politics, for presidential obama, maintaining democratic control of the senate is on one hand essential if you want to try to get anything done in the next two years. even finding it hard to get some things done in the beginning of his term even with democratic control. given the relentlessness and reluctance of the opposition to talk about agenda, if he loses both houses, he's pretty much out of luck. >> with filibuster politics, even narrow control does not turn into functional control buffer president obama the stakes are really high. for the republican party, to let the senate slip away when it seemed easily graspable, if that were to happen, it would be an incredible disappointment to the

party at possibly a wake-up call about the need to figure out this positive agenda that is required in order to win at a national level. in terms of policy, let's be clear. these are the last two years of a second term presidency, not use that are historically productive. foreign policy sometimes can get accomplished if the world does not let america rest, but these are not two years where we would expect a lot of productivity especially hotly contested contest, wide-open race. >> in addition to the question you answered well, is any particular candidate or likely candidate to be enhanced by the midterm elections? >> there are three ways that could happen. in terms of a party being benefited, let's see what happens with these big governor races. republicans are looking strong.

wisconsin is competitive. >> scott walker is in a tough place. >> if he wins, that helps them personally. if k-6 wins, he's clearly an underdog candidate. you are going to finally see hillary clinton give political speeches. these will not be book events or foreign-policy speeches were sitting down with interviewers and talking about questions. >> what's on their mind rather than what's on the political -- >> it's a different format. can she give a stump speech on where america is? it's possible someone who runs to can get to the end of the cycle and not made much of again and still do well but you get a leg up in national exposure and honing your message, paul ryan as an underrated stump speech, one of the best in the

republican party. if he goes out for candidates he will build more of the following. there is a middle class message, working class message, but it is also just technically he's more comfortable. he is saying something that is so rare in politics, a stump speech from the heart about what he really believes. >> you are going to see a lot of these are or punitive candidates, those thinking about running or will definitely run, they will all be out for the next few months. we're not going to see just hillary clinton but a lot of them. >> but you guys will be there. >> the political press corps will be following them around. >> as will donors. >> even if republicans take the senate, there is a huge vacuum in the party. they won is immigration, developing a populist economic message, building infrastructure

showing people you can run against a clinton campaign. all of that starts the day after the midterms in earnest but even now -- >> are you impressed or less impressed by what hillary clinton plans to do? >> the book tour and the failure to respond to some of the controversies involving personal wealth has not spoken well of her skills or operation. i don't think any of it matters if she performs well going forward because she is so far and away above the class and the field. >> on both sides. >> there is still time. when people underperform early emma one of the good things is that it can either be foreboding, pretentious, we saw these thing coming early when they have problems later or it can turn out to be a wake up call. should a really tough go with the pre-launch of her campaign.

she learned a lot of lessons about it. i will tell you to watch for, mark and i will be watching very carefully not just hillary clinton but bill clinton who will be out a lot over the course of the next two months. >> what will we learn from him? >> he is still a from edible political figure. i find it amusing and illustrative because you know he will be keeping score in every race that he goes to. if he wins in arkansas after bill clinton has been there six or seven times, he's thinking, i did that. >> where he goes versus barack obama is going to be a fascinating thing. in of these targeted senate races -- >> bill clinton might win. it will not be his first election cycle victory and probably night his last. >> he wins even when he's not running. >> who's ahead in terms of where all of the candidates are? "the new york times " has a story today on chris christie.

>> not knowing who's going to run or the result of grand jury investigations are jeb bush, rob portman, chris christie. they are establishment candidates and they have dominated. >> why not ron paul? >> i don't think the establishment will let him be nominated. as long as they think hillary clinton is the person they have to go against, they need someone who can win states against hillary clinton that obama the romney in. i do not think they would that on rand paul for that right now. >> the person who's had the best 2013 is rand paul. he has made himself into a national figure and he's doing the thing we want them all to do. the thing he wrote about ferguson is what they want them to do, to challenge the stale

orthodoxies of their own parties. he's taking some courageous stands in building a real organization. i don't think you can be the nominee but he's had a really good run so far. >> what we look for is what is the overriding arc of a narrative. maybe paul ryan has it that the thing i'm looking for from hillary clinton, whoever wants to be president, help me in a way that i can understand and resin night -- a resume shows me a shrewd look at america today, its fortunes, and how you combine an understanding that makes the public believe that you are the best way to meet the challenge of the future.

and that it is human, as you say. >> and has a little pixie dust to it. hillary clinton challenges the original narrative, the original vision because people want elections about the future. >> elections are are about the future not a referendum of the past. >> the bar is so high for her. those are high bars but in the absence of a republican who can win 270 electoral votes, she might not need clear that by a whole lot. she can graze it going over unless they find a strong republican. >> candidate's job is to tell how the american story and their story are meeting at a certain moment. >> like clinton. >> think about her story over her life, there's a lot of material to work with. she has a compelling story to tell. >> she has lots of things that remind you about the past. >> there is a way that biography can benefit you. she has to figure out a way to talk about it. >> that is moving forward. >> but that's not enough, as we saw last time. >> thank you.

i look forward to your show which premieres when? >> october 6, a monday. >> something you cannot miss. you want to be there to find out what's going on. ♪

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>> live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west" where we cover innovation, technology and the future of business. samsung escalates its rivalry with apple, releasing to new phones ahead of the apple event. one of them features a curved display. samsung showed off a virtual reality headset and new watch. box is on the lookout for the best time to go public after delay lands for an ipo. i sit down with the ceo and ask hiou